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April 07, 2006

Jobs Americans won't do

Gerard Van der Leun has a better take on the favorite new catchphrase of the founding member of the Chappaquiddick Swim Club.

My current replacement statement, not nearly so catchy as "Illegals are doing the jobs Americans won't do" reads: "Americans will do a tough and dirty job for $15 an hour until somebody else shows up from somewhere and offers to do the same job for $10 an hour, at which point the American will be fired, laid off, or told 'Hey, I'd like to hire you, but the governement has said this is a job that Americans won't do.' "

Van der Leun writes about his brother, a retired teacher who has started a gardening business, one that is viable because there are no illegal aliens in his neck of the woods -- yet.

it won't take long before you see . . . illegals ready to do the exact same job for $20 or less. At that point, my brother's landscaping business is over for him. Not because it is a job an American won't do for $30, but because it is a job that an American can't do for $20.

Ah, you say, well it is a free market, let him cut his price to $20 to compete. Ah, I say, you don't really get how Mexican shape-ups in Southern California ( coming soon to American towns everywhere) work. You cut your price to $20, their going price soon drops to $15. You follow and theirs goes to $10 and they'll throw in their brother for free. It's capitalism raw and bloody but with a built-in bias for the illegal since his overhead is close to absolute zero and the California welfare state gives him medical insurance for free. Down at the bottom of our labor landscape the playing field is anything but level. And it ain't tilted towards American citizens.

As with most everything on his page, it's worth taking the time to read the whole thing.

Moving from the middle-class world of home lawn care to the more cloistered environs of the country club crowd, we find that the PGA -- and duffers the world over -- owes a debt of gratitude to illegal aliens, as they undertake yet another onerous task beneath the abilities of stiff-necked gringos.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg says golf fairways would suffer if illegal immigrants were returned to their native country.

"You and I are beneficiaries of these jobs," Bloomberg told his WABC-AM radio co-host, John Gambling. "You and I both play golf; who takes care of the greens and the fairways in your golf course?"

[...]

"Nobody wants to deport them, in the end, because people need them to take these jobs and do the things that nobody else is doing," Bloomberg said.

I have just one response to Bloomberg's slur against the work ethic of America's greenskeepers.

The late, world-famous greensman Carl Spackler.

Who can forget the immortal exchage between Greenskeeper Sandy McFiddish and Carl Spackler:

Sandy: Carl I want you to kill all the gophers on the golf course
Carl: Correct me if I'm wrong Sandy, but if I kill all the golfers they'll lock me up and throw away the key.
Sandy: Not golfers, you great fool. Gophers. The *little* *brown*, *furry* *rodents*.
Carl: We can do that. We don't even need a reason.

I think it's important to take a moment to remember the uncommon wisdom of this iconic and iconoclastic American laborer, brutally shunted aside by the south-of-the-border low-bid competition.

License to kill gophers by the government of the United Nations. Man, free to kill gophers at will. To kill, you must know your enemy, and in this case my enemy is a varmint. And a varmint will never quit - ever. They're like the Viet Cong - Varmint Cong. So you have to fall back on superior intelligence and superior firepower. And that's all she wrote.

[...]

This is a hybrid. This is a cross, ah, of Bluegrass, Kentucky Bluegrass, Featherbed Bent, and Northern California Sensemilia. The amazing stuff about this is, that you can play 36 holes on it in the afternoon, take it home and just get stoned to the bejeezus-belt that night on this stuff.

carl spackler.jpeg

So I jump ship in Hong Kong and make my way over to Tibet, and I get on as a looper at a course over in the Himalayas. A looper, you know, a caddy, a looper, a jock. So, I tell them I'm a pro jock, and who do you think they give me? The Dalai Lama, himself. Twelfth son of the Lama. The flowing robes, the grace, bald... striking. So, I'm on the first tee with him. I give him the driver. He hauls off and whacks one - big hitter, the Lama - long, into a ten-thousand foot crevasse, right at the base of this glacier. Do you know what the Lama says? Gunga galunga... gunga, gunga-galunga. So we finish the eighteenth and he's gonna stiff me. And I say, "Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know." And he says, "Oh, uh, there won't be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness." So I got that goin' for me, which is nice.

Och, where are ye, Carl, when ye are so needed, laddie?

Posted by Mike Lief at April 7, 2006 01:16 PM | TrackBack

Comments

Xenophobia is running rampant at Out On A Limb these days. Americans have grown accustomed to great wealth and the comforts of modern life. Our Mexican and South American neighbors are hungry for work and have proven to be reliable in filling a much needed gap in the economy. This must be the case or Republican corporate big wigs wouldn't want all of these brown people coming here.

The old saying "what goes around comes around" is perfectly appropriate here. Much of the poverty experienced in Mexico and other depressed ecomomies is directly due to American and European imperialism. It's only natural that with enhanced mobility of people across the world, that our southern neighbors are coming to take some of the "treasure" that was stollen from them. Sharing the wealth isn't a bad thing. Sharing is a value that all people of conscience should embrace. Like the Irish, Germans, and Italians 100 years ago, this new brand of immigrant will both shape and join in the American dream. Diversity is stength. Diversity is power. Don't run from diversity, embrace it. I'd like to give a shout out to the newly arrived Mexican Americans with a hearty "Viva La Raza!"

Posted by: Sbarro at April 7, 2006 10:59 PM

It is completely irrational for any modern nation to actively encourage the immiqration of millions upon millions of unskilled laborers in the Information Age.

You simply cannot absorb 10 million 3rd world immigrants without a maior impact on social services, education, etc.

The Bush administration has pointed this country in a direction that will dramatically effect the standard of living middle-class Americans have grown to expect for themselves and their children.

The United States needs a managed immiqration policy that is centrally focused on what is best for the "United States."

Posted by: Bill H. at April 8, 2006 11:43 AM

I think Sbarro's comment is pithy.

Posted by: LT at April 12, 2006 09:00 AM

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