He brought up, indirectly, what seemed to me to be a good point: we (Americans, both personally and via our elected government) are just as guilty for this problem as those people who come up here to work.
We complain because our hospital emergency rooms are flooded with non-English speakers getting care, we complain because of the influence of MS-13 on crime, we complain because of the schools becoming more and more international and less and less “American,” yet we buy houses built with the labor of these same people. We buy meat butchered by these people. Our lawns are manicured (at work and at home) by these people. Could “real” Americans do it? To a certain level, yes. If we were willing to pay people enough to make it worth their while to do that rather than something else (to include sitting on their butts on welfare). But do you want to pay $6 a pound for tomatoes? Rather than paying $500k for a house, would you rather pay $750k?/quote]
I agree with you up to a certain point. I try very hard to vote for politicians who share my views on social and moral issues, but unfortunately, they don’t always (or often) keep their promises. This brings up a whole other spectrum of issues that would pull this thread very quickly into another direction, but suffice it to say that in many areas, I think we can all agree that our elected officials are moving further and further away from the ideals and values of the people whom they represent. Abortion is one issue where this is so very clear, but so is illegal immigration. You can telephone and write letters to the editor or even march around with a sign and the politicians just don’t really care. They’re in office and you’re not. They’ll do what they want, and in most cases will say anything to get elected and stay in office.
Also, not everyone pays to have their lawn preened by landscaping companies. We cannot afford it, period. Of course, we have a larger than average family by American standards, so there are a lot of things we can’t afford, including family vacations to Disneyland, big screen t.v.'s, dvd players in each van and other such things that are more and more coming to define life in the American family.
Regarding fruits and vegetables, there is really no reason why Americans cannot do these jobs. Either we will pay people to be on welfare and not work while we pay higher taxes to support the growing population of illegals, or we will encourage our native-born unemployed citizens to find employment and support them while they do so. It becomes a shell game. It is an injustice to the native-born poor when we enable them to be unproductive by insisting , “no American will do this,” rather than to encourage them that yes they can, and help them along the way as they move up the ladder, maybe to even owning their own farm someday. Isn’t this what happened here in the U.S. during the Great Depression with the Public Works and other similar programs? We didn’t bring in millions of illegals then. I disagree that we need to do it now when their are so many able-bodied, native-born people who need a job, not just for the financial benefits, but also for the self-respect and confidence that having a job gives. We will pay either way, either by higher housing, lawncare or food prices, or by spending millions of dollars to care for the underclass of of the 3rd world who we are importing to fill these jobs.
