Dirty work

Dear LDS Chess Friends,

Should US citizens take the job of immigrants, like hard-core farm work, to make things work out more brightly?

Adam was told to work the earth and it would be hard on him.

Idk

When we voted for Brexit (not me) all the migrants went home and nobody else wanted to work the farms. Now we do not produce enough food and prices have gone up. Us "remainers" told them that would happen. 🤔

If migrants want to do the dirty jobs, let them.

I think we're stuck between a rock and a hard place, between being morally right and having a lot of pain.

(Some Citizens work hard too physically like teamsters).

I believe that if the work was paid decently, especially the "dirty work", then the problem of migrants would not exist. Greed of employers....

"Greed of employers" is interesting,

but some of these farmers can't even survive without paying workers below minimum wage. Am I right?

Of course, I'm not talking about farmers. The state should support its citizens. Including a tough immigration policy. The presence of illegals leads to a decrease in the cost of the final product, and as a consequence - to dumping on the market. Prices collapse, which leads to the ruin of most farm owners. And if the state helped its people, and not overseas thieves, the cost of fuel, fertilizers would be lower, taxes would be lower. That's how America would become great again.

So you think America would be fine without bringing "illegal immigrants" to farm?

Speaking from experience in the UK, natives do not want to work on the farms because it is too hard and too low paid. Immigrants were happy to do the work but now they have all left, there is no longer a labour force to produce our food. We have to import most of our food now, which is more expensive than supporting the immigrant farm workers was.

I was just reading in Ether, a bad king made his subjects labor too hard.

Maybe use robotics and somehow fight climate change.

An orderly immigration system and border, with temporary work permits for farm laborers as needed by Americas farmers is the way to go.

50 years ago I used to hitchhike and camp in northern Mexico and crossed in and out over the border in Texas, Arizona, and California with no problems and no long wait. It was all orderly, simple, and safe. The folks on the Mexican side were friendly and hospitable. The only drug problems were dopey American college kids getting caught with personal marijuana and winding up in small-town Mexican jails. I used to visit the jails in the little towns I passed through and chat with them. The Mexican border guards, the Federales, and local Mexican police were nice guys.The ones American kids had to be afraid of were Texas Rangers and the US Border Patrol. I crossed the Iron Curtain in communist Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union 12 times, and the body and vehicle searches weren’t as thorough as the American authorities looking for personal drugs on the Mexican border. While hitchhiking I got picked up by all sorts of crazy American kids and as we headed north towards the border and the American authorities I pleaded with them to throw all their marijuana and whatever out the window. We’d get through the Mexican side real easy, but I was always scared s***less on the American side as the VW van or whatever got almost ripped apart by the Americans. If they found something i couldn’t say I was just an innocent hitchhiker. Then once you got past the US Birder Patrol, you’d think you were in and safe, and you’d hit a Texas Ranger road block 20 miles inland. Their thinking was the dopey college kids would pull their stuff out of hiding once they got past US Border Patrol, and have it in their lap or mouth when they turned around that curve and suddenly 2 Texas Ranger pick up trucks with lights flashing were blocking the road. I remember one Ranger saying, “How you boys doing? How’d you like those Mexican mountains? We hear things get pretty high down there.” One time in Eastern Europe in Bulgaria, I was hitchhiking and the car I was in hit a road block around a curve with the police lights flashing. The police searched the car and found heroin. They were nice guys and let me go. In my travels I was always treated kindly buy birder guards and small town police. One time crossing the Iron Curtain way out in the middle of nowhere, I played chess with the border guard. Another time they wanted to talk about President Kennedy….they really liked him. Another on the East German border, the most fortified, took me home for dinner and to meet the family. He told me when the generals or important officers came for inspections, they had to line up, stand at attention, and then bite their cheeks to keep from laughing. 

