Posted on 04/08/2006 1:48:53 PM PDT by Gritty
TAMMY BRUCE OPENS John McCain Thinks Americans Are French with a picture that says ten thousand words, and this caption to get you started: "Pfc. Jonathan Dixon provides perimeter security in Iraq on 3/31/06. Wait a minute! This is a hard, dirty, underpaid job--how did they find Jon? President Bush and Senator McCain told me Americans won't do these types of jobs!"
Last week the news also gave us reports of how the New Orleans demographic grew a sudden Hispanic bump when word got around that construction jobs at $16 an hour were to be had for the asking all over the region. New Orleans natives, scattered to the pre-paid Motel 6's of the world and vowing not to come back until "all that stuff gets fixed," were unavailable for comment.
Appearing more and more in comedy monologues and sardonic conversations across the nation is the catch-phrase of the entire immigation debate, "Jobs Americans won't do." Politicians and others that support open borders evidently feel that just saying that illigal aliens are "are doing the jobs Americans won't do." wins the argument. Hence they repeat it as their central "talking point." The problem is that a talking point, used over and over in blunt repitition, ceases to be a 'point' and becomes instead a "mantra." You remember mantras. The Beatles had them. Fat lot of difference it made in how it all turned out, right?
The purpose of a mantra is to bore the mind. To numb the brain so much that it stops thinking. And with people in search of their inner bliss a mantra seems to work wonders. But when you come to people in search of answers and solutions you'll find that they'll take your talking-point mantra after a lot of repitions and say "Whoa, what does this really mean?" And once they do that, it is all over for the mantra because, at the core, a mantra is not supposed to have any meaning; its function is to bore and dull the mind.
So it has become with The McCain-Kennedy Mantra "Illegals are doing the jobs Americans won't do."
As example after example shows up where Americans are doing tough and dirty jobs for what would seem to our media, political and other professional classes to be chump change, it seems we might want to change the mantra to something more substantial and meaningful that blows away the blue smoke and mirrors in the labyrinth around the immigration issues.
My current replacement statement, not nearly so catchy as "Illegals are doing the jobs Americans won't do" reads:
"Americans will do a tough and dirty job for $15 an hour until somebody else shows up from somewhere and offers to do the same job for $10 an hour, at which point the American will be fired, laid off, or told 'Hey, I'd like to hire you, but the government has said this is a job that Americans won't do.' "
My brother Tom taught elementary school for nearly 30 years. It was a job a lot of Americans will do. Teaching is a soft job that has become softer still over the decades thanks to the Teachers' Union that is always whining for and getting more pay for less work with bigger benefits. These days teaching is a good deal getting better all the time. Of course, the Teachers' Union has become quite adept at putting out a line of utter crap about how "difficult" teaching is. So good that a lot of teachers actually believe their own BS. But think about our "hard working and dedicated teachers" as school after school over the coming weeks dumps its students out to swarm in the streets and the teachers kick back for a little quality time in the coffee lounge. Think about how "difficult" teaching is when you add up your vacation time this year and compare it to the 4+-months of effective vacation time you'd have as a teacher this year. This is not a job that Americans won't do, but one that is rapidly becoming a job that Americans can't afford to fund.
My brother retired from teaching a bit early beccause he frankly couldn't take the ever rising tide of administrative BS generated by the teaching establishment. Now he runs his own lawn-care company. By himself. His truck. His tools. His insurance. His liability.
You call, he comes and your yard looks a lot better. He brings to the job a work-ethic made of stainless steel, and an obsession with perfection, order and neatness that will drive you nuts in the house but works out well for your lawn.
As anyone who has ever done it can tell you, yard work is a chore at your own place, but a real job-of-work if you do it at five to eight places a day. My brother does this and he's happy at it. He's not as young as he once was (Who is?), and its the kind of work that makes you look for a hot bath at the end of the day. It's exactly the kind of grimy job that Americans won't do, but you don't get much more American than Tom.
