Diary of a Wolfeman

George had this to say in response to Graumagus’ posting on Immigration:

I agree with most of what Grau says, but “moonbat” that I am, who IS gonna pick your veggies, mow your lawn, reroof your house, etc. if we block the illegals? Like it or not, these folks are here to WORK, not sign up for welfare, unlike WAY too damn many native-born Americans. Frankly, I’d rather have a illegal alien Mexican touch my food than a former welfare queen-crack addict. Tennessee Bud, do you really think ending welfare would result in a lot of new roofers and crop workers? They’d just stay unemployed and steal. And get ready for prices on everything to double when you start paying real wages, rather than what we pay the illegals. The illegals are willing to take slave wages for fear of being deported. You can’t deport native Americans who refuse to take shitty jobs at low pay.

Also, our newspaper ran a story saying illegals’ employers pay into Social Security, and the illegals have no hope of ever collecting. So apparently Social Security would be much worse off without them. And maybe that can begin to make up for what they collect in other social services. (Has anyone seen an unbiased cost-benefits study on this? How much do they take vs. what they contribute?)

My biggest bitch with illegals is the fairness issue and language. Folks who obey the laws and follow the system may have to wait years to enter this country. But anyone who can pay a smuggler with a boat gets in free. And like Grau, I think they should speak my language when they decide to move to my country. I live in South Florida, where immigrants (illegal or not) who’ve been here for generations still don’t speak English. Native Americans can’t get jobs unless they speak Spanish. That’s obscene.

It’s a very simple matter: you must obey the laws. It isn’t all that hard to go through channels and become a citizen legally.

As for the burden, you also have to factor in that the money they earn doesn’t stay here – they ship it back to the rest of their family in Mexico. ‘Vegas is awash with illegals, and I’ve seen the way they operate first-hand: 8-10 guys living in a three-bedroom apt., living minimally and sending cash over the border.

Here in Oregon, you see them in places where you used to see teenagers – it’s damn hard for an American kid to get hired at McD’s nowdays. Then there’s the mobs of them that just hang out at certain intersections waiting for the contractors to come pick them up for unskilled labor. I know the contractors are paying them under the table, so that bit about the SS in-payments is hogwash. The contractors use them to keep labor costs down and make the lowest bid. (My dad is currently building a new house in Florida and told me how the whole thing works. Trying to impress me with how much money he’s saving, he didn’t realize how much it would piss me off.)

Don’t even get me started on the language issue. When I went through the System last year due to unemployment, I was usually the only native-born English speaking person in the room – and that includes the social workers. It galls me to think how much money the government could save on printing alone by only publishing documents in English instead of 7 or more languages.

To answer the “who would do the work” bit, I’d say teenage kids. My son and I live in an apartment in the city with no yard, so I have very few things to assign to him in the way of chores to earn spending money. (Garbage and dishes hardly qualify in my book, that’s just pitching in.) His mom, however, lives farther out in the country, and he often spends weekends out there doing yardwork, feeding horses, hauling hay, chopping firewood, etc. When he does, he comes home with a feeling of accomplishment and a boost to his self-confidence that he can’t get around here.

He’s also been trying to get an after-school job, and is having no luck because the ones where you would normally find kids his age are all taken up by immigrants (status unknown but guessable) of hispanic descent. I couldn’t tell you the lst time I went through a drive-through and heard an American accent on the speaker anywhere other than Popeye’s Chicken. (That one is located in a black neighborhood.)

Harvey asked:

Seriously, why don’t we have an open border with Mexico? I’m sure there are good reasons, but I can’t think of them off the top of my head.

Here’s why we have a (mostly) open border with Canada: Canucks are law-abidin’ folk for the most part, coming from a modern and industrialized society. Canadians coming over the border are trained and educated, and willingly pay the taxes on their wages. Northern Mexico is a third-world nation, and the people coming in illegally are uneducated, have no training, and are desperate for something better. Since they have come in illegally, they don’t pay taxes anywhere, and the children they have here almost immediately go into public assistance. The Gov’t KNOWS this, and has set up laws to keep them from flooding the unskilled labor market, but has failed to adequately fund those laws’ enforcers.

My fellow asshole (and creator of the “Blogsniper” graphic) over at Frizzen Sparks is feelin’ a bit frisky tonight, having a good laugh about the “We’re so sorry” website that has been posting photos of people holding signs for the camera.

Graumagus, if you haven’t guessed (and didn’t see the warnings posted on his site) is flapping that right wing pretty hard. Okay, Grau, I have one question for you: in your own opinion, what has Dubya done wrong?

As a Bush supporter, you have mentioned many of the things you think the President has done right in the last four years, and I agree on a few points. Now that he has won by a slim majority (49-51 isn’t much of a gap now, is it?), what should the Prez be doing differently than he has in the past? No man is perfect, and the general swelling of bad feelings the world over towards our country in general and our President in particular have to have some basis in reality. Let’s put aside our political differences and try to change things for the better.

(Hey, if you’re really going to bulldoze all those fences, that means I get to play in your yard, right? :) )

Take your time on this, and give us a full list of the changes you want to see in this administration. When you’ve got it all down, you and I can hash it out and write the whole thing up with both of our opinions and mass-mail it to Congress and the President together.

There’s been a lot of talk flying around lately about Americans wanting to emmigrate to other countries because Bush got another four years.

Who the fuck said you could quit? Where in the Constitution does it say “run away when things get tough”?

