The United States of Burrito Men

[ReverseLunge]

http://www.yggdrasilfilms.com/LnSand.avi

Free Los Angeles, Go Fix Mexico
Southern Californians protest nothing...usually. The lifestyle is as wide-open and apathetic as its sprawl of homes from the Mexican border north into Ventura County. I'm a native Angeleno, which means I was born in Los Angeles -- East Los Angeles to be exact, so don't bull me about being rooted somewhere else.

My mother is a native Angeleno too. Our family does touch back to England, France, and Germany, but those ancestors immigrated to the states legally. I'll repeat the word "legally," which means they applied and were accepted before they arrived. They learned and spoke English, and they paid income taxes. They never expected nor requested handouts. They made the conscious decision to live the rest of their lives in the United States as legal, law abiding, and active participants in society. They did not earn tax-free cash here to send it back to Europe. These ancestors were never arrested or fined for public intoxication, lewd behavior, or for littering their yard with beer cans.

There are two main reasons I left Los Angeles in 1991: Rampant crime and the influx of illegal aliens from Mexico -- and those two reasons are connected statistics show. Now, on 25 March 2006, the illegal aliens took their stomp to the streets of Los Angeles with what seems to be a clear message: "We are here, we are illegal, and proud to be Mexican."

Anyone who disagrees is called a racist.

In what is now labeled the largest protest in the history of Los Angeles, 500,000 marched in downtown streets to slam federal legislation that would crack down on undocumented immigrants and penalize those who help them stay.

The marchers were loud, stretched 30 city blocks, and chanted si se puede! (No clue what that means, nor do I care. This is the United States -- speak bloody English or go away.)

Behind the protest are new legislative efforts to reform immigration laws. One proposal could include legalizing some 12 million illegal aliens, but this is apparently not good enough for those illegal aliens already living in Los Angeles. They want more and they want more Mexicans to freely immigrate.

The Catholic Church (and by no surprise should the legislation pass,) is urging priests to 'defy' the law and not report employers who knowingly employ illegal aliens...of course this comes from the same church that defies laws to protect pedophiles too.

But questions remain that no one, except this writer, seems brave enough to ask. With illegal aliens entering the United States by the thousands each day, why wouldn't they rally in Mexico for democratic or social change? Why wouldn't these same illegals stay in Mexico and fix their own country as we attempt so do to in the United States?

What is wrong with Mexico? Gotta dictator? Can't put food on the table? No jobs to be found? Well, join the club, for life is no better in the United States for poor and middle class blacks and whites.

The only difference is now we whites and blacks have to pay socially and financially for those Mexicans who enter this country and work for cash while they avoid paying income, property, and school taxes. But Mexicans get healthcare and public school education -- for free. If we tried avoiding taxes the IRS would be on our door before you could say si si. If we show up at hospital expecting free assistance we'd die while waiting in the emergency room without health insurance.

Here is one possible all encompassing answer: Life is easy for the Mexicans. It is easy to enter the United States illegally and stay under the radar. It is easy to come to the United States and pop-out a baby to gain citizenship and apply for welfare. It is easy to work here for $8-per hour cash, pile-up 20 illegals in a one-bedroom apartment to save rent and split the cost of a beer keg on the weekends. It is easy to build political clout with the sheer influx of immigrants along with the baby boom that follows with each new family.

It seems ironic that illegal aliens gathered such steam in Los Angeles to march, considering they offer no intellectual exchange to advance innovation in this nation...other than halting laws that infringe upon their own special cause. Be proud of Mexico: Go home to build a life your children can boast was the effort of their parents' hard work and reform. Meanwhile, rest assured, we are telling our children that there is no free ride in the United States...unless one is here illegally from Mexico.

http://www.thinkandask.com/2006/032506-mexico.html

[ReverseLunge]

Makes you wonder why we dont set up land mines at the border.

[Morion]

My Grandfather was an illegal alien. His family died in a plague in the old country including his brother who had papers to come here. He used his brothers papers to get in. He could not legally immigrate because he had served in the Military over there and at the time that meant they wouldn't take you. I'm not even sure if I know his real name. He came here, he worked hard all his life, he raised a family, he paid taxes. In short he did everything a good citizen would do. You cannot use that broad a brush to color everyone.

