Blaska's Blog is seeking ass to kick. Organized labor has wounds to lick. I just can't bare it!
The Squire of the Stately Manor has prompted some soul-searching on Madame Brenda's blog on the above topics. The Madame asked for opinion. Here is how I would answer:
Marj Passman says:
June 8, 2010 at 7:18 am
This country has always benefited from each generation of immigrant. I write this on behalf of my grandparents.
Steve Burns says:
June 8, 2010 at 9:08 am
Like Marj Passman, I'm on the side of my immigrant grandparents, who got off a boat from Ireland and were able to enjoy all the benefits of citizenship, including the right to vote, the very next day. Can we even imagine an America as humane as the America of the 1920's?
Blaska responds:
Marj, Steve, say hi to your grandparents for me.
I write this on behalf of my immigrant great-great grandparents. You're not trying to tell me grandpa and grandpa stowed away in the back of a semi-trailer truck, are you? I doubt very much that anyone's immigrant grandparents got off the boat and then voted the next day. It is true that after the American Revolution, many states granted state-only citizenship. Pennsylvania allowed for the enfranchisement of aliens after two years of residence. After the War of 1812, alien voting was further restricted, although revived by the Confederacy during the Civil War. The Northwest Ordinance required citizenship, or residency for three years plus property ownership. The 1848 Wisconsin Constitution required citizenship or a declaration of the intent to become a citizen.
America as humane as the 1920s? The heyday of the Klan?
Floyd A. Hummel says:
June 8, 2010 at 9:21 am
Effective policing of any community is greatly enhanced by having the active cooperation of that community. That's why I am involved in a neighborhood watch, in cooperation with local police. Would I do it if I felt myself at risk of being sent back to Germany?
Blaska responds:
You cooperate with local police because you are a law-abiding citizen. That is why you need not fear being sent back to Germany (Helen Thomas not withstanding). Because you are here legally. The illegal immigrant community, quite plainly, is NOT cooperating with the local police.
Ben Manski says:
June 8, 2010 at 10:59 am
C'mon, Dave. You know the immigration policy is, and most always has been racist. I'm of Jewish, Scots, Irish, and English ancestry. The Jews and the Scots-Irish had a terrible time getting here. Many, many people in their families didn't make it here. There were these little things called "immigration quotas," see. Didn't want any more of "those sort" in this country. The English? No problem.
It's always been to the advantage of certain interests to create and use racial distinctions in order to maintain a captive, disadvantaged labor force in the U.S., in order to undermine wages and job security for the supposedly "free" labor force. In order to do that, they promote the criminalization of undocumented immigrants ("illegal," see?). You're participating in that, Dave. Sad.
Luckily, you're in the minority in Wisconsin, just as you would have been in the minority here some 150 years ago ("But Ben," I can hear the 1850s Blaska say, "those men are fugitives from service; let them buy their freedom and come to Wisconsin legally; until then, they are just illegals and must be sent back across the border.")
Blaska responds:
If the Jews and Scots-Irish "had a terrible time getting here" then how came there to be so many of them here?
No nation in the world, save the U.S., permits porous borders, least of all Mexico. That is for two reasons: 1) to assure that the social services infrastructure can absorb the influx and 2) to get some kind of handle on who is here and where; 9/11 anyone?
Now, Ben, have some self-respect. Charging "racism" in every debate is the intellectually lazy man's way out.
Mary Anglim says:
June 8, 2010 at 11:14 am
It's not rocket science -- deprive any group of the right to everyday police services by making its members afraid to complain, and you will get more unreported crime, fear, substandard working conditions, all the abuses that makes the whole community less livable. Every human being is entitled to just and humane treatment, regardless of citizenship, and that includes the protection of law.
Blaska responds:
You're correct; it's not rocket science. Establish illegal residence (including squatting) and that population is going to live in unreported crime, fear, substandard working condition, all the abuses ...
One more thing:
Madame Brenda has a poll going asking her blog visitors whether they consider themselves taxpayers or citizens. Uh, Brenda, aren't you forgetting a category, given the discussion above? How about "neither."
I just can't barrett!
What does it tell you that even Tom Barrett thinks state government should be put on a diet? (I can tell you you're not going to get to $1.1 billion by throwing Doug LaFollette on the street.)
I can hear Ed Garvey, D-Teachers Union, now. "Whoa, Nelly! Cut government?"
How will the unionized teachers, the AFSCME government workers, and the SEIU react at their convention ... excuse me, the Democrats' convention ... in Middleton this weekend?
As state Democrats head for their convention in Middleton this weekend, many will drive by this electronic billboard on the westbound beltline near Rimrock Road reads, courtesy of the state GOP.
These are not good days for organized labor.
In Arkansas, the victory of incumbent Sen. Blanche Lincoln, something of a blue dog, "presented a stinging rebuke to organized labor, including the Service Employees International Union and to progressive groups such as MoveOn.org and Democracy for America and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which poured millions of dollars into television ads, phone calls and ground troops in an attempt to upend the two-term incumbent," said Politico.
And in California, California Rep. Jane Harman beat back a Democratic primary challenge from Marcy Winograd, a progressive, anti-Israel, union favorite. "A Winograd win would signal that Democrats really are frustrated with their party's caution regarding foreign policy," Nichols wrote in Tuesday's on-line CT.
Can't wait for Comrade John's spin on those two.
And the big winner, Sarah Palin, whose endorsements were critical, winning candidates Carly Fiorina in California, Terry Branstad in Iowa, and Nikki Haley in South Carolina attested.
BTW, Sarah Palin says if Obama hasn't even talked to the president of BP about the Gulf oil spill he should give her a call. The Divine Sarah, after all, has two things Obama lacks: 1) executive experience 2) experience dealing with petroleum companies.
Have you seen the photographs of the oil constraint booms languishing on the factory lot? Reminds one of the unused school buses in that New Orleans lot, flooded to their gunwales by Katrina.
Are you smarter than a liberal?
Who isn't?
The left flunks Econ 101. ... Consider one of the economic propositions in the December 2008 poll: "Restrictions on housing development make housing less affordable."
Basic economics acknowledges that whatever redeeming features a restriction may have, it increases the cost of production and exchange, making goods and services less affordable. ...
In this case, percentage of conservatives answering incorrectly was 22.3%, very conservatives 17.6% and libertarians 15.7%. But the percentage of progressive/very liberals answering incorrectly was 67.6% and liberals 60.1%. The pattern was not an anomaly. [Wall Street Journal: 6-8-10]
Today's chuckle
"Well, thank you for the Hezbollah view," Bush press secretary Tony Snow said in 2006 in answer to a question (more like a speech) the disgraced Helen Thomas vented about the struggle in Lebanon.
"Isn't there some room for Helen Thomas?" asks editor Katrina vanden Heuvel in The Nation.
Yes, if it is padded with rubber. Keith Olbermann can keep her company.
