Stoopid Stuff

Immigration "Reform"--At least we still have Brown People to Hate

What is it with these Nutjob Right Wing extremists? You know, the ones who constitute the Republican "Base"? It seems as though every knee-jerk, emotional, ideology-driven choice they make runs directly counter to their own best interests. The old saw "People vote with their Pocketbooks" didn't survive the fear and hatred of the new millenium. Every Right Wing position--whether it be on Health Care, Privacy, Education, Economics, Civil Rights or Immigration--Every choice they make actually hurts them economically, socially or practically; and negatively impact the chances of their children to grow up healthy and prosperous.

A question for all those who support making every illegal alien, and all who support them, felons under US law: When you go to McDonalds, do you like having lettuce on your hamburger? Tomatos? Do you want your children to grow up picking lettuce? Have you ever picked tomatos? What do you suppose a hamburger would cost if lettuce, tomato and onion pickers earned 8 or 10 or 15 dollars an hour? Oh, don't forget about the benefits. How much would a house cost if laborers were paid on the payroll, with taxes and benefits, and not with cash? The overall American unemployment rate hovers somewhere in the 5% range. If you were to actually kick out the 15 million or so undocumented workers, who would take those jobs? Restaraunts, Agriculture, Labor, all the jobs you want your kids to go to college so they DON'T have to work them--who will?

Once again, the angry theocratic right is letting their ideology and hatred run away with their brains. They so despise "brown people"--you know, people who are different, who don't speak english, who look and dress differently, who are a "blight on the community" when they stand in the Home Depot parking lot asking for a day labor job for less than the minimum wage.--They so despise them they are willing to drive yet another nail into their economic coffin. They hate gay people, so they open up terrible rifts in their own families, between parents and children, between brothers and sisters. They hate muslims and jews and sikhs and anyone who thinks they might know better who god is. They hate women who think they might have the right to make decisions about their own body and their own lives. Their ideology and their religion is nothing but ignorance, fear and hate.

But there's no news in any of that. The part that is so dificult to understand is WHY? When all of these decisions actually harm them, cost them jobs and put their children's future at risk, why do they do it? This position on immigration is a great example. Why would someone in middle America hate Latino immigrants? Why would they support such draconian anti-immigration measures? Well, they will tell you that they want these jobs for Americans. But if Americans would take them, they wouldn't be available for illegal aliens. They will tell you that it's a National Security issue. As I recall, the 9/11 hijackers did not sneak across the Mexican border in the dead of night. Nor did the "millenium bomber". Nor did the cell that first attacked the the World Trade Center in the early nineties.

These arguments are so weak, so easily refuted, that they might as well come out and say it: "We hate brown people. We want them as far away from us as possible, and we want them to suffer as much pain and deprivation as possible." It is appalling that people who call themselves christians would not have the slightest bit of empathy for people doing nothing more than trying to better the circumstances of their own families--and taking terrible risks to do so. It is this ugly, insular, Us vs. Them mindset that actually describes these types of people much more accurately than "Christian". They are exposed as the racist, xenophopic haters that they always were. It is more evidence that their real religion is nationalism, and nationalism trumps religion every time, in every part of the planet. But that's another post...

posted by mikey @ 11:56 AM