Mark Browne wrote:

snip
But, you still focus on "illegal", even though the food these people
produce
is crucial to the healthy development of your children. Perhaps I'm
overly
suspicious, but all of this leads me to one conclusion. You're a racist.

(Notice no mention of Islam). I focus on illegal, because that's what it
is. What good are established laws, if we routinely look the other way,
when it suits us? What message does this send? There is an established
procedure that one follows when immigrating to this country. Either
follow it or get out. It's that simple. It has nothing to do with any
individual's race or ethnic background.

Dave

I trust you never exceed the posted speed limits. I will always find you
poking around in the right lane, slower that the flow of traffic because of
your rigid adherence to established (and clearly posted) laws. We all know
that disregard for individual laws lead to the general breakdown of respect
for all laws. I can only assume that if you could not follow the laws of
this country, that you would "get out" as you stated above.


This is always the defense that gets thrown back at me, when I defend
the concepts and principles of the law. The old "You have no right to
demand adherence to the law, if you break any one of them, however
trivial". Usual examples are either speeding, or jaywalking. Not wanting
to nit pick over the differences between summary offenses, versus actual
crimes, let's just say that, if this is going to be your ,and the
justification for ignoring any specific law, then you might want to
consider that by this logic, ANY law is open for challenge. I could kill
your wife, or steal your car, and then claim that you have no right to
complain, because you break the speeding law.

You can hopefully see now, how silly this defense becomes.....

Dave

"Dave Hall" wrote in message
...


Dave, you've been shown that the illegal presence of farm workers is an
integral part of our agricultural structure, and you've almost admitted
that
there's nothing we can do about it. It's also been made clear that the
practice of hiring them is not hidden by farmers, which is why farmers
are
willing to discuss the issue, on the record, to reporters. And, the
article
I pointed out to you discussed the fact that some states have laws in
the
works to afford a few more kinds of worker protection for migrants.

But, you still focus on "illegal", even though the food these people
produce
is crucial to the healthy development of your children. Perhaps I'm
overly
suspicious, but all of this leads me to one conclusion. You're a racist.

(Notice no mention of Islam). I focus on illegal, because that's what it
is. What good are established laws, if we routinely look the other way,
when it suits us? What message does this send? There is an established
procedure that one follows when immigrating to this country. Either
follow it or get out. It's that simple. It has nothing to do with any
individual's race or ethnic background.

Dave


This is getting convoluted again, so I'll try and distill what I believe
you're saying. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

1) You think it's wrong that migrant workers come here from Latin America
illegally.

2) Although email bulletins allow you to keep tabs on what your legislators
are doing, you do nothing proactive to change the situation with migrant
workers, except complain about it.

3) You happily continue to reap the benefits of having cheap labor from
Latin America, without which you'd either have produce priced 2-4 times
higher, or a selection of produce representing about 25% of what you now
have, particularly in the winter. Probably both.

Is this about right?

"Dave Hall" wrote in message
...


If a black guy robs a store and shoots a cop, am I not allowed to
condemn his actions out of fear of being called a "racist", even though
his race has no bearing on his actions?


That's much different than making generalizations about Muslims killing
their spouses for sport, and using that generalization to rationalize
invading another country.

Doug Kanter wrote:

"Dave Hall" wrote in message
...


Dave, you've been shown that the illegal presence of farm workers is an
integral part of our agricultural structure, and you've almost admitted
that
there's nothing we can do about it. It's also been made clear that the
practice of hiring them is not hidden by farmers, which is why farmers
are
willing to discuss the issue, on the record, to reporters. And, the
article
I pointed out to you discussed the fact that some states have laws in
the
works to afford a few more kinds of worker protection for migrants.

But, you still focus on "illegal", even though the food these people
produce
is crucial to the healthy development of your children. Perhaps I'm
overly
suspicious, but all of this leads me to one conclusion. You're a racist.

(Notice no mention of Islam). I focus on illegal, because that's what it
is. What good are established laws, if we routinely look the other way,
when it suits us? What message does this send? There is an established
procedure that one follows when immigrating to this country. Either
follow it or get out. It's that simple. It has nothing to do with any
individual's race or ethnic background.

Dave


This is getting convoluted again, so I'll try and distill what I believe
you're saying. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

1) You think it's wrong that migrant workers come here from Latin America
illegally.

What part of ILLEGAL, is so hard to understand? Are we free to enter
other countries and work there, without following some sort of process?
Why should the U.S. not have a similar policy and expect everyone to
follow it?

2) Although email bulletins allow you to keep tabs on what your legislators
are doing, you do nothing proactive to change the situation with migrant
workers, except complain about it.

