Lets talk About Immigration

It's the latest thing, you know, and we wouldn't want to be out-of-step with the latest fashion trends, now would we?

And here at Blue Girl, Red State we are all about putting the lie to the bullshit and the torch to the straw-man. So here goes.

First up is the fallacious argument that immigrant laborers do jobs Americans won't do.

Bull. Immigrant laborers do physically demanding and labor intensive jobs for less money than American laborers will do those jobs. A little over a decade ago, a tornado took out base housing at McConnell AFB in Wichita, KS. These houses were built by Americans. They poured the foundations, they framed the dwellings, they installed the windows and the siding. There was no immigrant labor on that job-site. Of course, Actus-Sundt paid Davis-Bacon scale and the crews made a living wage. People tend to get inspired for living wage jobs and get real willing to break a sweat. But they won't frame a house for $8.00 an hour. I don't want to live in one that was framed for $8.00 an hour, but hey, to each his own.

In the last few years developers have built bigger and bigger houses, or McMansions, and cut their costs everywhere. They use a cheaper grade of building materials on one end, and on the other end they squeeze labor costs, eliminating good working-class living-wage jobs for American citizens. Meantime the developers and builders sell ever-more expensive houses that will not be standing in fifty years, if they manage to stand until the mortgages are paid off. Sweet deal for the builders, huh? They get to squeeze labor costs and force skilled American labor out of the market. They get to squeeze home buyers and they get to squeeze quality out of the end product.

Americans did not get fat, soft and lazy in a decade. Americans do refuse to be ground under anyones heel.

I watched the news this evening, and people in a Colorado (the Spanish word for colorful) diner were all pissed off and demanding that illegals be rounded up and deported yesterday. And when the camera panned to the kitchen of the diner, the line cooks were Mexicans. Want to pay $9.00 for an omelette and three bucks for a cup-o-joe? (Not the designer coffee I drink, but a good old fashioned cup-o-joe.) Send the immigrants back.

And then there is the fruit harvest. Just wait until you try to buy fruit this winter, canned frozen or fresh. From Tennessee to the Willamette Valley farmers are sweating the dearth of immigrant labor, and fruit is rotting on the trees.

The folly of the xenophobia that is sweeping the nation is going to hit a lot of people in the pocketbook. And that is the only way we will ever get their attention, so bring on the $2.00 a can irregular pears.