Response to comments about my orginal post
First, and very foremost, I could not be more proud of my son, jc -blogger name - and his views about my original post. I am far, far more excited about his views than I am my own. HOWEVER, that does not mean I agree with his views. I don't, but I stand proud that he has them and expresses them so well.
Regarding breaking the law, my point is that it really does depend on our perspective. The perspective of the English just prior to the American Revolution, and certainly during it, is that we were a bunch of renegades. We were and we not only broke their laws, we went to war to eliminate them and create our own. Our perspective, however, was our own freedom. Sound familiar? What would we do if we lived in Mexico and looked down at our feet and then looked north? What would we do if the American government had no reasonable provisions for our immigrating (and we don't)? What would we do? Remember, we do not have the option of coming here legally; not from Mexico anyway. What would we do? (If you don't agree that you can't come here legally from Mexico in any reasonable way, then you simply don't understand the reality as it exists today).
When you really take a minute and try to understand their perspective, does it soften the hardness of your position on the matter?
So, does that mean the Hispanics who come here illegally have just cause? NO. But it does mean they have their own perspective in doing it. To them, it is the price to be paid. For our American forefathers, war was the price to be paid. These examples are not meant to justify illegally immigration, only to understand it better and allow it to motivate changes in the immigration policy, or lack of it.
To those of us who exceed the speed limit from time to time, our perspective is carelessness, negligence, and sometimes even callous disregard. To the police officer, it is only the latter. If you have never, ever exceeded the speed limit, then go ahead and preach the importance of keeping the law in absolutely every case. If you have exceeded the speed limit, then please consider the difference that YOUR perspective has on the issue. If, for you, it is an absolute issue, breaking the law or not, then turn yourself in for every time you exceeded the speed limit and didn't get caught. I think the right term here is 'understanding the perspective,' or not. Understanding it does not mean we agree with it. It just means we can and do understand it.
Regarding taking jobs we don't want, jc's father-in-law can move to California and pick walnuts tomorrow. Sorry jc, but I know the employment picture pretty well and there are more jobs right now than there are people to fill them.
Also, the conservative Republicans can take forever to increase the minimum wage if they want (and they are), but the job market has already done it. A grocery store chain had a sign on one of their store's entrances that read, "Stocker wanted--$9.50 per hour." To jc, I honestly don't think the illegal immigrants are taking any job that your father-in-law would want. If he really wants a job, I have thousands to send him to.
Back to my point at the beginning of this post, I am far more proud of my son's posts than my own; even my latest. What I hope we can come to is the old trite "Let's agree to disagree." It may be trite and very overused, but it has its place and this is one of them.
So, at the end of the day, what does all this mean? For me, it means that we need to put into place a "reasonable" immigration policy and then close the border. Close it tight.
Regarding breaking the law, my point is that it really does depend on our perspective. The perspective of the English just prior to the American Revolution, and certainly during it, is that we were a bunch of renegades. We were and we not only broke their laws, we went to war to eliminate them and create our own. Our perspective, however, was our own freedom. Sound familiar? What would we do if we lived in Mexico and looked down at our feet and then looked north? What would we do if the American government had no reasonable provisions for our immigrating (and we don't)? What would we do? Remember, we do not have the option of coming here legally; not from Mexico anyway. What would we do? (If you don't agree that you can't come here legally from Mexico in any reasonable way, then you simply don't understand the reality as it exists today).
When you really take a minute and try to understand their perspective, does it soften the hardness of your position on the matter?
So, does that mean the Hispanics who come here illegally have just cause? NO. But it does mean they have their own perspective in doing it. To them, it is the price to be paid. For our American forefathers, war was the price to be paid. These examples are not meant to justify illegally immigration, only to understand it better and allow it to motivate changes in the immigration policy, or lack of it.
To those of us who exceed the speed limit from time to time, our perspective is carelessness, negligence, and sometimes even callous disregard. To the police officer, it is only the latter. If you have never, ever exceeded the speed limit, then go ahead and preach the importance of keeping the law in absolutely every case. If you have exceeded the speed limit, then please consider the difference that YOUR perspective has on the issue. If, for you, it is an absolute issue, breaking the law or not, then turn yourself in for every time you exceeded the speed limit and didn't get caught. I think the right term here is 'understanding the perspective,' or not. Understanding it does not mean we agree with it. It just means we can and do understand it.
