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Orange County
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Exploitation By Any Other Name
by Patrick Mallon [writer]
6/11/07 |
The world's longest tenured democracy is in trouble. Like an old, comfortable house in disrepair, the carpeting is trailed and worn, plumbing is aging, fences are broken, and the juveniles running the roost are neither accountable nor trustworthy.
By most accounts, a gifted and wonderful place is the United States. To be a citizen or legal resident here is an honor and a privilege when measured against the destitution that permeates three quarters of the globe. Not all is perfect. Parts of some American cities in Los Angeles County resemble war zones, with third-world poverty increasingly arriving unencumbered. We have much to be thankful for, but much reason to be concerned about efforts by the elites in Congress who want to rewrite our immigration policies to address the 20 million undocumented people now living here, and the estimated three million more arriving unaccountably each year.
While this issue launches with the hopelessness in the countries people are escaping, and accelerates with the hallmark generosity and historic open arms of the U.S., the fact is that survival has no loyalty. While the majority of mainstream media blames the U.S. for not being even more welcoming to the millions of people who risk life and limb to get here, grassroots America simmers with the fallout.
Incredulous citizens have to stomach Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C. exhort a Hispanic audience with "We're going to tell the bigots to shut up."
So now it has come to this: intimidation. According to Mr. Graham, those who question the burden an amnesty will have on our welfare system to support people who work under the table, and who do not file tax returns, are bigots. What he means to say is that he, and most of the elites who ignore 80 percent of objecting America, have no ability to face the unpleasant facts and consequences of illegal immigration. And there's nothing else left for the Armani suits but to play the race card.
President Bush, Harry Reid, Ted Kennedy, and all of the others who are in bed with the open border globalists experienced a shocking rebuke on the immigration bill Thursday when the Senate failed in the cloture vote to limit debate on legalizing 20 million people. Removed from the hidden details, exceptions, legalese, and general baloney in this failed effort is the marked conclusion that none of these people are to be trusted.
Last week, close to one million people called, faxed, and e-mailed Congress to voice their displeasure with those who voted yea for this monstrosity. More people are getting what this avalanche of cheap labor is doing to America: low-income workers are being replaced, phony documentation passes for authentic, people who don't care to become citizens get a free pass for life, more poverty is flooding the streets of big cities, the borders are still as wide open as the plains of Montana, and millions more will come for free education, health care, and opportunity.
Are these concerns the bigotry that Mr. Graham speaks of?
At the core of the debate, and at the root of the human thirst to make a better life in America, is the decision every person makes on the following question: how much am I willing to be exploited in order to receive an opportunity I would not receive anywhere else?
Exploiting opportunities is the essence of capitalism. Wealth can only grow as a result of creating something more valuable from other elements that have less value independently, but more value in combination, content, and delivery.
The U.S. is the world's largest consumer of mass production goods from China. Gasoline is relatively cheap by world standards. Our quality of life is unmatched among first world nations. We continue to attract the best and the brightest minds of the world. For all of the anti-American detractors around the globe, much of the foaming angst is a form of tacit jealousy.
And captains of industry, owners of businesses, manufacturers of homes, and the richest titans in the marketplace continue to do what they do best – exploiting opportunity, production volume, speed to market, quality of delivery, and most importantly to their profit margins – taking advantage of immigrant labor. This is labor that doesn't require the standard burdens of vacation time, family leave, protections against unlawful dismissal, matching 401K's, stock options, and other costly benefits expected in the American labor pool.
It is widely unspoken that many major U.S. corporations, and employers of all sizes, hire contracted labor from employment firms who do little, if any, authentication of standard hiring documentation and criteria such as driver's licenses, social security numbers, criminal background checks, and employment histories. This is the pool of illegal immigrant labor that constitutes the profit margin and advantage over hiring American citizens.
Thus thousands of restaurants can employ unauthorized workers who use bogus documentation. Thousands of construction companies use less-than-rate immigrant workers to build, roof, drywall and paint houses. Most landscaping companies in California readily admit to using undocumented workers to run their busy operations. These are just a fractional example of the engines in the cash-only economy.
The California Education Development Department states in What Does It Cost You?:
"The Internal Revenue Service recently estimated that the federal government is losing $195 billion per year in revenue due to underground activity. In addition, it is estimated the size of the underground economy is anywhere from 3 to 40 percent of the aboveground economy. Based on this estimate, the California underground economy is estimated to be $60 to $140 billion."
And Californian's wonder why taxes always need to be increased?
In black and white, this official state study concludes: "Reports on the underground economy indicate it imposes significant burdens on: (1) the State of California, (2) businesses that comply with the law, and (3) workers who lose benefits and other protections provided by state law when the businesses they work for operate in the underground economy."
Taking advantage of ample opportunity, and exploiting it, is a two-way street. And while the U.S. has prided itself on being a refuge for millions fleeing the economic and human debacles of bleak nations, while offering generous taxpayer funded incentives, increasing numbers of new residents want nothing to do with American culture, and in fact resent much of what America is about.
There is no bigger domestic issue than Mexico, what is happening on America's southern border, and the question of what to do about it. The ceaseless drive behind a full-scale amnesty is quietly influenced by our history with Mexico, and the painful reality that the U.S. southwest was once Mexican land, and is now American land.
America is a society dominated by consumerism and the cult of personality and entertainment. Perhaps our environment of second chances and personal reinvention makes us more vulnerable and soft to the massive human and demographic change occurring in the nation.
Certainly we have challenges, and not everyone who is here is eligible for the seemingly limitless opportunities available. Not everyone who was born here likes what America has come to represent, and increasing numbers have been conditioned to see cultural and political problems purely on racial terms.
What will American citizens do to challenge the ugly political methods that are being used to undermine facts that more are becoming aware of? How can decent people who only want important questions answered overcome the take-no-prisoners ethnic groups who exploit America's generosity, while placing race and nation-loyalty ahead of assimilation and allegiance to the U.S.?
The subject of immigration forces anyone willing to examine all angles: the desperation, the human element, compassion, the exploitation, the fear, the taking advantage of the welfare state America has become, and the fallout and criticism that awaits anyone seeking honest answers.
Grassroots America forced the phonies in Washington to back off this time. One can be sure the cheap-labor lobbyists, the desperate-for-voters Democrats, and the RINO Republicans will be back with another lipstick-laden pig for another secret debate.
Democracy worked this time. But not via the ballot box. It worked when radio, fax, e-mail and phones converged to give the sellouts such a resounding message of displeasure that their ears are still ringing! CRO
Patrick
Mallon is a political journalist and author of California
Dictatorship: How Liberal Extremism Destroyed Gray Davis.
[read an excerpt]. Patrick
is a regular guest on talk radio programs throughout
the state
and nationally. His website is at PatrickMallon.com and
can be contacted at patrick@patrickmallon.com
copyright
2007 Patrick Mallon
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