Undocumented Tithing?

Some guy told me today that the reason the Catholic Church harbors border jumpers - and vocally lobbies for Amnesty and whatnot - is because as a group they are devout tithers.

Say what?

This guy insisted that undocumented Catholic Hispanics ALL believe in donating 10% of their earnings to the causes of the Catholic Church. He said that was the case at his Westbury, NY parish.

I'd never heard that before. I'd always presumed that the Church was supportive of the undocumented because well, it needs members to replace the departed eco-pagans and lapsed-Catholics. I'm probably right too but I wasn't aware of the money angle - if indeed it's true.

Coming To America, Through Hoops, Still

I heard something weird the other day which I haven't been able to confirm.

I heard that foreigners (Indians?) were acquiring the requisite *DNA* from American couples, getting artificially inseminated, and birthing babies that technically had full-blown American citizenship.

Then, as the parents of such, the foreigners are able to LEGALLY move to America.

It's like....Mexi-Orwellian or something, no?

And it reminds me, I have an appointment for a deposit at the *bank* this week. Not to boast, but my fee is up to $1,600 per....and I only accept CASH MONEY.

Foreign buyers these days are very impressed with my son's math aptitude. Go figure.

Stop Whining About Your Commute!

Channel surfing late last night I caught a little of Al Gore's color TV channel:

It was pretty crazy watching these kids, some only 6 years old, board 18 mph-traveling ferry boats on the Amazon River to sell their wares. Heck, if our kids merely *run* at the pool the lifeguards go ape$hit.

Just now on the website I came across another episode. This a full 21 minute clip that shows precisely how El Salvadorans make the 2,500 mile Texas border-jumping journey:

Schools - The Illegal Immigration Culprit?

The illegal immigration debate has fallen off the front pages of Jurassic Big Media publications. So-called *amnesty* was never popular among the lumpen masses; it was nothing more than a tug-o-war between the entrenched political parties; and a sour economy has, as I predicted here, swallowed up whatever public sympathy there may have been for *temporary-guest workers*.

But back when those *farsighted* scumbag pols were trying to ram down citizenship for border-jumpers and identity thieves...

Back then one heard incessantly that undocumented workers were doing jobs that *Americans wouldn't do*.

Now there were more than a few appropriate responses to that nothing-statement - illegals drive down the wages to where no one wants to clean toilets for $7 an hour, those jobs (e.g.) landscaping on country clubs are hardly integral to the country, etc. - but there was one response that I don't recall seeing.

Consider how many shiftless teenagers our nation has, wasting away in factory school prisons and learn-nothing, exorbitantly-priced colleges. We have 10 million college students, give or take, and probably at least as many flicking boogers and snoozing in high schools.

For the sake of argument, put the total number at 20 million slackers.

If everyone in that demographic were to, say, cut back their school by one day a week - go from 5 days to 4 days....that'd would effectively free up, roughly, one-fifth of 20 million more low-wage workers for the economy.

What I'm saying is, if in fact it was true that we need Latin Americans to sneak in here and pick lettuce because there aren't sufficient Americans willing to work at the market-bearing wage...

Then that might only be because student loans, the wealth cycle, Big Education and a Big Government in need of mind slaves, and Morons have all conspired to unnaturally disqualify able-bodied individuals from working in the real world!

While we're at it, let's throw in the 2.5 million muy atlético soldiers (active and reserves) who could conceivably be relieved of some *make-work* and added to the potential pool of skilled labor.

Thou Shall Not Be Amorphous

From Free Republic:

U.S. Immigration Opposes Asylum Decision

In a deeply disturbing notice, the United States Government Agency for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has lodged an appeal of Judge Lawrence Burman’s grant of asylum to the Romeike family. The appeal was sent to the Board of Immigration Appeals in Fairfax, Virginia on February 25. In it, the ICE called homeschoolers too "amorphous" to be a "particular social group" and that "United States law has recognized the broad power of the state to compel school attendance and regulate curriculum and teacher certification” as well as the “authority to prohibit or regulate homeschooling."