Regarding taking jobs we don't want, jc's father-in-law can move to California and pick walnuts tomorrow. Sorry jc, but I know the employment picture pretty well and there are more jobs right now than there are people to fill them.
Also, the conservative Republicans can take forever to increase the minimum wage if they want (and they are), but the job market has already done it. A grocery store chain had a sign on one of their store's entrances that read, "Stocker wanted--$9.50 per hour." To jc, I honestly don't think the illegal immigrants are taking any job that your father-in-law would want. If he really wants a job, I have thousands to send him to.
Back to my point at the beginning of this post, I am far more proud of my son's posts than my own; even my latest. What I hope we can come to is the old trite "Let's agree to disagree." It may be trite and very overused, but it has its place and this is one of them.
So, at the end of the day, what does all this mean? For me, it means that we need to put into place a "reasonable" immigration policy and then close the border. Close it tight.
posted by Ron Campbell at 8:10 AM
2 Comments:
OK. I agree with you on a few points, first of all we need to look at perspective. However, one thing you failed to do is look at the “perspective” of my father-in-law at the time he worked that job. Maybe there are more jobs now then there are people willing to fill them. But you clearly overlooked what I was saying (like most liberals do, they only see what they want to see). In 1983 my father-in-law took any job he could get. As I said, there are legal people willing to take these jobs. As you said you “know the employment picture pretty well” so you should also know that the unemployment picture in 1982-1983 reached an “almost” all-time high of 10.8%. As you know there were a good percentage looking for any employment they could find. Today the unemployment rate is at a low 4.6%. Not bad. So a liberal might say “well the unemployment went down even though the illegal immigration levels have gone up. Therefore, it’s not that bad.” But have you looked at the problems of overpopulation? As an employment specialist you should know the picture pretty well that the U.S. as a major industrialized country is still growing, and we show absolutely signs of slowing. The Census shows we grew by about 13 percent between 1990 & 2000, and by 83 percent the last 50 years… You can see evidence of overpopulation problems all around you…vanishing open spaces (been to the east coast lately?), water and energy shortages (wait, didn’t Utah, California, NY see major issues with this?? I think there are almost 40 something other states that saw problems with this), soil erosion, and air pollution, as well as overcrowded schools (I know this 1st hand), and traffic congestion.
At 290+ million Americans, we’re already well over our carrying capacity, and Census projections say we could grow to over 400 million by 2050–that’s another 100 million people to feed, clothe, educate, and house.
So let me get this straight, you want to make it even more possible to overpopulate our country by allowing it to be easier to get into our country from a country that has the room for those that are there. Hmmm…. I feel like Tom Hanks in the movie “Big” when he is presented with a toy idea that just doesn’t make sense; I think he said “I don’t get it…”
We have seen what China had to do when they faced overpopulation in their country. They limited the number of children you could have. I personally have added a rather large number (for 1 person to add) to the population of the U.S. I dearly love each one of my children and I couldn’t imagine ANYONE telling me that I can’t be allowed to have that many. However, if you give Mexico the “go ahead, come on in while you can” order and then shut the borders…. Mexico would be nearly empty, the U.S, VERY over populated.
Now, the last point that I agree with you, we need to adjust the immigration policy and then shut the borders. However my point of view would NOT be to give them MORE possibilities to come over to overpopulate an already overpopulated country.
I am going to have to disagree with you there bud... Lets see, illegal immigration is costing our country and the medical field millions of dollars a year because they don't have good insurance... So your answer is..."make it legal so they can". Hmmm. This does sound a LOT like socialism... You see, the reason the illegal's are taking "those jobs nobody wants" is because those farmers or construction workers are able to hire them at low wages to get a quick job done. So, lets add thousands of people to flood that market that now is FORCED to give a good medical plan because according to you, that is the reason we need to let them in... Then hundreds of farmers and thousands of construction companies go out of business because they can't afford to get the job done.. I know what you are thinking.. You are thinking "well, without the illegals then the work would go to citizens and they need insurance too". Well, in the real world, not everybody has insurance, not everybody is rich, not everybody can afford the basics. And those LEGAL citizens who can't afford it, usually qualify for aid. Now a liberal might say "well that taps our resourses as well".. I agree, but not as much as millions of illegal immigrants. Do you know that hospitals around the border of mexico are having to shut down because of the illegal immigration problem? So lets just make it legal for them to come over and what??? Force companies to NEVER hire even a TEMP without providing insurance??? The world does not work that way. And "you should know" that. Whatever THAT means...
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