You know, I’ve always held to this same line of reasoning every time someone brings up the horrors of “outsourcing.”

As unfortunate as it is that some Americans lose their jobs to outsourcing, I’m willing to bet that your average Indian phone support technician needs that paycheck more than your average American, who can probably collect unemployment for awhile during the search for another job.

Not that such arguments will dissuade unscrupulous politicians from playing the populism card and promising out-of-work factory laborers in dying industries like automobile manufacturing that they’ll “bring the jobs back” and accusing those evil, greedy corporations of chiseling their employees. What no one seems to mention is the fact that paying American workers forces companies to cut corners in other areas to remain competitive Ford doesn’t use shitty parts and cheap interior finish because they *want* to, but because to make an American-built Taurus cost-competitive with a Mexican-built Volkswagen, they have to use cheaper materials because every Ford has thousands of dollars of pensions, health care costs, etc. built into the price.

Pointing such things out might cause a politician to run afoul of the unions, though, so it’s easier to scream about the Republicans sending all the jobs to Mexico and India.

If it’s a “they’re cheap and they’re brown and they’re from Mexico” problem and not a “they didn’t file a 27B-6″ problem, I am forced to conclude some kind of anti-brown bias.

To be blunt: Immigration is an entirely administrative problem, so if the argument is simply about whether or not they’re illegally in the country, then we can fix that by making it perfectly legal for them to be here. Easy enough. If the issue is one of protectionism due to xenophobia or economic ignorance (’unfair’ competition or whatever other nonsense Lou Dobbs is on about), then I’m afraid we will never agree and it is quite likely that I’ll call you names. I fail to see why I should value the ability of relatively rich Americans to get jobs doing menial labor over the ability of relatively poor Mexicans/South Americans to get jobs doing menial labor.

Further, if wages for menial labor are not keeping up with inflation, that’s a pretty good indicator that menial labor is not worth what it used to be worth in the marketplace - which any idiot can tell you - and I’m not exactly sure why I am supposed to find that upsetting. Labor, like anything else, is worth what you can get for it on an open market - some people’s labor isn’t worth very much at the margin, that’s just a fact, so those folks either learn to live with what they can make, work more hours to increase their total income, or improve their skill sets to make their labor more valuable. Them’s the breaks. And that’s unfortunate, sure, but aside from acting like a bunch of tyrannical assholes or managing to rewrite the fundamental laws of market exchange, I don’t see any kind of “solution”.

Get used to it, and try the barbacoa, you won’t regret it.

Illegal immigration is a problem here in Oregon. Ask anyone in the construction trade… Wages have not gone up w/ inflation because illegal mexicans are coming in and doing the jobs cheaper.

As much as I hate government, the government needs to bust these asshole employers that hire ILLEGALs.

Good points re: limited govt., though. If the Oregon Republicans really want to re-vamp their image, taking serious and concrete steps away from being European-style Christian Democrats with a vested interest in propping up coercive bureaucracies would be a great start.

That said, I can’t get behind a couple of pieces of CMP’s platform…which makes me dubious about the organization:

~ Dedicated to stopping illegal immigration. The Oregon worker has been immeasurably harmed by a system that allows those who are in this state illegally to drive down wages. This problem places a growing burden on schools, and hospitals, transportation, police, and fire departments.

Yes, non-border states over 1000 miles from Mexico sure have a problem with illegal immigrants. I’m sure that a ton of middle class white people have been displaced out in the orchards of Hood River because of the brown menace! What clowns. Seriously. Kill the welfare state because the welfare state is an affront to freedom, not because a bunch of people picking fruit didn’t file a few forms. Further, how does a state that’s over 1000 miles from Mexico do ANYTHING about illegal immigration. Force employers to screen people? That’s completely incompatible with “freedom” and “limited government”, not to mention civil liberties…any enforcement measure that would work is too draconian to bother with.

~ Dedicated to preserving and protecting traditional family values. The family unit is the core of our society. It must be preserved.

Again, this goal is completely incompatible with the others stated. You cannot use government to prop up one bible-beater’s version of the world and at the same time call that government “limited”. I also doubt you can cut government waste while trying to prevent Adam & Steve from getting their freak on.

In any case, I remember math courses ceasing almost entirely to teach math to focus instead on preparing us for CIM/CAM, which at the time was so difficult no one, including the future valedictorian, could pass. Add to that the absurd “job shadowing” requirement (which for me and a group of friends involved driving up into the mountains to hang out with some graphic designer at his house for an hour or two) and the stupid “technology” requirements that I seem to remember (which consisted of little more than making Powerpoint presentations and such), and it all added up to an absurd waste of time and money.

I was delighted to learn of its demise.

Anybody who had a hand in destroying that system is a friend of mine.