Re: U.S. militias on the Border

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

Welcome back. 

Now for the "it's not that simple" argument.

>The difference, chappie, is in which 
>direction the muzzles of the border
>police's weapons are pointed. No one 
>who ever saw the Berlin Wall and the
>handiwork of the Volkspolizei so 
>powerfully displayed at the Checkpoint
>Charlie Museum would be in any doubt 
>whatsoever about the issue.

They were pointed both ways. Spies and agitators couldn't get in, disgruntled
citizens couldn't get out. Much as would happen with militarization here. After
all, we wouldn't want criminals slipping out of the country after a bank heist
or something, right? So the "law and order" right would, as they always do,
argue for and get escalation until the border looked like something out of
Stalin's wet dreams.

>Well, jeez, chummie, I'd wager that a 
>miniscule percentage of illegals
>"drop anchor", so to speak, a scant 100 
>yards inside the border. Rather, they go 
>where the jobs are...major metropolitan 
>areas, in all likelihood, along with 
>labor-intensive agricultural districts.

The border "militias" generally don't claim to be responding to that. They
claim to be responding to the demands of local landowners. Hence your
hypothesized motivation likely has not played any major role. But it was a nice
try, Bilge. However, I think you give the border "militias" credit for too much
intelligence. 

>It's the folks in these areas whose jobs 
>are being lost, and whose wages are
>being depressed by illegal alien labor on 
>the local job market. I'd offer that it only 
>stands to reason that the (mostly) white 
>working class

Take it up with Wal-Mart, etc. It's not the illegals who are depressing the
market. In many (50-60%?) cases, the immigrant workers are perfectly legal,
though desperate. But that doesn't stop the rightwing corps like
WalMart/contractors from abusing them and regular workers while pushing wages
down. Illegals just augment that group. And even where there aren't major
immigrant groups, that wonderful "conservative Christian" Arkansas group at
WalMart (so Christian that they won't even carry some birth control) still
refuse to put workers on full time with reasonable pay. No bennies.
Second-class citizenship all the way. As a matter of corporate policy. Heck.
Look at what Wal-Mart did to the meat cutters. Similarly with many of the
grocery cartels. They love to abuse their workers, too.

Nah. It's time for *real* conservatives to wake up to reality, Bilge. It's
generally their buddies in the corporations, not the immigrants, who create the
problem. In many, many areas. Naturally the corporations do like when folks try
to distract from that by blaming the immigrants. But the underlying reality
doesn't change: it's greed that lies at the root.

Interestingly, often the immigrants come in *after* wages fall. This has been
the case in this area here. With various base closures and factory closures,
etc, wages dropped to where the majority of folks in a survey said they wished
they could get a job paying $7.50/hr. Wages continued to drop and higher pay
jobs left. It was only *after* that that the immigrants came in. Why? Partly
because with the declining economy customers spent less. So small business
often had to do things they would not otherwise have done in terms of labor in
order to survive. But the root flaw came from a) departing gov't funds and b)
factory and other corporate closures/flights. In these cases the immigrant
workers are a symptom, not a cause.

>Oh, yes, my point...those hobbyist 
>gentlemen in camouflage behind that
>creosote bush yonder might be far more 
>effective back at home with a set of
>binoculars and a cell phone within visual 
>distance of your average construction
>site or suburban neighborhood.

That was my point, too. Go after the corporations and see that existing laws
are enforced. That's far better than resorting to neo-fascist totalitarianism
like having a Stalin-style border.

Of course, what of the plight of the small businessman? How do you deal with
that?

>If our Feds and or States really gave a 
>damn about trespassers, a nice sliding 
>bounty scale for reporting the 
>"stowaways" would be set up.

Again it's not the immigrants who are the problem. They, bless their
pea-pickin' hearts, *work* for a living. The problem is that the corporations
don't want to pay a fair wage. They either try to break laws at home to avoid
it (no enforcement at all under Clinton) or they ship your job overseas to
slave shops. It's all the same to them. Believe me if you sealed the border?
Even more jobs would just be exported. So what's the gain? Oh. Right. With
sealed borders our own unemployed couldn't leave to seek employment. Wow. What
a forward step that is, right? [yes. I'm being facetious]

> The funds would be negligible to the 
>public purse, since the erstwhile
>employer would get that chunk taken out 
>of his bank balance.

Yep. You have to go after the employer. But will it really work? No. Because
the right always wants to protect the corporations in the end. So nothing will
ever be done except *maybe* to the small businesses to the extent that groups
like WalMart could further benefit. Look at how Clinton gutted enforcement of
labor laws. And then there's Bush. Ronnie Ray-gun. etc. Nothing ever gets done.
You know that. The only way that could be fixed would be to wrest control of
the major political parties from the neo-cons who control them. Good luck on
that.

>  Oh yeah, this voyage was Boston, 
>Norfolk, Jax, Panama, Guam Okinawa,
>Saipan...generally westward.

I presume it was a safe one and you survived. I'd hate to think that I was
arguing with a ghost. :-)

jim (Mr. Wizard)