http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lopez-20100721,0,5745068.column
This story out of LA County is amazing. It’s been going on about a week and it just gets uglier. Take a Maalox first if you decide to read the story. Basically, the city officials of Bell, California have voted themselves salaries that would make even the corrupt rat bastards in Dallas sit up and take notice. Fer instance, the city manager is making close to $800,000 bucks. By the way, Bell isn’t some booming Hollywood, CA style town. It’s small, working class and not real fancy. There isn’t all sorts of money floating around. And significantly, it’s also got a lot of illegal immigrants.
And that’s one of the things that doesn’t get mentioned a lot. Regardless of how you feel about how illegal immigration affect the economy, it’s also not a real healthy way of life for the Alien American. They live in a town where they can’t vote. They have absolutely no say in how things are run. And if they even begin to suspect city corruption, who can they go to without fearing they’ll be deported? When you live on the fringe of society, you are largely outside the cover of legal recourse. Prostitutes are frequently rape victims. Drug addicts frequently get robbed. Illegal immigrants are by virtue of their immigration status engaged in a criminal enterprise. They live in a world where they can be victims of a whole host of crimes, and because of their status they have no recourse. They get cheated on wages and housing, are victims of violent crime, are held up for blackmail on threat of being reported to La Migra. And there’s not a damned thing to be done about it.
And on a larger scale, a town where a good 30% of the residents are not citizens (with all the rights and privileges that entails) becomes easy pickings. Corruption flourishes when people don’t vote. Imagine what happens when a good chunk of the populace can’t vote.
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2 comments:
Isn't CA practically bankrupt? Where are they actually getting the money to pay themselves those salaries? Maybe Ah-nold should sweep in and tax them more for the state since they obviously have too much money on their hands.
I had the same thought on the bankrupt thing. I thought it was because of the jacked up jeri-rigged state thing. But turns out there's a bunch of criminals skimming money off the top too! You have to wonder, they have two of the biggest export businesses in the country (food and entertainment) and they're still broke.
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