It's been awhile since I have passed along a "Fred" article to yinz and this months topic is a pet peeve of mine. There's just too much truth in this piece to suit me but I think he's right...we done it to ourselves.
Here's an abbreviated version with a link to the whole article for those who are concerned about illegal immigration.
A Surly View from the South
http://fredoneverything.net/Illegals.shtml
A few thoughts for Americans (justifiably) upset by the influx of illegal Mexicans:
First, they come because you invite them. In effect you say, “Diego, don’t you cross that river. If you do, and we catch you, we’ll just put you back across the border and you can try again, perhaps the same night. When you make it across, which is easy, we’ll give you a good job and, depending on where you are, a driver’s license, schools for your kids, welfare, food stamps, and medical care. Any children you have will be US citizens and, as we all know, sooner or later you will have amnesty Now, don’t cross that river, you hear?.”
That’ll work.
Fourth, you grouse that Latinos take American jobs. They do not. It is probable that no Latino has ever taken an American’s job. How would he do it? Point a pistol at the gringo’s head and say, “Give me that shovel or I’ll blow you into gruel”?
In fact conservative, noisily patriotic American businessmen give them American jobs. Businessmen know they are doing it. After all, Mexicans are easy to recognize. They are brownish and speak Spanish. These are the same conservative, patriotic etc. who off-whored (that was a typo, but accurate so I’ll leave it) other American jobs to China. They are the same ones who import programmers from India. My country tis of thee…
Seventh, all the grrr-bow-wow-woof about a border fence is silly. It isn’t going to happen. Republicans will make appropriate noises, but the businessmen who desperately want Mexican labor are Republicans.
Tenth, there is grave danger that the newcomers will be corrupted by the American welfare state. Mexicans at least arrive with a strong work ethic. They take any job they can get and maybe a couple of others on the side. When have you seen fifteen members of any other ethnic group waiting outside a Seven-Eleven at five in the morning hoping for work?
But if they find that they can go on the dole and get things for free, they will. Nobody who doesn’t have to will shovel asphalt under a hot sun or stand in two inches of blood in a slaughterhouse ten hours a day. Would you? They seem to be beginning to demand things on grounds of historical mistreatment. Where have we heard this before?
On the negative side, those going to the United States are mostly from the lower half of Mexican society. Though not evil people (crime is low in the villages) they are not ready for American society. While illiteracy is not as common as imagined by gringos, literacy in Mexico is not the same as literacy in Finland. And it is people with a fourth-grade education, not the middle class, who swim the river.
Twelfth, the numbers and concentrations of Mexicans in America are such that before long they will be able to tell Eurowhites to screw off, and form their own society in the Southwest. If that happens, so much for the Union. They know that in 1848 the US stole half of Mexico, specifically those states in which Mexicans are marching toward a majority.
Having become a voting majority in the Southwest, they could choose, piecemeal or all at once, to ignore the central government. Then what? Do you send the Marines to conquer California?
All of this results from American policy. You buttered your bread, a curmudgeon might say. Now lie in it.
Here's an abbreviated version with a link to the whole article for those who are concerned about illegal immigration.
A Surly View from the South
http://fredoneverything.net/Illegals.shtml
A few thoughts for Americans (justifiably) upset by the influx of illegal Mexicans:
First, they come because you invite them. In effect you say, “Diego, don’t you cross that river. If you do, and we catch you, we’ll just put you back across the border and you can try again, perhaps the same night. When you make it across, which is easy, we’ll give you a good job and, depending on where you are, a driver’s license, schools for your kids, welfare, food stamps, and medical care. Any children you have will be US citizens and, as we all know, sooner or later you will have amnesty Now, don’t cross that river, you hear?.”
That’ll work.
Fourth, you grouse that Latinos take American jobs. They do not. It is probable that no Latino has ever taken an American’s job. How would he do it? Point a pistol at the gringo’s head and say, “Give me that shovel or I’ll blow you into gruel”?
In fact conservative, noisily patriotic American businessmen give them American jobs. Businessmen know they are doing it. After all, Mexicans are easy to recognize. They are brownish and speak Spanish. These are the same conservative, patriotic etc. who off-whored (that was a typo, but accurate so I’ll leave it) other American jobs to China. They are the same ones who import programmers from India. My country tis of thee…
Seventh, all the grrr-bow-wow-woof about a border fence is silly. It isn’t going to happen. Republicans will make appropriate noises, but the businessmen who desperately want Mexican labor are Republicans.
Tenth, there is grave danger that the newcomers will be corrupted by the American welfare state. Mexicans at least arrive with a strong work ethic. They take any job they can get and maybe a couple of others on the side. When have you seen fifteen members of any other ethnic group waiting outside a Seven-Eleven at five in the morning hoping for work?
But if they find that they can go on the dole and get things for free, they will. Nobody who doesn’t have to will shovel asphalt under a hot sun or stand in two inches of blood in a slaughterhouse ten hours a day. Would you? They seem to be beginning to demand things on grounds of historical mistreatment. Where have we heard this before?
On the negative side, those going to the United States are mostly from the lower half of Mexican society. Though not evil people (crime is low in the villages) they are not ready for American society. While illiteracy is not as common as imagined by gringos, literacy in Mexico is not the same as literacy in Finland. And it is people with a fourth-grade education, not the middle class, who swim the river.
Twelfth, the numbers and concentrations of Mexicans in America are such that before long they will be able to tell Eurowhites to screw off, and form their own society in the Southwest. If that happens, so much for the Union. They know that in 1848 the US stole half of Mexico, specifically those states in which Mexicans are marching toward a majority.
Having become a voting majority in the Southwest, they could choose, piecemeal or all at once, to ignore the central government. Then what? Do you send the Marines to conquer California?
All of this results from American policy. You buttered your bread, a curmudgeon might say. Now lie in it.
