tkihshbt wrote:

Thank heavens Rick Sanchez was all over this:

The people like Jon Stewart at CNN fired him yesterday. What a crock. All this brave patriot was trying to do was point out that Jews own everything and they aren't a minority.

Seriously, good for CNN.

Did you see Stephen Colbert adress congress on immigrant workers?  It was beyond funny but congress didnt seem to find the humor. 

Good morning. My name is Stephen Colbert and I’m an American citizen. It is an honor and a privilege to be here today. Congresswoman Lofgren asked me to share my vast experience spending one day as a migrant farm worker. I am happy to use my celebrity to draw attention to this important, complicated issue, and I certainly hope that my star power can bump this hearing all the way up to C-SPAN1.

As you’ve heard this morning, America’s farms are presently far too dependent on immigrant labor to pick our fruits and vegetables. Now, the obvious answer is for all of us to stop eating fruits and vegetables. And, if you look at recent obesity statistics, you’ll see that many Americans have already started. Unfortunately, my gastroenterologist, Dr. Eichler, has informed me in no uncertain terms that they are a necessary source of roughage. As evidence, I would like to submit a video of my colonoscopy into the Congressional record.

Now we all know there is a long tradition of great nations importing foreign workers to do their farm work. After all, it was the ancient Israelites who built the first food pyramids. But this is America. I don’t want a tomato picked by a Mexican. I want it picked by an American, then sliced by a Guatemalan, and served by a Venezuelan in a spa, where a Chilean gives me a Brazilian. Because my great-grandfather did not travel across 4,000 miles of the Atlantic ocean to see this country overrun by immigrants. He did it because he killed a man back in Ireland. That’s the rumor; I don’t know if that’s true, I’d like to have that stricken from the record.

So, we do not want immigrants doing this labor, and I agree with Congress King – we must secure our borders. Of course, I’m sure Arturo Rodriguez is saying, “Who, then, would pick our crops, Stephen?† First of all, Arturo, don’t interrupt me when I’m talking, that’s rude. Second, I reject this idea that farm work is among the semi-difficult jobs that Americans won’t do. Really? No Americans? I did. As part of my ongoing series, “Stephen Colbert’s Fallback Position,† where I try other jobs and realize that mine is way better. I participated in the UFW’s “Take Our Jobs† campaign, one of only 16 people in America to take up the challenge. Though that number may increase in the near future, as I understand many Democrats may be looking for work come November.

Now, I’ll admit – I started my workday with preconceived notions of migrant labor. But after working with these men and women, picking beans, packing corn, for hours on end, side by side in the unforgiving sun, I have to say – and I do mean this sincerely – please don’t make me do this again. It is really, really hard. For one thing, when you’re picking beans, you have to spend all day bending over. It turns out, and I did not know this, but most soil is at ground level. If we can put a man on the moon, why can’t we make the earth waist high? Come on! Where is the funding?

This brief experience gave me some small understanding of why so few Americans are clamoring to begin an exciting career as seasonal migrant field workers. So what’s the answer? I’m a free-market guy. Normally, I would leave this to the invisible hand of the market, but the invisible hand of the market has already moved over 84,000 acres of production and over 22,000 farm jobs to Mexico, and shut down over a million acres of U.S. farm land due to lack of available labor. Because apparently, even the invisible hand doesn’t want to pick beans.

Now, I’m not a fan of the government doing anything. But I’ve gotta ask, why isn’t the government doing anything? Maybe this Ag Jobs bill would help, I don’t know. Like most members of Congress, I haven’t read it. But maybe we could offer more visas to the immigrants who, let’s face it, will probably be doing these jobs anyway. And this improved legal status might allow immigrants recourse if they are abused. And it just stands to reason, to me, that if your coworker can’t be exploited, then you’re less likely to be exploited yourself. And that, itself, might improve pay and working conditions on these farms, and eventually, Americans may consider taking these jobs again. Or maybe that’s crazy. Maybe the easier answer is just to have scientists develop vegetables that pick themselves. The genetic engineers over at Fruit of the Loom have made great strides in human-fruit hybrids.

