On April 28, New York State Attorney General and Democrat gubernatorial candidate Eliot Spitzer decided to let the whole world knows how he feels about illegal immigrants. He issued a statement of support on the eve of the nationwide May 1 strike by illegal immigrant workers and threatened to prosecute any employers who fired an employee who skipped work that day.
Note Spitzer’s Orwellian language:
“This Office has received inquiries about the legal obligations of employers to accommodate employees' requests to take time off to participate in activities scheduled for May1 recognizing the contributions of working immigrants to the national economy and local communities. Some businesses will be closing for the demonstrations, while others will remain open.”
The employees were striking for the day. They weren’t making “requests” any more than a mugger does.
Spitzer’s weasely language reminds me of the time, back in 1995, when I was researching my first major article on violent crime in New York and came across a crime blotter story in a Brooklyn newspaper about a guy who was arrested for robbery. The entry said that the suspect had “requested” that the alleged victim hand over his money to him. I thought to myself, “That’s not a robbery; he handed over his money voluntarily!”
Only later did I realize the source of the confusion. The mugger hadn’t “requested” anything; muggers don’t make requests, they issue orders. In the past 30 or so years, however, journalism has been taken over by mealy-mouthed, forked-tongued propagandists whom you couldn’t trust to give you the correct time of day. And so, out of a solicitude that sought not to cast a violent criminal in a harsh light, the newspaper so misrepresented a violent crime as to turn it into a non-crime.
Similarly, Spitzer not only turned a racist strike that attacked the foundations of American law and culture into a picnic, but through his threats against employers, gave the strike state sanction.
The following paragraph is a bald-faced lie:
“Federal labor law protects every employee's right to engage in concerted activities for ‘mutual aid and protection,’ including calling for change in existing laws to improve working conditions. The courts have held that participation by employees in demonstrations and rallies like those planned for May 1 are protected activities under that provision.”
Shame on AG Spitzer for demagoguing, lying about the law, abusing the powers of his office, and violating employers' legal right to fire workers who refused to show up for their regular shifts on May 1. The law in question was enacted to protect legal workers, not illegal immigrants. And the law did not give workers the right to skip work.
Article comments
1 - Arch Conservative
Is someone going to write a damn post about Patrick Kennedy and what a drunken useless piece of shit he is just like his dad or what?
2 - Nicholas Stix
You have to understand, Arch, that Young Kennedy was under great pressure to uphold the family tradition. And so, he was obliged to drive drunk and lie about it, whether he wanted to or not.
3 - RedTard
Kennedy got special treatment just like Cheney did. Life's not fair for us non-power players.
The article was excellent. The businesses of America are under attack from the left again. They are hellbent on the destruction of the sovereign United States. The transfer of sovereignty to a world body and the elimination of borders is critical to the destruction of nations and it's replacement with a one world socialist government. You can see the effect in Europe and the US right now.
I don't know if Spitzer is part of the radicals or is someone who has just bought the propaganda but his statement is quite disturbing. Punishing lawful activity while ignoring lawbreaking, only in the new US of A.
4 - Casey Lunkley
RedTard, is your name supposed to imply "Retard"? Becuase it seems like it fits well.
You can't use one person to represent the entire left-wing in America. If I used George W. Bush to state that all conservatives are against gay marriage, you would have a hissy fit.
As for the article, I agree. Spitzer is using this to his political advantage. While I believe that employers shouldn't be fired for exercising their first amendment rights, I also believe that Spitzer shouldn't be lying about what federal law states.
5 - Nicholas Stix
Actually, Casey, people whose very presence in the country is a crime, do not enjoy First Amendment rights.
I realize that you may be thinking, "This guy is nuts; everyone has First Amendment rights."
Only people who are legally in the country have any constitutional rights. However, in practice, we have a situation that Paul Craig Roberts calls a "squatter's rights" approach to the law. That means that when certain groups of people illegally exercise certain rights -- like foreign nationals violating our immigration, labor, and tax laws -- the authorities refuse
to enforce the law, certain public figures and media outlets then lie about the law to make it seem as though the groups in question actually had those rights, and the groups themselves demand that they be granted the rights.
6 - Casey Lunkley
"Actually, Casey, people whose very presence in the country is a crime, do not enjoy First Amendment rights."
Not all illegal immigrants were protesting. I'm not an idiot, so stop treating me like one. There were a huge number of people born and raised in this country protesting, as well as people who have immigrated here legally. If an employer is hiring illegals, they should be fired anyway, not just because they took a day off from protesting.
"Only people who are legally in the country have any constitutional rights. However, in practice, we have a situation that Paul Craig Roberts calls a "squatter's rights" approach to the law. That means that when certain groups of people illegally exercise certain rights -- like foreign nationals violating our immigration, labor, and tax laws -- the authorities refuse
to enforce the law, certain public figures and media outlets then lie about the law to make it seem as though the groups in question actually had those rights, and the groups themselves demand that they be granted the rights."
See above.
7 - Nicholas Stix
Stix: "Actually, Casey, people whose very presence in the country is a crime, do not enjoy First Amendment rights."
Casey: "Not all illegal immigrants were protesting. I'm not an idiot, so stop treating me like one. There were a huge number of people born and raised in this country protesting, as well as people who have immigrated here legally. If an employer is hiring illegals, they should be fired anyway, not just because they took a day off from protesting."