On January 26, Judge Burman granted the Romeikes asylum after determining that the German government’s treatment of homeschoolers was “repellent to everything we believe as Americans,” and that Germany was denying the family “basic human rights.” The judge determined that the German state’s policy of imposing increasing and potentially crushing fines, the loss of custody of children, and possible criminal prosecution over homeschooling amounted to persecution. However, ICE pointed to the denial of an application in the European Court of Human Rights in the Konrad case as evidence that “the public education laws of Germany do not violate basic human rights.” ICE criticized Judge Burman for "improvidently disregard[ing]" the decision of the ECHR. In other words, it appears that ICE is arguing that U.S. judges should follow international law—rather than U.S. law.

Michael Smith, president of HSLDA, says that American courts should only rely on American law.

"American judges should use American law alone in making decisions about cases in American courts," Smith said. "Polls show that Americans by an overwhelming margin reject the idea of using international law in American courts to decide American cases. The use of international law in American courts is a threat to American justice and should be opposed."

In its appeal, ICE argues that the U.S. government has the authority to simply prohibit homeschooling, and this should disqualify the granting of asylum. ICE further asserts that Germany’s harsh treatment of homeschoolers is mere prosecution, not persecution. ICE lawyers wrote that "[e]ven were such fear[s] objectively reasonable, these sanctions would only amount to prosecution.” ICE argues that the judge’s ruling is "speculative" because sanctions had been applied in a “limited number of circumstances” and that the Romeikes had failed to “make any effort to locate an acceptable alternative school." These claims were fully argued in the first Romeike hearing and shown to be false. ICE also noted parenthetically that the "Immigration Judge did not address how under various state laws of the United States a person can be similarly prosecuted for not sending one’s children to school."

HSLDA Staff Attorney and Director of International Relations Michael Donnelly, who will continue to coordinate the Romeike family’s legal defense in this case, said he was not surprised by the actions of ICE or the arguments they presented.

"It is disappointing but not surprising that ICE has appealed," Donnelly said. "Judge Burman appropriately noted that homeschooling is legal in all fifty states, and his decision reflects U.S. law which upholds the right of parents to direct the education and upbringing their children as an enduring American tradition, entitling the family to protection from persecution. ICE argues that Germany’s denial of a parent’s right to homeschool for any reason is acceptable. It is shameful that ICE, and by extension the U.S. Government, supports the persecution of German homeschoolers."

So...

*US Immigration* thinks it fine (and worthy of Amnesty!) for border-jumpers to break into the the country, steal Social Security identities, send their kids to government school, and use emergency rooms as free drop-in medical centers...

But all those homeschoolers seeking political asylum from Nazi ancestors, yeah, THEY are a real threat to America!

Obviously, the idea that we should look to *international law* for how to run this country is ludicrous.

Though I was more off-put by the notion that prosecution is not the same as *persecution*. Heck, in this country if a so-called minority isn't merely granted a mortgage or enough representation on a color television sitcom it's deemed DISCRIMINATORY.

And it's not at all inconceivable that Big Government, one day, just goes out and bans homeschooling altogether. After all, look at the hugely unpopular cram-downs of recent times: Wall Street bailouts, Obamacare, etc.

So what would I do if homeschooling were suddenly illegalized?

I guess I'd either start up a new *private* school or send my kids to one that had liberal attendance enforcement.

Childish Adults

Right now, Drudge has a headline up of Escalating Violence Among Adults At Chuck-E-Cheese.

The hyperlinked article used to have a youtube video of a fracas from one of the chain's Central Pennsylvania's restaurants, er arcades. The video was *pulled* by the owner. More likely there were lawyers involved sending threatening messages. And since the clip was gone I had to improvise with the pic above!

Anyway, reports of violence at Chuck-E-Cheese would hardly shock anyone who's ever been to one - particularly in non-suburban locations. I had a near *adult* violence episode last night that just about could be filed under this heading.

