I admire anyone who is multi-lingual.

If I had interest in learning a 3rd language,it would be spanish.

 

Has anybody seen episode 118 of South Park, titled "Goobacks"? I know many people regard South Park as a childish cartoon but the beauty of the show is they always make a statement, be it political, social, religious or even racial. The creators are brilliant and pull no punches in the content. For a good laugh, cue up Limewire and DL@! OT, for a real demonstration of pulling no punches get episodes 109 and 123 too!

I agree that greed is the root cause of most of society's financial problems. When one man or corporation profits billions of dollars from a product or service, the trickle-down effect is huge. Consumers need higher wages to buy the product and in return their employers need to charge more to so anyone that buys that company's product needs a higher wage to pay for that... etc, etc, etc.

Edit: Hehe, As far as learning another language... If you have kids in school, Chinese is the way to go.

 

Here's an example for you... back in the 80's when I was in high school, many high school kids worked for the seed companies detasseling, and there were also contract detasselers, which made decent money for the contractor. Anybody could have the contracts. The kids made enough money in 3 months to be able to last the school year, my sister did this so that she wouldn't have to work while focusing on college. Move to today, they pay minimum wage for these same jobs, and now, contracts are hard to get, many won't do them any more. What incentive to the local people is there to go bust their rumps in the fields when they can do the same in air conditioned comfort? Those that say we as a country won't do those jobs have apparently never visited the Midwest and seen it for what it is. I grew up on the farm, and not working is not an option. Conditions are rarely ideal, you just deal with it and go on. Heck, I would be happy to work for $9 just picking apples, or even the detasseling, but they won't pay that any more, because they ship in the immigrants, house them and all, rather than pay the locals.$7 around here is still an entry level, but the jobs aren't as readily available, because they already have their work crews, and are actually less likely to hire the locals...
On the welfare front, it would seem to me that some states need it taken care of, as locally here it is not that easy to get welfare, nor stay on it, and there is a maximum of 5 years of benefits, and you are on your own.

 

Many of those that say this are Farmers, and it's not as if they're not trying:

The Program I alluded to in my earlier post (#40) is a program devised by the U.S. Department of Labor called H-2A Certification. This program allows for agricultural employers (Farmers) to hire illegals - LEGALLY. To do so, Farmers must first prove there is a true shortage of legal workers. They do this by advertising these jobs in advance via ads in the local newspapers, radio, TV, and the internet. After doing so, a deadline is given, and whatever jobs not filled by 'legals', can be filled (again legally) by illegals.

Once again, here in the NW, it is typical that only 1% of these jobs are filled by legals.....unfortunate, but true.

 

Herdsman, I get your point. Mine is not about language, it's about the citizens being forced to assimilate into the culture of the immigrants and not the other way around. Speak what you want, that doesn't bother me. But learn to communicate with the people in this country. You're right, one issue is social and the other is legal but (and you knew there would be a "but") in this case these two are intertwined. I don't want to police language, just the borders.

The post about paying $9 per hour plus housing and transpotation...that sounds good to me. After mortgage, car payments, and taxes that's way more than I make now.

 

Yes Magee, I see your point too. I think real big thing we differ on is that you seem to see the US as an English-only country - I don't think it ever has been, is, or ever will be a single language nation. (Unlike Japan, since you mentioned it) There's a bunch of people in this country (mainly led by idiot politicians) that want to legislate English to be the official language of the US. What utter nonsense. In many practical respects it already is, but legislating it, hoping for it, wishing for it, etc. won't make it so - despite how convenient that would be for all us English speakers (myself definitely included).

If you see the US as officially English, then I can see why you would think that non-English speaking immigrants should learn it. But if you see our language as just like the rest of our culture - a crazy mix of just about anything from anywhere - then it's optional, just as learning Spanish is optional for you. Those Argentine lifties that I mentioned in an earlier post? I do ski patrol in the winter, and I have to communicate with them all the time. Yes, I really wish they spoke better English. But I also wish I spoke better Spanish!

And I hear you on the $9 an hour thing too - my kid works in a pizza shop for about that - and since he's bascially got no expenses, he's got a lot more free cash than I do - I have to borrow money from him sometimes!

 

yea, speaking spanish, its great, thats what they always push for a language class in high school and college, how many spanish speaking countries are top ten economic countries? you would think the schools would be pushing those countries langiages that are economic powerhouses than some third world garbage. oh wait, they are preparing us to be third world.

 

Most small farms around here have no employees, it's all done by the family themselves, and the bigger farms generally have no real problem getting help/ But our farms are a bit different, in that it is more machinery than people power. There are plenty of undesirable jobs that are filled by the locals, the main migrant application is the seed corn fields, which many locals used to be more than happy to do, when it was fairly compensated for.

 

As Jay Leno put it, "What, if we don't meet their demands they're going to go back ? . .."

Let's celebrate Cinco-de-Mayo this friday and enjoy our cultural diversity, but we must enforce our laws .

 

All of the aforementioned are regulated by government agencies and can only raise rates by petition. These are not good examples of our free market enterprise. Companies are free to charge whatever they want and consumers are free to look elsewhere. Large profit margins attract competitors and consumers vote with their pocketbooks for the best value.

(On edit: Sorry, did not realize this was a multi-page thread, subject out of current context, please ignore.)

 

cinco-de-mayo? what the does a battle in mexico a long time ago have to do with america? my wife is an immigrant but she's not over here celebrating her former countries holiday's. whats next, we celebrate brazil's independence day? or how about let's celebrate england's guy **** day and shoot off a bunch of firework's also. i mean we do have english heritage, why not celebrate the holidays?

 

Good point Mil1ion, but what about the old school corporate responsibility that we all know should be apart of our culture ?

Upper management greed and gluttony with no accountability ?

 

The Constitution is written in English, the Declaration of Independence is written in English. I have no problem with anyone speaking whatever language they wish, but the language of government, both national and local, has been and should remain English.
Dono

 

The melting pot ? I agree, english IS our language.

We can also enjoy the diversity of culture within our country.

Actually Cinco is Sat. Let's enjoy it, I like Mexican food.

Someone mentioned a trip down south, let's consider it !

 

Agreed. 99.9% of "American" culture is based on what some group of immigrants brought here - including our primary language, English. Let's remember that at one time the English were nothing but yet another group of immigrants who didn't speak the native language.