Thursday, June 28, 2007

Rush to Limbaugh

Well, the battle in the Senate over the immigration bill is coming down to the wire, but is it a rush to justice or a rush to injustice? According to right-wing talk radio and many cable news programs, it is the latter, and they are marshaling the troops as never before. One interesting question is this. Are dittoheads (aka Limbaugh's loyal listeners) capable of independent thought, or are they just pawns in the hands of El Rushbo? Having listened to Limbaugh's show - less and less in recent years as he has gotten shriller and shriller - my answer to that question is a qualified "the latter." I will give an example. He rails against the "drive-by liberal media", but then he will quote them with approbation when they say something he agrees with. This inconsistency doesn't seem to bother the dittoheads. Well, as Ralph Waldo Emerson said, a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.
In my opinion, at the core of the immigration mess is the fact that illegals do menial jobs that can't be outsourced -in construction, agriculture, home maintenance, etc. - and often for low wages. So employers in these areas resort to "insourcing." For citizens affected by this, it is happening not in some far away third world country, but right in their own backyards!

What do I think about this? I think we should enforce existing immigration laws and secure our southern border, before anything else happens. And let's have price supports for agricultural products. We can afford it, and the workers deserve a living wage. Our grocer won't end up having to sing "Yes, we have no bananas, we have no bananas for sale."

No comments: