JOHNSON: Colorado deserves much better than Doug Bruce
By Bill Johnson, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)
Published April 22, 2008 at 11 p.m.
One would have to care even a single whit before undertaking any consideration at all of Douglas Bruce, much less the right or wrong of what spews from his gaping yap.
Yet given his position, it is often inescapable.
The banality of his "illiterate peasants" remark Monday from the podium of the state House of Representatives is, to my mind, precisely what we get for allowing those who represent us to appoint such a buffoon to tend to the serious work of conducting this state's business.
Douglas Bruce, a man best known for being the first legislator in state history to be censured - this for refusing to apologize for kicking a Rocky Mountain News photographer inside the Capitol - has to be Exhibit A in Colorado of the old H.L. Mencken truism that "we get the government we deserve."
It should anger each of us that such incendiary and simple-minded bigotry is being spewed not on some tavern barstool or talk radio, but in the dignified space we all own and cherish.
Colorado deserves so much better than Doug Bruce.
The flipside argument, I suppose, could be made that he is merely parroting the general consensus of those he represents. He even as much as said so on Monday.
The representative can hardly get out to Wal-Mart, he complained, without having his constituents asking him to do something about illegal immigration.
If that's the case, one can easily imagine Douglas Bruce choosing to play to their worst prejudices and fears.
He clearly was not listening to the men and women who put food on our plates every day as they testified on behalf of House Bill 1325, which aims to make it easier for migrant workers to come to Colorado, and passed on a 48-16 vote with bipartisan support.
The bill would assist in its first year 1,000 migrant workers - 5,000 in five years - in navigating the tedious job of securing federal documents to work temporarily in the U.S. The bill would require employers to provide them free housing and guarantee their return to their countries of origin.
Rather than government-sponsored illegal immigration, as Douglas Bruce called it, the bill would help provide Colorado growers and their $16 billion-a-year-industry with the work force they desperately need.
Andy Grant and John Cox's stories are perhaps ones you can wrap your head around.
Andy Grant's family has run Grant Family Farms just outside Wellington since 1974. It is now one of the largest organic farms in the country.
Over the past two years, though, he has cut back by more than half the number of crops planted.
He has, he said, almost no one to harvest them.
"I cannot legally hire workers now at almost any price," he said.
The reason is federal and state politicians like Douglas Bruce have "beaten the anti-illegal immigrant drum" so loud that few migrant workers are willing to come to Colorado.
It started, he said, two years ago when then-Gov. Bill Owens called a special session of the legislature to pass some of the toughest anti-illegal immigration laws in the country.
Before then, says John Cox, who runs the Rocky Mountain Peach Co. in Palisade, the going rate for those picking his peaches was about $6.25 an hour.
"Most of them, yes, were illegal," John Cox acknowledged.
But that was then. He now must find workers through the federal government's H2-A temporary worker program.
He explains the difference this way:
Under H2-A, he must pay for housing for workers and their transportation - usually from Mexico - to Colorado, and pay them $9.40 an hour.
The cost doesn't stop there. There is a $2,400 flat fee he must pay simply to be in the program, plus a $100-per-man flat fee for background checks.
"By the time one man gets up here, it can cost me $500 to $700 before I ever put him to work," John Cox said.
Americans, Andy Grant said, simply are not going to work for 10 hours in the hot sun on a farm.
"I've run local ads. That is just not reality anymore."
Under H2-A, Andy Grant said, he will be paying more than double the minimum wage. And yes, it will all be passed along to the consumer, which no politician ever reveals, he said.
The bottom line, he said, is it puts his family's business in jeopardy.
"Truthfully, I am not at all certain there will be a working Colorado farm in 10 years, if things remain as they are," Andy Grant said.
Politicians like Douglas Bruce, he added, have no idea of what they have started.
"If Douglas Bruce had any honor, he would never again put a piece of fruit or a vegetable in his mouth," he said.
"And shame on him. I am embarrassed by him as a Coloradoan, all of whom should be standing up and thanking the guest worker. No one ever says this, but they are the bedrock of our economy.
