In fascist rhetoric the enemy is always both weak and strong. It's a real easy indicator that you're hearing propaganda.
Not being political here, just thinking logically. Isn't it possible for a subgroup of a large group to do X while another subgroup of the same large group does Y?
I'm not sure if these options are mutually exclusive when it comes to large sets of individuals.
This is just logical thinking, I have no statistics and this is not a political stance.
That was my first thought as well. Assuming a large enough amount of immigrants, they could be overwhelming both the welfare system and the job market. A sufficiently large group of additional people would overwhelm every system, and depending on the preexisting conditions, that group might not need to be all that big
They do a great job of hiding the fallacy by placing a single individual in the photo and saying "immigrant" instead of "immigrants".
I'm not sure about American law, but something tells me that it's even possible for an individual to do both things.
It's kinda hard to overwhelm the job market tho, at least if the economy is growing. In that case, more workers would likely facilitate growth, since the growing workforce will also have money to spend and create demand. If the market was already very competitive, things would be different, but developed countries are usually hungry for skilled workers. Demographics dictate this will only become more true as time passes
It's a pretty complex situation, I really have no position. I just think I've seen some funny things like:
and then others saying:
Which is pretty similar to the meme.
I found it hilarious when many California farmers (e.g. fruits) voted for Trump, then got angry when he immediately started cutting back on immigration - like what the hell did you think he meant when he talked about that EVERY SINGLE TIME!? That man isn't exactly known for using "metaphors" or having the slightest degree of "subtlety" - e.g. when he talks about grabbing pussy, he doesn't mean getting to know someone intimately, he means to GRAB someone's ACTUAL genitalia, which simply being within arms reach seems to imply automatically giving consent, and if not then you can take it up with his team of lawyers.
After that, people started dying, and other things happened like infants were literally ripped right out of their mothers' arms and I suddenly found it less funny:-(.
I guess arguably it could be funny to think how liberals get mad when the Democrats they vote for do not do what they promised, yet Trump supporters got mad at him when he did - if that situation were not so fucking tragic for us all:-(.
Edit:
It's okay, presidential immunity allows grabbing pussies.
/s but no joke
Take my angry upvote!
They should feel privileged that he deigned to notice them, I guess. He big-um strong "man", they being weak tiny women-folk and all. (this one yes \s)
I would be only half surprised if he or one of his follows became the world's first man to get a surgery to graft on a second (no... ah... FIVE!) penises, just to prove how "masculine" he is.
Then he could show them off at every rally, by peeing on all the attendants. They would thank him for his service! :-P (extremely unfortunately, no \s on this one...)
We just played the anti-immigrant game in Florida. Harsh legislation passed, they ran away, and fuck me, crops are rotting in the fields.
There were a couple of business owners brave enough to say it out loud on video. "Well, yeah, we wanted this legislation, but just to kinda scare 'em. We didn't think we'd actually lose our workers! Maybe we gotta rethink this whole thing."
Props to those few self-aware SeaWolves. Some are getting it.
If you want slave labor, you gotta put up with slaves living on the plantation.
Yup. They are playing a dangerous game of Russian Roulette, hoping it won't be them that actually gets the blast. Or maybe "chicken" is a better phrasing - which side will blink first? The one who cares least about losing is the one that "wins", except can you call that winning, REALLY?
Like, hey I have an idea, let's beat up all the nerds, who actually like... think and stuff... and junk. THAT will surely turn out alright? :-(
It reminds me of how Kansas lowered taxes, then went bankrupt, then did it again, then wanted to do it AGAIN!? (then other states wanted to follow suit - it really is a repeating pattern, where nobody ever learns the lessons of even just a handful of years prior) There, they stuck microphones in the farmers faces (farmers would have been the top benefactors of lowering taxes in that state) and asked them what they would do if taxes were lowered - would they "create jobs"? Their answers were absolutely priceless. "No... (looks with disgust on their faces) why (the fuck) WOULD we!?" They even went into detail - there is only so much crop out there, you can't simply hire more workers and somehow magically get more profits. Plus Americans don't want to work those jobs anyway, plus they already manage to get the tasks done as it is, what possible reason would they want to hire on more people for, especially stable jobs, for American citizens? So then the reporters would ask what they would do with all that extra money. "I dunno... prolly put it in the bank, I guess?"