Now he's not trimming the grass and hauling yard waste to the dump in his truck for the fun of it (For one thing he hates to get his truck dirty.), but because he also wants the work to help pay his bills. Sort of the reason most people work, isn't it? His yard work service helps bridge a gap between pension income from teaching and negative cash flow that comes from mortgage, family, and an unfortunate love affair with Harley Davidson motorcycles. Simply put he works his job because he needs the money, he's good at it, and he's his own boss. He sets his price and he gets the jobs and he does them well and he gets paid.
He lives in the California mountains east of Sacramento. I don't know what his price is but let's say its $30 a lawn on average. He'll do this job Americans won't do at this price and he has more than enough work when the weather's right. But if enough illegals make it to and establish themselves in this part of the California mountains with the implicit blessing of the government, it won't take long before you see the kind of 150 man shape-ups by the side of the road of illegals ready to do the exact same job for $20 or less. At that point, my brother's landscaping business is over for him. Not because it is a job an American won't do for $30, but because it is a job that an American can't do for $20.
Ah, you say, well it is a free market, let him cut his price to $20 to compete. Ah, I say, you don't really get how Mexican shape-ups in Southern California (coming soon to American towns everywhere) work. You cut your price to $20, their going price soon drops to $15. You follow and theirs goes to $10 and they'll throw in their brother for free. It's capitalism raw and bloody but with a built-in bias for the illegal since his overhead is close to absolute zero and the California welfare state gives him medical insurance for free. Down at the bottom of our labor landscape the playing field is anything but level. And it ain't tilted towards American citizens.
If you want to see a world in which we've created a federally sanctioned labor pool whose central mantra is:
"Americans will do a tough and dirty job for $15 an hour until somebody else shows up from somewhere and offers to do the same job for $10 an hour, at which point the American will be fired, laid off, or told 'Hey, I'd like to hire you, but the government has said this is a job that Americans won't do.' "
you need to join the ever-swelling hordes in the streets demanding a blanket amnesty and exemption from the law. And while you're at it, you need to join with them to demand that, even though they are illegal, they not only be given the right to work without fear or harrassment, but that they also be given the right to vote. That's next in the list of illegals' demands. Depend upon it.
After all, they're here in their milliions and "they pay their taxes just like everybody else" (Right. Sure. Every time. Every penny. ), so it is only fair that they get to vote too. No taxation without representation and all that. The actual single job that all these illegal aliens are prepared to do that over half of Americans won't do is to "vote Democratic." And when millions of illegals vote Democratic they will get their real payday, billions in new social programs -- just for them.
It's politics, the dirty job that most Americans won't do.
Why are there up to ten times more permanent, (not just passing through), illegal aliens living in the Southwest? Does this mean that the Southwest has ten times more "jobs that Americans won't do" than the rest of the country?
Good read, spot on.
STOP RIGHT THERE. Buddy, I am with you on immigration 1000% but you do NOT know what teaching is like. I am on my feet from 7-3 and planning and grading from 3-5. By 8pm I'm too tired to do anything but take a bath and go to bed.
I spend the entire day struggling to get the children of those illegal immigrants to unplug their iPods (which they bought with the money they saved when they got government-subsidized lunch), take their feet off the chairs, get out their notebooks and pencils and LEARN something for God's sake.
I have been in the military, I have worked retail, I have worked in food prep and serving, I have been a security guard and I have been married. Teaching is harder than all those things combined and let me tell you, the pay does not go far in the People's Republic of Kalifornia. Don't even tell me teaching is easy. My feet are killing me. If it weren't for the (admittedly sweet) vacations, I'd be dead or crippled by a heart attack at a startlingly young age (which has happened at our school twice recently. It's quite scary.)
Outstanding article. Great read. I could'nt agree more. I've said it all along. If you can afford to pay a house keeper, pool guy, yard person, hair dresser, or window washer $1.00/hr to do a job YOU COULD DO BUT YOU'RE PRIORITIES ARE TOO WHACKED, you can afford to pay them $15.00/hr. Americans WILL and DO do these jobs for a fair wage. If you can't afford a fair wage, do it yourself.