I had my kids at the Coastland Center Mall (yep, in balmy Naples!) real late (8:45pm) and they were running around like lunatics with the kids of a bunch of other malpracticing parents in the *Soft Play Area*. It's a *no shoes* and *no one over 42 inches* zone. Sure enough, some gigantic, clumsy pubescent made his way into the play area and started jumping, running, and climbing everywhere. My daughter is a full 24 lbs. - and that's when she's eaten, constipated, and has a stone in her pocket. It's one thing for her to crash into an age-mate, but it would be quite another to take a blow from some 100+ pound oaf. So I told the kid he wasn't supposed to be in there. "I'm just playing," he responded. I told him again and pointed to the sign; he sighed and walked out.

Sure enough some mother aunt grandmother caretaker came running in asking him in Spanish what *that hombre* said to him. She tells him to get back in there and play. He said it's okay, he doesn't want to. She starts screaming at him to get back in there. I stood up and told her that the kid was too big, wasn't supposed to be playing there, and if he knocked over one of my kids there was going to be a problem.

The woman walked away calling me a mierda. I considered calling her a *fat cheap ho* in Spanish but held back. This reminded me a little bit of an incident I had at Ana's Taqueria in Brookline, MA. There an undocumented burrito filler called me a cabrón whereupon I made a huge scene screaming back him. The Northeast isn't like California. The illegals up there are here to work, generally have little attitude, and are scared-to-death of whitey.

Attention ESL buttheads - The words you most want to use on us are precisely the ones we all can translate!

So after the potty-mouthed caretaker left, she went running over to her posse visibly complaining about me, the rules-enforcer. I thought, "Oh great", now I am going to have to deal with some tank-topped hombre and his machismo. That's all I want to do at 9pm at the mall after a long day with the kids.

Fortunately, for any would-be hombre, the posse was todas chicas. They walked by me muttering more indiscernible invective and that was the end of it.

So what set this incident off? It was apparently someone telling her kid what to do. I must have offended her *good parent* ego!

Okay, one search is all it took to find another clip of adult violence at Chuck-E-Cheese.

Illegal Immigrants Never Were The Linchpin Of Our Economy

"Although they broke the law by illegally crossing our borders," Bloomberg said, "our city's economy would be a shell of itself had they not, and it would collapse if they were deported. The same holds true for the nation."

That was NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg from back in June 2006.

That quote of his typifies the mindset of Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and other business-minded (rational?) influence peddlers.

Though not for all of its proponents, that was a self-centered, myopic viewpoint. The economy was running rampant two years ago; contractors simply couldn't be found to fix up your house. Ergo, we desperately NEED illegals!

Of course now things are different. Unemployment is creeping up towards 6% and the construction industry (read: unskilled labor market) is in shambles. Here's a more up-to-date anecdote:

"Agustin Garduno, wearing a paint-stained sweatshirt, said he sleeps in cars and on floors at friends' houses because he can't afford rent. As noon approaches and no contractors have pulled up to the corner of Van Nuys Boulevard and Oxnard Street looking to hire, it will be the fifteenth day he has gone without work. "If you gave me a ticket, I'll go back to Mexico because here, there's nothing," said Garduno, 48, who used to make $1,300 a month and now makes about $500."



Historically, whenever economies have weakened, xenophobic resentment has always reared its head. With our financial markets battered, just you watch how much more afraid the *farsighted* politicians become to tout Amnesty and other rights for illegal immigrants. I've predicted this all along and I have history on my side.

There are even anecdotes of illegals voluntarily returning to the Third World - if only on a small scale.

Last month, while vacationing in the Hamptons I filmed about 100 illegals hanging out during midday - with job prospects fading by the minute.



Now I've gone to Southampton and driven by this spot (between 7/11 and McDonalds) for years. Either the crews hanging out there got much larger than I remember or the quantity of day labor demanded recently fell off a cliff.

The fact is, illegal immigrants were a symptom of a booming economy (2002-2007); they were hardly the linchpin.

On the other hand, as for our prison *business*...

Something like half of incarcerated Californians are *undocumented*.

And something like 20% of all federal inmates are also, as Bloomberg would call them, *day laborers*.

Amnesty For Placeholders

So I played Montauk Downs yesterday.

