People who work for a living because they have to don't go on strike.

Striking is for f@t@ss automotive workers with 7th grade educations making 60K or pilots making 120K.

Todays Unions wouldn't know a working man if they tripped over one.

Hey Nick!

I went to the dentist today

The dentist scares me so bad. I'm upset for days ahead of time. A wreck on the day I have to go. Then I just feel, for lack of a better word, violated for a day or so afterwards

are you okay?

I updated What's the difference yesterday

I read it, it was teriffic!

and I'll have My Jump Off updated by the end of the week

Take care and feel better,

Kevin

**Note: I do realize that your post was not meant to be offensive. I am not taking it as such.**

Wow. Just wow. I actually hate the rallies and everything they stand for (in a knee-jerk emotional reaction), but not even I use that vehement language.

The point behind the rallies and strikes is that most immigrant workers in California and the Southwest, whether they come here legally or not, either don't or barely earn a living wage. Actually, illegal immigrants aren't affected too badly by that, because a lot just send all their money back home anyways, so making anything is better than nothing, which is what they have to look forward to at home. It is those who came here legally, like, you know, my dad's family, and the illegals who have decided to stay (and want to become citizens, which up till about 10-15 years ago was very rare for Hispanic immigrants, people (for example, me) were called race traitors and eveything), that have trouble finding a job that pays enough so that they can feed their family and have some semblence of a lifestyle and hope for a future.

Like I said, I hate the very principle of the rallies, so I am the wrong person to defend them, but I feel that others should actually know what the Day without Immigrants is in some way about.

Ah Nick, my favorite Republican friend, I hope you save a copy of these posts for later in life. You remind me so much of myself when I was your age (old people always say shit like that).

If I was an immigrant, I'd feel particularly useless and unwanted right now. Many have been living and working here for quite a while, albeit illegally, and contributing to our society. They really take precious little from us in the way of resources. Meanwhile, in congress, one of the bills in question suggest that we round up all 11 million of these people and ship them back from whence they came. This is their way of reminding us, and themselves, that they aren't worthless human beings to discard but they do make a meaningful contribution to our society.

Compassion has it's costs, to be sure, but rarely do those costs outweigh it's benefits. This is such a case.

Have we truly forgetten what this country is all about?

"Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

--from The New Colossus, a poem by Emma Lazarus graven on a tablet within the pedestal on which the Statue of Liberty stands.

Ok, just one answer to all the posts, because I don't wan't people to think that I'm against immigrants at all. The illegals come here and they get paid maybe half of what they should because they're taken advantage of by companies that know they can;t complain about labor standards and minimum wage. My creative learning teacher calls it legalized slavery.

Also, I still say that being here illegally is a slap in the face to everyone who did it the right way.

Ok, just one answer to all the posts, because I don't wan't people to think that I'm against immigrants at all. The illegals come here and they get paid maybe half of what they should because they're taken advantage of by companies that know they can;t complain about labor standards and minimum wage. My creative learning teacher calls it legalized slavery.

Also, I still say that being here illegally is a slap in the face to everyone who did it the right way.

Hmmmm...sounds like you see both sides of the story and you do a nice job of pointing out that there are a lot of different factors involved. In the (rephrased) words of the evil Star Wars Emperor, "Ah young Nicholas, now I will complete your training and in time you will call me master." OK, maybe that's a bit extreme, and illegal depending on how old you are, but it's fun to see that your thought process is flexible.

My ancestors came here legally for one reason: There weren't any immigration laws at the time. None of them bothered to learn the language of any of the native people here. Some of them did learn the language of some of the other immigrants, and we've been speaking a fractured version of it ever since. (I don't think my English-speaking ancestors ever quite had the hang of proper English either.) They came here from several European countries mostly for economic reasons.

American farm subsidies make corn and other grains cheaper to buy than the cost of production. When other countries send goods here under those circumstances, we call it dumping. The subsidized grain goes into other countries and competes unfairly with the local crops. Consequently the folk who've lived raising food all these generations can no longer compete, and can't sustain even their previous meager by our standards living. Somehow we manage to act surprised when they try to come here to make money to send back home to support their families and then maybe try to get the families here with them.

From the US side, illegal immigration is a way to subsidize businesses by supplying a workforce for low wages and no benefits. The medical care and such that some illegals receive are actually a business subsidy, too, in lieu of health benefits that an employer might provide if the taxpayers weren't doing it. People get mad at the immigrants about all this rather than the fat cats who benefit from it. It is another form of blaming the victims.

The US has no political will to enforce the immigration laws, because too many rich and powerful people would lose these in-effect government subsidies. But we can't just do away with the laws or legalize those who are here, because fear of deportation is part of how the workers are kept in line.

All this is an oversimplification of a very complex issue, but it is a broader perspective than you'll get from the average politician looking to make some hay from this issue by proposing a purely enforcement solution. The more we have stepped up enforcement, built walls, etc., the more people have come here illegally. We've just made it more dangerous to come, by shifting the entry from urban areas to the desert, for example. Proposing that we do more of something that hasn't worked is typical behavior for politicians.

The demonstrations, such as they were, just caused more resentment against the illegals and played into the hands of the political demagogues. I wonder who thought that having them would be a good idea?

I have a lot of sympathy for illegals. They want to work and will literally shovel s*it if that's what it takes. They come from places that most Americans are too dumb to find on a map, can't spell and don't care about unless they send terrorists after us.

The people I don't have sympathy for are sitting on their butt, collecting a check for doing nothing.

If we could trade our domestic losers for imported winners, we would be a lot better off.

JS