It sounds good, but it's not reality.   I think our food is too cheap, and we all throw a lot of it away, won't eat an apple with a dent, etc... but I'm the only person I know who feels that way, and even I like my fruit perfect.  Commercial farming, we're addicted, perhaps.  So, this is where we are. Farmers need workers, and Mexicans are the only people they can find willing to do it.  I'm not making that up.  You can say how it was in your day, but kids now won't do it.  That's just the facts.  Maybe there were more neighborhood farmers back then.  But these are things that come from the top.  Firing poor illegals won't help anyone and certainly won't increase wages for anyone.  How can we do anything to raise wages for farm workers when we don't have unions anymore.  It's just not possible.  The middle class wages in Wisconson will be reduced if teacher's salaries are reduced.  If the educated workers can't expect to be paid a middle class wage, and job security, no laborer can expect it either.  Not without a union they can't.   People are so fearful that there is one union guy lazing around, or getting a good retirement, that they're ready to throw their own wages and security down the drain.  It's pathetic, if you really think about it.
You say that people are willing to pay more for gas.  I've never heard anything like that, so I don't know.

    kurtster wrote:

 pjcle wrote: 
How about we pay our food harvesters a real working wage so that Americans might be willing to do the work.  I hear so much as to how everyone is willing to pay higher gas prices to keep demand down.  So how about we pay higher food prices to reflect a living wage for legal farm hands ?  When I was a kid, our crops were picked by Americans.  I picked fruit as a kid in the summer several times for extra money.

Ceasar Chavez who oganized the farm labor in California in the 60's did so for Americans not illegals.  Rememeber the California Table Grape Boycott ?

And what about the illegals who take away good paying construction trade jobs that used to pay on average $25 to $35 an hour and up away from Americans.  No one talks about that.

This is a lot more than just about farm labor.  They have stolen all the traditional entry level jobs from American youth.  If we deported all the illegals our unemployment problem would be solved.  Who do you want working ?  Americans or illegals ?

    DaveInVA wrote:  

One minute Fox is complaining that illegals don't pay taxes, and that is so SCARY.  The next minute Fox writes a SCARY story that illegals are paying taxes but taking the deductions the rest of us take for granted.  So SCARY.

  If a man is doing a hard hard day's labor to feed his kids, I really don't care if he's illegal or not.  I know almost nothing about you, but I'd bet my life you know nothing of working 12 hour days picking our food in 100 degree weather.   Complaining that he might get a tax break is discusting to everything I was raised to believe about our country, and freedom and fairness.  Shame on you for judging people who do the hard work you do not have the hutzpah yourself to even try.

 Donald Trump declared brankruptcy 4 times, avoiding all the taxes he owed.  If you're waiting for Rupert Murdoch to write a story to get you outraged about that, don't hold your breath.  Fox will never tell you that illegals pay billions into the social security system, and it's money they will never get back.  We keep it. 

You need to get your head out of Fox.  Fox is designed to feed you the false premise that rich people want you to be rich.  Rich people couldn't care less about you.  They feel about you exactly the way you feel about the guy making a lower than minimum wage job:  Does he have an extra $5 a week that he's taking as a deduction to feed his kid?  Outrageous!  If he wants more money he should go get better work!  Who can't save for retirement and needs social security?  Slackers, that's who.  Romney gives each of his children $100 million dollars, which is nice.  But then the King says he's got to shill out 10 million in taxes - for what! - to put a bunch of slackers like you and me through public school, or pay an emergency healthcare.  It's outrageous.  Vote Romney!
 

King Barry has just nullified the unanimous decision of the SCOTUS in the case against Arizona.

The King has just told the DHS and ICE not to answer the phone and enforce the immigration laws on the books when Arizona calls.  We have finally achieved the imperial presidency sought by Nixon.

Our first King of the US is openly violating his oath of office by refusing to enforce laws that he does not like.  He has even gone a step further by opening a hot line to report Arizona LEO's who detain individuals as allowed by the SCOTUS.

The King has asserted executive privilage over his DOJ Arizona gun running organization, while his Queen Pelosi has his back declaring that any efforts to investigate the gun running operation is racist. 

