Letters to the Editor
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That Wasn't H.L. Mencken
It was Sinclair Lewis, and he said it after writing It Can't Happen Here.
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why is it that virtually nobody wants to give up their "socialized medicine"
and even here nobody wants to give up medicare, if the "free market" alternative has so much to recommend it. Oh maybe it's because the left dominates the media and right wing ideas never get a fair hearing. Yeah, that must be it.
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the article you are using states upfront that the effect is only relevant in close calls
and comparing US infant mortality with that in Western Europe is not a close call.
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Kirby:
. The artical bemoaned the loss of community, and that is what the rapid influx of illegals does, destroys communities that have existed for centuries. And these women would be in their 40's to 60's. In working class situatios, women that age wouldn't have been sent to college. They were put to work as early as 12 or 13 years old to get money for the family and only the brothers were sent to college, or even had access to sports teams and things like shop classes.
Omg, do you live in Dickensonian England? First of all, most communities in the US have not existed for 200+ years, which would be the technical numerical requirement to say "centuries" plural. Maybe people feel like foreigners destroy their homogenous communities with all their "different-ness" but that's just too bad.
More importantly, you're actually saying that women in their 40's were "put to work" as early as 12 or 13?! Let's see, maximum age is 49, 2006-49 = born in 1957, would be 12 in 1969. You're actually trying to tell me that in 1969, the thing for working class families in the US to do was to send the girls to work in factories and send the boys to college. And women in their 60's -- 65 or older qualifies you for SSI and all sorts of other goodies. You live in some sort of weird parrallel universe if you really believe that.
It is blue collar people who by and large built and defended this country, not Salon liberals who have never got their hands dirty.
Oh brother... I can feel the class war.
I wonder if you would be so cavalier about illegals taking jobs if it was your job and your community getting displaced overnight by them.
Well, something similar happened quite recently -- outsourcing. No, it's not illegal, but American jobs that required college educations and other qualifications were outsourced to India. The Salon liberals were affected. Yet, i have yet to meet a single programmer or analyst or call center rep who hated Indian people the way you seem to hate "illegals." I've never met anyone who says that outsourcing destroys communities.
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the hiring of low paid illegal workers has destroyed communities
it makes no sense to be prejudiced, but the fact is that when the unionized "blue collar middle class" jobs in the meat packing industry were replaced by jobs done by illegal immigrants the communities supported by those lost jobs were destroyed.
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Stop home-grown fanatics
Good. I’m a fan of Chris Hedges and Michelle Goldberg.
In her opening paragraph, Michelle Goldberg says Chris Hedges knows the savagery of those “besotted with dreams of religious or national redemption.” “Besotted” is an apt word. Fanaticism mood-alters the fanatic's misery rather than fixes it. And as anger provides us some of the useful fuel to fight fundamentalism and other forms of fanaticism, it can also lead us to a co-besottment, a co-dependence, as they say. Codependence is of course real. We may become fanatical ourselves in a growing fanatical anti-fanaticism. In our foaming at the mouth we too can get rigid, black-and-white, either/or. Somewhere between wishy-washy liberal on one hand and stubborn doctrinaire shrill liberal on the other - if not dangerously radicalized - we may find a broad fair generous democratic place that won’t take any crazy shit.
Yes, let’s keep learning about fanaticism.
Best,
Monty
More for free in my non-fiction bood: google “Rabid Fanatic” +”Monty Johnston”
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anon:
Yes, it makes no sense to be prejudiced, considering the illegal immigrants don't hire themselves! How about placing blame on the businesses that do so?
Or are they excused because the draw of cheap labor is irresistible?
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it makes no sense to be prejudiced, but the fact is that when the unionized "blue collar middle class" jobs in the meat packing industry were replaced by jobs done by illegal immigrants the communities supported by those lost jobs were destroyed.
-- anon
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to LaCastor
If you don't know anyone who has observed outsourcing (or the loss of union jobs) destroying a community you seriously live in a bubble.
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because ...
why is it that virtually nobody wants to give up their "socialized medicine"
Because no one wants to change horses for the unknown in the middle of the proverbial stream. It's why Europeans will not give up their overly generous welfare state even though the facts clearly state that they have to import increasing numbers of immigrants--mostly from Muslim countries--to maintain that standard of living even as they (the Europeans) un-breed themselves out of existence. You know, the frog in the boiling water thing.
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no they shouldn't be excused but the temptation will be irresistible
as long as employers believe they can get more for less out of illegals because the illegals have no recourse. The only way to remove this temptation is to make abuse of workers or exploitation of their illegal status so costly that no employer will risk it. Protecting the rights of illegals will actually benefit natives directly in this way, when resentment is used to justify punitive treatment of illegals it plays right into the employers hands.
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I don't think there is much connection between a welfare state and low birth rates
unless you are suggesting that the cure for europe's low birth rate is to see to it that every old person who doesn't have 5 kids to take care of him be seen starving in the gutter in order to convince people that they better get to breeding. In actuallity the European decline is overstated. Poor workers from poor countries will ALWAYS be attractive to rich employers in rich countries. Some of the most densely populated countries in the world have so called labor shortaages.
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clueless liberals
Omg, do you live in Dickensonian England? First of all, most communities in the US have not existed for 200+ years, which would be the technical numerical requirement to say "centuries" plural. Maybe people feel like foreigners destroy their homogenous communities with all their "different-ness" but that's just too bad.
Where I live on the East Coast, most of the communities are over 200 years old. The East Coast was an English colony for several hundred years before the US was formed, in case you don't know anything about American history, which you don't seem too. And the east coast is not homogenous. Climb out of your bubble. Most of the states and cities have large black communities. I have personally witnessed the black working class in Washington, D.C. become devasted by the huge influx of ilegal aliens from El Salvador.
The east coast homogenous? Do you know anything at all about the US? What country are you from? Are you posting from a foreign country? There are ethnic groups from all over the world here: Italy, Ireland, Africa etc and have been for centuries. And firing these old communities that have been around for centuries and replacing them with illegals is not racism, they are destroying communities, which is the premise of the article.
The country as a whole is operating at a huge deficit. Taking taxpayers off the payroll and leaving them homeless (go to S. Florida sometime) to replace them with illegals who don't pay taxes put drain the resources, especially considering they have huge families that need education, is driving this country into a gutter. Foreigners destroying the country with their different-ness, too bad? What country are you from? How would you like it if illegals working under the table flooded your country, drained the resources dry, devasted communites and left you homeless.
You're obviously not a US citizen, have never even been here and if you are you are certainly profoundly clueless about what is going on here.