Darling, I have no wish to contradict you, at all, at all. I am not a Public Policist. But, if I may, I wish to offer a bit of perspective.
The going wage rate in Mexico, the last time I lived there, was 50 pesos a day. This converts to just under five dollars. A day.
The going types of available jobs in Mexico consist primarily of things like breaking rocks with a blunt axe, working in chemical factories with no safety controls which occasionally explode and blow people's legs off, housecleaning for the ladies, and very little else.
There are no such things as 'business loans,' credit cards with which to start one's own business, unemployment insurance, or investments.
Any human being with intelligence and initiative who is born to the campesino class in Mexico is across the border by the time he or she turns twenty-one. These people accept the first minimum-wage or sub-minimum wage job they can, and send the vast majority of their wages back home to sustain their 6 or 7 younger siblings, while their parents continue to break rocks and clean houses.
Some of them eventually manage to save enough money to get an education and start their own business. The ones who make it do so because they work very, very, very hard, with morals and integrity.
It has been my empirical observation that individuals such as these contribute, in real terms, a great deal more to the American economy, in taxes and productive labor, than they extract from it in social services. Most of them are too frightened of deportation to attempt to collect 'benefits'; they're here to work.
Of course it would be best if they all obtained green cards. I do not know if you have ever attempted to navigate the labyrinth of constantly shifting bureaucracy that this requires. Suffice it to say that it is difficult, capricious, highly liable to failure, and too time-consuming for an individual whose family is likely to starve in the meantime.
Obviously, it would be best for all concerned if the Mexicans in Mexico did something about their corrupt and abysmal economy. Unfortunately there are many reasons why this is slow to happen, none of which we, as Americans, have much control over.
I, personally, do not begrudge these heroic people any job in this country that they can earn and perform to their employer's satisfaction. You are perfectly free to disagree with me.
The Aardvark sez:
Y'know, PL, you should start a blog!
I mean, your comment is longer than most of my posts! And excellent to boot! Thank you.
Understood, my sweet, and there are a myriad of injustices in the world at which to tilt. The US is number one in charitable giving, private and government. How much more must we do? (I know the answer; I am Waxing Polemical.)
My concern is law. Without law there is mass rapine, and riots in the streets, and people breaking in and stealing Pretty Lady's pretty things. There is nothing to prevent anarchy, nothing to bring the miscreant to book in a just manner. "Oh," you say, "The Goodness of Mankind!". My Calvinist upbringing is ROFL!
That said, I have to turn to Acts.
Yeppers, I'm one of those dangerous guys who sees Public Policy in the wisdom of the Scriptures. (however, since I do not believe the perverted doctrine of the Left Behind books, and see Revelation as largely fulfilled, save for the resurrection of the dead, Christ's return, and the Day of Judgment, you don't have to worry. My finger wouldn't be on The Button, attempting to Immanentise the Eschaton. Historic Orthodoxy is Much safer.)
What's the point? Borders MEAN something, whether personal or national. I presume that you would feel discomfort were I to meet you as a stranger, and insist upon conversing with you virtually nose-to-nose. Personal boundaries are important. National boundaries are perhaps moreso. That these unlawful trespassers are good workers, and devoted to the upkeep of their families is laudable, but this does not change the fact that they have broken the law on our side of the border. It grieves me that the wages are so poor in Mexico (though cost-of-living is also lower), and that the government is so corrupt, but it is their government. We rebelled against England for far less, and won. This is their option as well.
What of NAFTA? I know that MY industry has relocated most of its factories south of the border-and further south still. SOMEONE is sewing the shirts!
The hard work and Family Values are good things. The situation is duplicated by countless multiples in India, yet many of them manage to complete the requisite paperwork to obtain permission to live here, and work, and buy Mom & Pop motels, make money, and enrich their home villages. The Byzantine bureaucracy serves a purpose, to act as a brake, just as the
bicameral legislature acts to slow down hastiness in governance.
This will not make you a happy panda, but it is the way I understand things. I desire the best for these people, but y'know, I have to obey the law. As do you. Why should they, who are NOT citizens, be given a pass, when we are not? The application of adjectives like "heroic" does not remove the geas of obedience to the law. I welcome all the huddled masses who play by the rules. Those who do not set themselves up as enemies, or at least as thinking they are better than law-abiders, because their need is greater. Then there is the issue of Aztlan. Also here.
An activist movement is well at work here in the US. A movement that is counter to our national identity and sovereignty; a fifth column, if you will. I do not brand all as part of it, but a significant portion is.