*For those who did not realize it, the Secession post I wrote earlier was sarcasm.*

Like it or not, this is still the only nation in the world where you truly have the right to an opinion and the right to voice it. For over TWO HUNDRED YEARS this nation has been a bastion of democracy and human rights, and you want to leave just because some nitwit managed to get control for eight years? Eight measly years? When people have been fleeing the likes of Castro and other REAL assholes for decades, you want to run away because you have to put up with Dubya until ’08.

Since the founding of this nation, millions of your fellow Americans have fought, bled and died for your rights, for your freedom, and you want to leave because you lost two elections, and the man who won will be gone in four years.

Pansies.

You don’t like the way the country is being run? Well, sit your ass back down, get informed, and for fuck’s sake DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT other than just voting on election day. Call or write your government and bitch-slap them for not doing their job. Run for an office you believe in. Get in touch with the leaders of whatever political party you follow and ask them what you can do to make this a better place.

Like the man said: “My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you: Ask what you can do for your country!”

And do it quick, before JFK drills a hole to China by spinning in his grave.

Ran across this post tonight over at The Register. Damn amusing read.

At one point, the author talks (tongue-in-cheekily) about the Blue States secceeding from the Red States, and that got me thinking: what if we did? How well would we do? For us, it would be California, Oregon Washington and Hawai’i, and we’re all pretty well set-up. Here’s my thoughts.

Trade: We’ve got that wrapped up. We border on Canada and Mexico, plus we’ve got the whole Pacific coast and all the ports therein. Trade should not be a problem.

Tourism: Duh. California and Hawai’i, Disneyland and Paradise. Heck, if we worked it right, we might even grab Reno and ‘Vegas in the initial swoop giving us a huge chunk of capital to work with.

Agriculture: We can grow anything, including some of the best canibis available anywhere in the world, which we would turn into an immediate cash crop. Vast tracks of sustainable forest for lumber products, and the ocean harvest.

Industry: We own the computing world. Most of the major chipmakers of the world already have manufacturing plants in Oregon and California, and Washington has Microsoft. Not to mention the whole Tinseltown deal. Heck, Scaled Composites is based in California, giving us space trade as well.

Military: We have a number of bases from all branches of the service, and there has to be a way we can press the L.A. gangs into service. (Hell, they’re already armed…) Not to mention the gun-toting survivalists camped out in the forest. Remember that Mexican border? We offer Mexican immigrants citizenship in exchange for two years of military service and put them to work fortifying the borders.

Science and Education: We’re covered with some of the best universities in the Nation already, plus the JPL.

So, whaddya say? Pacific States of America? Or maybe just Pacifica?

I am disappointed in my fellow Oregonians.

With 65% of the precincts totalled, 56% percent of Oregonians have supported the ban on same-sex marriage. It amazes me that that many people in this day and age could be so completely homophobic.

That’s right, homophobic. It’s the only explanation.

This just completely pisses me off that so many people in this great state could decide that their neighbors do not deserve to be happy.

It’s so completely appropriate that the CNN map uses red to show the counties that are pro-ban. Red is the color of danger, and these counties are dangerously bigoted.

The only redeeming issue tonight is that Oregon has weighed in as a Kerry state.

It occurs to me that in the next few days, roughly half the nation is going to be disappointed in who won the election. That’s the way these things go. One person wins, and the other goes and does something else.

It doesn’t end there, though. Not by a longshot.

Too many people only come out of hiding for the elections, and then retreat into their little shell. That doesn’t work. If the winner isn’t your choice, don’t just sit back and say “well, I didn’t vote for him!” Use the tools available to you as an American citizen to speak out about your views and desires for your Country. Contact your Representatives and your local politicians, hell, write to the Prez himself. It is not only your right as an American, it is your solemn duty.

The rest of the world refers to us as “those loudmouth Americans”. Well, be a loudmouth! Debate your position! Write letters, make phone calls, be an activist!

And whatever you do, don’t ever let me catch you moaning about how things are if you aren’t calling, writing or debating – I will not hesitate to bitch-slap you. American Democracy means you have the right and ability to tell your government how you want them to do their jobs. THEY work for YOU, so get off your ass and tell them about it.

America is no place for whiners.

Yahoo! News reports via the AP that a store owner in St. Helens, OR was recently called upon to remove a Rubik’s cube knockoff from her shelves by a pair of agents from the Homeland Security Office.

Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said agents went to Pufferbelly based on a trademark infringement complaint filed in the agency’s intellectual property rights center in Washington, D.C.

“One of the things that our agency’s responsible for doing is protecting the integrity of the economy and our nation’s financial systems and obviously trademark infringement does have significant economic implications,” she said.

The copyright of the Rubik’s Cube, however, has expired, so the claim is false. As a matter of fact, items such as these have been in the market for several years now, so I’m wondering why the HS Office decided they needed to flex their muscles now. One wonders if this isn’t merely the first step in a broader campaign of control.

Your government needs to be hit upside the head with a cluebat, folks. Write your Representatives today and tell them you won’t stand for this kind of bullshit.

Somebody has waaaaay too much time on their hands. Luckily for us, though, they also have a knack for flash animations. This is just damn funny.

Computer problems reported at Broward early voting sites

Where else – it’s in Florida.

Jehosephat.

Satire at it’s finest, folks. Read it and weep with laughter!

Save Marriage! It’s all the homos fault …