I set my alarm for 3 AM. After a bowl of oatmeal and a "GI shower" I tip-toed out the door at 3:40 AM. By quarter to five, I was standing in line at the pro shop. A handful of people had beaten me there. (Montauk Downs is a first-come-first-serve golf track. Read my prior post.)

One of the gentleman in front of me was a dapper Mexican. His hair was slicked back and he looked more like a butler than a day-laborer. I figured he wasn't waiting for a tee time because, well, I have never seen a Mexican playing golf AND because he was wearing jeans. Yet he was first in line.

When we got into the shop, while the rest of us were intent on the earliest tee times, he asked for a 10 AM start - which for some odd reason wasn't available.

Do y'all realize what was transpiring here?

Some rich dude ("el jefe"?) in the Hamptons made his undocumented worker get up well before the crack of dawn to secure his desired tee time. While he slept!

I could be wrong, but I believe they use wristbands at Bethpage to preclude this type of subterfuge. Prior to that, local guys would get to the course early, and then peddle their tee times to flush in-sleepers in the parking lot.

Anyway, this placeholder at Montauk jarred the faint memory of my *education*.

Didn't rich bastards used to send their slaves and minions to fight wars in their stead?

Job Market 2009

The Retard-able New York Times

In the tortured logic of the New York Times, all the ills of the world are profoundly interrelated. Today they ran an article tying the California wildfires to the pain, suffering, and exploitation of illegal immigrants. I was particularly struck by these two consecutive paragraphs.

The authorities have not given any causes[of the fires] linked to immigration.

Two men, one in San Diego County and the other in Los Angeles, who were arrested on arson charges, accused of setting small fires this week, are believed to be deportable, a federal immigration official said.

Do you see the stark naked contradiction? The first sentence/paragraph is completely refuted by the second. Deportable arsonists? Are you kidding me? That sounds like an "authority", a "cause", and a "link" at once!

Of course, as usual, the Times conflates "immigration" with what the rest of the real world calls "illegal immigration". And the other spicy morsel for me was the euphemistic characterization of "deportable". I hadn't read that whitewash before. I guess mass murderers can be now called "detainable"; and fat people can be euphemized as "diet-able".

I am posting the entire article below. You needn't read the whole thing to see the point I will make next:

October 27, 2007
Glare of Fires Pulls Migrants From Shadows
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD and WILL CARLESS
SAN DIEGO, Oct. 26 — Out of the burning brush, from behind canyon rocks, several immigrants bolted toward a group of firefighters, chased not by the border police but by the onrush of flames from one of the biggest wildfires this week.

Their appearance startled the firefighters, who let them into their vehicles. But with the discovery of four charred bodies in an area of heavy illegal immigration, concern is growing that others may not have survived.

“Their hands were burned, and they were clearly tired and grateful,” Capt. Mike Parkes of the State Department of Forestry and Fire Protection reported on what his firefighting team saw.

Immigrants from south of the border, many illegal, provide the backbone of menial labor in San Diego, picking fruit, cleaning hotel rooms, sweeping walks and mowing lawns.

The wildfires, one of the biggest disasters to strike the county, exposed their often-invisible existence in ways that were sometimes deadly.

The four bodies were found in a burned area in southeastern San Diego County, a region known for intense illegal immigration. It is near Tecate, where a chain securing an evacuated border crossing was cut and people were seen flowing into the United States until the Border Patrol arrived, said Michael J. Fisher, the chief patrol agent in San Diego.

As firefighting continued on Friday, makeshift camps for immigrants in the northern part of the county stood largely abandoned. Some immigrants were said to be hiding in even more remote terrain. Others sought help from churches.

“I was pretty scared. We had to leave in the middle of the night, and we went to the church,” said Juan Santiago, a immigrant worker in the Rancho Peñasquitos neighborhood, just south of the hard-hit Rancho Bernardo area.

Terri Trujillo, who helps the immigrants, checked on those in the canyons, urging them to leave, too, when she left her house in Rancho Peñasquitos ahead of the fires.

Ms. Trujillo and others who help the immigrants said they saw several out in the fields as the fires approached and ash fell on them. She said many were afraid to lose their jobs.