[ReverseLunge]

Originally Posted by Morion

My Grandfather was an illegal alien. His family died in a plague in the old country including his brother who had papers to come here. He used his brothers papers to get in. He could not legally immigrate because he had served in the Military over there and at the time that meant they wouldn't take you. I'm not even sure if I know his real name. He came here, he worked hard all his life, he raised a family, he paid taxes. In short he did everything a good citizen would do. You cannot use that broad a brush to color everyone.

Totally different from what is happening now and a totally different type of illegal immigration.

Now you have thousands of illegals from Mexico coming over everyday. They aren't hard working, are totally uneducated and they dont pay taxes. Then they have babies like rabbits. Their kids often become involed in vadalism and crime.

This is a serious problem as we all know. California will become like a third world country because of this.

[Larrison]

Personal opinion -- there's nothing wrong with immigrants. Just about everyone has come from somewhere else. If they're good folks who work hard, obey the law and don't cause problems I have a hard time objecting.

I'm of very mixed opinions about illegal immigrants, of which I've known Irish, Mexican, Guatemalan, and Chinese. They did break the law -- which is a big black mark in my book. But having known a bunch of folks who have been very good neighbors, classmates and citizens whose parents started out as illegals-- it can turn out OK. But in just about all the cases, the parents had to step forwards at some point and say they needed to become legal immigrants (and almost all of them have become US citizens).

I don't necessarily want an amnesty for all current illegals, but having a useless system that can a) be broken at will by anyone wanting to enter the country, and b) punishes people who have years (decades in some cases) of working hard and being good guests in every way..... that's not right either...

[ReverseLunge]

Good points Larrison. You are from SoCal, have you noticed how many people in the last few years have decide to leave and move out of state or out of country because of the migrant problem?

[lochinvar]

Originally Posted by ReverseLunge

Makes you wonder why we dont set up land mines at the border.

Another case of the last one in wants to bar the door...

They come here to make $1.50/hr picking beans because a) the bean farmers want them and b) they can only make $.20/hr back in Mexico.

Question: If we stopped all illegal immigration, who would clean our houses, pick our tomatos, and cook our french fries? If you tell me "poor white folks" or "poor black folks", I'll laugh. Maybe they would take up some of the slack, but I guarantee they wouldn't (not "couldn't", but "wouldn't") take up all of it. And the price of food would jump through the roof.

If we show up at hospital expecting free assistance we'd die while waiting in the emergency room without health insurance.

This is a flat lie.

Hospitals are required by law to take care of whoever shows up at the door, whether they have insurance or not. But under the proposed legislation, if a hospital were to care for a person who later was shown to be an illegal immigrant, that hospital would lose its Medicare reimbursements--thereby putting all indigent and elderly patients at greater risk.

The Law of Unintended Consequences is alive and in full force...or as we used to say in the South: We left the back door open, and the wrong dogs came home...

[ReverseLunge]

Originally Posted by lochinvar

They come here to make $1.50/hr picking beans because a) the bean farmers want them and b) they can only make $.20/hr back in Mexico.

I don't care how much they make or don't make. It sucks to be born Mexican then.

Question: If we stopped all illegal immigration, who would clean our houses, pick our tomatos, and cook our french fries? If you tell me "poor white folks" or "poor black folks", I'll laugh. Maybe they would take up some of the slack, but I guarantee they wouldn't (not "couldn't", but "wouldn't") take up all of it. And the price of food would jump through the roof.

Americans have always done that sort of work, only businesses want it done now for less money. Most people would accept the true cost of labor if it meant no third-world immigrants. Cheap immigrant labor actually costs more in total because businesses pass much of the cost burden to society instead of paying it directly.

[Trainer83]

This is an interesting discussion.

I heard a child of illegal immigrants on the Larry Elder show this week who has been here over 16 years, speaks only slightly accented correct English and is for all purposes a model of what US Citizenship ought to be. The problem being that even if he were sent back to say "Mexico" if that is where he came from, he would be a virtual foreigner to that country since he has grown up in this culture. It seems almost cruel to send him back for any reason. However, suppose there are literally millions of such culturally american illegals who just couldn't bare to live in Mexico because they are so used to our way of life. Isn't that what immigration is all about....where a person comes into your country pretty much abandoning their home of origin in pursuit of a different economy, different govt., education, etc?
So if you were to gather up all these illegals who really fit in here and would be strangers now in their native country, what would that accomplish?

