It doesn't have much to do with radio, but I think you made some good points.
Of course, we need to enforce the laws on the book, unlike what they've been doing on the border for the last 10 years.
Well, I think the last ten years is when people have started to notice it, but the US border with Mexico has been porous since the beginning. In fact, one of the dirty little secrets is that the US wanted it that way, as a safety valve. They wanted an alternative to these folks staying trapped in desperate circumstances and fomenting revolution, because if a revolution ever broke out in Mexico, the refugee flow would be North, not South, and the border would be overwhelmed. The idea that the US Army would send APCs to the border and start machine gunning folks climbing the banks of the Rio Grande is one of those pipe dreams that only the fervid imaginations of talk show hosts like Savage could conjure up.
Of course, legal immigration is what we want.......(deletia of obviously sensible comments which need no repeating)....I am talking about the people like me - if I had been born in Mexico under their circumstances, I would do exactly what they are doing - if I could do it legally, I would, but if I had to break a few laws in order to get into a hostile country where people like you say horrible things about me and I had to live a life looking over my shoulder constantly in order to provide for my family, I would do it.
As would everyone else, which is why the laws, as now configured, are unworkable and unfixable without a major rewriting.
I just had this conversation with my conservative younger brother this last weekend. He said there had to be a way to do it legally. I said fine, in our hypothetical, he could stay in freakin' Mexico and try to change the system legally, and meanwhile, I would be up here, looking over my shoulder, sending him money. Send me back, I'd be back.
Well, I'm a conservative, and I agree with you. What is interesting is that the same folks who rail about illegal immigration on the radio are the same ones who railed about the passage of the NAFTA, which was, in part, an effort to try to stem some of the illegal immigration by improving the circumstances of poverty stricken Mexicans. These folks are coming to the US to make money, not because they like the weather in San Antonio or want to live in a slum in LA. Ranting about illegal immigration while also ranting about an attempt to alleviate the root causes is sophistry writ large. What was curious about the anti-NAFTA arguments is that they concentrated on the US - Mexico relationship, while Canada actually had the most to lose because they are the high-cost producer, not the US. It's just that Canada has better PR (and, jeepers, aren't Canadians just like us? Heck, they even speak English, eh?)
See, I grew poor and know how and when to hustle. So do these folks and I admire them for it. Not the rapists. Not the murders. Not the drug dealers. The woman who just removed the trash from my office as I sit here and type. Her. I admire her.
My cousin ran the biggest veterinary operation in the US down on the Rio Grande, and back from the 60s until he recently retired had up to 50 illegals working there, mostly because there weren't too many locals who were looking for a career mucking out stables and cattle pens, no matter what it paid. The Border Patrol agents used to stop by for coffee and an occasional cookout, and knew these folks surrounding them weren't legal, but developed an 'I won't ask, so you don't tell' attitude since they knew the circumstances. These illegals all lived in bunkhouses (the foreman, who was legal, lived with his family in a house on the grounds) and had, with a exception of a little walking around and beer money, all their wages sent to their families in Mexico. I always felt a little sorry for them, doing the most demeaning, literally sh*t shoveling, work imaginable just to feed the people back home.
The idea that folks in those straits, willing to do what they did, would be deterred by ANY law, or circumstances, is just a non-starter.
Are you honestly telling me you wouldn't do the same for your family?
Of course they would, if they will be honest about it.
And, for those who say, oh but we did it legally... well, what if the US hadn't opened its borders to immigrants at that time. The Irish were being intentionally starved. Jews were running from the Cossacks. Italians were dirt poor. Other Europeans, same thing. Are you saying you wouldn't have risked coming into the US illegally if there were no other options?? I HOPE I would have had the courage to do whatever is necessary.
I can think of very few things I wouldn't do if the survival of my family depended on it. I think we can all thank God that we're never called to make decisions that half of the world's population have to make on a daily basis. I guess that makes me a bleeding heart conservative.
Of course, we can't accept everyone - this is not practical. But that is an ENTIRELY different issue than vilifying them. I understand, psychologically it is easier to deal with the problem if you view them as subhuman. But aren't we all grownups? Shouldn't we have the courage to do what needs to be done without resorting to these tactics?
But it's so much easier just to pander. It wouldn't be easy, but it would be a lot more practical, to devote resources to screening out the undesirables rather than waste them in a doomed-to-failure effort to screen out everyone. But that's never going to enter the minds of the true believers, so talk radio and folks like Dobbs will continue to rail. And, they will be ignored by the folks who matter. Which they'll like, because it will give them something else to rail about. It is why talk radio is on the way to being both very popular, and totally irrelevant, at the same time.
