Posted on 02/09/2007 11:45:59 AM PST by bondjamesbond
According to a congressman's wife who attended a Republican women's luncheon yesterday, Karl Rove explained the rationale behind the president's amnesty/open-borders proposal this way: "I don't want my 17-year-old son to have to pick tomatoes or make beds in Las Vegas."
There should be no need to explain why this is an obscene statement coming from a leader in the party that promotes the virtues of hard work, thrift, and sobriety, a party whose demi-god actually split fence rails as a young man, a party where "respectable Republican cloth coat" once actually meant something. But it does seem to be necessary to explain.
Rove's comment illustrates how the Bush-McCain-Giuliani-Hagel-Martinez-Brownback-Huckabee approach to immigration strikes at the very heart of self-government. It is precisely Rove's son (and my own, and those of the rest of us in the educated elite) who should work picking tomatoes or making beds, or washing restaurant dishes, or mowing lawns, especially when they're young, to help them develop some of the personal and civic virtues needed for self-government. It's not that I want my kids to make careers of picking tomatoes; Mexican farmworkers don't want that either. But we must inculcate in our children, especially those likely to go on to high-paying occupations, that there is no such thing as work that is beneath them.
As Tocqueville wrote: "In the United States professions are more or less laborious, more or less profitable; but they are never either high or low: every honest calling is honorable." The farther we move from that notion, the closer we come to the idea that the lawyer is somehow better than the parking-lot attendant, undercutting the very foundation of republican government.
This is why the president's "willing worker/willing employer" immigration extravaganza is morally wrong — it's not just that it will cost taxpayers untold billions, or that it will beggar our own blue-collar workers, or that it will compromise security, or that it will further dissolve our sovereignty. It would do all that, of course, but most importantly it would change the very nature of our society for the worse, creating whole occupations deemed to be unfit for respectable Americans, for which little brown people have to be imported from abroad. In other words, mass immigration, even now, is moving us toward an unequal, master-servant society.
To borrow from Lincoln, our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. When it comes to this, I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty — to Saudi Arabia, for instance.
"According to a congressman's wife..."
This needs both source and context.
Translation: "I want someone else's son to have to pick tomatoes or make beds in Las Vegas."
Yes, and most Americans at some time in their lives (except the very rich) work at menial or unskilled labor jobs. It makes you appreciate your job later in life when you use your mind rather than muscle.
As if Karl Rove's kid would actually be doing this if the illegals weren't here right now.
There's something that I find rather repulsive in this attitude among America's elites today that honest-to-goodness work is demeaning and something to be avoided at all costs, even for young teenagers.
True.
Unfortunately, even without this gossip the actions of the Washington elite give evidence of this attitude.
I'd like to know what context the statement made by Rove was taken from. This could be a case of selective editing - if not then Rove should be ashamed. This smacks of centuries ago when black slaves did the menial work. We've all seen how well that turned out. . . .
Resorting to unnamed and/or anonymous sources is sloppy journalism at best and downright lying at worst. There is no need for this because the Secure Border/Anti-Illegal Immigration crowd is correct on the issues.
I went to MIT, got a degree there and a more advanced one somewhere else, and these days I make a pretty good dollar.
I also spent time crawling around in the tall grass underneath my uncle's apple trees waving away the snakes and hornets picking up dropped apples to be made into cider for 10 cents a bushel.
I also spent time in a meat market scraping up meat and fat scraps off the floor with a metal scraper and cleaning out every fleck of meat and bone out of all the grinding and cutting machines with bleach evenings.
Those and other such jobs made damn sure I appreciated being at MIT, and made sure that when I speak and act and vote I remember my Dad's words, that any honest living is a respectable and honorable one.
As if Karl Rove's kid would actually be doing this if the illegals weren't here right now.
That is the LAST place you will find ANY of the elite politicians' children working.
I on the other hand worked for years in a potato packing shed and then later put myself through college tending bar.
I am soooooo glad to know that I shouldn't have been doing either job, that they should be left to illegal immigrants.
If it weren't for those jobs where the heck would I have started Karl Rove?
Ignoramuses,every single one of them.
I want big-time confirmation that this was said. Sworn statements and tape recordings would be appropriate here. With all the half-assed republicans we have in Congress now - far less their wives - was should be very wary of taking this type of report at face value.
If he keeps up that arrogant, pompous attitude, he'll earn Pelosi's crown.
Throughout American history the Leftist mindset has provided evidence of this attitude. Our forefathers left Europe to be free of this attitude.
Gossip it is as we haven't a link to read the words of Rove ourselves, but as you state, even without this gossip the actions of the Washington ELITE give evidence.
Mmmmm...methinks that needs a fixin'...
There should be no need to explain why this is an obscene statement coming from a leader in the party that tries to promote an image that it represents the virtues of hard work, thrift, and sobriety...
There. That's better.
Rove, you bastard!
***"According to a congressman's wife..."
This needs both source and context. ***
ABSOLUTELY
Actually, Mr. Krikorian is wrong. The US boom economy has always depended on a large supply of cheap immigrant/slave labor. The only exception to this was the baby boom which was a large group that simulated immigrant cheap labor.
The only difference now is that the US ran out of caucasians to import and now are importing non caucasians.
This is a prevalent attitude in many quarters of the white upper middle class.They are trying to get their children"meaningful"summer jobs or internships they can use on their resume.
Big difference from when I was coming up and it was expected you would spend a good portion of your summer busting up weeds and digging trenches for sprinkler systems.At least thats what I did.
But thats work the "Meskins"do now."We"no longer have to get our hands dirty.
Do you know why this article was pulled earlier?