I think that might be a good strategy, because the conditions in many places in countries like Mexico are "intolerable" yet the people have not the education, knowledge or cultural precedent to change the country from the citizen up. But if you did a horrible thing, like send all these culturally American illegals back there...what would they do...revert back to a lifestyle and culture they don't really know? I think not. The "desirable unintended consequence" of sending what amounts to Americanized illegals back, would create the kind of internal revolution/cultural change that international policy makers have not been able to do for a dozen decades! If we actually forced them ALL to go back and offered zero amnesty, then there would be enough of them to raise Cain and change the place and then Mexico would become the 51st State or something like it. Of course it might cause a civil war there as well...but something has got to change.

I'm not saying I want to send some back, but rather by advocated the extreme, we might force those going back to band together to create the change because they have basically been stripped of the culture they left by assimilation and now they can go back to a country where they came from and cause change to happen by what they have learned here.

Another discussion was on the radio today as I was driving around about families from Somalia who came here and were living here but still practicing customs of Somalia that are illegal here. The one in particular was poligamy or having several wives. Obviously that is not legal here, but what do you do with a visitor or immigrant that brings their 8 wives with them...how do you force them to choose? This is where diversity and tolerance have to intersect with morality and cultural norms. If we let the Somalies do it we will have to apologize to the whole state of Utah.

So, my point is, pursuing the extreme policy of sending back EVERYONE from Mexico who does not have a legal right to stay here, especially if they have been here a long while, will result in a positive change in the culture in Mexico due to the reverse immigration of American culture invading Mexico.

Does that make sense? Don't know if it might work.. but they have certainly changed the landscape where I live, so why can't it be reversed? Not that I want them to leave if they now "fit in" here, but that it might be a solution to change Mexico with Mexicans rather than trying to stop the Mexican flight to the USA. N.A.F.T.A. was supposed to help slow this trend but hindsight has proven that theory wrong, I think.

Let's focus on changing Mexico and using "Our" illegals as an economic army to invade Mexico and change that place for the better!

[ReverseLunge]

Originally Posted by Trainer83

Does that make sense? Don't know if it might work.. but they have certainly changed the landscape where I live, so why can't it be reversed? Not that I want them to leave if they now "fit in" here, but that it might be a solution to change Mexico with Mexicans rather than trying to stop the Mexican flight to the USA. N.A.F.T.A. was supposed to help slow this trend but hindsight has proven that theory wrong, I think.

Let's focus on changing Mexico and using "Our" illegals as an economic army to invade Mexico and change that place for the better!

It doesn't make sense to me and I will not focus on Mexico or Mexicans. Fuk them. Perhaps you should face reality instead of making justifications or idealizations. You want to help a stupid country that hates Americans in order to get an ego boost? The satisfaction of being a good person while your country is about to collapse under such a huge illegal immigrant burden is both selfish and insane. Every country has to find it's own solution.

It is of no concern to me what the illegals do when they go back to their own countries. They can do whatever they want. It does not concern me. You make the country in which you live in. Whatever conditions or government you live under is appropriate for you and fits you well, for it is a reflection of what you have created for yourself.

[Inquartata]

Originally Posted by lochinvar

Question: If we stopped all illegal immigration, who would clean our houses, pick our tomatos, and cook our french fries? If you tell me "poor white folks" or "poor black folks", I'll laugh.

Ooh, now THERE'S a deterrent.

Laughter is good for the soul, so I'll say "Poor white people and black folks", and poor Hispanic folk ( many of whom have been here for generations ), and poor Native American folk, maybe even poor Asian folk. And of course legal immigrants.

See, like everything else the market for unskilled labor obeys supply and demand. Reduce the secular supply while demand remains the same and you create a shortage; shortages increase the price ( wage rate ) for the remaining supply until a new equilibrium is reached...until it lures enough workers back into those jobs.

And there will probably be some substitution of capital for labor as well.

And the price of food would jump through the roof.

Not necessarily. It depends on the price elasticities of the various foods, and what happens to the other inputs used in their production.