"They are feeding us."
johnsonw@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2763.
Post your comment
Registration is required. Click here to create your free user account, or login below.
Comments are the sole responsibility of the person posting them. You agree not to post comments that are off topic, defamatory, obscene, abusive, threatening or an invasion of privacy. Violators may be banned. Click here for our full user agreement.
Featured
-
A Dozen on Denver
Sandra Dallas wrote 'Lennie's tavern' for our ongoing fiction series. Check it out!
-
Rocky Multimedia
The news comes alive in our videos and slide shows. Catch up on today's events.
-
Bronco Dean's rant
Listen to Bronco Dean's totally biased rant about the Broncos-Jaguars game.
-
Presidential Elections
See how Colorado counties have voted through the years.
-
County election profiles
A look at how residents in each Colorado county may vote.
-
A dream fulfilled
A Rocky Mountain News and MediaStorm production
-
Latest from Dove Valley
Click for more broncos videos.
-
Sam Adams' Open Mic
No. 44 means a lot to Floyd Little
-
Rocky Preps
Now showing: ThunderRidge-Highlands Ranch football.
April 23, 2008
12:18 a.m.
Suggest removal
Toadal writes:
These Are Not Your Father's Mexicans.
Latin American Mestizos (mixed Amerindian & Spanish) and Amerindians make up about 83%-90% of Central America. In years past it was mostly Caucasian Mexicans who illegally entered the US, however, today the vast majority are Mestizos and Amerindian laborers. Years ago those Caucasian or mostly Caucasian Mexicans would be classified as white, however, that is no longer true since American Indians cannot be classified as white.
Mestizos and Amerindians have a long tradition of putting little value in education.
For Example, in Mexico, only 13% of adults have received a high school diploma.
See http://www.worldfund.org/index.php?q=...
So how well do they do academically in the US?
US Department of Education NAEP figures:
Caucasian NAEP 8th Grade Science Percentage Scores
===========================================
Percent Below Basic -BB | Basic -B | Proficient -P | Advanced -A |
BB | B | P | A |
28 | 35 | 34 | 4 |
Hispanic NAEP 8th Grade Science Percentage Scores
===========================================
Percent Below Basic -BB | Basic -B | Proficient -P | Advanced -A |
BB | B | P | A |
67 | 24 | 9 |<1 |
Over 90% of US Hispanics score below proficient in science.
Link to US Department of Education NAEP Report for Science:
http://nationsreportcard.gov/science_...
Domestic NAEP scores for reading and mathematics for American Hispanics are equally dismal. Also international PISA reading and mathematics scores for Mexicans taught reading and mathematics in Spanish are just as bad, if not worse than those who have fled here.
PISA officials estimate over 50% of Mexican 15-year old youth today are functionally illiterate and thus unable to compete in the Mexican economy.
http://www.worldfund.org/index.php?q=...
The fact is granting amnesty to millions of scientifically ignorant, functionally illiterate and mathematically innumerate manual laborers in an attempt to transform them into American citizens will lower our standard of living. Moreover, since they cannot compete in a capitalistic system they will vote as a block for someone like themselves, a socialist Hugo Chavez wannabe, who will distribute all wealth to the poor.
April 23, 2008
6:55 a.m.
Suggest removal
Jimminy writes:
I'm a little surprised that Bill is coming down on this side of this debate.Time and again Bill has so elegantly and in so many ways made the point that we're all Americans and that we're better off looking out for each other,and I just don't get it that he would go off on Douglas Bruce for pointing out the literal truth.The illegals,even if they were made legal,would still have the cultural mindset of "mordida",that is to say,bypassing conventions and laws that inconvenience them,but taking full advantage of benefits available,with the tacit approval of the benefit-granting entities as well as that of legal Hispanics.
Another consequence is that wages are further depressed,impacting the other American low-income group,the legality of whose presence in this country is infinitely beyond question.
April 23, 2008
7:15 a.m.
Suggest removal
peachy0301 writes:
If you look at the FEDERAL program that is similar to this and at other states that have thought they had the right to write their own foreign policy by instituting programs like this - one of the biggest problems is that when these 1,000 immigrants come in (with their families, it's more likely to be 6-8,000 people) they take off and don't make it home.