The point is, we have to do something, because I am not going back out there. At this point, I break into a cold sweat at the sight of a salad bar. I thank you for your time. Again, it is an honor, a privilege, and a responsibility to be here. I trust that following my testimony, both sides will work together on this issue in the best interest of America, as you always do. [Audible laughter]

I’m now prepared to take your questions, and/or pose for pictures with your grandchildren. I yield the balance of my time, USA, number one.

The funniest part of Colbert's address was whehn he said his ancestors didn't travel 4,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean so the U.S. could be overrun by immigrants. I don't think anyone on a panel got it.

Max wrote:

There's a lot of name calling going on, of the variety that has the ring that it is designed to inoculate the name callers against the reciprocal charge: Obama is a Hitler-like facist, liberals are bigots, etc.

On other hand, there are legitimate free speech issues going on that have many white Americans whom I think of as "constitutionalists" outraged, with perhaps, some justification.  For example, after Greg Giraldo died I happened to see his bit on YouTube.  In his roast of Larry the Cable guy, he called Toby Keith "the man who put the big in bigot', among other things.  If this brand of humor were reversed, and a caucasian roaster, were to accuse someone of, say, putting the "wop in whopper, how did you fit you fat minority ass into the airplane seat on the flight here?", that roaster's career would be over. And I think that these people are able to somewhat set their belief in constitutional principles above whatever feelings they might have, negative or positive, about so-called 'minorities, such that, as the nation moves from de facto white dominance, they want reassurances that constitutional principles will be honored, and that no group receives 'special rights', whether codified in laws (like quotas), or in unwritten laws, exemplified by the fact that any insult about bigotry can be hurled at caucasians, but caucasians are required to take it with a smile, and are not allowed to reciprocate.

I wish that liberals would stop pandering to minorities by dispensing 'special rights', and rather reinforce the message that defending the constitution is in the best interest of everyone who wants to see the ideals of equality before the law realized in our country.  If they were to do that, they might recapture some of the white middle ground, and stop the slow slide (and apparent GOP strategy) to turn the Republican party into the "white judeo-christian" party.

Max,

You've made this and related points a number of times and I've strongly agreed with you but didn't say so because I had this sense that I'd be obliged to take some shots at people you probably think I agree with (but don't).  But I've passed because I don't like to play the game that says "If you have something important to say, be sure and throw in something to 'reward' a friend for saying something you agree with."  And also because I don't like to reinforce the notion that I'm aligned with any part of the political spectrum.

It was that hypocrisy about freedom of speech and the pandering to special interest groups (we're all minorities except for women) that broke me away from being a yellow-dog Democrat many years ago (although I didn't think of myself as one at the time).

I'm convinced that the reason we find common ground here is because we see often how insidious these two problems can be in the academic setting and how much damage they do to values of excellence and intellectual integrity.

Incidentally, I've still never voted for a Republican Presidential candidate even though, as you know, I'm one of the few people (Republican or Democrat) who holds Bush II in high regard.  The last time I voted in a presidential election, it was either for a Socialist or Mondale.  I can't recall which came last.

Incidentally, I'm reading a fabulous book that caught my interest on C-Span.  It's called "The Anti-Communist Manifestos," by Victor Fleming.  The relevance to this conversation is that describes in great deal the campaigns of the Stalinists to discredit those former Communists who had come to reject Communism as a disguised form of Russian Imperialism and had gone public with writings describing their experiences.  Fleming discusses the remarkable hypocrisy, naviete, and outright intellectual dishonesty that the left-wing intellectuals in America and France engaged in to justify their dismissal of these writings.  The most famous of these is "Darkness at Noon," which I read many years ago, but I'm eager reread it and to find copies of the others Fleming discusses.