superbadgirl | (no subject)

(no subject)

Just got into it about the immigration demonstrations. I dunno, I know it's more of a grey issue than what I see, but the reform doesn't really sound so dreadful and wrong to me. I mean, I'm all for people seeking a better life, but shouldn't there be rules and shouldn't there be ramifications if rules aren't followed? I don't like the idea of turning down people for immigration, but at the same time we have to worry about overpopulation, etc., etc.

*shrugs*

I don't feel strongly enough FOR illegal immigrants to want to stop traffic during rush hour.

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That's how I feel. Also, I think maybe we need a sales-tax only system, so that no one can escape income tax (which is all too easy for both the rich and the poor).

If you want US services, you pay US taxes. This is not conservative. This is just logical. I already have to pay for wars I don't support, a school system that's so bad I'm not sure it's better than nothing, etc.

I can't believe they're worried about illegals having health care when so many of the people who are legally here don't have it. I don't think some of these arguments are what they seem. Like SBG said, it's a smokescreen for something else. Or it's just the US trying to bring in a valuable consumer market that our businesses can't wait to sell crap to. Or it's the US trying to bring in a new, lower class of wage slaves to further drive salaries down while the cost of living continues to skyrocket.

Wow, you know I was starting to feel bad and thought I was the only one who felt this way about immigration. I've always felt that ill.

It makes sense to me. Legal immigrants I am all for. They worked hard to get here. I'm not saying illegals don't work hard, but it's not fair on the people that have been dealing with the INS for years.

I think people just want freebies.

You should see some of the looks today when I stated I wasn't interested in participating in the march. You'd think I'd just grown a second head.

That's just it.

While I appreciate and sympathize with the fact that some of these immigrants are thrilled to be getting US minimum wage, and I'm glad for them to get a better life, the thing is, I'd like their grandkids to be able to get a bit more than minimum wage, and that just isn't going to happen unless we get our economy under control. Immigration is far from the only area where we need to face some hard economic realities, but it is an important one, because it can have more far-reaching effects that just the costs we're incurring right now.

My Guy put forth the theory that the politicians want an group that they can use for votes - as you said, an underclass.

Thing is, once you make an underclass like this legal, then once they're legal, they won't want to work the shoddy jobs anymore, and won't want their children working the shoddy jobs either - and then more people will have to be "imported" to take their place, and then where does it end?

That's what I'm thinking, too - that it just never ends, because you always need an even lower class, if this is your approach.

And as I said in a response to Moonshayde, I *want* the children of immigrants to do better than their parents. Hell, I wanted that for my generation of natural-born Americans, but it ain't happening. The whole country's standard of living is backsliding. And while I appreciate that immigrants still want to come, because it's better than the standard of living some of their native countries offer, I don't think the longterm economic hit can be ignored.

So let them come here legally, or not at all.

And WTF are Bush and Fox doing, working on how to bring Mexicans to the US rather than trying to fix Mexico? Why doesn't Fox seem to want to fix Mexico, which was not a bad place to live until the 90's when that criminal president of theirs basically embezzled the cash value of the whole nation and made the peso so worthless that people's retirement savings fell by many thousands overnight, leaving them little choice but to do something drastic.

And as I said in a response to Moonshayde, I *want* the children of immigrants to do better than their parents. Hell, I wanted that for my generation of natural-born Americans, but it ain't happening. The whole country's standard of living is backsliding. And while I appreciate that immigrants still want to come, because it's better than the standard of living some of their native countries offer, I don't think the longterm economic hit can be ignored.

If we let people in unchecked to do these undesirable jobs (Americans area actually quite entitled themselves - no one wants to stoop to do these jobs. How many of you know unemployed people who refuse to work at McDonald's as a stop-gap until they get a 'real' job?) and generation after generation gradually moves up and opens those jobs to even more people coming in for minimum wage, our economy just isn't going to be able to support anyone. I'm not convinced it's supporting us NOW. Now is the time for reform.

Sure we're the home of the free and brave (ha), but we'll eventually be the home of the destitute. I might exaggerate, but I dunno.

How many of you know unemployed people who refuse to work at McDonald's as a stop-gap until they get a 'real' job?

I'm afraid I do know people who refuse this, because it would bring them down psychologically. When I was at my most unemployable, I took the shittiest retail job I've ever had, working for a psychotic woman-hater I can just about promise you had what my father had. He was fucking nuts, and he terrorized every woman there but me. Even though he didn't mess with me, it was still such a nightmare, and it just about destroyed me psychologically, because I tried to help the women who were being harrassed, and I guess they liked being victims because they sure turned on me as soon as I took him down a peg for them.

That's where my sympathy for other members of the human race pretty much died.

Maybe I shouldn't have taken that job, but I think I'd have ended up homeless rather than state supported. You just can't get unemployment or welfare or disability if you truly deserve them. They're reserved for scam artists.

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