This is another way for people to come in legally and stay illegally. This bill needs to go away. The Colorado Legislature needs to do something that matters instead of wasting so much time on stuff they have no business messing with.
April 23, 2008
7:36 a.m.
Suggest removal
sheepherder writes:
We already have enough illegal workers in this state without adding 5000 "legal" ones. And Americans WOULD do these jobs if the employers would pay a decent wage instead to trying to maximize thier profits off the backs of laborers.
April 23, 2008
10:44 a.m.
Suggest removal
educatedamerican writes:
Finally some comments on an issue with some validity. The reality of this is, how many other sectors of our country have mandated pay scales above minimum wage?????? But here we are mandateing a wage which after you include housing and transportation is going to place more difficulty on local farms to make it in this country. People need to wake up and realize where there food comes from and who it is that picks, proccesses and boxes these yummy veggies that we all not only enjoy but need for a healthy lifestyle. Do we enforce maindated wages and housing on McDonald employess for instance, a restaurant chain that only increases our national obesity and reliance on essentially cheap corn products. I'd like to also address the above comment on decent wage, if you actually read and processed the article you would have noted John Cox's comment on before the H2A program he was paying $6.25 an hour to pick peaches. This was before the program, before minimum wage was increased. The reality is, this is hard, hot, long work, that many of us, including myself find difficult, and I've done it, can many people actually say they know what it takes to get the food from the farm to their table? The farmer has to maximize his profits with farms moving south, the increase in price of diesel, inefficient H2A programs, scarcity of water, insecure food markets, the crap-shot that is the nature of the beast we call weather, subsidies for commodity crops and a boom in corn-ethanol has produced for a not so worthy fuel option, etc. Its not simply a cut and paste problem, there are many factors that go into staying alive producing OUR countries food, to bang on the farmer, who is not getting rich doing this, but we all enjoy eating the fruits of his/her labor. To be more accurate it is the lack of understanding of how food is produced that is at the corner stone of many people's confusion and lack of adequate appreiation to what used to be know as the salt of the earth and has been basterized into illegal aliens. On another note, people also need to look around and see who it is keeping their lawns pristine, bushes trimmed, and dishes clean at restaraunts. Many things are taken for granted, we are all in this together, don't forget that!
April 23, 2008
1 p.m.
Suggest removal
redwhiteandBLUE writes:
When children have to interpret for their parents and grandparents everywhere they go ..I'd say that was 'illiterate'. Some parent and
grandparents just got here, some have been here for years and still illiterate.
And you really think these people stay working the fields ?
as soon as they network the American system they drop these jobs and move up to construction or any other job. Then you need more workers, and it turns out to be a revolving door.
By the way..the fruit and vegetables and other food is very expensive and no one has been deported wasn't that what has been said ?
April 24, 2008
1:48 a.m.
Suggest removal
JoeSchmo writes:
Bill Johnson is a clown. Just another media bufoon taking sides with illegal aliens over US citizens. Andy Grant and John Cox don't deserve to be in business
April 24, 2008
9:28 a.m.
Suggest removal
Michael writes:
Colorado deserves much better than Ward Churchill.
If I remember correctly, this was NEVER a headline for a Bill Johnson article back when it mattered and if I also remember correctly, Johnson supported Ward's right to speak freely from the lecturn at CU and insult the dead, Armed Forces, our President, and pretty much any/all things American. But God forbid we insult (perceived, not real) the Mexicans.
April 24, 2008
11:33 a.m.
Suggest removal
StandUp writes:
Bill Johnson wrote this article? For a minute it sounded like the garbage Tina Gecko usually writes (Tina is the reason I usually look to CNN,Fox news etc as a news source - not sure why she hates America).
There are already an estimated 20 million ILLEGAL immigrants in the US - supposedly to work. If this is true then there should be plenty of people to work the farms etc.
This program would eventually turn into "um, yeah, we can't find those workers now that it's time for them to leave". It would happen and you know it!