“There were Mercedeses and Jaguars pulling out, people evacuating, and the migrants were still working,” said Enrique Morones, who takes food and blankets to the immigrants’ camps. “It’s outrageous.”

Some of the illegal workers who sought help from the authorities were arrested and deported. Opponents of illegal immigration, including civilian border watch groups, seized on news that immigrants had been detained at the Qualcomm Stadium evacuation center as evidence of trouble that illegal immigrants cause.

The Border Patrol also arrested scores of illegal immigrants made visible by the fires. Agent Fisher of the Border Patrol said 100 had been arrested since the fires started Sunday.

He said that the agency never abandoned enforcing the border and that agents helped with removals and rescues. Fire blocked some access points to border areas, but Agent Fisher said, “We were very conscious in making sure our border security mission was met.”

Some people have speculated, including on the Web, that immigrants might have set some of the fires, as has occurred with campfires lighted in fields.

The authorities have not given any causes linked to immigration.

Two men, one in San Diego County and the other in Los Angeles, who were arrested on arson charges, accused of setting small fires this week, are believed to be deportable, a federal immigration official said.

The San Diego police detained people suspected of stealing at Qualcomm Stadium. Six were handed over to the immigration authorities when it became apparent that they might be in the United States illegally.

The Border Patrol said the six, and at the group’s request, an American juvenile with them, were returned to Mexico.

The American Civil Liberties Union said it had received reports that people had been denied help at shelters because they lacked proper identification. Officials have been checking identification to prevent people not affected by the fires from taking advantage of the free food, clothes and other services.

The concerns of the rights group drew a rebuke from Representative Brian P. Bilbray, a Republican who represents areas along the border.

“People are dying because we can’t control our border,” Mr. Bilbray said. “That’s what they should be screaming about. Anyone who knows the land and the illegal activity in that rugged terrain knows there was no way we would avoid deaths in this.”

Wayne A. Cornelius, a political scientist at the University of California, San Diego, who studies border questions, said that if the past was a guide there would be more friction over the fires and their effects on illegal immigrants.

“San Diego likes its illegal migrants as invisible as possible,” Mr. Cornelius said. “So whenever something happens that calls attention to their presence, it is fodder for the local anti-immigration forces.”

In one sign of cooperation, a Mexican firefighting team from Baja California helped American firefighters with a major blaze along the border early in the week.

For the immigrants, the fires may have dried up some work. But some speculate on strong work prospects like cleanups. By early afternoon near a heavily damaged neighborhood in the Rancho Bernardo area, four men stood on a corner, waiting for work offers.

“It is a shame what happened,” said a man who gave just his first name, Miguelito. “But we think there will be jobs to clean or build.”

Dan Frosch contributed reporting from Denver, and Carolyn Marshall from San Francisco.



They say that newspapers are written on a 4th grade reading level - whatever that means. But if I recall accurately, elementary schools taught us that paragraphs should consist of a topic sentence followed by a few supporting sentences. Grammarians and logicians have decreed long ago this as the best format for expressing a coherent idea.

Note the Times' paragraphs don't meet this standard. Their paragraphs are mostly one sentence long (I count at least ten examples above)- egregiously devoid of supporting sentences.

This article is nothing but a barrage of disjointed innuendo. It's anecdotal, laughably sourced, and as I pointed out above it's even self-contradicting.

I don't slice and dice the NYT that often anymore so if you'd like some more read this oldie but goodie from two years ago. (link)

Here's another good one (link).

Agitprop Dissection

A friend of mine sent me this YouTube clip. It captures a legal seminar discussing how to take out fake ads in newspapers and thread the H-1b loophole. Here's the description posted on YouTube, followed by the clip:

Immigration attorneys from Cohen & Grigsby explains how they assist employers in running classified ads with the goal of NOT finding any qualified applicants, and the steps they go through to disqualify even the most qualified Americans in order to secure green cards for H-1b workers. See what Bush and Congress really mean by a "shortage of skilled U.S. workers." Microsoft, Oracle, Hewlett-Packard, and thousands of other companies are running fake ads in Sunday newspapers across the country each week.



