Is a Cheap Housekeeper Worth Your Principles?
| AR Articles on Immigration |
|---|
| Fade to Brown (May 2003) |
| Waging War on America (Jun. 1998) |
| Halting the Flow (Aug. 1995) |
| Search AmRen.com for Immigration |
| More news stories on Immigration |
{snip}
But for the most part, no matter who wins this election, immigrants and would-be immigrants will celebrate—and rightly so.
Is this rare example of bipartisanship a good thing? Many readers of this newspaper, rooted deeply in the aspirational culture of immigrant Jewry, will likely think so. Jews are commanded by Torah to welcome the stranger, and we know from painful experience what it means to be turned away at an hour of desperation.
These principles are not irrational or ill-conceived. The problem is, they are utterly inconsistent with the other elements of our aspirational culture—especially the one that says that the immigrant should move up the ladder of opportunity.
If you believe the gap between the wealthy and the poor is an outrage, that there should be far more opportunities for racial and ethnic minorities, that Americans should not exit the workforce because jobs pay too little—if you believe all this, you cannot at the same time support further immigration to this country. These problems are all symptoms of the same disease: an oversupply of cheap, uneducated workers.
It is not xenophobic or nativist to point this out. It’s simple economics.
Consider: Economic conservatives embrace liberal immigration precisely because it provides cheap and easily available labor. They may declare some sentimental regard for the pluck of immigrants. But economic conservatives are no fools; they love any market mechanism that stands on the side of greater efficiency in pricing. In this case, if American workers get too uppity, bring in the foreigners to make goods and services cheaper.
{snip}
Immigration can’t be simultaneously good for both the employer and the immigrant. Someone is paying the bill. And as it turns out, the bill is being paid by the people liberals say they are defending: the poor, the uneducated, the weak and the defenseless.
We receive roughly 2.5 million immigrants each year to this country. Except for a few thousand, virtually all of these immigrants are here for economic reasons. They need to earn more money than they would in their home countries.
{snip}
But this influx has had another impact. The number of American-born workers who don’t even look for a job jumped by 10 million from 2000 to 2007, according to the Labor Department. According to the Center for Immigration Studies, an organization that favors a more restrictive immigration policy, the workforce dropout rate has risen among a number of major demographic groups: young American-born men, American-born black men, American-born Hispanic men, American-born adults who didn’t graduate from high school, and American-born adults with only a high school degree.
Who can blame them? Wages have indeed suffered, in real terms, because of immigration—by about $1,700, or 4%, between 1980 and 2000, according to Harvard economist George Borjas.
And here’s the thing: No matter what people tell you about immigrants doing work “Americans won’t do,” most of the jobs immigrants are now entering are in fact still dominated by American-born workers: maids, construction laborers, dishwashers, janitors, painters, cabbies, grounds keepers, and meat and poultry workers.
{snip}
Those who come to this country eager to improve their lot, in short, will move exactly one rung on the economic ladder before being pulled back by those who follow behind them. Meanwhile, millions of able-bodied adults now sit on the sidelines of our economy, preferring the stable though not prosperous lifestyle of disability payments and other social welfare to the rough-and-tumble of the low-wage, low-skilled working world.
I don’t blame them for their choice. It is rational. It is also sad—and it speaks poorly of a country that prides itself on opportunity that the only leg up we give is to those willing to work here for cheap, and preferably, off-the-books.
Today’s suburban liberals, grandchildren of immigrants themselves, should be howling in protest. They should call out immigration as an unnatural drag on the well-being of ordinary, hard-working Americans. Forget Big Oil, Big Pharma and any other Bigs. The true enemy of the working man is Big Immigration.
{snip}
(Posted on March 17, 2008)
Comments
If you actually cared about the poor, then you would not care whether the poor were Americans or Mexicans. If you love the poor, you would allow endless immigration because it helps the poor immigrants more than it hurts the poor Americans. I don’t think any principled opposition to immigration can occur without tribalism, that asserts that it is moral and proper to care more about some people than others.