Can we please enforce the laws we have now and worry about importing votes - I mean labor at another time.
This has nothing to with race; it's a matter of a Sovereign nation enforcing existing laws before they pass more laws to make things worse!
If picking fruit pays 9 dollars an hour I know plenty of Americans that will do it! I think they just say that to make them look better.
Too bad, Bill was one of the last RMN writers I looked forward to reading.
April 24, 2008
12:28 p.m.
Suggest removal
JB writes:
I've asked it before and I'll ask it again... Why are people soooo worried about Immigrants coming here to do these agro-jobs? Or the dishwasher jobs, or to put it bluntly, the jobs that most Americans simply won't do for $6/ hour? Someone above said, "if they would pay a decent wage..." but really, the mark-up on agro products isn't very much...so if we pay people $10+/ hour...we WILL see prices rise even more than they already have. The same goes for any job that is primarily help by migrant labor. I bet half the people making comments here would be the first to yell and hollar when a dinner salad at Applebees costs $15!
Also, everyone whines about the immigrants taking American jobs...they don't want "illiterate peasants" to take their jobs away. But let me ask you... do you really have a job that an "illiterate peasant" could do? Really?
April 24, 2008
1:18 p.m.
Suggest removal
StandUp writes:
JB
I am an American and I HAVE DONE THESE JOBS!
April 24, 2008
1:29 p.m.
Suggest removal
JB writes:
So have I, but when I was 14-15. Times have changed. Many parents won't let their kids get jobs because "they need to focus on school..." And, now the kids are working at Starbucks or as hosts in restaurants, etc... I see very few who will pick veggies or wash dishes, especially for minimum wage. So, someone's got to do it!
April 24, 2008
1:51 p.m.
Suggest removal
redwhiteandBLUE writes:
Stan Up,
Yea, Americans have ALWAYS done those jobs, factory, agro, domestic, etc..all of them! Now they are needed? Who did them before they came around ? Americans! The ones that want them here are the ones that can use them for cheap labor.
April 24, 2008
2:33 p.m.
Suggest removal
Spencer writes:
someone really thinks that fruit pickers would look for a job online??
April 25, 2008
9:36 a.m.
Suggest removal
Tim_CA writes:
God Bless you State Representative Douglas Bruce for being brave enough to speak the truth. I remember well the heady days before 15 million Illegal Aliens came traipsing unfettered across the border forever altering our culture. Back then (a whopping 15 years ago) a blue collar worker (roofer, carpenter, etc.) could make a decent living, raise a family, own a home. Alas, those days are now gone. Our schools, Our emergency rooms, Our Infrastructure, Our Language never to be the same, and the gap between the "haves" and the "have-nots" has become the Grand Canyon.
Thank you sir for eschewing political correctness and telling the truth.
Mr. Johnson, you, unfortunately, are part of the problem. Politically correct FOOLS like you loosely through around words like "Bigot" and "racist" rather than engage in intelligent talk about "rule of law" and the vanishing American middle class. You sir are pathetic.
April 25, 2008
10:02 a.m.
Suggest removal
RickyLee writes:
Long live TABOR.
April 25, 2008
2:58 p.m.
Suggest removal
educatedamerican writes:
This is definitly a heated topic, but the truth is, if you like to buy itmes like red-leaf lettuce at the price it is, try and think what it would be without migrant workers. And speaking of migrant workers, and the comment about who used to do the factory work, agro, etc., try immigrants, but they haven't always been mexican, try your own ancestors. Most folks can trace their own linage to immigrants, looking for a better life. And to assume that everyone has a computer that wants to do work that needs no education and is labor intensive shines to their reality of this issue. And come on people, wake up on the difference of literacy and the ability to understand english. Folks need to get out of the country once and awhile so they have some experience to reference, many other places in the world, people not only know their own language but english, as well as the langauage of surronding countries, and here we are knowing english and crying that we now need to know some spanish. And to comment on our culture, what is our culture? Sending McDonalds and Starbucks around the world, an epidemic of obesity, a healthcare system that's faulty at best, a culture that looks past the people that provide food for their homes and BBQs. You can still make good money roofing if you like the backbreaking, hot work, as a carpenter if you like building ticky-tacky cheap homes that seem to be the demand. The difference between the "haves" and "havenots" is not from the mexicans, take a look at our political structure and where the big wallets are.
