# Attention RWs: Anti-immigration is a form of labor unionism **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 20, 2009, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attention-rws-anti-immigration-is-a-form-of-labor-unionism/497113 "2009-05-20T21:39:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2009, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attention-rws-anti-immigration-is-a-form-of-labor-unionism/497113/21 "2009-05-21T18:10:22Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > Unless you’re a Native American, every last one of you (including me) are descendants of immigrants\*. Immigrants make this country great. The more the merrier, if you ask me. I think we should let every single person who wants to be an American become an American, with a minimum of fuss and paperwork. I support free trade and that includes the free flow of labor. The only people we should keep out are those who should be in prison; i.e., convicted, fleeing felons. Everyone else is more than welcome as far as I’m concerned. > > \*Actually, I take that back. There was a time when both American continents were unpopulated, so the first “Native” Americans were immigrants, too. I’ve been called a looney by people on the left and right for saying this. Glad to see other people who feel the same way starting to speak up. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2009, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attention-rws-anti-immigration-is-a-form-of-labor-unionism/497113/22 "2009-05-21T18:13:39Z")
[QUOTE=Mr. Moto] And since some right-wingers do (particularly those influenced by the libertarian tradition) frankly I do not know what the subject of debate is. [/QUOTE] I’m a bit fuzzy on this as well. I actually don’t know of any Right Wingers™ who are free market capitalism advocates and who are against labor unions and immigration. Some of those things are sort of mutually exclusive after all. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Kyrie\_Eleison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kyrie_eleison/32/7682_2.png) [@Kyrie\_Eleison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyrie_Eleison)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2009, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attention-rws-anti-immigration-is-a-form-of-labor-unionism/497113/23 "2009-05-21T18:52:53Z")
> [@Mr.Moto](#): > > Would you call those stances necessarily right-wing, if they are held by so broad a section of the population to include labor unions alike? Ah, I see your point now. Thanks. I certainly would not claim that anti-immigration sentiment is limited to conservatives, but I do think that it is more closely associated with conservatives in the public mind. What I don’t know is whether this association is because there truly is more concern over illegal immigration among conservatives, or whether it’s merely a product of the Republican Party’s use of illegal immigration as whipping boy in past elections. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2009, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attention-rws-anti-immigration-is-a-form-of-labor-unionism/497113/24 "2009-05-22T06:42:27Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > A union monopolizes a resource as much as any contract does. If a company can sign a contract to exclusively supply a product to another company, why can’t a union sign a contract to exclusively supply labor to a company? Because the only thing that company can do is cut off supply to _their_ product if you refuse, they can’t stop you going to a competitor and buying off them instead. If they make any attempt to conspire with their competitors to cut off access to their product too, or encourage them to put the same exclusivity clause in their own contracts to remove that incentive to switch, they are committing a felony. By forming a union, workers are attempting to obtain that anti-competitive power, by conspiring with other suppliers of labour such that refusing to trade with any one of them jeopardises a client’s ability to function. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2009, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attention-rws-anti-immigration-is-a-form-of-labor-unionism/497113/25 "2009-05-22T13:13:20Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > \*Actually, I take that back. There was a time when both American continents were unpopulated, so the first “Native” Americans were immigrants, too. If you want to get technical, an immigrant is someone is moves from one country to another. There was no “Country” in North America before there were people here, so the first settlers were not really “immigrants” in the sense the word is usually used. If they were, then the concept of “Descended from immigrants” ceases to have meaning because there is no place on earth it wouldn’t be true. Even in the place humans evolved, in Eastern Africa, populations have moved in and out since our rise as a species. Of course, in a roundabout way this makes your point; it’s dumb to be concerned about where people come from. I suppose that’s easy for me to say because I’m Canadian (born and raised, incidentally) and live in a country that derives a lot of economic benefit from immigrants, and so I LIKE immigration and would in fact like to see us increase our intake. I’ve mentioned this before, but I’ve had the opportunity to do a lot of work in the southwestern USA with many businesses and I never could find any normal people who minded Mexican immigration or, if they did, really cared all that much about it. The prevailing attitude always seemed to be “Well, there must be work here for them to do, or else they wouldn’t come, so what’s the big deal?” I can’t help but think opposition to immigration is mostly loudmouths or people who think of it only in the abstract. That’s just anecdotal evidence so I could be wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2009, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attention-rws-anti-immigration-is-a-form-of-labor-unionism/497113/26 "2009-05-22T14:26:14Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > By forming a union, workers are attempting to obtain that anti-competitive power, by conspiring with other suppliers of labour such that refusing to trade with any one of them jeopardises a client’s ability to function. Any union that acquires a monopoly should be split up. But I don’t think any union has that large a share of any labor pool. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2009, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attention-rws-anti-immigration-is-a-form-of-labor-unionism/497113/27 "2009-05-22T14:34:50Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > Unless you’re a Native American, every last one of you (including me) are descendants of immigrants\*. Although, letting people in didn’t work out so great for the Native Americans… ---
**Author:** ![NoJustice](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecb155/32.png) [@NoJustice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NoJustice)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2009, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attention-rws-anti-immigration-is-a-form-of-labor-unionism/497113/28 "2009-05-23T02:13:44Z")
> [@Sinaijon](#): > > \*\* Attention LWs: Pro-immigration is a form of pro-capitalism\*\* > > LWs are always bashing business owners – lazy, greedy, entitled slobs, crippling industry, driving up the price of the product, cutting into worker’s salaries. > > LWs are always promoting legal (or even illegal) immigrants – desperately poor hard workers, having to take disgusting jobs that Americans don’t want and only getting a pittance of what they are worth in return. > > Has it never occurred to you that pro-immigration is a form of pro-capitalism? The capitalists are the American rich. The wealthy business owners. You’re trying to keep wages low and profits high for the rich. How socialist is that?! LW’s don’t pretend to be anti-capitalism, the way the RW’s pretend to be pro-capitalism. Sorry to burst your bubble. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2009, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attention-rws-anti-immigration-is-a-form-of-labor-unionism/497113/29 "2009-05-23T02:36:33Z")
Worse, since it seeks to protect the whole society, it’s _industrial unionism_. They’re proto-Wobblies! Except not really. The right wing in this country incorporates nationalism as politics often does. Sampiro’s “[The straight dope on the Nazis: were they left or right/liberal or conservative?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=518513)” thread got me thinking about how _Nazionalsozialismus_ has odd things in common with modern US conservatism. A conservatism of half-hearted radicalism if you will. The common attraction for Nazism & the anti-immigrant wing of the present GOP may be nationalism for a huge non-majority part of the electorate. In fact, the racists seem to have lost McCain the election through their support. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2009, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attention-rws-anti-immigration-is-a-form-of-labor-unionism/497113/30 "2009-05-23T02:38:16Z")
> [@Mighty\_Mouse](#): > > And you are mixing up two types of right wingers. I know right wingers who are positively salivating over the prospect of hiring illegal immigrants. But they are not necessarily the same people who are complaining about illegal immigration. That person is much more likely to be the blue collar, social conservative, who stands to lose his job to the illegal immigrant. Both the employer and the employee go into the polling booth and pull the same lever, but one of them is doing it for the promise of lower regulation and lower taxes. The other is doing it for the promise border security and ban on gay marriage. Maybe even the right to yell “nigger!” and not be hauled up on some kind of hate crime charge. > > Lesson: “Right Wingers” come in many flavors. Exactly. The GOP incorporates groups who really have no common cause to make it worth joining together. Except fighting Sauron. Who’s been dead for milllennia. > [@furt](#): > > Has it never occured to you that the most pure free-marketers – i.e. Libertarians – do, in point of fact, endorse open borders? Heck, I’m a socialist Wobbly, & I endorse open borders! But I recognize that borders are arbitrary divisions of mankind & don’t stop trade anyhow. I just want to unionize the world. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2009, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attention-rws-anti-immigration-is-a-form-of-labor-unionism/497113/31 "2009-05-23T03:01:28Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > The only people we should keep out are those who should be in prison; i.e., convicted, fleeing felons. Everyone else is more than welcome as far as I’m concerned. I’m willing to exclude carriers of virulent exotic diseases as well. Pragmatically, I’ve come to realize that adding requirement for basic English proficiency could make something like my position political _gold._ Speak English? Malaria- & dengue-free? Not fleeing justice? Sign here, you’re in. No quotas, no need for coyotes, lots of jobs for ESL teachers. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attention-rws-anti-immigration-is-a-form-of-labor-unionism/497113.md?page=1)