Stix: I didn't treat you like an idiot, though I am pefectly willing to do so. Given that 99 percent of the people in this country -- including many law school faculties -- are ignorant of the U.S. Constitution, I do not assume that a stranger at a Web site is Justice John Harlan, risen from the dead.
The vast majority of people protesting were illegals or their children (the latter comprising young people who either themselves entered the country illegaly, or who are the "anchor babies" of illegals, and are only considered citizens due to a loophole in the 14th Amendment that needs to be closed, pronto.)
I doubt that more than a tiny percentage of the demonstrators were legal immigrants.
8 - Casey Lunkley
The vast majority of people protesting were illegals or their children (the latter comprising young people who either themselves entered the country illegaly, or who are the "anchor babies" of illegals, and are only considered citizens due to a loophole in the 14th Amendment that needs to be closed, pronto.)
I doubt that more than a tiny percentage of the demonstrators were legal immigrants. "
Sorry, but I call bull. Was there some sort of poll at the protests asking people if they were legal? If so, I'm truly interested in seeing it.
9 - Victor Plenty
Constitutional rights are not limited to citizens and legal immigrants. They must apply to everyone or they mean nothing.
This arises from the fact that the Constitution does not grant rights. It recognizes rights that already existed before it was written. Attempting to deny those rights to anyone is a stark betrayal of everything the Founders of this country fought and died for.
It doesn't matter why you rationalize denying people their inalienable rights. To do so is to treat them as subhuman, whether you call them illegal immigrants, illegal combatants, or any other pseudofascist label designed to dehumanize and demonize them.
10 - Nicholas Stix
I read your post a few times, trying to find something you got right. I found one sentence -- the second of the second paragraph. But that's only if I take it out of context. Your following sentence blows it. The Founding Fathers didn't fight and die for the right of someone to violate the borders and steal the country for which they had risked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. The idea of foreigners having constitutional rights is absurd. The Founding Fathers would not have recognized such rights for any but American citizens.
"Constitutional rights are not limited to citizens and legal immigrants. They must apply to everyone or they mean nothing."
You're trying to smuggle in that phony "human rights" idea but renaming it "constitutional rights."
"This arises from the fact that the Constitution does not grant rights. It recognizes rights that already existed before it was written. Attempting to deny those rights to anyone is a stark betrayal of everything the Founders of this country fought and died for.
"It doesn't matter why you rationalize denying people their inalienable rights. To do so is to treat them as subhuman, whether you call them illegal immigrants, illegal combatants, or any other pseudofascist label designed to dehumanize and demonize them."
I'm not dehumanizing illegal human beings, but you are seeking to disenfranchise citizens. Following your logic, it was "pseudofascist" for America to fight back against Al Qaeda following 911, because in so doing, we denied Osama bin Laden & Co. their "inalienable rights."
You call me "pseudofascist"; I call you a real fascist. You invent phony rights for those to whom they do not apply, in order to destroy the rational idea of rights for those to whom they do apply.
11 - Paul Jordan, Sr.
We are all visitors on Native Indian lands.
12 - Heloise
Love this article--hate ILLEGAL aliens. Why? Because they are the rudest group of people I've ever had the displeasure of encountering.
They have NO home training. I mean they stare at you, correct YOUR English, write gang grafitti all over books, tables and school property. And what we are missing is that they are "gangin'" up with the M13 faction, which is South American and threaten to be the next wave of not only illegals but of criminal illegals.
I know you think the Kennedys' had that illegal thing wrapped up in spades. But most immigrant groups do spend time in the underworld/underbelly of the culture the move into--mostly as immigrants on some type of legal entry. I had to get a Visa to visit parts of India. I have a passport and would never think of working a second in any of the European countries I spent time in--yet others do.
But moving into a country illegally first, then making demands, and threatening to take over your adopted illegal country is too freaking much. Give me the drunken Irish any day. At least they immigrate here legally.
Remember the day when you would fill out forms for your first job and they ask you for all those documents to PROVE that you can work LEGALLY in this country? Remember how afraid you were if they questioned your legal rights or if you forgot your SS card at home or did not get a new card when you got married or changed your name? Remember those days and thinking that "oh, the government must be on the case and no one who cannot work here ever can cross that line."
How wrong and jaded we were in our thinking. To think that the Government has acted illegally, globally in now stopping employers from somehow legally hiring ILLEGAL aliens.
Have your property taxes gone up as much there as they have gone up here in Texas? We are paying for their crowding the schools, and the ERs.
Finally, isn't it ironic that presidents and other white Americans thought that perhaps shipping black AMERICANS back to Africa would be the right thing to do, because post slavery their usefulness to this country was all washed up. We didn't go back and now look what's washing up on our shores--brown-skinned wetbacks.
Heloise
13 - Victor Plenty
Nothing could be more damaging to your position that to have Heloise bring up her habitually racist views in favor of it. Congratulations.
14 - 14th Amendment Summary
There is an old saying that “Treason never prospers.” The reason is that if treason works: “None dare call it treason.”
15 - Nicholas Stix
14th Amendment Summary: I'd heard the phrase "None dare call it treason," but never the context. Thanks.