What a crock of shit.

 romeotuma wrote: 
My idea of the final solution is to seal the southern border once and for all.  After having done that, and it can be done, consider some kind of way to deal with the illegals we already have here.

Once we have taken care of the border and started dealing with the illegals already here, we can go about our lives no longer looking or wondering if someone is here legally or not.  We would be able to operate from the assumption that someone is here because they belong here.

As long as the southern border is unsecured, we will always have the problem of wondering, profiling and harrassing people because there is a legitimate doubt.  Wouldn't it be wonderful to eliminate that doubt once and for all ?

And legalizing drugs would also help a lot as well.  Maybe even more.

Chart from the National Association of State Legislatures:

.

Section 2B, requiring law enforcement officers to determine immigration status during a lawful stop.	UPHELD
Section 3, creating a state crime for the failure to apply for or carry federally issued alien registration papers.	STRUCK DOWN
Section 5, making it unlawful for an unauthorized alien to solicit, apply for or perform work.	STRUCK DOWN
Section 6, authorizing the warrantless arrest of a person where there is probable cause to believe the person to have committed a public offense that makes the person removable from the United States.	STRUCK DOWN

The final solution for Governor Brewer would just be for her to make all the Hispanic people in her state sew a gold star on their clothing...

 

 steeler wrote: 
Thanks for the clarification on the pre emption issue.  Very clear and understandable.

The core of my following argument will be based upon these two things.

Article. IV.  Section. 4.

The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.

Article. II. 

...
Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:—“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

The motivation for the Arizona SB1070 in question that has caused this Constitutional crisis (in my terms) is that the POTUS has failed his oath of office and carrying out the duties set forth in Article IV. Section 4.

Arizona along with other states is being invaded.  We have an estimated 12 million invaders and they are causing domestic violence within this country and in particular Arizona.  While my argument may not be technically right under the Constitution as I cite, it clearly reflects the spirit.

Had Obama evenly enforced the laws, we would not have SB 1070.  He turns a blind eye towards Sanctuary Cities, yet willingly prosecutes a state that seeks to reinforce and supplement federal laws.  You know as well as I do, selective enforcement of laws is grounds for overturning convictions if proved.  The president is willfully engaging in selective enforcement of federal laws for the express purpose of political gain and nothing else.  A crime in its own right ?

Illegal immigration.  Seems pretty simple in definition to me.  It is a federal crime to enter this country illegally.  Why do I try to bring in Fast and Furious into this ?  If we did not have a border control issue exacerbated by uncontrollable or unmitigated invasion, we would not even have had a program such as F&F in the first place.  They are joined at the hip.    We have federal parks on the border that are off limits to US citizens by federal decree because they are effectively contolled by war lords from Mexico.  They have been deemed unsafe and therefore closed to US citizens.  Yahoo News and Fox News.  The governors of Texas and Arizona have personally asked the president for federal troops and protection from the invading forces and basically had to pass laws such as SB 1070 to even get the president's attention.  US buildings in Texas have been hit by gunfire from across the border.  Yet Obama has only paid lip service by mentioning that we only need "moats and alligators" because the problem is not real.  Yes this is somewhat hyperbolic, but the handling of this by Obama makes it somewhat necessary because he is demonstrably not taking this problem seriously.

Why does this subject interest me so intensely ?  Because as I've said repeatedly, if our borders and sovereignty are not secure, then nothing else in this country matters nor is secure.  This country begins at our borders and laws are defined by the Constitution.  My perspective is from a western (Californian) point of view.  I have been against the concept of anchor babies for example since the 60's when I learned the definition.  We can cite Reagan's amnesty program as being reasonable in the context of the times.  Most illegals were seen as political refugees during the Cold War and were for the most part seeking asylum.  That is no longer the case.  Those presently here are here for the purpose to economically rape this country and defy its sovereignty by invading and overrunning our borders.  These invaders do our country no good.  One could make the case that if all the 12 million estimated illegals were removed, we would have full employment.  These invaders are taking away good paying construction and other trades jobs from Americans.  They are denying the entry level jobs once held for our young citizens such as in the fast food industry.  The argument that they are performing jobs that Americans won't do is patently false.  Ceasar Chavez would agree.  They are taking away jobs from the very ones he organized a union to protect in the first place, legal US farm workers.  Remember the boycott on California table grapes ?  I do.  I was there for it.  Also the bulk of the money they make is sent back home across the border, further draining our economy.  Its been that way since I was a kid in California.

