Nezua blogs about anti-immigrant sentiment and how “illegals” attack the “rule of law:”
Practically, what has made America “great” was Manifest Destiny and slave labor. We still practice these in different forms. War of aggression (we’re out for oil this time, not land…well, except the land under our MASSIVE bases), our not-so-hidden (but despised) slave class right here in murka, and outsourcing in some of its forms. America is not even owned by America anymore, but we don’t hear panic over this, do we? So many foreign investors and trade deficits and corporate border hopping that only the sticker is red white and blue today.
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But it’s not about the Rule of Law with your type. And you can’t be honest with yourself. Your world is slipping away, and it freaks you out.
Feh.
First, “Practically, what has made America “great” was Manifest Destiny and slave labor”? Debatable, and not only because the insanely fast rise of America from a generic global player to one of the biggest and most powerful countries on the planet happened well after slave labor was abolished. Unless, that is, Nezua means manifest destiny
Second, this post is really a “what about my pet issue?” post. See, e.g., the “you should be spending your time on what I want, not what YOU want” attitude. Like this:
As has been well discussed here in a variety of threads, this is ridiculous, and used as it is remains firmly unpersuasive and at best indicative of a loose argumentative style.
The “if you ___, then why aren’t you spending all your time/money ______” line is one of the oldest lines in the book. It’s not a good one, though.
We follow that up with an unusually open, though misplaced, attack:
Not only is that a blatant ad hom attack, but it doesn’t make sense. Hell, we all know that goals can be met in various ways, from ‘rule of law’ to ‘advances for women’ to ‘better rights for illegal immigrants.’ What nezua is basically saying is that only nezua’s way is the “right” way: that others aren’t even honestly following the goals. That’s simply idiocy. But I suppose it’s what I’d expect from, um, “that type.” Whatever that means.
hey! my whole blog is an “what about my pet issue?” thing! that’s the point of it!
“Sailorman,” i sense that you and i would disagree no matter how much i tried to clarify my experience or intent, so i won’t waste my time. but thanks for engaging my post with feeling. and i love the self-deprecating wink at the end in the form of a hominem attack, after you just “debunked” my writing by pointing out my use of Hominem Attack! what a wild world, eh? full of accidental mirrors and hidden alleyways.
We might agree or not–it’s hard to tell if you don’t clarify. Though I certainly understand if you choose not to; it may well be a waste of time. I suspect you may be right by your use of the word “experience”; I am not sure what you mean by it, but other people often use the term to refer to to anecdotes.
However, I do want to make myself perfectly clear: I don’t actually know how you would describe yourself in detail (I don’t even know whether nezua is a male or female name, to be honest). All that i know is that you describe yourself as an unapologetic mexican, which doesn’t really mean much. The “that type, whatever that means” was meant to be a humorous example of how problematic such a phrase can be.
I hope you post something more substantive about “rule of law”. As far as I can tell, Americans have become much more law-worshipping in the past few decades. They’re much more apt to derail discussions of morality into what’s legal or not, and more punitive about law-breaking.
At the same time, we still aren’t a naturally law-abiding people, and it isn’t just a matter of committing atrocities. Look at the disregard of speed limits, or drug use, or tax evasion.
Afaik, when Prohibition was struck down, people just celebrated. They didn’t go on about how Those People Were Breaking OUR LAWS.
There’s such a vast gulf between the working / living conditions of illegal immigrants and chattel slaves that the comparison between the two is both silly and insulting. It’s only a short bit better than the libertarian argument that paying taxes is equivalent to slavery.
oh, the humanity.
joe, have you ever worked in a migrant camp? have you ever even visited one?
maybe you should try doing that before you completly write off a comparison you know nothing about.
joe, have you ever worked in a migrant camp? have you ever even visited one?
try working and living in a migrant camp for a month–just a month–then come back and tell us all how the comparison is obscene.
stupid editor thing is broken.
sorry about the comment–i tried to fix it and it didn’t work.
::slinks out of the room::
The other relationship between immigration restrictions and slavery is that illegal immigrants are vulnerable to being trapped and forced into work under bad conditions. Afaik, it isn’t organized into a market, but it’s slavery.
There is actually a market, Nancy, shamefully enough. It’s mostly for sexual slaves or forced sex workers. Usually the women, girls, or boys (for some reason it’s rarely men) are bought from their families in places where that still happens, or they are lured under false pretenses, thinking that they’re going to work in a hotel as cleaning or serving staff. Then they wake up in a shipping container bound for San Diego or the Caribbean or Saudi. From my understanding, it isn’t generally existing illegal immigrants in the US who are caught up in this kind of operation, it’s people starting in their own country who are then transported across a border illegally.
I would not agree that illegal workers who end up working under bad conditions are equivalent to slaves. The world is bad enough without every horrible employment situation being slavery. Let’s call things what they are and accept that there are gradations of misery and of wickedness. That way, when we DO find slavery – as we do – we haven’t destroyed our ability to describe it without having to fight a semantic war.
Nancy, it’s only slavery if you were forced to take the job and you are prevented by force from leaving. If you volunteered to take the job (and in fact risked your life to do so) and you can walk out without someone stopping you with the threat of force, then it’s not slavery, it’s a lousy job that you chose to take.