Apparently "JOBS" is a magical 4-letter word that if you lower taxes on the wealthy, somehow just magically materializes. Meanwhile the actual job creators are saying... not so much. Companies like Garmin in Kansas want a nice workplace for their workforce - they want hospitals, roads, bridges, and the like. If they wanted to live in Mississippi or Florida, then they would move there, but they do not. i.e., they WANT to pay taxes, or at least benefit from a place where taxes have been paid into, in the past.
So Republicans in Kansas lowered taxes, supposedly for the sake of the farmers, except even the majority of farmers did not want that, and then the entire state went bankrupt, AGAIN.
But by all means, let's try it still yet again, on the scale of the entire nation this time, and against the will of the majority of voters - surely that will end well once more? :-( (to clarify, I mean that it will work out well for Putin, and really if you stop to think about it, that is all that matters... right? RIGHT!?)
he immediately started cutting back on immigration
Except he didn't, really. The fucking wall was a joke, not something that would ever actually stop illegal immigrants. If conservatives really wanted to stop illegal immigration, they would go after the employers who hire them - something we will never see.
Whether or not his administration managed to cut back on illegal crossings (mainly ICE raids I would guess), he definitely and dramatically did cut back on legal visas offered. Thus farmers, who relied heavily upon those with temporary work visas, panicked there during the first year of his administration, e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/09/us/california-farmers-backed-trump-but-now-fear-losing-field-workers.html.
If conservatives really wanted to stop illegal immigration, they would go after the employers who hire them
Conservatives never really want to accomplish most of their stated goals - it's like a dog chasing after a car, they wouldn't know what to do if they ever caught it. The catch is that Trump isn't actually conservative, he simply used those talking points, too dumb to realize that he wasn't supposed to mean any of it:-P.
He also wasn't Republican either, although there he won, since he hollowed out the Republican party, laid his eggs inside its brain and now he controls the corpse. I think McCarthy was the last vestige of a Tea Party style fiscal conservative, and now the Alt Right has taken complete control, even as they already have started eating their own and demolishing that from the inside with an even more hardcore line, where e.g. the infamously extreme Fox News is no longer extreme enough.
But anyway, yeah if they truly wanted to stop immigration that is what would need to be done, but they don't be it's such an easy talking point that they've invested so much effort into, they can't afford to lose out on it now by actually solving the damn thing!:-P
No space in the square brackets
Another thought that occurs is that it shows there is literally no path where they accept the immigrant - they're upset if immigrants work, and they're upset if they don't. It literally just comes down to hating immigrants, and they work backwards from there to find reasons.
It literally just comes down to hat[e], and they work backwards from there to find reasons.
Literally every part of conservative ideology.
there is literally no path where they accept the immigrant
I have a coworker who hates undocumented immigrants because (among other reasons) she thinks they're all unvaccinated and thus spreaders of disease. She is also ANTIVAX!
strange that a lot of the antivax crowd also happens to be nazis
I dunno, they're both subsets of "selfish, irrational and cruel".
Actually both happen: low paying jobs lead to being below the poverty line and therefore eligible for welfare.
It's not great; especially when companies like Walmart cash in on this by paying less and telling employees to apply for welfare.
if a job can't feed you, it should not exist...
If an employer can't 'afford' to pay you properly he shouldn't run a business.
It's always like that. Takes Jews for instance. They are inferior and the lesser race but at the same time somehow running the world from some secret society or something. They use the same arguments with blacks, women, gays, or whoever they want to hate that day.
They took our jobs!
Derkaderrrr!!!
Damn you JuanGPT and Manuel Diffusion
Der terk er jeeerbs!!!
There are different groups of people that respond to different sides of that message, and the people who broadcast either or both sides have differing motives as well. Countering it effectively requires understanding the problem.
