Welfare to kids of illegals in LA County costs $276 million per year

You'll have to excuse me. Between being banned for a while and moving 400 miles across the state of brain death, I haven't been able to keep up with the recent doings of the board.

I am honestly curious as to how a follower of Ms. Rand's philosophy would view the current "illegal situation" in the US. Ms. Rand herself was an immigrant - a fortunate one in that she was a Russian opposed to the then current soviet regime and had the benefit of an education.

She viewed most government as an impediment - "Get the hell out of my way!" It seems to me that the group that would fall into her definition of "parasites" in this instance is the US businessman who hires the migrants illegally and pays no social security, workman's comp, etc that he would he have to pay for a US worker. The illegals don't just walk across the border and immediantly apply for welfare. They WORK at substandard wages, doing jobs that US workers refuse to do.

So why all the ill will toward them?

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by marichiko

You'll have to excuse me. Between being banned for a while and moving 400 miles across the state of brain death, I haven't been able to keep up with the recent doings of the board.

Yes, you were so anxious to dash in here and pick a fight that it wasn't necessary to find out what I'd actually said first. :-) And you've already forgotten what I've actually said about Rand, too.

Originally Posted by marichiko

They WORK at substandard wages, doing jobs that US workers refuse to do.

Because legal workers believe the jobs are worth more. "Jobs legal workers won't do" is a slogan that conveniently bundles low-skill or physical jobs with the wages that those exploitive employers--remeber them? feel like paying. The fact that conditions are so much worse in Mexico doesn't make the illegals heros for sneaking in here and exporting as much cash as possible. I guess I'm just not a pure enough Randite to beleive that the borders should be opened while we're still running as Socialist a state as we do.

[Ibby]

But she also thought that hands-off (I can't spell the french word) capitalism was the only viable government, and the illegal immigrant worker situation is about economics more than anything else, and so she would support the use of illegal immigrant workers as a perfectly fine way to compete in business.

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by Ibram

... and so she would support the use of illegal immigrant workers as a perfectly fine way to compete in business.

There's nobody more anxious to put words in Rand's mouth now that she's dead than a liberal...and Mari does it more than anybody else; you're competing with a pro now, Ibram. :-) I can hardly wait to see the Tom Cruise/Angelina Jolie version of "Atlas Shrugged"; that should be a real hoot too.

A dead author makes such a great factory for straw men; you can make them say anything you want. Myself, I don't think "a perfectly fine way to compete in business" includes competing in a labor market with someone who doesn't have to follow the same laws you do.

Originally Posted by MaggieL

There's nobody more anxious to put words in Rand's mouth now that she's dead than a liberal...and Mari does it more than anybody else; you're competing with a pro now, Ibram. :-) I can hardly wait to see the Tom Cruise/Angelina Jolie version of "Atlas Shrugged"; that should be a real hoot too.

Did you ever see that old version of The Fountainhead with Gary Cooper ? Gawd, that was awful!

A dead author makes such a great factory for straw men; you can make them say anything you want. Myself, I don't think "a perfectly fine way to compete in business" includes competing in a labor market with someone who doesn't have to follow the same laws you do.

Oh, you're just PO'ed that a liberal has made an intense study of Ms. Rand. I agree with you that we all need to follow the same laws. The businessmen who knowingly hire illegals should face the legal consequences of their actions. This seldom seems to happen.

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by marichiko

The businessmen who knowingly hire illegals should face the legal consequences of their actions. This seldom seems to happen.

Totally agree. But that is going to require making it easy for an employer to positively identify who is elegible to work in the US and who isn't...and right now that's a joke. How you do that without a national identity document I don't know. I'm not opposed to that, since I'm already identity-documented up the wazoo, but I know a lot of other people are for reasons they're seldom able to articulate; they just begin FUDding around about Big Brother without explaining what freedom of anonymity it is they have now that they're going to lose if the big scary goverment can actually figure out who they are.

Well, I don't like the idea of national idenity papers, myself, but in effect, we already have them. They're our social security cards and driver's licences. Documents can always be forged, anyway. What ticks me off is the outfits who knowingly hire illegals who don't even have a FORGED green card. If employers would start saying "no tickee, no job", the problem would begin to resolve itself right there.

[Ibby]

Hey, I'm not TRYING to put words in her mouth, if thats what I was doing, I was just hypothesising. I'm not a big fan of her philosophy anyway, though shes a damn good writer. Anthem kicks ass, and not just because it's the foundation for 2112. But I digress. I was merely stating what I figured would be her view on the issue, though I know no better than anyone else. If I failed to clarify that as a hypothesis, my apologies.

[Dagney]

Would that be US D.I.Cs?

Yanno, just so I know where to send my resume and all.