Is this total BS? Does it make you angry? If so, at whom?

At lawyers? At "businesses"? At Congress? At George Bush?

It would have riled up a younger C-Nut, but seeing it now I am unmoved.

For sure, the lawyer is a parasitic weed. But the profession proliferates because politicians are always complicating, rather than streamlining, the law. The only thing that will defang the tort lobby is a shrinkage of government.

Get mad at "businesses"?

Well, corporations are rational profit-seeking entities. They will operate within whatever legal climate prevails. Getting mad at "businesses" makes as much sense as scorning a rock for obeying the laws of gravitation.

Small minds everywhere try to personify lifeless business - usually by conflating it with "management". Tireless CEO bashing, Sarbanes-Oxley, the assault on stock option accounting, etc., altogether it's nothing more than today's version of age-old class war.

If you look at this clip on YouTube you'll see that the "links" to this video all come from letterless, junior-Commi websites. These clowns' position is decidedly under-nuanced - they are around-the-clock business bashers.

The clip has little to do with the current immigration debate. If anything, as opposed to unskilled aspiring gardeners wading the Rio Grande, the government is TOO RESTRICTIVE on H-1b visas; we simply need more highly skilled immigrants. Most of these H-1b applicants are PhD scientists whose jobs will be outsourced to Asia or India with a click of the mouse.

So essentially, to argue for tightening America's H-1b visa policy is to not only miss the boat, but to miss the ocean. These are the most productive immigrants coming here and the most unfairly stymied applicants. This one section is THE ONLY part of our immigration policy that needs liberalizing. Read about my "cover charge" suggestion in the comment thread of this post.

Our immigration (and enforcement) policy really is bass-ackwards in terms of whom it favors and whom it keeps out.

Blame is ubiquitous in Moronic illegal immigration debate. Anytime you hear someone blame businesses, your Commi-dar should beep and remind you of their larger agenda.

On such a multi-layered issue as immigration, too many people boil it all down to one bogeyman. It never ceases to amaze me how many people truly believe that free market capitalism is the source of all their woe.



Too bad we can't throw them to the back of a wintertime Soviet bread line where they can ponder their prejudice.

Illegal Immigrant Prediction

Only if you are a Drudge Report-reading newshound would you know that our abominable Congress has recently been trying to pass "comprehensive" immigration reform. The disconnect between these unctuous pols and the public on this issue is truly astounding. Clearly, they are acting as whorish lackeys for the money dispensers - those farsighted, rationalist party chieftains. Why else would a sitting politician ignore his current constituent voters for the sake of very hypothetical future voters?

I am also aware of, and partial to, this theory that Congress has agreed amongst itself to pass something now on illegal immigration simply because it wants the messy issue over and done with before next year's elections. A "comprehensive" bill allows them to claim that they have dealt with every thorn from enforcement to eventual citizenship. The issue is just "too divisive" and these incumbents don't want to have to debate any upstart challengers who are fired up on border jumpin', identity thieves. That's wonderful, the slimeballs are thinking about themselves first and whom they serve second third fourth - who knows where we fall on their list? Or maybe it's more of what I described in the first paragraph - namely, that they don't want to have to fight with the money dispensers during the election season, when they really need them.

Anyway, the purpose of this post is to make one, prescient prediction.

There will be a massive public uproar against and clampdown on illegal immigration whenever it is that the economy turns sour.

This isn't so much a prediction as it is a history lesson. Whenever financial times have gotten tough, the outsider has always been shunned if not blamed. The Jews were economic scapegoats in ascendant Nazi Germany. The Poles were thrown out of England after WWII when jobs became scarce. In fact, that is how my grandfather, a Polish pilot, ended up in South Africa; nobody dared hire a Pole in England while Englishmen were unemployed thus my grandfather set off for Johannesburg with his English wife and 2.5 children. He had no job lined up and enough money in his pocket for about a week's worth of food. (Remember the Poles became personae non gratae despite having rescued England from the brink of Nazi domination.)

