Wednesday, February 24, 2021

The Cruelty Is The Point

The xenophobia is not just in the concept, it’s in the proposed implementation.  Granted this is a poison pill maneuver, but imagine if it became law.  Employers are not supposed to hire undocumented immigrants anyway, and probably screw them on their wages.  Now that would be legal, would be sanctioned.  Because what employer is going to report such wages to the IRS, knowing they are not supposed to be employing such persons in the first place?  If they have to defend not meeting the minimum wage for their employees, they have to define which employees are undocumented and therefore illegally employed.  

So it’s a win-win for Republicans.  Democrats endorse treating undocumented workers like human beings instead of outlaws. The old concept of “outlaw” was someone literally placed beyond the protection of the law.  The king had an interest in the welfare of his subjects: so English common law at first saw offenses against persons as offenses against the King’s subject, and so it was right for the King to punish the offender.  An “outlaw” was placed beyond the King’s protection:  outside the law.  What was done to the outlaw was the outlaw’s problem, not the King’s. ‘Even undocumented workers in this country are “persons” under the Constitution.  It’s not going too far to say this proposal violates the principals of at least the 14th Amendment.  I wouldn’t make a legal Constitutional argument, but it’s a grotesque and cruel proposal.

But that’s the point, isn’t it?  People not like us, not like Mitt “Mr. Mormon” Romney or Tom “Mr. White Privilege” Cotton, are...outlaw.  Aren’t they?

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