The following argument should apply to those that wish to lower the place of fossil fuels in our economy and our lives by saying higher prices are good in that persuit should also be willing to pay higher prices for produce by paying the workers living wages that Americans can live on.  Ultimately the way I view our illegal immigration problem is to enforce the present laws on the books, uniformly and everywhere.  There should be no talk on changing any laws until the borders are secure.  The laws on the books are already sufficient to control and police our labor force and population effectively.  All citizens, immigrants and visitors should be able to produce valid identification upon request.  This also translates over into the voter id issue.  It is an insult to those who have entered this country legally.  When the borders are secure, we won't have to look at everyone funny, we can once again assume that we are all here legally and the notion of profiling for that purpose will be entirely gone from our lives.  As long as the borders are not secure we are at risk for a host of reasons, including economic and violent ones.
.
This is probably too long to repley to normally.  The way I have found to effectively do it is to copy my text before hitting reply and paste it into the reply screen from an earlier small post of mine and then carry on as you would normally..

Cheers as well !

 kurtster wrote: 

Take your time.   There's no rush. I'm going home momentarily and not sure when I will next be on forum.

 

 steeler wrote: 
Ok, dinner is coming soon.  Sanctuary Cities are a key concern of mine.

 kurtster wrote: 

Why don't you try addressing what I did address, and we will go from there? 

  

 steeler wrote: 
Thanks.  I'm formulating a response.

Noticeably absent from your response however was the case of Sanctuary Cities and Obama's selective enforcement of immigration laws as illustrated by his lack of actions towards Sanctuary Cities, yet suing states that try to reinforce the federal government.

 kurtster wrote: 

I had not forgotten about you and your comment. Been a bit busy at work the last several days.

It is a pre-emption issue.  Pursuant to Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, regulating immigration is one of the enumerated powers of the feds (naturalization clause).  Essentially what the Supreme Court was discussing on Wednesday during oral argument is whether Arizona's state law was permissibily supplementing that federal power or impermissibly undermining it. The reason a state cannot pre-empt a federal law is that the goal is to have the laws/regulations be uniform across the various states. Obviously, if each state is free to legislate in any manner it sees fit regarding immigration, there not only would be a non-uniform set of laws, there also would be conflicts between the state laws and the federal law. So, a court will look to see whether the feds have "occupied the field" or whether there has been room left for the states to legislate.  

From the accounts I read, the Court seemed disinclined to view the Arizona law requiring state and local law enforcement to verify citizenship status of anyone stopped, detained, or arrested as an impermissible intrusion on the power of Congress to set immigration policy.  The apparent reasoning was that if an immigration violation were detected, the information would be turned over to the feds for them to decide on what sanction was warranted. As Roberts said during oral argument: "What the state is saying, 'Here are people who are here in violation of federal law, you make the decision.' And if your decision is you don't want to prosecute those people, fine, that's entirely up to you." Sotomayer noted that Arizona alerting the feds that a person may be in the country illegally does not force the feds "to change your enforcement priorities." In other words, they were not viewing this as an impermissible intrusion on the power conferred upon the feds by the Constitution (by contrast, a 10th Amendment issue conceptually is about whether the feds have usurped a state's power by trying to exercise an unenumerated power)  

Other parts of the Arizona law may have problems under a pre-emption analysis. For example, provisions making it a crime to seek work or not to register with the federal government are not federal crimes, meaning that Arizona could be viewed, as argued by the Solicitor General, as seeking to "expand the federal government's determination about the types of sanctions that should govern the employment relationship."  In other words, an impermissible intrusion into power conferred upon the feds by the Constitution.

All this is why I referenced, in a post a while back, a District law several years ago that would have prohibited transport by rail of hazmat materials through the District, and near the Capitol.  No one actually said there was not a good reason for seeking to get those trains away from the obvious target of the Nation's Capital. But the U.S. DOJ still entered the case (CSX had sued) to enjoin the District law from going into effect, arguing that it was pre-empted by federal laws that occupied the field of transport of hazmat materials, leaving no room for states to regulate the activity.  