The Law of Unintended Consequences is alive and in full force...or as we used to say in the South: We left the back door open, and the wrong dogs came home...

Indubitably.

[lochinvar]

Originally Posted by ReverseLunge

I don't care how much they make or don't make. It sucks to be born Mexican then.

Yes, it does. That's why they come here.

Americans have always done that sort of work, only businesses want it done now for less money.

Citing the obvious, to no apparent support for your position. Businesses have always wanted things done for less money.

Most people would accept the true cost of labor if it meant no third-world immigrants.

Rather it seems they would prefer cheaper goods at home as the result of sending jobs to low-wage overseas operations instead of bringing low-wage workers here to produce those goods. If you doubt it, just look at the Wal-mart model. I suspect it has less to do with economics and more to do with "we don't want none o' them furriners comin' 'round here".

Cheap immigrant labor actually costs more in total because businesses pass much of the cost burden to society instead of paying it directly.

Obviously you don't understand at all how business works. Businesses always pass cost burden--any cost burden--to consumers. That's the definition of "overhead" and "cost of production", both of which are recouped before profits are taken. Increase the cost of production and prices must rise if a business is to maintain a profit margin.

None of which supports your contention that cheap labor--immigrant or native--costs more in any sense.

[Larrison]

Originally Posted by ReverseLunge

Good points Larrison. You are from SoCal, have you noticed how many people in the last few years have decide to leave and move out of state or out of country because of the migrant problem?

Dude, here in SoCal, just about everyone is from somewhere else. Where I work, there is only 1 other California native in a department of around 20-30 people. Everyone just about is from somewhere else -- the difference, being whether they're legal or not. I haven't seen any one move out because of the migrant problem -- but folks have moved because of housing costs, change in job, the shift away from California for a couple of industries, etc -- but not for the illegal migrant problem.

[Trainer83]

Originally Posted by ReverseLunge

... Perhaps you should face reality instead of making justifications or idealizations.

...It is of no concern to me what the illegals do when they go back to their own countries. They can do whatever they want. It does not concern me. You make the country in which you live in. Whatever conditions or government you live under is appropriate for you and fits you well, for it is a reflection of what you have created for yourself.

The reality I have seen is that we are sending them back right after they get here and they take nothing with them of use.

It should be a concern what they do when they go back because right now they just come back over the border again and again, except they may be bringing drugs with them to buy their way back.

Whatever conditions or govt. you live under is a matter of what a people will tolerate or fight for. My suggestion was that those who are here, who have been here nearly all their lives are different than the ones that just arrived last weekend and still know nothing of what it really is like in America. They have no ability to change their govt. and have not point of reference for change. Conversely, those who have been here so long (brought here by illegal parents or born here) know no other system. If forced to return, and in sufficient mass (critical mass) they could make the kind of change and would have the ability and point of reference (education, understanding of business systems and functional politics) to cause positive change that would help us remove the problem of thousands of uneducated, poor health, and impoverished masses crossing our borders to get what is not available now in their own country.

My understanding now is that the current discussion of US Policy involves giving amnesty to those we have already invested in for so long by education, health care, jobs, etc. while sending the most incapable back to a system that will only end up with them coming back here again.

My motive is to see a policy put into place that creates change that will last and that will ultimately work. You seem to be so affected by what you are experiencing in Southern California that your comments border on the hysterical and you haven't offered a solution. I at least offered an idea that I think has some plausibility. If your anger and perspective on the situation is so distorted that you would resort to some evil tactic to deal with a problem that so far the best mind in America have not fully even grasped, then you stand to set yourself up as some sort of dictator with an "ultimate solution".

Whatever you feel about this situation, I am sure it has legitimate roots, but the United States is a nation governed by laws not mob rule, not participatory democracy, not consensus...it is purely by the law.

When citizens, judges, police, military act impetuously and outside the prescription of their LEGAL jurisdictions, they are harming all Americans by subverting the rule of law. It is in our Bill of Rights, our Constitution, and our states laws that we find solutions. This whole immigration issue has come about as a result of not enforcing the Law. That is the breakdown. The fact that people are come here has always been a part of the growth of the USA and the increase in the strength of this nation.