Regards,
TSB
Of course, we need to enforce the laws on the book, unlike what they've been doing on the border for the last 10 years.
Well, I think the last ten years is when people have started to notice it, but the US border with Mexico has been porous since the beginning. In fact, one of the dirty little secrets is that the US wanted it that way, as a safety valve. They wanted an alternative to these folks staying trapped in desperate circumstances and fomenting revolution, because if a revolution ever broke out in Mexico, the refugee flow would be North, not South, and the border would be overwhelmed. The idea that the US Army would send APCs to the border and start machine gunning folks climbing the banks of the Rio Grande is one of those pipe dreams that only the fervid imaginations of talk show hosts like Savage could conjure up.
Of course, legal immigration is what we want.......(deletia of obviously sensible comments which need no repeating)....I am talking about the people like me - if I had been born in Mexico under their circumstances, I would do exactly what they are doing - if I could do it legally, I would, but if I had to break a few laws in order to get into a hostile country where people like you say horrible things about me and I had to live a life looking over my shoulder constantly in order to provide for my family, I would do it.
As would everyone else, which is why the laws, as now configured, are unworkable and unfixable without a major rewriting.
I just had this conversation with my conservative younger brother this last weekend. He said there had to be a way to do it legally. I said fine, in our hypothetical, he could stay in freakin' Mexico and try to change the system legally, and meanwhile, I would be up here, looking over my shoulder, sending him money. Send me back, I'd be back.
Well, I'm a conservative, and I agree with you. What is interesting is that the same folks who rail about illegal immigration on the radio are the same ones who railed about the passage of the NAFTA, which was, in part, an effort to try to stem some of the illegal immigration by improving the circumstances of poverty stricken Mexicans. These folks are coming to the US to make money, not because they like the weather in San Antonio or want to live in a slum in LA. Ranting about illegal immigration while also ranting about an attempt to alleviate the root causes is sophistry writ large. What was curious about the anti-NAFTA arguments is that they concentrated on the US - Mexico relationship, while Canada actually had the most to lose because they are the high-cost producer, not the US. It's just that Canada has better PR (and, jeepers, aren't Canadians just like us? Heck, they even speak English, eh?)
See, I grew poor and know how and when to hustle. So do these folks and I admire them for it. Not the rapists. Not the murders. Not the drug dealers. The woman who just removed the trash from my office as I sit here and type. Her. I admire her.
My cousin ran the biggest veterinary operation in the US down on the Rio Grande, and back from the 60s until he recently retired had up to 50 illegals working there, mostly because there weren't too many locals who were looking for a career mucking out stables and cattle pens, no matter what it paid. The Border Patrol agents used to stop by for coffee and an occasional cookout, and knew these folks surrounding them weren't legal, but developed an 'I won't ask, so you don't tell' attitude since they knew the circumstances. These illegals all lived in bunkhouses (the foreman, who was legal, lived with his family in a house on the grounds) and had, with a exception of a little walking around and beer money, all their wages sent to their families in Mexico. I always felt a little sorry for them, doing the most demeaning, literally sh*t shoveling, work imaginable just to feed the people back home.
The idea that folks in those straits, willing to do what they did, would be deterred by ANY law, or circumstances, is just a non-starter.
Are you honestly telling me you wouldn't do the same for your family?
Of course they would, if they will be honest about it.
And, for those who say, oh but we did it legally... well, what if the US hadn't opened its borders to immigrants at that time. The Irish were being intentionally starved. Jews were running from the Cossacks. Italians were dirt poor. Other Europeans, same thing. Are you saying you wouldn't have risked coming into the US illegally if there were no other options?? I HOPE I would have had the courage to do whatever is necessary.
I can think of very few things I wouldn't do if the survival of my family depended on it. I think we can all thank God that we're never called to make decisions that half of the world's population have to make on a daily basis. I guess that makes me a bleeding heart conservative.
Of course, we can't accept everyone - this is not practical. But that is an ENTIRELY different issue than vilifying them. I understand, psychologically it is easier to deal with the problem if you view them as subhuman. But aren't we all grownups? Shouldn't we have the courage to do what needs to be done without resorting to these tactics?
But it's so much easier just to pander. It wouldn't be easy, but it would be a lot more practical, to devote resources to screening out the undesirables rather than waste them in a doomed-to-failure effort to screen out everyone. But that's never going to enter the minds of the true believers, so talk radio and folks like Dobbs will continue to rail. And, they will be ignored by the folks who matter. Which they'll like, because it will give them something else to rail about. It is why talk radio is on the way to being both very popular, and totally irrelevant, at the same time.
Regards,
TSB