That's exactly what I do, to my legislators. I get a nice form response
(most likely prepared by an illegal immigrant office worker) along the
lines of "thank you for sharing your viewpoints with us.......


3) You happily continue to reap the benefits of having cheap labor from
Latin America, without which you'd either have produce priced 2-4 times
higher, or a selection of produce representing about 25% of what you now
have, particularly in the winter. Probably both.

So what's your point? Is your point that you'd gladly break the law, if
it saves you money and puts more American workers out of a job? What's
different about this practice than that of outsourcing?

Dave

"Dave Hall" wrote in message
...


This is getting convoluted again, so I'll try and distill what I believe
you're saying. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

1) You think it's wrong that migrant workers come here from Latin
America
illegally.

What part of ILLEGAL, is so hard to understand? Are we free to enter
other countries and work there, without following some sort of process?
Why should the U.S. not have a similar policy and expect everyone to
follow it?

2) Although email bulletins allow you to keep tabs on what your
legislators
are doing, you do nothing proactive to change the situation with migrant
workers, except complain about it.

That's exactly what I do, to my legislators. I get a nice form response
(most likely prepared by an illegal immigrant office worker) along the
lines of "thank you for sharing your viewpoints with us.......

Pick up the phone, call your legislator's office, and set up an appointment
for a meeting. It's easy. You may have to wait a bit, but you WILL get to
meet the person.


3) You happily continue to reap the benefits of having cheap labor from
Latin America, without which you'd either have produce priced 2-4 times
higher, or a selection of produce representing about 25% of what you now
have, particularly in the winter. Probably both.

So what's your point? Is your point that you'd gladly break the law, if
it saves you money and puts more American workers out of a job? What's
different about this practice than that of outsourcing?


How many times does this need repeating: One reason farmers hire migrants is
that they cannot find Americans willing to do this kind of work. They come
here because there's demand, and because compared to the risks involved in
crossing the border, the work itself is relatively safe.

Mark Browne wrote:

"Dave Hall" wrote in message
...
Mark Browne wrote:

snip
But, you still focus on "illegal", even though the food these people
produce
is crucial to the healthy development of your children. Perhaps I'm
overly
suspicious, but all of this leads me to one conclusion. You're a
racist.

(Notice no mention of Islam). I focus on illegal, because that's what
it
is. What good are established laws, if we routinely look the other
way,
when it suits us? What message does this send? There is an established
procedure that one follows when immigrating to this country. Either
follow it or get out. It's that simple. It has nothing to do with any
individual's race or ethnic background.

Dave

I trust you never exceed the posted speed limits. I will always find you
poking around in the right lane, slower that the flow of traffic because
of
your rigid adherence to established (and clearly posted) laws. We all
know
that disregard for individual laws lead to the general breakdown of
respect
for all laws. I can only assume that if you could not follow the laws of
this country, that you would "get out" as you stated above.


This is always the defense that gets thrown back at me, when I defend
the concepts and principles of the law. The old "You have no right to
demand adherence to the law, if you break any one of them, however
trivial". Usual examples are either speeding, or jaywalking. Not wanting
to nit pick over the differences between summary offenses, versus actual
crimes, let's just say that, if this is going to be your ,and the
justification for ignoring any specific law, then you might want to
consider that by this logic, ANY law is open for challenge. I could kill
your wife, or steal your car, and then claim that you have no right to
complain, because you break the speeding law.

You can hopefully see now, how silly this defense becomes.....

Dave


There are a bunch of "nuisance laws" that are selectively enforced.

Which laws you or I consider "nuisance" laws, is a matter of personal
opinion, and subjectivity.

I consider the "foreign workers" laws to be among them.

I don't. It's providing a loophole for removing yet another segment of
work from American citizens, and removing any incentive to improve both
the salaries and working conditions for those jobs.

Another is the
prohibition on hemp. I have seen figures that show that a significant part
of the population ignores these laws.

That does not make it right. It only underscores the deteriorating
respect, and morality that's become endemic to our society.


What this type of enforcement does is
teach the average citizen to pick and chose what laws they will follow.

If law enforcement were a bit tougher, they might think twice.



I don't see this as a healthy situation. When this type of situation occurs
that tells me that better laws are needed. These better laws should be
enforced.

Better laws? Or just laws which more closely align with your ideals? And
like terrorism, should we allow the scofflaws to effect change in
policy, by the simple act of giving in to their "demands"?

BTW: That is me that you see in the right lane, poking along at the posted
limits. It does do great things for the gas mileage.

In my state, the law gives you a 5 MPH grace period to account for
speedometer accuracy. I usually drive at that level.


Dave