Take gardening for example. That's something most people used to do for themselves - for the pleasure of it (my wife and I still do). I know I was expected to mow the lawn (push mower too), rake leaves, burn 'em, pull weeds, shovel snow, whatever. My dad didn't hire it out to a gang of illegal aliens. But now it seems - in my old, upscale neighborhood at least - just about nobody mows his own lawn, etc. Fat, lazy kids are too busy on their iPods to get out there and do it, apparently. So they pay Mexicans to do it for them.
This is what's wrong.
We taught our kids that all work has dignity. Only willful idleness is shameful.
It's worse. He wants someone else's son to be an uneducated illegal who can't speak English. One who bleeds white our social infrastructure and comprises 25% of our prison population.
Screw you Rove...
Karl's kid will likely suck at the gubmint teat as he and his friends will have learned by example.
Bottom line, honest truth is that we need immigration so that we don't end up like Europe with a declining aging population that cannot sustain itself militarily or economically.
The traditional white Anglo-Saxon majority in the U.S. is, like Europe, failing to reproduce in sufficient numbers. Europe is thus being taken over by eastern immigration, most of it muslim.
Mexicans are, by and large, hard working, family-oriented, and industrious. They're also Christian.
Demographically, we need them. That's just fact.
Flame away, but I'm telling the truth.
Somebody would have to do it, or else we wouldn't have tomatoes.
IN fact, I hire people to do work around my house because I don't want to do it myself. You could make that sound terrible, like I think I'm above those who do menial labor. But in fact it's just a simple statement that I have no interest in installing another hot water heater, so it's easier for me to spend money to get someone else to do it.
And if for some reason we took actions which eliminated all hot-water-heater installers, then I would be forced to install my own. And I would oppose the action, and might be caught saying "I don't want to have to install my own hot water heater", and someone would say I sound like an elitist.
We have jobs we want to have done, and they are menial jobs, and there aren't enough americans around who want to work at those menial jobs.
That's a fact. We have 12-20 million illegals here now, probably 10 million or more doing menial jobs. We have a 4.5% unemployment rate, and almost every fast food restaurant where I live is looking for workers.
If they can't get americans or legal immigrants to do those jobs today, how are they going to fill them when there are 10 million MORE jobs that need to be filled?
What ever happened to the Protestant work ethic in this country?
I agree with him. I don't want my son or daughter to pick tomatoes or make beds in Vegas either. I am not an wealthy elitist like Rove. I did work at such jobs as janitor, laborer, carpenter helper, etc... while getting a few college degrees along the way. Some of which are advanced degrees. Both my kids are grown now and turned out great.
Agreed. The rationale behind Rove's supposed statement disgusts.
That said. I don't believe he said it.
source and context
Correct. I do all my own yard work, including pushing a mower. I use the event to get exercise. I call it aerobic yard work. Some of my neighbors cut their own grass. I get a kick out of seeing guys on riding lawnmowers that cost in excess of $1500 for a 1/3 acre yard.
You hardly ever see kids out cutting grass anymore. Why don't people get their kids to cut the grass? One woman that I talked to in the neighborhood said that she didn't want her 12 year old son getting hurt pushing a lawnmower. Give me a break, I was cutting grass at age 8.
This, Ladies and Gentleman, is how apartheid begins, and it should alarm EVERY American, that this beginning is being actively promoted, right here in the United states, by leading figures at the highest levels of our government.
I laud Bush for his stance on terrorism; I curse him for his stance on illegal immigration.
Were the President to get his way on illegal immigration, this country would become something more Third-Worldly, something less appreciated by its citizenry, something less united, something less noble, something less worthy of the sacrifices being now made to save it. The President's policies on terrorism and illegal immigration are at irreconcilable positions: The former asserts the worth of the Nation and determines to save it from harm at all costs, while the latter casts the value of citizenship into the dust, as a base thing unworthy of being protected from degradation. This is nothing less than political schizophrenia.
Mr. President, you cannot have it both ways. Either this Nation and citizenship herein are both worthy of protection, preservation, and respect; both worthy of the blood sacrifice of those who have risen to fight for them, or neither of them are worthy of such effort end esteem. You cannot simultaneously protect and erode this Nation while professing to be acting in its best interest. That you do not seem to recognize that this is precisely what you are doing, only makes you look like a complete fool.
Working as a dishwasher in the college cafeteria to make my way through undergrad a fellow dishwasher, who was not in college and a little older than I, told me something that has stuck with me my whole life: "Never put a man down for the job he does."
Also, if this is true, it cam be a huge public relations nightmare for the President. You just don't say things like that!
Perfect example is Paris Hilton.
"Both my kids are grown now and turned out great."
***
Ah, but do they love tomatoes?
One does and one doesn't. Strange world isn't it.
Surely not!
NOT on FR!!!!
It went out with the moral ethic....
It also makes you appreciate the value of money, respect the process by which you got it, teaches you how to handle it wisely, and makes you bitterly resent politicains who want to steal if from you "for the common good."
I had some jobs when I was a kid that would make the guy from Dirty Jobs cough up a lung. You can bet mucking about in that kind of work was a powerful incentive for me to get a good and marketable education.
The sheltering of one's children from reality is called "spoiling" for good reason.
It's a shame what happens to these poor-in-spirit rich kids. There's always lawyering and government work, I suppose. ;^)
I don't know. I just did a search and posted it.
"Yes, and most Americans at some time in their lives (except the very rich) work at menial or unskilled labor jobs. It makes you appreciate your job later in life when you use your mind rather than muscle."
And some can even use both at the same time. ;)
You'll get no flames for me. I fully support legal immigration. I think that if people want to come here, and are willing to work hard and take on the responsibilities of citizenship, we should make that possible.
What I don't support is a two-tier system, where there is the Citizen Class and a Sub-Class of Guest Workers.
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