Another thing: what utter arrogance fuels these marchers, wrapping themselves in the banner of civil rights. The illegals are not citizens; they have no rights to speak of. Does this make me evil or bad, to speak what is true? I do not hate these folks. I just find the chutzpah of this movement to be utterly breathtaking.
Ask the owners and workers of the California E.R.s that have closed bankrupt because of the illegals flooding the medical system with demands for Government-mandated health care if all are as reticent to seek goodies as the avatars of light which you describe.
"Obviously, it would be best for all concerned if the Mexicans in Mexico did something about their corrupt and abysmal economy. Unfortunately there are many reasons why this is slow to happen, none of which we, as Americans, have much control over."
Back to the book of Acts. Part of the reason for borders, for different countries, is to encourage people to seek God "That they should seek the Lord", as NO political system can provide what only God in Christ Jesus can provide. When they find the freedom in Christ, they then have a true template against which to measure their system, and begin to demand change. (Personally, I believe the corruption and lawlessness in the
US of A is a reflexion of the same in the American churches. When we get OUR act together, then we can demand and effect change in the government. Ooooh. I think that is approaching profundity!)
And please, fellow Blog-o-Verse TM denizenry, note that though PL and I are having a disagreement of sorts, we neither of us has descended to the gutter, nor questioned the other's ancestry. This is called Respect, and Breeding. I am honored to have her commentary here, and, well, she makes me want to blog in a tux.
That said, let me add summat:
If we wish to have a powerhouse economy, with other countries' industries relocating HERE, then we MUST enact the FairTax. Go to the site, learn it, and let's get it pushed through. There would be enough work for all, legal or not.
2 comments:
Oh, darling, your points are wonderful. The analogy of personal to national boundaries is particularly compelling.
I, like you, see the Rule of Law to be necessary, particularly in these unenlightened times. It only concerns me that laws be put in place and enforced with simplicity, common sense, and compassion, NOT with punitive intent or capricious implementation. When laws are flagrantly unjust and lacking in any ethics beyond those of "I want mine and don't care about YOU", then thinking persons have no reason to respect them.
Of course illegals have no civil rights in this country, but I believe that they do have human rights, whatever you believe those to be.
And I do not consider emergency health care to be so much a 'goodie' as a practical service, which I would unhesitatingly render, to the best of my limited abilities, to anyone who happened to need it. Such things are in the interests of all concerned; otherwise the corpses rotting in the streets would spread disease to legal citizens.
Now, sweetness, don't cast me as the villain of the piece. As I have said Elsewhere (too many blogs), as an abundantly blessed nation and people, we have the responsibility to help those in need, especially those who request our help. This call is both personal, and corporate (the Body Politic).
There is an essential unfairness between Mexican and American immigration policies, the most basic being that Mexico enforces their laws.
http://www.mexperience.com/liveandwork/immigration.htm
US immigration law is not capricious. It exists to regulate the influx of foreign nationals into our country, and to aid their assimilation into our culture. There is no Simon Legree twirling his moustache, cackling as he dreams up new ways to afflict the immigrants.
Certainly the illegals have human rights, and they are for the most part cared for. The major problem that I see for your prototypical Undocumented Worker is that his choices make him a target for the unscrupulous. ("You work for X wage, or I'm calling the INS.") When you are underground, there are plenty of predators ready to take advantage.
I'll grant you the "non-goodie" status of emergency healthcare, except in that much of it is funded involuntarily by us, the taxpayers. I much prefer my charitable work not to be done at gun-point. It was late, and I did not think clearly. On the flip side, it is very much cosidered a goodie by the recipients. Your Grand Guignol touch with the rotting corpses was excellent, but goes far beyond my point. To be clear:
1- We have a border that should be crossed LEGALLY.
2- If one chooses to cross illegally, then one gets what one gets. Few people die of dehydration at the US Border crossing. That tends to happen in surreptitious desert crossings, or in the bowels of a coyote's truck.
(Surely the most loathsome of persons, the coyote!)
The much-maligned Minutemen have rescued MANY illegals from dehydration and hyperthermia.
3-Once one is here, and in the underground, he becomes a Target, not for the Government (They are NOT enforcing the laws), but for the unscrupulous who pay substandard wages to the illegals, knowing they have ZERO recourse.
4-If an illegal entrant becomes sick, or requires food or clothing, surely he should be given aid. As a Christian, I am taught by my Lord so to do.
5-but, if our government chooses to enforce its own laws, the illegals should be sent back home. After tasting the bounty of America, which their Mexican leaders deny them through their corruption, they should overthrow their leaders, and start a new government more to their liking.
6-All else failing, we should adopt the enlightened Mexican immigration laws as our own, and enforce them to the letter.
7- FairTax, FairTax, FairTax.
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