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Meg flips Left
John Seiler: It was inevitable as California having beautiful weather that Meg Whitman, after a brief jaunt to the Right to defeat Steve Poizner in the primary, would flip back to the Left. She’s now courting Latinos by opposing Arizona’s immigration law in a new series of pricey ads: Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman set to work courting support among Latinos last week after a brutal GOP primary battle that forced her to take a loud and hard stance against immigration issues. The centerpiece of her recent efforts is a series of TV and radio ads, released to coincide with the Mexico/France World Cup match, in which she touts her opposition to the Arizona immigration law. “She includes all of us,” one ad says. “She respects our community,” says another. But the California governor has absolutely no say in what will happen with the Arizona law. It’s a different state. And the controversy over a federal challenge to the law doesn’t involve California, either. Moreover, what about Latinos who favor the law? After all, when illegal immigrants come here, they compete for the same jobs as existing, legal immigrants, generally on the lower end of the wages scale. They sure don’t compete to be eBay CEO. It’s simple economics, something Meg should understand: increased supply of something means the price goes down. In this case, if you increase the supply of immigrants, then the price of immigrant wages goes down. Finally: What’s her solution to the illegal immigration problem, which is bankrupting state and local budgets across the country? As the late Milton Friedman observed, you can’t have both open borders and a welfare state. So, Meg, will you come out for ending California’s generous welfare state? Or how will you close the open borders?
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February 04, 2012
Before I go any further, Meg Whitman is a hypocrite. We don’t need another hypocrite as governor.
But c’mon, John, didn’t think you’d be a ideologue on immigration. Thought you had more smarts than that.
First of all, because one does not believe in the right-wing “solution” to the immigration issue–throwing 11 million undocumented people in jail or bussing them and their families to the border and dropping them there–does NOT mean that he or she supports “open borders. And by the way, John, none of the anti-immigration zealots ever discuss the issue of who would pay for this “solution”–answer: the taxpayers, and how much it would cost–answer: billions.
There are really two separate issues. The first is the border. I support making it tougher if not impossible for the undocumented to cross.
The second is far more complicated: What to do with those who are already here? Sadly, anyone who does not the above “solution” is branded as being in favor of “amnesty.” Those who do not support clearly discriminatory and unconstitutional measures, such as the current Arizona law and the proposal to deny birth certificates to children born of the undocumented, are accused of supporting open borders. That’s crap.
Amnesty is defined in the dictionary as an “official pardon.” An official pardon is defined as “to officially release from any, or any further, punishment somebody who has committed a crime or wrongdoing.”
Making the undocumented pay a hefty fine, learn English and stand in the back of the line for legal status is not amnesty, it is common sense.
StevefromSacto: As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t support the Arizona law. But I don’t live there, so it’s their business.
The point I was making was that Meg needs to choose: find some way to cut back on immigration through stiffer enforcement of laws controlling immigration, or end the welfare state. But she wants it both ways. In that, she’s learning fast how to be a politician.
Immigration is another issue — like budgets, foreign wars, oil spills, pensions — that won’t be solved, because Ameicans no long solve problems, but wallow in them.
John:
Good honorable people are trying to solve the immigration issue (just like budgets, foreign wars, etc.. They are not the problem. The problem is that they get crucified for trying to do anything that is not 100 percent anti-immigrant.
It isn’t enough to throw up our hands and say people “wallow” in problems, so there’s nothing we can do. We can stand up to those who will not allow rational discourse and say “enough.” We can try to work together to find reasonable solutions which will require both sides to (gasp!) compromise.
And although you are a Libertarian, I somehow doubt you would have said about slavery or Hitler, “I don’t live there, so it’s their business.”
In conclusion, I subscribe to the Rodney King theory of political discourse: “Can’t we all just get along.”
A slavery and Hitler analogy really wasn’t needed.
Here’s a better one. Mexico’s own immigration policies toward their Latino brothers from Central America are draconian, despite their president’s griping about Arizona’s much less onerous law.
Yet, I don’t belive America should force Mexico to change its immigration law. In the same way, the Federal Govt. should not force Arizona to change its law, which after all is modeled on the Federal law itself.
And if Kansas wants to ban alcohol, which it can, I don’t believe the Feds should overturn such a law. If I’m thirsty, I just won’t go to Kansas.