LA Mayor Karen Bass drew a parallel between the economic damage caused by ICE raids in Los Angeles and the economic damage COVID lockdowns caused.
Wow!
This lady just doesn’t seem to get it.
She’s right that the COVID lockdowns, especially in California damaged the local economy. She’s also right that ICE raids are affecting the Los Angeles economy.
Where she misses the point entirely is in understanding the root cause of the issue.
Perhaps Los Angeles’s economy shouldn’t rely that much on illegal immigrants in the first place.
Further, Democrat policies have led to Los Angeles having one of the highest percentages of Illegal immigrants in the country.
Regardless of where you stood, or stand, on the COVID-19 response, the most draconian state and city lockdowns of the populace were primarily enforced in Democrat jurisdictions.
They closed parks, and skate parks. They literally created a situation where people couldn’t go anywhere, except for liquor stores, pot dispensaries, Walmart, Target, grocery, and fast food stores.
Recall that in Los Angeles County, their response was to send the police to arrest a lone surfer out in the sun, surfing, by himself, 1000 yards off-shore.
In the process, they exposed 5 or 6 officers to the boogie man of COVID to make an example of a surfer who was literally no threat either to himself or others.
The surfer’s arrest wasn’t about public safety, it was about nothing more than control. The people in power couldn’t have anyone openly defying them and it didn’t matter if they were wrong, what mattered was that everyone under their control never questioned them.
(The same is always true of people in positions of power, it doesn’t matter if they’re Democrat, Republican, Dictators, or Emperors. In this particular case, it was Democrat policies, rules, and regulations.)
As it turns out, sun, fresh air, and physical activity, were some of the best things one could do to combat not only COVID, but also the depression associated with doom and gloom news, and essentially waiting to die in your home.
At the time I wrote a piece about the big fusion reactor in the sky and how it had been known for centuries sunlight could improve health. Even before our technology reached a point of understanding “the why”, our ancestors knew of a relationship between fresh air, sunlight, and our health.
How many people purchased UV sterilizers for their homes? How many people suddenly started taking vitamin D? How many people purchased high end air filtration machines? They could have saved themselves a lot of money just by being allowed to go outside.
At the same time, Democrat policies allowed people to congregate in the streets protesting.
Mayor Bass completely misses the root cause of the problems. I’ll name it for her, Democrat policies.
Not all Democrats or all their policies certainly, but Democrats that walk lockstep with each other, who lack the courage to be introspective, or ability to ask questions.
Los Angeles would not be experiencing an economic downturn due to ICE raids if the policies hadn’t been instituted that made Los Angeles and indeed California a sanctuary.
As someone who’s been trying to get a job for over five years, why is it that I have to answer questions about my national origin, and right to work, and prove my identity.
Yet apparently none of that is necessary if I happen to be someone who crossed the Rio Grande in the dead of night?
I’m certainly not alone. Teenagers, and young adults, have been saying for years that they’re having trouble finding work. Perhaps it’s because they’re trying to find work with the odds stacked against them if they were born in this country.
One need only look at the meat packing plant in Nebraska that was raided by ICE. Within days, their lobby was full of able bodied Americans filling out job applications for the vacant positions. It will be interesting to see how this event changes the local unemployment rate.
Ask yourself why do the taxes and fees in California keep going up, but the quality of life remains the same or goes down? California is definitely not as nice as it once was. $45 to renew a driver’s license? Really? To someone living in poverty working a part time job, that $45 is a weeks worth of lunches if they make them at home.
It’s not because of immigrants, it’s because of the sheer number of illegal immigrants that, if you really think about it have become a slave class.
Yes, it’s slavery.
The only difference is that instead of the slaves living in slave quarters on a plantation, these slaves accept jobs with no health care, poor wages, and instead of being paid with room and board, they’re being paid with money that is devalued for them, like all the rest of us.
The policy that countenances illegal immigration places these people at a distinct disadvantage and keeps them there.
It’s slavery with extra steps (To borrow a line from Rick & Morty). Except that it’s worse.
These folks can’t afford housing without assistance, they can’t afford doctors because the cost of health care is obscene and they don’t have health insurance. Without health insurance their only choice is to clog urgent cares, and emergency rooms, where they’ll be seen and then the taxpayers pick up the bill.
In desperation, some turn to crime because it pays better than slave wages. All of these factors together increases the burden on law enforcement and subsequently on the tax payer.
How is this system much different from slaves living on a plantation? I’d suggest that sanctuary states and cities are even more cruel. Because they give illegal immigrants the illusion of freedom while entrapping them in an endless cycle of poverty and desperation.
If you expand your view beyond the small details, it becomes obvious that all of the taxpayers are, without their consent, being forced indirectly into being slave holders.
The wealthier taxpayers are akin to the house slaves, they’re treated better and they too derive benefit from the lower rungs of the slave classes. They have housekeepers, gardeners, field workers putting food on their tables, and a cheap labor force available at home improvement centers to paint and maintain their homes.
In the old plantations, the owner held the land, provided housing, reaped the benefits of cheap labor, provided a portion of the crops to the slaves for food, provided health care such as it was, and enforced the peace by punishing those who got out of line.
The difference is that now the owners are the politicians. It’s better for them today because unlike the plantation owner of old, today’s politicians bear no risk whatsoever. If they need more money, they raise taxes. In the plantation days the only way to increase income was to plant larger crops and hope the crops paid off.
The sad irony is that Democrats like Karen Bass don’t see what they’re doing. They are literally incapable of seeing the larger picture. If you view Los Angeles as a plantation, then ICE can be viewed as the Union Army freeing the slaves.
In that view, Los Angeles having an economic downturn is nothing more than being unable to plant or harvest the back forty.
Oh, and don’t misconstrue this to mean Trump is comparable to Lincoln. I don’t think he sees anything more than a balance sheet. At this point in our history, that may not be a bad thing.
What is, and always has been a concern, is that illegal immigration places strain on the society at large, think health, education, and welfare.
We’ve been told for decades that to say such a thing was racist and that the illegals are only looking for a better life. Tell me, how is being a slave on the lowest rungs of society, with little hope to improve your station, a better life?
Legal Immigrants are seeking a better future and they have opportunities to achieve it. Illegal immigrants not so much. It must also be said, illegal immigrants, actually damage opportunities for legal immigrants, because no-one can be sure of the difference between the two. This uncertainty reduces the number of available positions for legal immigrants.
Aside from the violence and chaos it would cause, perhaps a counter protest should be organized targeting the ICE protests.
Signs saying “Don’t be an unwitting slave owner… Support ICE!“
Then supply plenty of brochures explaining how the system works.
Trouble with that, is the barely restrained violence of the anti ICE people. Los Angeles would be burned to the ground in seconds.
Once again, this is how my very weird brain processes things.
The AI noted that it might be inaccurate, so as usual take everything an AI says with a grain of salt or an entire salt lick.
Frankly I’m confused.
Interesting.
I see this morning that, in a surprising turn (to no-one), stores have been looted. Who would have seen that coming? Book stores are as usual immune. But the Tmobile stores, and any store that carries tennis shoes have been hit.