But in our efforts to promote every sort of "right" over the past 50 years we have broken down the walls of the law that protect us and we should not be surprised that the hordes of invaders have breached that wall.

There is an old saying, Give a man a fish, he eats for a day, teach him to fish and he will eat for a lifetime. To me, the people who have already been here for decades have learned how to fish and can take that knowledge back to Mexico and develop the resources of change there to help Mexico become as prosperous as we are. But the one who just arrived and we gave him a free fish and he ate and was no longer hungry and then we send him back home to Mexico the next day where there is no fish to be given and he knows not how to fish, will come back to the USA and if not given a fish, possibly he will take the fish anyway. What have we gained?

I guess there are always ways to solve this ultimately with an "I don't care" attitude that says stick it to them however we can, but that usually leads to a bloody war as a solution with people's heads being chopped off and bodies being shipped home in plastic bags and lots of orphans.

So what solution are you proposing?

[Feltan]

Larrison,

I left California in 1993. Not because of the illegal's per se, but it was a contributing factor. In fact, the epiphany moment for me was a run-in with illegals.

A nice house about three or so doors down from my residence in California had been taken over by immigrants. No big deal. Welcome to the USA.

Over time we noticed that there were a lot of people in that house. It had three bedrooms, and I would venture to guess that on any given day at least 20 people called it home.

This area was by no means a dumpy neighborhood. The neighbors started to get upset. Their yard became a dumping ground, and cars were coming and going at all hours.

One night, a weekday night at about 2 am, that house was playing extremely loud music. A neighbor went over and asked them, nicely, to turn it down. Most of us had to go to work the next day, and the volume of the music was simply not reasonable. My neighbor called the police when they would not comply with the request.

So, about six of us neighbors are out on the front lawn at 3 am while the cops show up and visit the house. A bit later, the cops call in a "cultural specialist" to visit the house. The end game: we get told that we have to be more sensitive to these people's cultural needs and it was entirely appropriate for them to be celebrating. I am not kidding. It was about 4 am, and this guy is explaining (i.e., screaming to us over the music) that we need to be more tolerant.

Within three months I had a new job in a different state. We moved. I have never regretted leaving California and moving back to the USA.

Regards,
Feltan

[lochinvar]

Surprisingly enough, mine is a similar story.

I also left the hometown where I was raised and moved to another state because of the uncivilized behavior of some close neighbors. Loud music, junk cars all over the lawn, wild parties at all hours of the night, fireworks, overcrowding, etc., etc.

In my case the neighbors were ignorant rednecks, all red-white-and-blue, Chevrolet and apple pie natives at least three or four generations removed from their immigrant forbears.

Lack of class and culture is defined neither by nationality nor immigrant status.

[lochinvar]

Originally Posted by Inquartata

Laughter is good for the soul, so I'll say "Poor white people and black folks", and poor Hispanic folk ( many of whom have been here for generations ), and poor Native American folk, maybe even poor Asian folk. And of course legal immigrants.

Thanks, Inq. I needed a good laugh. I appreciate the way you're always thinking of your colleagues.

See, like everything else the market for unskilled labor obeys supply and demand. Reduce the secular supply while demand remains the same and you create a shortage; shortages increase the price ( wage rate ) for the remaining supply until a new equilibrium is reached...until it lures enough workers back into those jobs.

And there will probably be some substitution of capital for labor as well.

Good ol' laissez-faire economics. Gotta love 'em.

However you fail to mention what Paul Harvey would call "the rest of the story"--namely that demand and supply are dynamic and interactive entities. Price increases when supply decreases, but demand decreases as price increases.

A new equilibrium is indeed reached, but at a position where wages are higher but fewer workers are employed. All of this is contingent, of course, on the market for the goods and services produced by the low-wage worker remaining constant. If employers wish to maintain current profit levels and per-worker cost goes up, then the number of workers must go down.

And substitutions of capital for labor won't necessarily help the "poor white, black, legal immigrant, Asian, Native American, and Jewish" populations, which seems to be the crux of the arguement against allowing cheap immigrant labor into the country.

Not necessarily. It depends on the price elasticities of the various foods, and what happens to the other inputs used in their production.

Axiomatic in a market driven system. What I posit is that there are few elasticities in the food production system. You are, of course, free to disagree.