Opinion from a New Mexico resident
Posted by richrobinson 9 years, 9 months ago to The Gulch: General
A former customer stopped in this morning. She has been living in New Mexico for the last 6 years. I asked her about the border problem and she just rolled her eyes. She is in the northern part of the state so it's not as bad but she said they are everywhere. I always thought the ones that worked did so for little pay. She said she just fired her cleaning woman. She was paying her cash so her income was tax free and she knew she had a lot of places she cleaned. When she showed up in a BMW and she saw her husband driving a new Dodge truck that was the last straw. She said the ones that work do work very hard and long hours but it bothered her that they made more money than her daughter who is a teacher and has a degree. I really don't have a problem with that. Producers we want moochers we don't.
First of all, however the money is earned it is cultural that poor people spend their money on conspicuous consumption. When I moved to a Spanish neighborhood here in Austin in 2011, I saw this every day. My neighbors went to work each day and came home each night, lugging a box of tools, hard hat under their arm maybe, and driving an outsized SUV. (La Trocka.) We had garbage on the grounds, but the people who dropped it drove BMWs. Their car payments might be more than their rent or run for ten years.
In the second place, paying people in cash is fine. Getting paid in cash is convenient. Tax evasion is illegal. You claim to honor the Constitution - except for the Income Tax. How do you feel about women voting? Do you refuse to vote for _any_ federal senatorial candidate because you are opposed to their direct election? I assume you have some problem with slavery and do not want to see those Amendments ignored by real patriots who honor the original Constitution by keeping slaves.
It is a principle of republicanism that you obey the laws you do not like until you can get them changed. Otherwise, we have anarchy.
So, the woman who paid her housekeeper in cash in order facilitate tax evasion was not just breaking a law, but was undermining the very idea of a lawful society.
You can say that taxation is theft - and make a good case for it. You can point out that our government must be held accountable to a higher moral law, above legislation. Bad laws must be resisted, ignored, violated - even at the risk of anarchy and then chaos. Perhaps so. What about other unjust laws? Why not sell cigarettes and booze to kids? Any kid old enough to earn money is old enough to spend it as she sees fit? I mean: What is the standard here? We just watched "Lost in Austen" where Amanda Price the great fan of _Pride and Prejudice_ is transported into the world of the book. In one of many confrontations with Fitzwilliam Darcy, she says: "You do whatever you want and then later call it 'principle'!"
El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, the route to Mexico City. It was a major trading avenue between mexicans and Indians, primarily the Comanche. Pueblo Indians eventually were able to maintain pueblos after the trail was exploited (not a bad connotation) by US traders pioneered somewhere around 1820 which eventually linked Independence Mo and then St Louis. Along the trail in eastern Colorado Bent's Fort was established which linked north to John's Fort, which became Ft. Laramie and linked with the Oregon Trail. These were the major trails used for westward expansion of the US. They boast an out-of-touch state capital and a big illegal immigrant/drug problem. Ask straightline
They couldn't have competed if they had to obey the rules we have to obey. Since when do the occupants of a website dedicated to the "men of the mind" make heroes out of laborers?
In order to work in this country, I have to produce a social security number, I have to accept no less than the currently dictated minimum wage, and I have to pay taxes on those wages. As a law-abiding citizen, I can't house a half-dozen families in my apartment, either.
The reinemachefrau had the BMW and the Dodge truck because she, and probably her husband, kids, 17 cousins, etc, were committing fraud on a grand scale.
She has it because corrupt looters, again on a grand scale, look the other way.
And you think she's not accessing social security?? I would be shocked to discover she wasn't.
Meanwhile, an honest CITIZEN, one of "us" in this equation, can't get a job. If the cleaning woman's husband worked construction, as is most likely, then it's possible, because I've experienced it and seen it happen, that that person who can't get a job isn't able to get one BECAUSE OF HIS SKIN COLOR.
Hang on a sec, I've got a blog post on the subject...
"Take a man of good character. He finds himself in a position where he’s so broke he doesn’t even know where his next meal will come from. He finds a five dollar bill on the floor of his local 7/11. He takes it to the clerk and turns it in.
"Take a man of poor character. He finds the five dollar bill, and pockets it. His mind fills with rationalizations; no one will miss it; his need is acute; he’ll find the owner and pay it back when he’s rich."
http://humanachievementinitiative.wordpr...
I'm combating the myth of the "honest, hard-working" illegal alien invader. From the start they're dishonest, so any attempt to white-wash them as being somehow morally 'good' or ethically trustworthy, or as contributors is hogwash.
New Mexico was originally "settled" by Asians.
khalling, you don't have a dog in this fight. You quit the country... fine, you worry about invaders to your neck of the woods.
You're too smart not to get it through your skull that current day New Mexico didn't exist prior to the European acquisition of the territory. I don't mean political lines, I mean the cities, the highways the hospitals the technology centers, the products of industrial age society that the pre-existing stone age societies didn't have.
My father's family goes back on this continent seven generations. As an Irishman of English descent once said, "if 300 years in a land doesn't make one a native, what the hell does?"
I was watching "Border Wars" in boredom last night, and there was one border patrol agent with a very, very thick Latino accent.
And copper-colored hair.
And the name "MacNamara" (spelling...)
I can spot an illegal within seconds. However, I can also sympathize with the "they're everywhere" sentiment... such as last night, when a group of 4 or 5 Hispanic children at the store were jabbering away in Spanish. There's no excuse for that. None. Well, I suppose they could be *tourists*...
Now, I live in the Indian Nations; I work with "native Americans", Hispanics, black Americans, African Americans... one very nice lady I work with I like a lot (she reminds me of my mother, aside from not-being Irish) is a Hindu from India. My wax partner looks a bit like Obama, but is from Ethiopia. He's very proud of his sons' achievements (one is running track for the U.S.), he has a very thick accent, and I've become a sort-of pseudo interpreter. He waited in line to get here.
Another nice guy I work with is from Morocco, named "Mohammed". This morning I greeted by saying, "Mohammedan!" The third time I repeated it, I was close enough for him to hear me, and he grinned and said, "yes" in a predictably thick middle-eastern accent. Then we did our usual fist-bump.
There's this Korean woman I can't believe is a grandmother, and every morning we have out traditional, "Good Morning!" (can't believe she's a grandmother...)
My point is that I'm not a xenophobe. And I don't have a grudge against people simply because they're Hispanic. But, based on my life-experience of illegal aliens, they are NOT the mythical hard-working, honest peasants that is the image of them that is most promoted.
Then again, i worked around the s.o.b.s for 20 years...
*Americans* I want, non-Americans I *don't*.
No more than Galt wanted people who wouldn't take the oath in the gulch...
Your brother is broke. He's a deadbeat. He moves in with you til he 'gets on his feet'. You resent it, you gripe and moan, but you let him stay to help him out, because he's part of your tribe.
Now a stranger walks in the back door and takes over your guest room. Oh, he cleans the house from top to bottom... especially the refrigerator. He may even get a part time job, and so pay a little bit of rent, maybe enough to compensate for the resources he uses, but probably not.
Now, you'd prefer having this uninvited stranger in your house over your brother?
I'll deal with deadbeat compatriots, that's a separate, internal issue. But I will not equate aliens with my countrymen, I don't care if they're living saints and my countrymen are rogues and thieves.