I'd say undocumented
immigrants (
I object to persons being labelled "illegal" as entities, that language reflects a political ideology more than the actual status of a person under national law - and is quite possibly pejorative to the degree of contravening inalienable human rights) "choose", if you wish, to work for a below "minimum wage" pittance as it is. The existence of those deplorable working conditions isn't their fault, but the ability and conscious choice of their employers to exploit them in this fashion. And the latent tolerance of this by the society at large. Thus, what you are suggesting is hardly a "revolution", but labelling the status quo by another name.
Contrary to your assertion, car (
and any other comparable) industry has little to offer for an uneducated workforce, however little it is made to work for. Why you take it upon yourself to make general statements of the education levels, potential and general employability of undocumented immigrants is another matter. Skill relevance is hardly a problem that affects undocumented immigrants alone, so any solution to that will be inefficient if any major demographic is excluded from those by irrelevancies. As to "welfare", the inability of undocumented immigrants to "drain" (
a.k.a. access) it is one of the major reasons why problems persist. Basically you're advocating an increase in income and wealth inequality as a solution to the (
perceived) problems of the US economy - well, it's exactly the decades-long trend that brought it to this condition, so that doesn't quite constitute a "revolution" either, now does it?
Conceptual wrote:But people always want to cry and say that I am making them sub-human by giving them the option to work below minimum wage because they always seem to take it that I want them restricted to that wage.
That's a particularly callous remark to make, after a board member specifically referred to his experiences and feelings in these terms in a previous conversation. I'm left to wonder what possibly could get one to revisit an issue in this manner on such a personal level, to expend so much effort just to get around to it? I won't believe for a second that this came up as a matter of chance.
It's also a bit tragicomic to rail against "special interests" while advocating drilling what's left of US "indigenous" oil no matter what the cost. More curious still, as I remember you slating other forum members for not supporting so called "alternative" energy sources. As to the refining capacity, it's mainly been the choice of relevant companies not to invest in this infrastructure, perhaps it would've annoyingly eaten into quarterly profits during the heyday of financing cheap oil imports with selling dollars to other economies the World over. All the more convenient for speculators atm.
We all have "special interests", undocumented immigrants included, so unless you're one of them, don't pretend to speak for them. Immigrants have trusted their fate to the US throughout the history; the difference to people born within is akin to the difference between a biological and an adopted child. Why should you treat them different in issues unrelated to their origin? Why would you want to?
Politics and especially legislation is mostly reactive by nature, by looking for anything more pre-emptive you're looking to accommodate something other than democracy or, ahem, freedom. There's a process of self-regulation that is tentatively adopted in a national framework, necessity driving associated parties to codify rules of conduct, this is the norm. If half the electorate and its representatives think that public governance and public spending is corrupt and inefficient by default, then you shouldn't be surprised if that vision soon becomes a reality. Living up to promises gets you re-elected, after all. You make your bed and sleep in it. Or perhaps you'd rather have someone tuck you in at a buck'n'fifty an hour, sir?
As to WhiteBlue's original assertions, car production is hardly very "national" anymore. Yes, there's a strategic interest of sorts, but it's really entirely in companies' powers to react. Why they haven't drawn some fairly obvious conclusions is anyone's guess. I never like to see a crisis of any sort and hope people start to pay more attention to what is happening - understanding the problem is half the solution.
so they cry to the government to lower fuel costs. To be honest the fuel costs don't bother me much. I chose to drive a somewhat fuel efficient car I chose to live close to work. The big three have needed a wake up call for a while besides the Unions driving them into the ground they have dug their own grave. I imagine it will bring about a rebirth of the American auto industry to a much leaner and more efficient machine.
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