April 25, 2008
3:46 p.m.
Suggest removal
Tim_CA writes:
Educated American Writes: " if you like to buy items like red-leaf lettuce at the price it is, try and think what it would be without migrant workers. And speaking of migrant workers, and the comment about who used to do the factory work, agro, etc., try immigrants, but they haven't always been mexican, try your own ancestors."
For an educated American - you're certainly not very bright. Let's start with the "cost of lettuce" fallacy, shall we? Let's go crazy and say that a lack of illegal immigrant lettuce pickers adds $0.50 to the price of a head of lettuce (relax all you informed types - I know that this is absurdly high, but I'm trying to make a point). Now let's go really crazy and say that you buy a head of lettuce every week 52 x .50 = $26.00/year. Now my educated friend...let's go just nuts and extend that to all of the produce you buy, and let's assume that you pay a whopping $200.00 more a year for groceries (omg!!!!).
Now let's talk about the cost of subsidizing illegal aliens in this country. Can't send your kids to public school anymore...they're bursting at the seams with illegals who need ESL training at 45 students to a classroom....what does a private school cost, $5,000 a year? Wow, look at all the traffic....it now takes you an extra hour to commute to and from work every day...what's that worth, $200.00 a week??? Oh and wait...all of those lettuce pickers are below the poverty line...looks like taxes will need to be raised to provide them with social services and health-care...what do you think that’ll cost you a year…a couple of thousand bucks????
We’re not done yet…don’t go to that Emergency room (assuming it’s still open) because that’s the illegal alien primary care facility…your wait shouldn’t be less that 4 hours or so (let’s just call that a quality of life issue – assuming you survive).
Oh and it gets better...look at all of those uninsured illegals driving around in crappy cars....hope you don't get hit by one, that'll have to come out of your pocket. Oh and nothing like illegal alien gang-members to really perk-up your day...but hey...YOU'RE GETTING CHEAP LETTUCE!!!
Yep you’re a freakin’ genius!!! And let’s drop the “immigrants have always done this” work nonsense until people like you are able to distinguish between LEGAL IMMIGRANTS (who have done these jobs in the past and will always be welcome in this country) and ILLEGAL ALIENS (who are doing them now and destroying our culture).
April 25, 2008
4:20 p.m.
Suggest removal
JB writes:
Tim_CA...
You are clearly confused. EducatedAmerican makes good points and you attack him with faulty math and bigotry!
First of all, we are, in the case of this bill, discussing LEGAL immigrants. That was the whole point of the Bill that Mr. Bruce decided to lambast with his idiotic tyrade. Also, you use only lettuce as a cost comparison, yet add of the costs of several other things to compare savings and expenditures to. Do you see the problem with that logic?
First, your price point increase on lettuce might be low...could be high..BUT agro cost based on at least doubling the current salary now paid will actually have an exponential growth rate across the entire industry... Farmers simply cannot afford to pay $10/ hour to that many people because they simply cannot recoup those costs on the commidities market. They will begin planting less at higher costs to stabalize their profit and sustainability. The reduction in supply but stable demand will drive prices even higher until a critical mass is reached, at which point the whole system collapses and has to be reinvented. Add to that government subsidies paid by the tax payers and increased agro subsidies and competition from oversees...and you could easily doom the US farming structure... or at least relagate it to strictly factory farming.
Your tyrade about public school is off the mark too. As there always have been, there are good districts and bad and those are strictly confined to the average economic standing of the neighborhoods they serve. There has, at least since I was a kid, been ESL classes. ESL kids in my school were usually Hmong or Russian. It's funny because then everyone complained about the Hmong kids and never the Russian ones. Something to do with color perhaps?