Raising pre-emption is a legitimate exercise.  It should not be written off as just an excuse to achieve some political purpose or defy state rights or some other nefarious purpose.

The next topic: We need to define what we mean by illegal immigration for purposes of this discussion because you have been making reference to Fast and Furious and seemingly lumping it together with illegal immigraton.  I do not see that as being about illegal immigration. The smuggling of guns and drugs into this country, and the violence that surrounds those activities, is not necessarily an immigration issue.  Immigration is when someone comes to reside in this country without having obtained the authorization to do so.  I don't think someone who crosses over the border to commit a crime and goes back across the border has illegally immigrated to the United States.  If you are talking about border security in general, then we could talk about the problems of illegal immigration (those sneaking across the border) and drug and gun smuggling (those committing crimes on or through he border) having a common link.  Otherwise, they are not the same.

I do not purport to have the answer to illegal immigration. It is a complex problem.  I have not seen your answer to that.  I'm not sure that illegal immigration across the border with Mexico has increased dramatically during the Obama administration. As I stated in an earlier post, violence near and on the border has increased, I believe, but that is more due, I believe, to an exponential increase in gun and drug violence in Mexico itself, which has been engaged in recent years in an incredibly violent war between warring drug cartels that have become increasingly bold.  

As for Fast and Furious, I have not read a lot about that, but I believe it to be a botched and ill-conceived mission.  I do not see how it possibly could be seen as an attempt to undermine the 2nd Amendment.  How would it have done so?  Supreme Court has ruled  that it is a Constitutional right for individuals to bear arms, subject to reasonable restrictions.  

Also:  I brought up the fence on the border as  having preceded the Obama administration because the tenor of your comments, per usual, was that the problem in question — this time, immigration — had gotten out of control under his watch, implying that no one was desperately seeking solutions prior to his presidency. 

As for my powers to deconstruct arguments, it is not that difficult when the arguments are devoid of logic and common sense.

Cheers!

         

 Monkeysdad wrote: 
There are a lot of "if's" this election season, like:

• the economic environment and world political climate at election time
• Citizens United and the insane ridiculous amount of money that are pouring in by BIG MONEY to get Romney and other corporate whores elected
• Whether or not people actually believe the lies from the Right
• the effect of social media
• who gets out to vote

 

 hippiechick wrote: 
Yet you seem so confident in your postings that the President will win...and that the Dem's will regain the house. Or am I wrong in my observations???

 Monkeysdad wrote: 
Well, yeah!

 steeler wrote: 
You started talking about fences before I did.  You brought them up not me.

I was refering to your statement below :

No terrorism, either.  And no al-Queda, war in Iraq, war in Afghanistan, strife in Pakistan. All that amped up when Obama took office. Bin Laden did not exist as a threat until he was taken out under Obama's watch.  Wait . . . that last one isn't coming out the way it should.

But no worries.  Moving on.  Is the premeption issue a state's rights issue, in essence, or what please educate me ?

You are great at deconstructing positions of others, yet offer no stands or positions in rebuttal. 

What exactly is your position on the problem with legal and illegal immigration ?  Mine are well known.  Sanctuary Cities and the rule of law ?  Fast and Furious ?  A program developed in the wake of the immigration problems we are facing.  Is it a veiled attempt to discredit the 2nd Amendment and further limit gun rights, or just the incompetent bungling of the present administration and its DOJ leadership or something else altogether ?  Do we even have an immigration problem in your opinion and if you think there is one, what is it about and how should we fix it ?

 oldslabsides wrote: 
YOU DIDN"T PUT ENOUGH COLOR OR LARGE SIZE FONTS IN THE POST TO ATTRACT ATTENTION.

 DaveInVA wrote: 

Just got home and haven't caught up, yet, but let's add this to the above. 

About two years ago according to the LA Times which I posted in the old illegal immigrant thread, the cost of illegals to just the County of Los Angeles was $1 Billion per year.  That's just the county ! 

Easy to google for those that do not believe me. 

 DaveInVA wrote: 

Interesting article.
Okay, I won't jack this forum with anything else about taxes but I thought it was relevant....