The anti-welfare shtick comes from the political donor class - the capitalists, ie billionaires. Lack of a safety net gives them more leverage to negotiate lower wages within the businesses they own, and less government spending results in lower interest rates on the loans they use to grow their industries. The narrative is often framed as concerns over sharing limited resources, but the true motive is the elimination of the safety net - if enough of the working class can be convinced that the system isn't fair, that creates casus belli to delete the system.
The other side of the argument is about supply and demand of labor as a commodity. As supply goes up, the price goes down, resulting in lower wages. Its a fundamental weakness of unregulated markets operating in the context of uneven global development. Immigrants from the poorer parts of the world can accept below market rate salaries and still come out ahead, but they drive down wages of the local economy in the process. A "free" market gives the capitalists, ie billionaires, power akin to the divine right of kings - with enough capital, they can game the market to suppress competition, establish monopolies, and perpetually remain in positions of ultimate executive authority. Therefore, regulating the market to make it truly free isn't in their interest, so instead the propaganda organs they own - CNN, Fox 'News', etc... - blame the immigrants for pursuing rational self-interest as if it were a moral failing, instilling hatred in part of the working class toward other working class people to garner political support for representatives who pay lip service to anti-immigration policy. Such policy isn't actually passed - it would result in better wages and the capitalists don't want that - but the lip service wins elections in some states while also preventing the conversation from shifting to possible regulation to solve the problem of low wages.
Damn that was a fine read.
blame the immigrants for pursuing rational self-interest as if it were a moral failing, instilling hatred in part of the working class toward other working class people to garner political support for representatives who pay lip service to anti-immigration policy
^ Tip of the spear right there. Gets votes!
But let's talk real talk. Americans want slaves. I can provide 100 anecdotes, but they all come to the same observation, we want cheap labor. Immigrants provide it and we can't do without it.
And it's not just the "evil capitalists". If a Mexican dude tells me his gang will refloor my living room for $5/hr. per man, I'm all in because I can't afford to pay "real" labor prices. Either they make some money, or no one gets paid and my carpet is rotting.
OK, one anecdote. My wife is Filipina, not a US citizen. Her education in early childhood education is stunning. I've watched countless videos of her private school back home. And I'm screaming, "FFS! Why are we not teaching our children like this?! Why are our teachers not trained like this?!"
She had to quit her job teaching because the airport hotel pays far more. Philippinos are in demand because everyone knows they work hard, don't bitch and are grateful for what they get. LOL, she was hired on the spot, just for walking in the door and asking.
Meanwhile, I make $80K for sitting and sleeping my ass off working for a software dev, from home.
Don't know where I'm going with this. Guess when we Americans say we're a "nation of immigrants", we really mean, "a nation of immigrants who started as slaves and worked their way up the food chain over a generation or two".
I love how the rhetoric is "dey turk our jerbs!" While lawmakers are lowering the work age requirements so that kids can be forced to fill those "jerbs".
Also, throw massive temper tantrum about "crisis at the border," but refuse to do anything about it. If anyone is wondering, the answer is no, the Republicans do not want to make a deal with Biden on border policy; it's way too politically convenient for them to have it both ways.
They want to use it as a campaign talking point and as a political cudgel, while also refusing to do anything about it. Also they can't give Biden anything that might look like a win, no matter how much the American people want it.
Unfortunately they have right wing media on their side so their constituents will never understand the two-faced game they're playing.
The narrative of friends and family from the small town I grew up in and left, to rarely if ever revisit, reason that the immigrants work illegally for cash at meat packing plants, roofing, etc. This while drawing benefits, as unregistered/illegal immigrants. I don’t know how an undocumented person could collect benefits. Frankly I don’t know enough about any of it to say whether their narrative is accurate or not.
I have always held the opinion that even if their likely false narrative is true, those sound like extremely hard working folks being exploited and taken advantage of and points to an underlying problem that immigrants are not effectively integrated into our society through accessible legal procedures in a way that enables them to positively impact society to the greatest extent of their potential. I’d bet with living wages these folks would be filling up trade schools and all kinds of additional skilled labor roles that would be built upon and advanced generationally. I don’t understand why a country wouldn’t want injection of realized opportunity and advancement into its society, economics, and culture.
