ORLY?

[joannemerriam]

Over the summer - while Alan was in Ireland, so probably late July - Mom & Dad visited and we went to a street fair in downtown Concord, which included booths for some of the Presidential candidates. I asked them what their candidates positions were on immigration. Hilary Clinton's people said a bunch of nice and meaningless things, and Rudy

Comments

[cornpone]

did you guys ever get your letter? i sent it a while ago.

[joannemerriam]

OMG YES! It was AWESOME! Thanks so much. I have been making jokes about letting semen harden on my face, and it's all because of you. Awwww.

[fletch31526]

That's a platform I hadn't heard until now... Let's build a wall along the Canadian border! ::sigh::

[joannemerriam]

I know right?

[big_paul]

Isn't the main argument in favor of things like a wall or whatever anti-migrant sentiments largely based on the idea of labor standards and wages and safety conditions being depressed?

So, wouldn't a better solution be to just enforce wage and safety laws that are already on the books, irrespective of employee immigration status?

Or is it that the sort of person who advocates walls and a 'ship 'em back' attitude also the sort of person who opposes enforcing wage and safety standards?

[joannemerriam]

Romney favors enforcing those things, and I don't know that he supports building a wall (though his enthusiastic campaign person who was at the street fair clearly did).

The problem with enforcing labor standards, wages, and safety conditions is, how do you do that? If you're an illegal immigrant, you're hardly going to complain to the government about making below minimum wage, or working in unsafe conditions, when to do so means you would more-or-less-automatically get deported.

[big_paul]

Yeah, it's an enforcement problem where the devil is in the details...

What's the deal with Romney, anyway? I haven't heard much about him, I've only really been following the frontrunners, (coming to the conclusion that Clinton would be a moderate republican, like her husband was, and Rudy'd be worse than Bush) except for Representative Dennis Kucinich.

From what I hear, he hasn't got a chance in hell, which is too bad. I love his policy platform. He's always voted against the Iraq war, in favor of decriminalizing pot, ending Helms-Burton, pulling out of NAFTA and the WTO, and a national healthcare system?

Yep, unelectable.

[joannemerriam]

He was governor of Massachusetts, and his solution there for healthcare was to legislate that everybody has to buy health insurance, and to subsidize the insurance companies. I don't find his national healthcare system particularly compelling.

He's a Mormon, and is therefore probably unelectable, and is therefore the guy I'd like to see become the candidate.

I didn't know he was in favour of decriminalizing pot. That's cool.

[meegiemoo]

The flunky who is answering the email probably doesn't have the authority to say much more than the canned message. I'll be interested to see if they make the effort to answer your real question.

I guess if he believes in magical underwear then building a wall between nations shouldn't be too out of the realm of possibility.

[joannemerriam]

It took them several months to send the canned response, so I'm not holding my breath.

[sarcasticah]

Romney has very little connection with reality... witness his performance as governor of Massachusetts!

[joannemerriam]

An excellent point.