"I am on my feet from 7-3 and planning and grading from 3-5. By 8pm I'm too tired to do anything but take a bath and go to bed...."
You're missing the point. Most of the rest of us are working those same hours and then some, 12 months a year. I wouldn't want to be a teacher for a million bucks a year, because of the part you said about the run-amuck-disrespectful kids these days - for that I applaud you, but please, please don't whine about working harder than others for less pay. The VAST majority of us work just as hard 12 months a year. Have you ever been in a busy restaurant's waiters shoes for 10 hours? They're pay isn't exactly steller and many of them are also full-time students.
Did anybody notice that he does not speak from experience? He is just making it up as he goes along on teaching and lawns. His brother is not working a job, he is self-employed. That is being in business, not working a job.
My dad tought for years. He retired when he was 53. He was my math teacher. My mom taught English. My grandmother taught me French.
I homeschool my two kids with my second wife. I am glad that the kids from the first wife went to school.
I loved to teach. I taught in high school, in the Army, and when I can in business.
Teaching is not a job, or a profession. It is an avocation, like being a priest or a nun. You can not do it for the money, though some do it for that.
I laugh at the idea that without illegal immigrants, our toilets will go uncleaned and our lawns unmowed. Lawmakers who say this have never cleaned a toilet or mowed a lawn. They probably don't even have any friends who have. 99% of Americans have probably done both. If no one will clean a toilet for $5.50 an hour, then raise the wage until someone will do it. It's all about supply and demand. Let the employment market take care of it.
Further, providing amnesty to all these illegals is only going to create an economic underclass. I guarantee that when Juan and his 11 million friends become legal, employers will have to pay a decent wage and provide benefits. When that happens, Pedro and 11 million of his friends will come here illegally and Juan's boss will lay Juan off and hire Pedro. Juan and his family will end up on public assistance, because Juan has no skills or education.
ditto! I am realizing that it is not just the money but the whole employment system we have developed over the years that these people (employers and illegals) are subverting. That runs the gamut from unemployment insrance and workman comp, hours and overtime rules, equal opportunity hiring, OSHA safety standards etc. These people do not have the right to throw that all out the window and create third world conditions right here in America. Send them home. They were not invited. We know Mexico is lawless, and they are bringing that here.
Hidden inside the 500-page Senate bill (thankfully defeated) was a provision that would have guaranteed illegals in-state college tuition when they not only are NOT LEGAL RESIDENTS of the state....THEY ARE NOT LEGAL RESIDENTS OF THE COUNTRY!
There is going to be a real, bloody, shooting war if our government gives illegal aliens (CRIMINALS) free education, health care and social benefits NOT AVAILABLE TO LAW-ABIDING CITIZENS!
Only suckers pay taxes in such a country. Only suckers obey the law in such a country. Only suckers stand by and watch their country filling up with foreigners angrily waving FOREIGN flags in their faces and demanding rights.
This criminal trash ought to be rounded up IMMEDIATELY and thrown into railroad cattle cars and shipped as far into Mexico as possible.
That would show them "rights" in America only belong to those who obey the law!
You break the law, you lose your "rights." That's what happens to criminals.
Being impoverished or downtrodden is no excuse to rob banks or break any other laws.
Eisenhower rounded up the trash and threw them out. Several million followed voluntarily when that serious president got tough.
Proximity of their imported culture?
By 8pm I'm too tired to do anything but take a bath and go to bed."
What are you, about 95 years old?
"I am on my feet from 7-3 and planning and grading from 3-5."
9 hour workdays, paid summers and tons of vacation days off. What a rough life.
Good article.
Exactly, because our welfare state supports this cultural choice rather than the economic demands which would force the seeking of employment elsewhere.
Worse than a garbage collector...what about the guys who have the trucks that maintain the port-a-johns?
If I follow your logic, being in business is like being on welfare?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.