Uber Rationalization

One can rationalize just about anything by parsing language, I suppose. But it's rare that such mental over-exercise offers any practical value in the real world. Perhaps that's why the term mental masturbation was coined.

Dan Riehl doesn’t even offer the sophistication we got from DiRito.

Between special interest groups served by a growing underclass and big business special interests intent on maintaining a steady supply of cheap labor, it’s apparent to many in this debate who has the interests of America in their heart … and who is simply looking for access to the 2006 equivalent of, or next best thing to slaves.

Here the assertion is merely made that illegal immigrants are equivalent to or the “next best thing to” slaves. However, most illegal immigrants satisfy the following list:

So, Steve Verdon seizes upon what amounts to a rhetorical flourish, ignores next best thing to back his way into a straw man argument - that I claimed illegal aliens are akin to slaves, when in fact I never did. And I won't even engage the foul-mouthed idiot Verdon quotes. People who need to employ the word f---ing in debate probably aren't experiencing enough of it to survive a tempered discussion without exploding in some way.

While Verdon's bullet points sound good, practically speaking, they're all but moot.

They come to this country voluntarily (albeit illegally, and often at risk to their lives),

Voluntarily as in they are living wonderful purposeful lives somewhere and just up and pile themselves twenty in a van to go and explore the American dream? There's no practical logic in Verdon's assertion. A poor and mostly oppressed people flee one state to be preyed upon by another. That's as much white glove transport in human trade as anything else.

They voluntarily take a job that a employer voluntarily offers to pay,

They can leave that job and look for another,

They can live where the please (and can afford),

They are free to spend their money as they see fit.

Sorry. but that's a bunch of elitist over-intellectualized rubbish. It presumes the range of choices open to an American citizen are as freely available to illegal immigrants when they are not.

Trapping people in desperate circumstances and taking advantage of them may not be slavery - as stated, I never claimed that it factually was. But it most certainly is a form of involuntary servitude, despite someones high-minded rationalization to the contrary.

Involuntary servitude is a United States legal and constitutional term for a person laboring against that person's will to benefit another, under some form of coercion. While laboring to benefit another occurs in the condition of slavery, involuntary servitude does not connote the complete lack of freedom experienced in chattel slavery; involuntary servitude may also refer to other forms of unfree labor. Involuntary servitude is not dependent upon compensation or its amount.

If Verdon wishes to apply his fine intellect to rationalize it somehow, so be it. Heaven forbid the reality of a person's life should get in the way, especially when one can fiddle with the language and make it sound so clean..

For instance, in Long Island, New York, a successful businessman was arrested for his harboring of an illegal alien. But it was far more than that: he had the Latino man living in the basement of his mansion and the illegal alien worked as a valet for the man and his family. Then at 6 AM in the morning, the businessman woke the illegal and drove him to the businessman's factory in the Bronx, and the illegal immigrant worked 10 hours a day without compensation. All this immigrant received were three squares and a cot in a basement. No wages. No weekends off. No holidays. No vacations.

Comments

[VirginiaBreeze]

I recall this same type of incident occuring with a wealthy family who's "nanny" fell under the same circumstances. It's deplorable.