Sorry I rambled. Don’t know if anybody will even read this stuff. Hadn’t thought about most of it for 40- 50 years. Happy memories. Jim

Read every word, Jim and found it fascinating. I have never travelled so I cannot empathize (except as a baby when I was taken to Belgium with my mum and her grandma). It is sad that innocent people are put together with lawbreakers just because they have the misfortune of travelling with them. Nobody believes anybody is innocent. "Guilty until we make up the evidence"

By the way, are you in the Old Timers chess club? You sound as though you are old enough to qualify.

Thank you, John, you are very kind. And yes I’m old enough for the Old Timers club, but I’m too busy as admin of 10+ teams, and playing 100 games to support those teams. 

I will say I have cheered for your Brighton for years, before they were stars in the top group of the EPL, because I liked the short, quick passing game of their forwards and midfielders. That’s what I saw their style as, anyway. The Seagulls, right?

They are the Seagulls but I don't know a lot about them. I prefer non-league football. I am a volunteer safety steward at Whitehawk FC, my very local team (about five minutes' walk from my home). They play in the Isthmian League with teams from London and SE England. My profile picture is me holding the FA Cup. We played in a qualifier a few years ago (we only ever qualified once) and the Sussex FA were allowed to bring the cup to the match for the fans and staff to have their pictures taken holding it.

Very cool you support that lower tier team, you volunteer at the field, and you held the FA Cup.

Funny thing is the players are not allowed to touch the cup unless they win it, and very few players are able to do that. 🙂

I am a big EPL fan and used to read books about the crazy English fans like “Football Factory”. I actually really like those guys, and I hope to someday sit in the stands with them as they sing their songs. One of my favorite movie scenes, I forget which movie…Football Factory perhaps, is when the Chelsea fan bus stops on a run down street in Liverpool, and tosses out 2 Chelsea teenagers. Some local Liverpool boys see them and ask, “Where you from, mate?” The Chelsea boy answers, “Around.” Liverpool boy then says, “You’re f***ing Chelsea arnt-cha”, and then the Liverpool boys flash their Stanley box cutters and chase after the Chelsea kids. Am I naive or ignorant for liking that sort of English fan and team fanaticism. You being a safety steward know the truth about that sort of thing far better than me.

This forum started out as a post about immigrants and who will do the “dirty work.” I’ve been to 44 countries, usually way off the beaten path, mostly hitchhiking with my backpack, sleeping on the ground a lot of the time under the stars, never carried a tent, and I found that wherever I went, migrants and locals and farmers and even police were always great folks…friendly, hospitable, sharing what little they had, and fun. I will say I much preferred the small towns and countryside, to the big cities.

It was the football hooligans who were one of the reasons I lost interest in pro football about twenty plus years ago. I used to follow Aston Villa everywhere but I know nothing about them these days. At my new club, home and away fans stand next to each other beside the pitch (they don't even have to sit down if they prefer to stand) and have an amicable chat about the game together. Then both teams will join both sets of fans in the bar after the game and nobody ever considers getting into a fight. It is a much more pleasant experience.

I also prefer the countryside to the city. I think people are much more friendly and they do not feel the need to compete with each other. Although I live in a city and thus get the facilities we are five minutes walk from South Downs National Park so plenty of countryside. Also some of my nicest neighbours are and have been in the past, immigrants.

I have a very different take than those that I have read here. The free market will always win. If we do away with regulation and subsidize, do away with incentives and penalties, then the market will balance out. I believe that the Constitution is a divine document and that if we were to step closer to it we will find a balance that could last generations. That being said, the problem is not in the area of commercial production of food, rather the lack of home production of food. We, as a society, have forgotten how to produce in general. The abundance that could be grown at home, regardless of your circumstances, could make a significant difference to the national food supply. even if you live in an apartment food can easily be grown on your windowsill, balcony, in a closet, and there are community gardens in most communities that each individual could contribute to. I recommend investigation into Food Forest Abundance if you would like more information about what you can do at home to produce.