And the most recent example of economic scape-goating was the welfare reform of the early and mid-1990s. It can be argued that seeds of that were sown by the 1990-91 recession.

Mark my words, the values of your house and portfolio won't be the only casualties of the next recession - you could lose your gardner as well.

Bill O'Reilly versus Geraldo

Watch, this clip. I thought they were going to come to blows.

(The background is the death of two teenage girls in Virginia Beach. They were killed by a repeat drunk driver who just happened to be "undocumented".)



One blurb,

Geraldo - Illegal aliens commit crimes at a lower rate than citizens do...

Really?

I guess he doesn't consider jumping the border, overstaying a visa, or identity theft to be "crimes".

Geraldo, you actually said "illegal aliens" don't commit crime. That would be like saying "Fat people aren't overweight".

Delray Beach Anecdotage

I took my family down to balmy Florida last week to visit friends.

We were talking about illegal immigration briefly and my wife proclaimed that she wouldn't want to have a business that was levered to illegal labor because obviously, any crackdown would imperil the business. A friend of ours responded,

I wouldn't worry about that ever happening in this country...

[his company employs around 150 people]

When our supervisor hands out the paychecks, he'll yell out "JOSE RODRIGUEZ",

They'll be no answer.

"JOSE RODRIGUEZ"

[no answer]

"JOSE RODRIGUEZ"

[no answer]

"JOSE RODRIGUEZ!!!"



And finally some guy will remember that is his alias and come up and grab the check.

Furthermore, this is what the government does. They notify us that we are employing too many illegals. We ask, who are they? Which ones? We'll get rid of them all. But they won't even tell us the names. Apparently, there's some vague quota system on how many you can employ.



I also ran into some guy on the beach, a loosely connected friend-of-a-friend.

CaptiousNut - What do you do down here?

Guy - I am a prosecutor for the Palm Beach County District Attorney.

CaptiousNut - So was that you guys that hassled Rush Limbaugh over his Viagra?

Guy - Yeah. [giggle, giggle] That was us. That was a lot of fun. [giggle, giggle]

CaptiousNut - I don't know. You guys don't check the pills of every rock star and celebrity that flies down here. What you did to Limbaugh is prosecutorial abuse.

Guy - [silence]

If you don't know the background on Limbaugh and Viagra, click here. The crux is that Palm Beach politicians (read: District Attorney's office) harassed Limbaugh at the airport and leaked it immediately to the press to embarrass the guy - simply because they don't like him. Palm Beach County is, let's just say, by no means a bastion of conservative Republicans. I could be wrong, but it seems more like a locus of extremely wealthy, Democrats from New York. Every single person we met was a displaced or vacationing New Yorker.

I really hate talking about what others refer to as "politics" but it's become increasingly clear to me that today's Democratic Party is really anchored by the richest people around. Just list all of the wealth centers of the country: Manhattan, Boston, Malibu, Beverly Hills, the Hamptons, Palm Beach County, etc - they are all Democratic enclaves.

Forget the BS politics. In this Rush Limbaugh incident, I am not defending a thrice-divorced, drug-addicted, pervert; I am defending the rule of law. This is what I should have said to the giggling Palm Beach prosecutor,

"How would you like it if one day you drive through some rural town, grapple with a local, and then have some corrupt sheriff or prosecutor hold your feet to the coals on a contrived or trumped up charge?"

I didn't say it, because I had just met the guy not five minutes beforehand; also because I was on vacation. Anyway, that is the type of line I save for more opportune moments. I would ideally unleash it on him in a larger group of mixed company to maximize his embarrassment. I don't believe in the persuasion of willful idiots; I opt to Marginalize them both for sport and to enhance society.

In another, more virtuous world, selective application of the law would make prosecutors shudder, not giggle.

Marginalizing Republicans

A couple of quotes from Jacques Ellul.

"The goal of modern propaganda is no longer to transform opinion but to arouse an active and mythical belief"

"(Propaganda) proceeds by psychological manipulations, character modifications, by creation of stereotypes useful when the time comes - The two great routes that this sub-propaganda takes are the conditioned reflex and the myth."