It is not uncommon for illegals to obtain someone else's documents for use. $50 and you can have enough of someone's information to claim benefits or get "lawful" employment.
Not everyone who does that uses that information to abuse the system, many don't take benefits or get credit cards to abuse, most just use it to get a job that pays better than cash under the table. They do occasionally need to get new information, I don't think I ever asked what caused the necessity to switch.
Source: Worked along side illegals and formerly associated with connected individuals.
The more recent racism: "they gave us covid because of eating bats!" While they chew on some prion infested venison while insisting mad cow isn't real.
Covid is real and dangerous when they feel like justifying their racism.
Yet Covid "is no big deal" or even "is not real" like you say, as they threw one lazy selfish tantrum after another, refusing to mask up, abusing essential workers.
Legitimate question. Can anyone tell me how someone would go collecting welfare with no SSN or papers?
I work with people on a daily basis that collect some sort of welfare or disability.... They are in perfect bodily health. They are also all U.S citizens.
I don't believe I have come across an undocumented migrant that collects "disability payments". I don't believe it's possible....
No idea how that would work. An undocumented person at my mom's work was "borrowing" someone else's identity to get paid. So they were contributing to social security with no way to ever collect on it.
My fiancee works at the welfare office in downtown Pittsburgh, PA. I literally just asked her and she said, "They can potentially get approved for medical assistance if it's an emergency, but they're not going to be able to get something like food stamps as an illegal immigrant." Other states might be different, but that's at least PA.
Here’s a list of all federal benefits that undocumented immigrants are eligible to receive:
https://www.ncsl.org/immigration/federal-benefit-eligibility-for-unauthorized-immigrants
States may or may not have additional programs.
I literally know an elderly lady who is alienated from her family in Europe and lives in California without any papers, money, or a job, and she has her own apartment and makes due somehow.
No I’m not saying she oughta be deported or have her benefits cut or anything (she’s not living a particularly glorious lifestyle, believe me), just answering the question that was asked.
It's just code for racism in the end. Always is.
It's the same with the enemies of fascism
A fascists enemies are weak, unhealthy and can easily be overtaken by the superior strength of fascists.
While at the same time the enemies of fascists are also overpowering them, slowly destroying them because they are too powerful.
The quiet part is that people in a country with abundant natural resources don't want to have to share them with people from other places with fucked up situations. They want a walled garden because they think they can tend it well enough on their own to not be surrounded by extra burden. Who needs to compete when there's enough to go around here?
If we were rational ourselves, we would bring our freedom to the countries who's people are fleeing to us for refuge. Mexicans have it so bad that they're running to us? Well clearly we're doing it better than Mexico, so let's clap their leadership and show them what's good, right? I mean fuck. It's better rationale for a war than trying to control some other place for is oil and pretending that's not the case.
I'm not american, don't live in america and have nothing against imigration, specially people getting out of horrible situations but I saw a pitcure the other day with thousands of people crossing the whole central america on foot, with little babies, to reach the US and that was scary and very sad. At that point just take over the whole country and make it another american state. Crazy
Wait till you see the videos of mothers literally chucking their infants/toddlers over the wall, hoping that they will be found by someone on the other side and cared for... in a desert no less. Better dead than having to go back to where they came from, it would seem. Either way they are aware that they will never see them again.
And it gets even weirder when people keep finding literal child slaves, used for both their work product & sex it would seem, up in farms even as far north as Iowa. Oh, and supposedly 80% of the women & girls that cross over are raped as they do. So again, whatever they are running from must be THAT bad, that those mothers are willing to consign their children to that.
But you are right - the USA cannot solve the problems of literally the entire world. Unfortunately things like nuance, subtlety, or even factual information of pretty much any kind, have no place in USA politicking - instead people simply get their pictures taken at the border, then go back home, trying to ignore it as best they can. And then argue about whether or not we want to pay the bill for the things that we've already bought.
Both sides are incredibly messed up, yet not equally so, but fairly bad in their own ways, as such matters simply slip through the cracks, as "more important matters" take precedence, I guess.
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