Centerfield

As we look at the immigration issue, we need to ask: What, exactly, is the problem that we are trying to solve?

One possibility, raised repeatedly, is that these people are breaking the law by coming illegally, so steps must be taken. OK, it's true that they are breaking the law. But if committing a civil offense (which is what this currently is) is so terrible, why not go after the vastly larger number committing another civil offense: exceeding the speed limit on the freeways? If your concern is simply the massive flouting of the law, it would seem obvious that the thing to do is go after the most numerous example....

Another possibility is that the ability of large numbers of people to enter illegally is a risk to the security of the nation. But a far greater risk for actual damage to the country is the almost total lack of control over, or even just examination of, what arrives every day in our ports. A few small steps are (finally!) being taken on that front, but it doesn't seem to have raised the kind of emotional furor that illegal immigration does.

Well, how about the "These people lower wages and take jobs from Americans" argument? Mostly these are not jobs which require vast amounts of training (although agricultural jobs are not quite as simplistic as urban residents usually assume). But what they do typically is a very strong work ethic and, frequently, hard phyiscal labor. I've done some of them over the years, and frankly am not interested in doing so again if I can avoid it. But I wonder: Has anybody actually surveyed out-of-work Americans to see how many would be willing to do the jobs being done by illegal immigrants, and if so at what wage?

From the other side, there's the "The economy will sieze up without these people, so we have to get them regularized somehow" argument. Obviously _somebody_ values the services that illegal immigrants provide, at least enough to pay them. But I don't see the economy siezing up for lack of nannies or due to unmowed lawns; lack of meat packers...well, maybe. So some specific, critical, jobs really ought to be set out -- together with some reason why they economically cannot be done at a wage which will attract other workers.

And finally, the preservation of our culture (and, unstated, ethnic mix) concern. Well, American culture has not only survived a steady (and in some eras massive) influx of people who didn't fix the then-existing cultural and ethnic mix, it is arguably defined by its ability to do so. And if your concern is the changing ethnic mix, why not a) make contraception freely and cheaply available to all those immigrants while b) getting out there and make some babies of your own? ;-)

Each of those problems, if it turns out to be the one we want to solve, would require a different solution. But I'm suspecting that none of them are really the basic problem. Why not? Because I just can't see anyone getting as emotional over them, especially as opposed to some of the similar issues mentioned above, as people seem to be over immigration.

But if we actually want to solve the problem (always assuming that we do), we first have to get some agreement on what it is. Other nominations for an emotionally-charged problem which doesn't have other, non-illegal immigration related examples which aren't getting any attention?

The lemonade springs where the bluebird sings

It's not that tough a problem to "solve." Except for that political-will thing. Supply, demand, amelioration. The supply comes over the border, the demand comes from the employers, amelioration is figuring out what you want to do about those already here. The first two steps require no new law, the third is a socio-political question.

But, Tully, which part is the actual problem? Put another way: Why illegal immigration, rather than anything else we might be using our resources on?

For the most part you already covered them, wj. They're all valid concerns, and very real. What I would add is that having laws we don't enforce is also a problem--not necessarily from those particular laws, but because failure to enforce in one area leads to contempt for the law in others, and increasing non-compliance.

I've always liked 30 second Bunny Theatre. Great stuff. :-)

The Commandments remix is a real hoot too.

The Samuel L. Jackson burning bush was the best.

Tully, I have to agree that failure to enforce a particular law can lead to people ignoring a lot of laws. In that regard, probably the greatest negative impact on law-abiding behavior in my lifetime was the national imposition of a 55 MPH speed limit in the 1970s. NOBODY in the western part of the US paid any attention . . . and when the limit went back up to 65, everybody just kept going 10 MPH (or more) over the new limit.

Meanwhle, the casual attitude towards what was legal spread outward. Not too fast, to be sure, but steadily. If someone wants to reverse that trend, spending money on hiring a lot more Highway Patrol officers (or whatever they are called in your state) and having them start writing a lot of tickets would be more to the point. Hiring illegal immigrants does not involve most of the population, but EVERYBODY drives way over the speed limit. Unless constrained by heavy traffic, anybody on a California freeway doing merely 5 MPH over the speed limit damn well better be in the slow lane -- otherwise they will discover that you can get ticketed for "obstructing the flow of traffic" even if you are over the limit. (You might manage to get a judge to throw out the "obstructing" ticket, but that requires spending at least half a day contesting it.)

To return the the various concerns. Yes, they are valid concerns (in most cases). Yes, they are very real. But I just can't see any of them generating the level emotion that currently surrounds immigration. Not compared to the alternatives I cited for each; not even on their own. (Personally, I could get more worked up over the thesis: If we eliminated the illegal immigrants, we wouldn't have leaf blowers running all day long and could finally get some peace and quiet around here! Which, during the day when Latinos were supposed to go to demonstrate, instead of work, we had. :-)

And I've been making Sunny D at home - 2 parts corn syrup and 1 part orange juice. It's great with rum.

If it makes you feel any better, wj, I'm not the least bit bothered by illegal immigrants. The ones I suspect I am seeing around tend to do three things - landscape, harvest produce, and play soccer, really hard and really well. There's an soccer field very close to my house, which has recently been purchased for development, where they used to play a lot. It was awesome. They made American-born soccer players look two-dimensional. And they celebrated with exotic, native-sounding calls. It was all very life-affirming. I miss those guys.

I've been making Sunny D at home - 2 parts corn syrup and 1 part orange juice. It's great with rum.