Posted by Diamed at 7:13 PM on March 17
America’s unions could have made immigration an issue, and forced politicians to address it years ago, but the union bosses are all traitors to their class as well as their country.
Posted by Schoolteacher at 7:46 PM on March 17
Forgive me for saying this, but where “most” Americans are concerned, I haven’t seen any evidence of “principles.” The main principle most people in this nation seem to live by is expediency. What’s good for me and mine and that’s where it ends.
Posted by Bobby at 8:26 PM on March 17
Of all the people I know who have hired Latino house help, even gardeners in the past, they were all robbed during the time of service. Mostly petty little things like a bottle of wine here or there, or a leaf blower, chain saw, etc. But how could anyone leave their babies with people who probably hate you?
Posted by Whiteplight at 8:35 PM on March 17
Noam Neusner served as President Bush’s principal economic and domestic policy speechwriter from 2002 to 2004. (copied from the original article)
Someone from El Presidente’s administration who has intelligence. Too bad he wasn’t doing more than writing speeches.
Posted by PincheGabacho at 12:02 AM on March 18
Amen! That’s the proper response to a prayer and as long as the populist politician is successfully muzzled by the MSM We don’t have a prayer.
Posted by pat at 1:32 AM on March 18
For anyone who really, desperately demands cheap help, move to Southeast Asia. We have honest maids, nannies, and cooks for US$50 (plus room and board) apiece, per month. A driver is US120 per month, so I am too cheap for one. As Ronald Reagan said, vote with your feet.
If you don’t really care about cheap help, stay in the USA and enjoy the industrializeded infrastructure, political stability, and rule-of-law. For these things, you don’t know how good you’ve got it.
If there is a perfect place in the world, let me know so I can move there.
Posted by Lost in Paradise at 5:39 AM on March 18
If liberals were consistent they would be against immigration for economic and environmental reasons and because it allows the Mexican ruling class to export its poor. They just support because it has more gut liberal appeal.
Posted by Skip at 6:16 AM on March 18
[Diamed, above]: “If you actually cared about the poor, then you would not care whether the poor were Americans or Mexicans. If you love the poor, you would allow endless immigration because it helps the poor immigrants more than it hurts the poor Americans.”
Well, not so fast. America’s infrastructure (roads, schools, hospitals, the welfare state, etc.) is made possible by the labor and restraint of—unsurprisingly—Americans, including the “poor.” The per-capita value of that infrastructure is now perhaps in the neighborhood of $300,000. An immigrant thus captures $300,000 worth of American infrastructure without having contributed one inflated peso to its creation, and an *illegal* immigrant is simply stealing infrastructure from American citizens. Bleeding hearts like Diamed express not so much their “love of the poor” as their indifference to mass theft.
Posted by Trilby at 7:25 AM on March 18
I don’t think any principled opposition to immigration can occur without tribalism, that asserts that it is moral and proper to care more about some people than others. - diamed
Is it alright to care more about myself than someone else?? Is it alright to care more about my wife and children than someone else’s wife and children? Is it alright to care more for my brothers and sisters, nephews and nieces than someone else’s nephews and nieces? IS it alright to care more about my cousins than about someone else’s cousins?
If you’re in a burning building with two children, one yours, one not, and you could only get out safely with one, which child would you choose?
Of course it’s fair to be more concerned about your own. In fact if you ook at immigrants you find that they suffer none of the ideological poison you proffer. They fight tooth and nail to bring every possible relative into this ocuntry they can - sometimes legally, sometimes not. If you told them that if their relatives didn’t come that the space would go to someone else they’d so “So what?”
The poor people of Mexico have a country that’s repsonisble for their welfare - Mexico. Not the USA.
Posted by Alan at 7:42 AM on March 18
In my town, there are all sorts of folks out of work. Always native born Americans. White and Hispanic. I just talked to my White neighbor with a young child who makes $460/month working part time. My God, how does he make it? The Hispanic that is presently colonizing my place for various manipulative reasons fits Nuesner’s description well. He refuses to work or go to school and lives off his idiot girlfriend at her Mom’s place. He has no goals in life other than somehow coming up with $10 every day to buy a bag of weed. Once that is done, the day is over. Almost all of the young Hispanic-Americans around here are like this. None are employed and none want to be. All are out of school, in continuation school, or thrown out of there. All are on probation, or in and out of jail, juvey or boot camp. One is tempted to say they are a bunch of idiots.
