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| Jihadists attack: a vehicular strike outside the UK Parliament |
Unbeknownst to the professor, less than an hour before his rant, up to forty natives had been literally 'thrown under the car' - that is, struck by a dark grey hatchback (pictured, top right) driven by a man who is a product of migration to the UK. It was a jihadist terror attack.
The parallel really sums up our current situation: either somebody loses an opportunity because they are stopped at the border, or somebody else suffers because somebody was not stopped at the border. The lib-left will try to cover the former in emotional gloss to make a point but, really, this is the trade-off we are dealing with.
Of course, there are ways to dress it up. The professor proclaimed, for example, that migrants are important for the economy because "they do the jobs nobody else wants to do." I have heard this line like a broken-record about a thousand times, alluding to this antiquated idea that illegals only pick vegetables in a field or sell oranges by the freeway. In reality, only four percent of illegal immigrants work in agriculture. So what about the rest of the illegals and other migrants up to? There are blue-collar jobs out there, like house-building, plumbing and painting. I suppose that is where some of those migrants could end up. Walking past Taco Bell later that day, I saw a sign advertising jobs at $10.50/hour. Maybe that is the modern-day equivalent of picking vegetables or selling oranges.
But here is the thing: I had recently gotten off the phone with a friend of mine who graduated from Florida University, and he is earning just a dollar or two more per hour in his white-collar job. In terms of salary, he is not alone; the average yearly earnings in the United States are around $50k per household (per capita). Assuming two migrants live together and work at fast food chains earning $10.50 an hour, their earnings fall just a few thousand under that mark. So, basically, my college-educated friend might as well be working at Taco Bell.
It gets worse, though.
We live in a society where tuition costs are up to $33k a year and full, need-based scholarships go to the poorest of the poor - including those who grew up in poor migrant families and do not want the "jobs nobody else wants to do". Not surprisingly, my friend received none of this aid, because he was a child of "Average Joe around $50k per household". Furthermore, unlike the migrant children, my friend is not eligible for scholarships just for migrants or people that look that way (read: either Hispanic or non-white), nor will he be placed into jobs because of quotas that favor certain people regardless of talent.
So, while jobs requiring a college education are less available than ever because everyone wants to avoid "jobs nobody else wants to do", look who is getting them, and look who is swimming in $33k a year debt that will never be paid off earning less than $50k. Yet my friend is stuck with such a job. For him, the blue-collar jobs that "nobody else wants to do" are increasingly more attractive. In fact, the up-and-coming generation is even being told to target these kinds of jobs.
Having proved the fallacy of "migrants do the jobs nobody else wants to do", let us examine where the impetus behind the argument comes from. On the one hand, you have those who push lib-left pro-multicultural open-borders for whatever reason, but generally believe they are helping some poor, hungry mouth find work at no expense to anyone. This eases the mind, and firms up the sort of self-righteousness that drives the pro-immigration movement. On the other hand, we also see a plank for fiscal conservatives like the tired, old professor, where graphs and charts tell him that healthy economies will - and always will - require a workforce to perform the services and provides the labour that the host community needs. Therefore, to him, it makes sense to keep the border open.
But what is actually happening seems to be hidden from the sight of both sides - especially in Europe, with regards to imported religious conflict and terrorism. Amidst all the problems, we need to ask ourselves: why is this model considered the only way forward when so few countries had followed this path before it was en vogue to do so?
What makes the model even desirable in the first place? Aside from everything detrimental which we have already discussed, the societies that follow the model do not appear to be more inventive, culturally fulfilling or even financially rewarding. Look at how few inventions have emerged in the last few decades with this system, how empty and repetitive our culture has become under it and how many people live below poverty, are unemployed or rely on government aid. Just a few thoughts to think about should the topic come up in a classroom near you.
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| "b..b-but who else will pick her oranges...?" - the eternal Boomer |