I use Splenda instead of sugar whenever I can. Leaves more room in my caloric allowance for the rum, and doesn't bounce the blood sugar around. :-)

WJ, if you're seeking an emotional basis for current reactions don't forget the perpetual age-old fear of the "Other," or the apparently inborn urge of residents of a place to freeze it exactly as it was when they arrived, and then keep out all others. See the previous threads on suburbia and development.

Tully, I think you are absolutely right, that fear of the "Other" is what is driving this. But I hesitate to demonize (having had my hand slapped for saying "xenophobe") before looking around for alternative explanations. So far: not finding any. (Well, simple pandering on the part of politicians, of course. But do most of them even worry about what they are pandering to this week?)

Sunny D doesn't have OJ in it, does it? That stuff is NASTY. Tully, that reminds me, you mentioned soda sweetened with splenda, but other that a brief appeance of Diet Coke with Splenda, I haven't see it round. What is it you're drinking?

I had an idle thought last night, while surfing in to watch a few minutes of an ultimate fighting bout. Is this stuff going to end up doing to WW wrestling what Grunge did to hair metal?
I find wwe unwatchable, and I find UF far more watchable than boxing as well. Thoughts anyone?

Hair metal's coming back, sort of like disco. My first inclination is to say that people who watch pro wrestling don't want to watch a real sport anyway. But I would have said the same thing about people who liked hair metal, that they didn't want real music, just a show. I guess there was some percentage who just didn't know what they really wanted until it was put in front of them. But Ultimate Fighting might be more parallel to thrash metal, which never displaced hair metal, but outlived it, only without ever getting out of its underground state, which grunge managed to do. On a side note, Slayer was played on South Park the other night to disperse the hippies. Anyway, I guess we'll see. I hope something gets rid of pro wrestling.

That's one of my all-time favorite SP episodes. I love the scene where Cartman finds out that the mayor has granted the festival permit, saying that she hopes the visitors will pump some money into the economy.

"They're HIPPIES!! They don't HAVE any money.

This was along side the Boston Globe article bk liked a couple of threads up. Sexy. The headline is worded in such a way as to make it sound like the wonderful phenomenon known as "post-breakup sex."

Humans, chimps may have bred after split

I think you are absolutely right, that fear of the "Other" is what is driving this.

ONE of the things driving it. There is rarely a single cause/effect. It's always somethin'. If it's not one thing, it's another....

Brian, I have one or two drinks a night, as recommended by my physician. Of course, if he didn't recommend it I'd find another doctor, but the best research backs him up...hey, any bottle of port in a storm! Usually it's Sailor Jerry's Spiced Navy Rum* mixed w/Diet Coke with Splenda, which is in every major grocery store here. Sometimes I drink beer, or wine, or whiskey, or Flaming Mary's. The wife prefers Myer's Rum with Pepsi One, which is also made with Splenda. And most of the Shasta diet soda sold around here is made with Splenda. I hope and pray Splenda never shows up as a major health hazard. Liquor is 70 calories a shot, and I don't need to add 100 calories of sugar to that.

That's one of my favorite SP episodes too. I love it when Cartman does the home inspections!

"These are what we call the giggly stoners. Pretty common form of hippies, usually found in attics. Problem is, if you see one hippie there's probably a lot more you're not seeing. Where's your back yard? Yeah, see that? You've got a drum circle in your back yard....I gotta clear out those attic hippies and the drum circle right away, or soon they're gonna attract something MUCH worse...the college know-it-all hippies."

[*--Other "spiced rums" are much lower in alcohol content than Sailor Jerry's, which weighs in at 92 proof and has lovely hints of cherry. Captain Morgan's is 70 proof. The coconut rums and such are mostly in the 40-50 proff range. And they all want premium booze prices for weak booze. Feh.]

As my DMV record can attest to, that 55 mph limit was seriously enforced in California.

The speed limits get enforced in California . . . but sporadically rather than consistently. On the freeways here (northern and central California), I routinely see the slow lane doing 70 (including the big rigs for whom the limit has always been 55). The #3 lane doing closer to 75 (including big rigs passing others); the #2 land doing just under 80; the fast lane doing somewhere in the low 80s. And, of course, people who want to do 90 weaving in and out. That's every morning, every afternoon, every evening. The CHP cruises along at 75, and seems to be mostly interested in the people weaving in and out.

Of course, if they decide that they feel like stopping you for other reasons (hunch?), they have a perfectly valid cause. Which raises the other problem with not enforcing laws: you get way too much opportunity for selective enforcement based on prejudice (skin color, politics as indicated by bumper stickers, etc.). Or if the jurisdiction is short on money and needs to raise some quick cash.

Note: the above includes both freeways with a 70 MPH limit and those with a 65 MPH limit. The freeways with 55 MPH limits are typically two lanes: one for people doing 65 and the other for people doing 70 or so.

A friend of mine's dad was once pulled over for speeding in Houston. One officer made preliminary inquiries with the dad while the other officer walked around to the back of the car to inspect the color of the "I gave to the Fraternal Order of Police" badge decal on the back window. As it was platinum, his license was returned promptly with a polite "You have a nice day now, sir."

nice car speed limits

cost benefit analysis? illegal immigration

well w that's now...was referring to the 70's when they were strictly enforced. 59 in a 55 was a ticket.

As a rule of thumb (and this has been confirmed by several officers) the CHP will let you get away with 7mph over the limit although the real rule is if you're looking in the rear view mirror for cop cars you're probably going too fast.

the real rule is if you're looking in the rear view mirror for cop cars you're probably going too fast.

Bingo.