Yet this town has a severe shortage of jobs. I think we need to start connecting the dots. Has anyone ever noticed that a flood of illegals = few job openings? I do not know one single illegal who is out of work. If you’re an illegal, there are a plethora of openings for you. What this town needs is a labor shortage and help wanted signs on the windows. I think if there plenty of jobs around, even these young Hispanic total losers might go grab one of them. I am certain my White friend would.
So, in addition to the flood of social pathology the illegals themselves cause, they in turn cause more floods with our own Americans, by discouraging them from working, they go on various welfares or leech off women, get gang, crime and drug involved, have kids they refuse to support and just perpetuate massive social pathology. The cancer of the illegals extends far beyond the illegals themselves. Like all cancers, it spreads.
Posted by Robert Lindsay at 8:05 AM on March 18
“Today’s suburban liberals, grandchildren of immigrants themselves, should be howling in protest. They should call out immigration as an unnatural drag on the well-being of ordinary, hard-working Americans. Forget Big Oil, Big Pharma and any other Bigs. The true enemy of the working man is Big Immigration.”
This is so true. Working people have been forced to compete with cheap immigrant labor. And now with the 1HB program even educated people participate in the “global hiring hall”. I fear only a deep recession or depression will cause our people to demand a decrease in illegal immigration and a cessation of illegal immigration.
Posted by Sardonicus at 8:10 AM on March 18
“Jews are commanded by Torah to welcome the stranger,”
Only if they obey the same laws. This command is no “free pass” as this writer would have us believe.
Posted by G. L. at 10:12 AM on March 18
America used to be the number one exporter of manufactured goods in the world. This is no longer true. Today America is the number one exporter and importer of jobs in the world. This is economic treason and political and corporate treachery. No foreign army on earth could inflict more damage upon America’s future than the damage already inflicted by America’s government and corporations. And while America’s politicians and business count their ill-gotten gains the rifles of American patriots continue to gather dust. Since we are rapidly approaching the point where we have little left to lose I suggest we dust off those rifles and make ready…
Posted by at 12:03 PM on March 18
Just to clear up people’s confusion, I am saying this article’s argument is flawed, not that tribalism is flawed. I support the native whites of the USA and I don’t care if that hurts other people in the heart of Congo or Grenada or whatever.
Posted by Diamed at 9:22 PM on March 18
[Diamed, above]: “If you actually cared about the poor, then you would not care whether the poor were Americans or Mexicans. If you love the poor, you would allow endless immigration because it helps the poor immigrants more than it hurts the poor Americans.”
Allowing endless immigration would only turn middle-class Americans into poor Americans as they are forced to compete with an endless flood of imported poor people for their share of our rapidly diminishing resources…
Posted by at 12:10 PM on March 19
“If you actually cared about the poor, then you would not care whether the poor were Americans or Mexicans. If you love the poor, you would allow endless immigration because it helps the poor immigrants more than it hurts the poor Americans. I don’t think any principled opposition to immigration can occur without tribalism, that asserts that it is moral and proper to care more about some people than others.”
Posted by Diamed at 7:13 PM on March 17
Diamed, a nation is a protected community of socially like-minded people. In order to protect their lives, and maintain their material well-being and quality of life, laws need to be enforced which disallow illegal immigration and control legal immigration at a level that does not endanger these basic elements of a citizen’s existence.
Just as charity is recommended to all but forced on none, so allowing “endless immigration” should never be forced on a nation. This is a matter for majority rule, and only majority rule.
Posted by Gary at 2:05 PM on March 19
Illegal immigrants are scabs-all of them. That many of
the Unions have gone over to their side is scandalous. If the
Unions don’t protect our interests, what’s the point of them?
Posted by Bunker Archie at 11:19 PM on March 19