National identity like your family living in your home have a purpose and meaning I think you understand.
But that’s my point. I think Mexicans are my family members too. I recognize my faith family first, but then I recognize the human family.
For those who fought for it and continue to do so. I am not a fan of unions, but they serve a purpose at times. People organized to demand safe working conditions and decent wages from employers. Because Americans as a people reject slave labor from children we made minimum age requirements law to protect children. We don’t force our laws on Mexico or China because of sovereignty and national bounderies.
If the US goes to war with China will they make the weapons and sell them to us to use against them? Forget war, why should the US worker get paid $20 an hour to make shoes when the illegal Mexican will do it for $5 an hour as long as he stays quiet and works longer than the US worker. The shoes still cost the same to me whether the illigal Mexican makes them, the Hindu in India, or the American. The business owners make a bigger profit, a slave is made with the Mexican and if the Indian is made better off he is so at the expense of the American.
Free the Mexican slave by making him legal? He wants $20 an hour now too…and the cycle continues.
I think you have your economics wrong. Labor works in the same supply and demand as all other goods. If Mexicans become legal, they won’t necessarily get US wages because they will change labor equation.
We live in a global economy where everyone is competing for goods and services. In the long run, we all benefit from this process.
America has conceived of a form of government. It’s too bad we have strayed from it. Read that book I mentioned. It’s small, but very informative.
In a response to another post you mentioned traveling abroad and mentioned Poland and the Philippines. I have not been to Poland but I have been to the Philippines twice, once last year for my wife’s parents 50th anniversary. She and her parents are naturalized citizens of the US. She moved here when she was 20 to be a nurse and I met her when she was 32. She was a citizen for about 8 yrs before we met. Her parents lived and worked in the US at different times but eventually both were in the US from the early 90’s until a few years ago. He worked in Home Depot and she in Wal-Mart the whole time before gaining citizenship themselves just before the year 2000. They have now retired with a small Social Security pension back in the Philippines where they are happy but still very poor. They are rich with family, and better off than most Filipino’s but compared to the average American, and many Mexicans they are still in poverty. They will travel to the US once a year for a month to maintain citizenship. (They arrive in a few weeks!) Her dad and I spoke politics last year and like in Mexico corruption and graft are part of the culture. We have Filipino TV stations so I see their news often.
The difference: the US Constitution and Bill of Rights. We legalize our corruption in the form of political parties though it is not the intent of the founding documents. I think we used to follow it closer, but not so much lately. Register to vote. Help me get it back.
I appreciate you and everyone who has welcomed me to participate in this process. It makes me feel good about being a part of it. There are a lot of problems in Haiti too. And of course, the biggest problem with Haiti is that the best people leave instead of trying to fix it. At some point, I will pick a flawed community to belong to and try to make it better.
Kendy