Heretical Conservatism: Invasion of the Brown People
- Opposed to illegal immigration
Sure I’m opposed to illegal immigration but conservatives have lost their damned minds over this.
I spent the majority of my life living in Fort Worth Texas and Miami Florida so being around brown people has never been an issue for me.
(Well, actually there was an issue one time when a girl I was hitting on failed to tell me that she had an extremely jealous Cuban boyfriend. Would have been good information to have at the time.)
Many of those that I count as my friends, whether they’re Cuban, Mexican, El Salvadorian, Jamaican or whatever, had to go through a lot and jump through hoops in order to obtain their legal residency or citizenship. If anyone should be (and, based on conversations I’ve had with friends, IS) pissed about illegal immigration, it’s them.
There are two problems with this illegal immigration problem , though:
1. Illegal immigration will never stop. The US has managed the greatest PR campaign in history…”Give us your poor..” “Live the American Dream”, etc., etc. We’ve sold ourselves so well that the poor, weary and oppressed will do anything to get here. If we catch them and send them back, they’ll sneak back over again tomorrow. Short of shooting everyone who tries to sneak in, there’s no way to stop the tide.
2. If there’s 20 million illegals here right now and we spend $100 billion catching and deporting illegals, guess how many illegals will be here next year? 20 million. Their will is stronger than our resources.
How much does illegal immigration cost the US every year? Studies I’ve seen have shown a range of $10 billion to $50 billion a year. These studies are one-sided, though, and do not take into consideration that certain costs (education, etc.) would not actually reduce if you took illegal immigrants out. In other words, lets say a school has 500 kids and annual expenditures of $2 million per year. If 10 of those students turn out to be illegals and get deported, will the expenditures be reduced? Not really. The school still has to have the same number of teachers, same number of administrators and the utility bills won’t change.
Also, most of these studies don’t take into account that many of the illegals are paying income taxes, Social Security and Medicare (with no deductions and no returns), and they ALL pay sales tax (most of it via 7-11 or QuikTrip) Property taxes are included in their rent payment.
Nor do these studies account for increased revenue (and increased taxes) that results from higher production. Ten Mexicans can build a better house in a month than twenty Americans can do in two months.
Worst of all, if there are no illegals to pick the pole beans, poor old Farmer Bob would have to run screaming to the government that he needs another $150 billion to cover the increased costs of hiring white guys to pick his beans. He MIGHT have to settle for cloth interior in his new truck instead of leather.
Conservatives like to attribute their position on illegal immigration to their FISCAL conservative sensibilities. But it’s not.
It pains me to no end to say this (because I TRULY hate people who throw out this term) but there’s an inherent racism (or, at the very least, xenophobia) in this issue. In my picket-fenced, middle/upper middle class North Georgia neighborhood, this is “the most important issue that we as American’s face”. If I were to talk to people from my old neighborhood in Ft. Worth, TX, however, illegal immigration probably woudn’t even rank in the top 10. And in Miami, the only ones who are pissed about illegal immigration are the legal immigrants who busted their ass to get here.
This is another one in which it’s inherently ANTI-conservative in that conservatives would deny these people the right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Yes, we should be concerned that our borders leak like a sieve.
Yes, we should make it that if you want to live here, you must go through the motions to live here legally.
Yes, we should boot out the ones who refuse to make the effort to get legal.
No, we should not grant amnesty to everyone who’s here illegally.
Yes, we should probably come up with some sort of guest worker program. Doing so would not only help our economy and theirs but it would also allow us to put better controls in place to stem the tide of border jumpers.
Most importantly, we should not come up with bullshit excuses and get all self-righteous because brown people are coming.
Sure I’m opposed to illegal immigration but conservatives have lost their damned minds over this.
I spent the majority of my life living in Fort Worth Texas and Miami Florida so being around brown people has never been an issue for me.
(Well, actually there was an issue one time when a girl I was hitting on failed to tell me that she had an extremely jealous Cuban boyfriend. Would have been good information to have at the time.)
Many of those that I count as my friends, whether they’re Cuban, Mexican, El Salvadorian, Jamaican or whatever, had to go through a lot and jump through hoops in order to obtain their legal residency or citizenship. If anyone should be (and, based on conversations I’ve had with friends, IS) pissed about illegal immigration, it’s them.
There are two problems with this illegal immigration problem , though:
1. Illegal immigration will never stop. The US has managed the greatest PR campaign in history…”Give us your poor..” “Live the American Dream”, etc., etc. We’ve sold ourselves so well that the poor, weary and oppressed will do anything to get here. If we catch them and send them back, they’ll sneak back over again tomorrow. Short of shooting everyone who tries to sneak in, there’s no way to stop the tide.
2. If there’s 20 million illegals here right now and we spend $100 billion catching and deporting illegals, guess how many illegals will be here next year? 20 million. Their will is stronger than our resources.
How much does illegal immigration cost the US every year? Studies I’ve seen have shown a range of $10 billion to $50 billion a year. These studies are one-sided, though, and do not take into consideration that certain costs (education, etc.) would not actually reduce if you took illegal immigrants out. In other words, lets say a school has 500 kids and annual expenditures of $2 million per year. If 10 of those students turn out to be illegals and get deported, will the expenditures be reduced? Not really. The school still has to have the same number of teachers, same number of administrators and the utility bills won’t change.
Also, most of these studies don’t take into account that many of the illegals are paying income taxes, Social Security and Medicare (with no deductions and no returns), and they ALL pay sales tax (most of it via 7-11 or QuikTrip) Property taxes are included in their rent payment.
Nor do these studies account for increased revenue (and increased taxes) that results from higher production. Ten Mexicans can build a better house in a month than twenty Americans can do in two months.
Worst of all, if there are no illegals to pick the pole beans, poor old Farmer Bob would have to run screaming to the government that he needs another $150 billion to cover the increased costs of hiring white guys to pick his beans. He MIGHT have to settle for cloth interior in his new truck instead of leather.
Conservatives like to attribute their position on illegal immigration to their FISCAL conservative sensibilities. But it’s not.
It pains me to no end to say this (because I TRULY hate people who throw out this term) but there’s an inherent racism (or, at the very least, xenophobia) in this issue. In my picket-fenced, middle/upper middle class North Georgia neighborhood, this is “the most important issue that we as American’s face”. If I were to talk to people from my old neighborhood in Ft. Worth, TX, however, illegal immigration probably woudn’t even rank in the top 10. And in Miami, the only ones who are pissed about illegal immigration are the legal immigrants who busted their ass to get here.
This is another one in which it’s inherently ANTI-conservative in that conservatives would deny these people the right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Yes, we should be concerned that our borders leak like a sieve.
Yes, we should make it that if you want to live here, you must go through the motions to live here legally.
Yes, we should boot out the ones who refuse to make the effort to get legal.
No, we should not grant amnesty to everyone who’s here illegally.
Yes, we should probably come up with some sort of guest worker program. Doing so would not only help our economy and theirs but it would also allow us to put better controls in place to stem the tide of border jumpers.
Most importantly, we should not come up with bullshit excuses and get all self-righteous because brown people are coming.
posted by Big Bad Dad at 4:12 PM
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