Also, MANY jobs besides agro are done by immigrants. Who do you think keeps your yard landscaped, restaurant dishes clean, etc??? Migrant laborors do work that no one else wants to do for the price and it always falls into the three "D's" Dangerous, Dirty or Disgusting.
April 25, 2008
4:40 p.m.
Suggest removal
Tim_CA writes:
JB...<sigh>...Honest to God, I'm so sick and tired of pro-illegal types screaming racism or bigotry everytime they're challanged on their whacky views.
First...please explain EXACTLY what was bigoted about my post....I'm waiting breathlessly you poor lost PC soul.
Second...my friend...I'm living this!!! I live in southern California and have watched the state go down the toilet...and beleive me my apologist amigo...it's headed your way.
My kid is in a private school...My commute has become insufferable....six of our local emergency rooms have closed over the past two years, and our African American citizens are being targeted for extermination by Illegal Alien Gangs.
Keep hiding your head in the sand, then let's talk in a couple years when You're living in little Tijuana!
Oh....btw...I (YEP 'LIL 'OL ME) keep my yard landscaped, and fifteen years ago, the jobs you mentioned were done by high school and college kids, and miracle of miracles...we somehow managed to survive.
I truly pity your ignorance....and I paray for this country.
Good luck!
April 25, 2008
4:59 p.m.
Suggest removal
Tim_CA writes:
Oh and JB....please re-read the math portion of my example a tad more carefully....I'm not talking just lettuce...and if you're so freakin' bright, then you certainly know that the availability of artificially cheap illegal labor has prevented agro-business from investing in plant & equipment that would essentially automate farming in this country....why should they....we can get cheap lettuce!?!
You people just amaze me!
April 25, 2008
8:22 p.m.
Suggest removal
JB writes:
Tim-
What's bigoted about your post? You said:
(who are doing them now and destroying our culture)...
Well, regardless of legal status, the culture an immigrant brings with them is the same... be it Russian, Hmong, Mexican or British. Therefore, what you are really saying is that Mexicans are destroying our culture. And this my friend is the very definition of bigotry.
Also, you live in So Cal...a place I spend 2-3 weeks a month in. Guess what, TRAFFIC IS BAD! Traffic is worse now in places like Laguna, Irvine, San Diego, etc...not because of immigratio0n but because of urban sprawl! Get a grip! As more people, and in those parts of So Cal, solidly middle class people...move in, there is going to be more traffic!
And, if you read my post, I'm not in favor of illegal immigration, I am in favor of a program, like the one the Colorado Legislature was debating, that would allow these workers to come LEGALLY to get the work done!
Quite frankly, kids nowadays simply won't do this type of work. Either their parents won't let them work because they need to focus on education, or those that do get jobs at Starbucks or the mall where they can be inside and comfortable all day.
AND, I don't know why you claim that the price of labor is "artificially cheap" because of illegal labor. The going rate is about $6/hour to pick lettuce, tomatoes, etc...above the minimum wage. My first job as a kid I was happy to work for minimum wage, which isn't the case with today's kids or the average American. The wage is a simple supply and demand structure, so as supply dwindles, yes wages will rise in that sector...but it's the consumer who will pay.
Why object to a program that allows workers here LEGALLY to do this work, which is what we, or at least I, have been discussing. Perhaps because you don't want any more Mexicans here...regardless of their status as evidenced by your "culture" statement above?
April 26, 2008
1:47 p.m.
Suggest removal
Tim_CA writes:
OK JB….you’re either incredibly foolish, are amazingly naïve. I’m going to go ahead and give you the benefit of the doubt. The first thing we’re going to do is educate you on race-baiting, which is what you’re trying to do, and what intelligent people having reasoned debates should ALWAYS eschew – you’re going to knock off the race-baiting.
