@Setanta,
Setanta wrote:
All this blather about the poor working in agriculture, and worse, the typically hateful conservative rhetoric about Democrats harming their opportunity with minimum wage legislation, and vague references to fees (unsubstantiated) and insurance (utterly false) is not only vague, but fallacious on a number of points.
Nothing hateful. Just try to think clearly about what it takes for poor people to get food when they can't find a job. If the only way you can get food is by buying it, you need money. If no one wants to hire you legally, you search for illegal work rather than starve.
If you want to grow food rather than starve, where can you do that? Community farms? How many community farms do you know where poor people can live and work without paying money they don't have? Now ask yourself what it takes to start such a farm? You have to buy land, pay for permits, and if you hire employees, you have to pay payroll taxes. social security, and whatever else is required. That is a deterrent to hiring people unless you expect returns that are worth your investment risk.
Quote:First, conservatives want to restrict immigration while sneering at the poor as though it were their fault that their economic opportunities are limited.
Why would migration be a problem if everyone respected everyone else's liberty and didn't participate in exploitative economic patterns? Democrats support migration because it boosts the economy for citizens. If it didn't, they wouldn't support it. When the economy is bad, they will deport non-citizens if they can't stimulate growth and inflation to tax saved money to keep them all getting paid.
What they want to do is keep stimulating growth even at the cost of inflation, because they figure if people can't save money, they will at least keep working for the common economy. What happens, though, is that people keep finding ways to abuse the flowing money. They engage in illegal business and business generates unnecessary waste in hopes of always making more money. That is bad for the environment and it is unfair to people who live conservatively and save up money by doing so.
Quote:That's the "lump of labor" fallacy, as though there were only so many opportunities available, while the truth is that a vibrant economy creates opportunities which did not exist before.
There are as many jobs available as people want to invest money in creating. People don't want to invest in everything for various reasons, however. I, personally, don't invest in things that could be replaced with more sustainable, environmentally-sustainable alternatives, but I don't invest in the alternatives because if consumers don't buy in, they will just lose money and fail as businesses. You can't buy bicycles to replace all the cars unless people are willing to give up driving to ride bicycles. The money you invest in the bicycles will end up getting spent on cars, pavement, fuel, etc. etc.
Quote:When the United States began losing jobs in manufacturing, innovation in aerospace businesses and in the technology and information sectors created more jobs than were lost. In the 1950s, there were very few working mothers, but now two-income households are common because economic opportunity has been created.
Why should twice as many people have to work twice as many hours to provide for a family? Wasting time is almost as bad as wasting natural resources.
Quote:Furthermore, while conservatives fulminate against immigrant labor, corporations quietly fund the political campaigns of Congressmen and -women in their districts, so that even a Republican-controlled Congress never makes substantive change.
I don't have any problem with non-citizens working anywhere in the world they want to live. I believe in global liberty. But what has happened with (relatively) open borders is more exploitation and trafficking has occurred. It's not just drugs and prostitutes. Europe owns half as many cars per capita as the US yet they love to export cars and car parts to the US because it gives them an advantage economically. If I can suffice with one car and I can get you to buy two, I am basically saving money I would spend on a second car for other things, but to make that money I have to get someone else to spend it instead of saving it.
Quote:The Reagan Era Immigration Reform and Control Act managed to avoid many of those pitfalls when a Republican administration worked closely with a Democratic-controlled Congress to craft useful legislation. It offered amnesty, as well as requiring all new hires to provide identification so that the employer can comply with the law. The Justice Department Form I-9 is still in use for that purpose more than thirty years later. The act has been modified many times by bi-partisan efforts. Of course, people would howl if they had to pay for food, especially fresh produce, harvested by Americans, even paid only minimum wage--so illegal immigration has never been halted, and likely never will be.
We have to figure out what's right and what's wrong and then work toward making what's right viable.
Quote:What we are getting from this member is a litany of hate and phony elitism which is all too typical of unthinking conservatives who just puke up their favorite mantras of contempt. In fact, the religious nut bags who rant about abortion don't care about the children, and don't do anything for any woman they can discourage from getting an abortion. It's about control and about power politics--it's not about the mothers and children.
It's about listening to people whose consciences can't accept abortion and trying to help them achieve a situation where their consciences are satisfied. You can't always make everyone happy, but you can allow pro-life people to participate in democracy by removing obstacles to their participation.
Quote:Tell us again about the benefits of slavery for the poor.
Avoid sarcasm. It tempts me to respond as if it was sincerity and that would waste my time.
Quote:The failed analogy to paedophilia is disgusting. Paedophilia harms children who are independently-living beings. Really, this members bullsh*t is truly depraved.
That's not the point. The point is that something bad can be legal in some places and that doesn't mean you should legalize it everywhere.