I love it.

Active myths and useful stereotypes...absolutely hits the nail on the head now doesn't it?

It's abundantly clear that the rhetorical war between Democrats and Republicans is decidedly asymmetrical.

For example, the Dem's push symbolic actions like raising the minimum wage. Free market Republicans are at least minimally indifferent to it and theoretically against it. But a unified and persistent Democratic front will not let the issue go.

Though in practice the minimum wage is a symbolic issue, it has far greater propaganda value. To Ted Kennedy and his class warfare comrades, the issue is a chance to not only paint the Republicans as the party of the rich, the party of business interests, the party of management, but also uncompassionate and perhaps mean. Clintonista Gene Sperling says the wage should be raised for reasons of "dignity".

Can you say "useful stereotypes"?

The negative externalities of raising the minimum wage are too esoteric for an econo-illiterate Soundbite Nation. I wanted to laugh the other day at a Moronic relative of mine bleating, "Who can raise a family when both parents are earning minimum wage?", but his docility was just too tragic to mock. Teenagers and part-time workers represent most of the minimum wage earning demographic. AND two-thirds of them last less than a year in this category. In other words, they soon get raises lifting them out of this category. Raising the wages of these ascendant workers by fiat, if it doesn't eliminate their job entirely, it at least deprives them of the opportunity to earn a raise by working hard.

Two parents both earning the minimum wage???

That's just another active myth.

Republicans often talk about winning in the arena or marketplace of ideas - a fine and lofty ideal. But they unnecessarily get annihilated in the arena of propaganda.

The economics of wage controls may be beyond the ken of the public, but there are plenty of other tacks to take.

For instance, I have never ever heard a Republican bring up illegal immigration in regards to the minimum wage issue?

This confounds me to no end. If I were in charge of the Republican Party I would insist that every socialist salvo on the minimum wage should be repelled with,

RAISING THE MINIMUM WAGE WILL INCREASE ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION.

LOOK HOW ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION SKYROCKETED SINCE BILL CLINTON LAST RAISED IT.

And I'd start floating graphs of the last decade, showing the 1997 increase in minimum wage right alongside a line depicting the explosion in illegal immigrants. Perhaps plaster them on billboards across the country.

The Democrats see the minimum wage issue as a flank in the propaganda battle, and instead of returning fire Republicans will predictably choose to "cut and run".

Illegal immigration is an issue that could disembowel the Democratic Party. Illegal workers are the natural enemies of three of its core constituencies: blacks, blue-collar whites, and unions. It would behoove the Republicans to step on this wedge every chance they get.

I am fully aware that one of the reasons Republicans don't forward my argument is their ambivalent stance toward illegal immigration. But that is a detail quite beside the point. The issue can perhaps more readily divide their special interest juggling opponents. My contention is that despite the emergence of the internet and the decline of the MSM, Republicans consistently fail to win in the public dialogue. The argument can certainly be made that the public is Moronic, can't think for themselves, and is a brainwashed byproduct of Government Education BUT that doesn't mean Republicans have no weapons at their disposal.

For decades the New York Times editorialized against the very notion of a minimum wage. They have recently flip-flopped on that without any explanation whatsoever. They recognized the tremendous propaganda power of a minimum wage increase and swapped their last iota of principle for naked practicality.

Republicans are convincing themselves that a federal minimum wage raise won't ground the economy and such a concession would euthanize this incessant talking point. They may well be right.



But this retreat is really another missed opportunity to go on the offensive. As it stands, Republicans continue to lose the asymmetrical war of propaganda. The GOP foot soldiers ironically seem like outdated Redcoats, lined up in an open field of fire.

Did you know that individual states can already set their own minimum wage levels?

California's minimum wage is $6.75, over 25% higher than the federal minimum. In thirteen months, it will be raised to $8.00 per hour.

How hard would it be for Republicans to argue that a higher federal law would be superflous, given the states can already set it wherever they want?

How hard would it be to correlate a high California minimum wage with illegal immigration?

Why am I sitting at home while someone else gets big bucks to advise the rudderless Republican Party?