There is nothing “bigoted” in stating that illegal aliens have altered our culture. It’s a simple fact and terribly easy to observe (put down the joint buddy, take of the rose-colored glasses and open your eyes). In So-Cal there are no longer stores without signs in spanish (and some actually have NONE in english). ALL city and county services are available in spanish. There are scores of Spanish-only radio stations (in fact the #1 station in LA broadcasts SOLEY in Spanish) and Spanish-only newspapers. ALL people in service jobs speak primarily Spanish (many have no English). We now have street vendors pushing dirty carts filled with fruit, or balloons, or flowers….Aliens sell oranges and bananas on freeway offramps. Some of the most brutal street gangs in L.A. are Illegal Alien based (18th Street Gang, La Sarena,) who are currently in the process of an extermination campaigns against African American Citizens in the Harbor City area. Many of our emergency rooms have closed, if you’re lucky to live near an open facility, the wait will be at least 3-hours.
Now tell me my naïve (or foolish) friend…would you not say that our culture has been altered? Further, what EXACTLY is bigoted in making this observation? Grow the hell up already!
And Sir…you REALLY need to knock off the talk about “immigrants” – legal immigrants are not the issue here…they played by the rules, they learned about Our Country, Learned Our Language, and in general, assimilate into our culture – they are ALWAYS welcome here. It’s the cost of somewhere between 15,000,000 and 20,000,000 of Illegal Aliens (see the difference?) on our tax base, lives and culture that’s the problem – and if you think they don’t artificially suppress wages you’re an absolute dolt. I work in commercial construction and what’s happened to wages for AMERICAN CITIZEN tradesman OF ALL RACES would break your heart – so seriously, shut-up about what you don’t know.
Oh, and by the way dipstick…on “a day without an illegal alien” in May of 2006 when all of the illegals took the day off to march down Wilshire Blvd…the freeways were clear at rush hour – it was an absolutely Great Day…so again, please shut-up about what you don’t know – I LIVE THIS!
And then you start with the prices will go up fallacy – honest to god…use your head JB ..YOU ARE AND WILL PAY MORE IN SOCIAL SERVICES AND INCREASED TAXES!! It just amazes me that people are this dumb….you’re subsidizing the businesses that USE illegal aliens with your tax dollars ya dolt!! Wake Up! You're Educated - THINK!!
Pathetic!
April 26, 2008
6:39 p.m.
Suggest removal
JB writes:
Tim-
You didn't address a single point I made. Again, a culture an immigrant brings is the same regardless of legal status. Your whole paragraph about signs, etc in Spanish has nothing to do with legal status, obviously. It has to do with the huge influx of hispanics, both legal and illegal. So again, your issue is with Mexicans, regardless of their status.
And AGAIN, the issue up for debate in the Colorado legislature was about granting migrant workers a LEGAL way to come and work!!! What part of that don't you get? I'm not talking about illegals! All I'm doing is simply pointing out the fallacy in your argument. BTW, all arguments can have a mathematical/ logical formula applied to them to check for fallacy, which is what I did to yours. Please do the same and you will see, mathematically -- that your argument is flawed. It's black/white, true/false... a student who has taken a first year college logic course could easily show you the formulas I'm talking about.
April 27, 2008
10:05 a.m.
Suggest removal
viking2boot writes:
Bill Johnson-Don't you get it? Has the RMN brainwashed washed you also into keeping your job? The people speak and you don't listen? Look at the other article on Doug Bruce on this web site and you’ll see more people agreeing with him.
The illegals are called illegals because they broke the law. The U.S. has given all immigrants a way to “Legal” citizenship but some prefer to break the law. They knew the consequences and decided to take the risk. Let them suffer the consequences. We don’t need legislators spending (wasting) more time making up new laws. We already have laws that are not being enforced!
With your thought process we should open the prison doors and let all the prisoners go because all they were doing was trying to get ahead.
“Wake up America” We have rights too!
April 28, 2008
12:01 p.m.
Suggest removal
Tim_CA writes:
JB - I'm done with you. You're a pseudo-intellectual race-baiting apologist who has already made up his mind - and seems unable to comprehend what he reads. Now I'm anti-mexican regardless of legal status? Please don't tell my wife, or my daughter's Godfather, or my business partner - all of whom I love greatly, and all of whom are of Mexican descent - you are an un-informed foolish little d*ouchebag who needs a good slap.
I honestly hope what happened to my town doesn't happen to yours - although it would serve you right.
Good luck.