That sounds reasonable. I am good with how they are spending the money I donate to them.
Drink the Tears of Our Enemies
The View From North Central Idaho
Ramblings on explosives, guns, politics, and sex by a redneck Idaho farm boy who became a software engineer living near Seattle.
Hope those liberal tears were worth it, because the same administration giving you back your gun rights is destroying the food production system:
“In an October 2 filing in the Federal Register, the Labor Department wrote that the near-total halt of immigrant labor plus stepped-up enforcement creates “a sufficient risk of supply shock-induced food shortages” to justify immediate action. The same filing said unemployed Americans will not make themselves available “in sufficient numbers” to replace the workers being removed, and estimated 42% of the U.S. crop workforce is now blocked from entering, facing deportation, or leaving the country.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has said the farm workforce will one day be “100% American.”
On March 18 in a federal courtroom in Fresno, a Labor Department attorney defending a new farm wage rule conceded “there aren’t enough Americans to take these jobs.” That rule, challenged in court by the United Farm Workers, classifies 92% of farmworkers as unskilled and sets their pay at the 17th percentile of American wages. The minimum for many would drop to an estimated $13.70 an hour, down from an average of $17.43. U.S. District Judge Kirk Sherriff asked whether paying nearly all farmworkers far below comparable workers would drag the whole market down. “Isn’t that just math?” he asked. The government’s attorney answered, “I’m not good at math, your honor.”
– Josh Helfgott Facebook post
Having grown up in Yakima and actually done field work myself (just long enough to know I really really didn’t want to do that for a living), I’ll eat my shoes if you can show me a bunch of red hats willing to do that work.
Sure would be nice if we could have an administration that was pro-gun but also not batshit insane.
Americans won’t:
drive trucks
roof houses
harvest crops
houseclean hotels
wash dishes
landscape
dig ditches
hang drywall
operate ski lifts
work seasonal resort jobs
run mini-marts
stock shelves
add you own below
How did America ever achieve anything before the recent flood of migrant invaders?
You remember that whole slavery thing, right?
Yes, yes, 12% of the population did ALL of that. Totally believable.
John, pull your head out.
Go look at the actual pictures of white people doing hard labor in the history of this country.
Heck, go look at slave ownership IN THE SOUTH AT THE HEIGHT OF SLAVERY, and you’ll see an awful lot of farms that had no slaves, yet somehow produced crops.
The level of self-delusion you engage in is quite impressive, but sure, THIS time, your claims about Trump will pan out. Yep. THIS time, there’s actually a wolf, unlike the previous 342 times. Yep.
“destroying the food production system” Do you ever go back and look at your old posts and see how dumb they turned out to be?
I look forward to all the MAGA red hats out in the fields, picking the crops to make up for the migrants they’ve deported. In the meantime, I’ll repeat what the US labor department has already said but you seem to be ignoring:
“the Labor Department wrote that the near-total halt of immigrant labor plus stepped-up enforcement creates “a sufficient risk of supply shock-induced food shortages” to justify immediate action. The same filing said unemployed Americans will not make themselves available “in sufficient numbers” to replace the workers being removed, and estimated 42% of the U.S. crop workforce is now blocked from entering, facing deportation, or leaving the country.”
What is it, exactly, that you think happens to a crop when 42% of the people needed to harvest it aren’t available? Does it magically jump off the plant into the box? Pray elucidate.
While far from completely discounting government predictions, I am skeptical. Particularly when they imagine they claim they claim they can read the minds and predict the actions of an entire population (“unemployed Americans will not…”).
Barb and I pick blueberries and Elderberries for our own use every every year. If we were in need of money or food, with few other options, picking those or other types of crops would be given serious consideration.
But, realistically, I would be more likely to use my engineering skills to create a mechanical device to harvest a crop not currently mechanized.
Blueberries are one of the easiest to pick, being as they are waist high plants. Try tree fruits that require a ladder, e.g. apples, or ground crops e.g. strawberries, lettuce, etc. Then try it in 85 degree heat, and do that for weeks on end.
I don’t have to be skeptical of the predictions, I’ve seen them firsthand. And in the 80s in Yakima they tried an experiment with pricing where for a couple crops they tried raising the labor price offered per ton (because in the case of apples you literally have to pick tons to make any money) to a point where non-migrant populations would be willing to do the work, but they couldn’t get the price high enough to get non-migrants to sign up and still keep the fruit at a price anyone could afford to pay.
It’s brutally hard work for very low pay, and anybody who claims we can get rid of the migrants and have “real Americans” come in to do that work isn’t a serious person.
The blueberry bushes we pick (Bybee farms near North Bend) are over six feet high, but your point on them is still valid.
Are you saying you believe people like me are physically inferior or mentally ill suited to manual labor in hostile work environments? Is this some sort of racism?
I’ve bucked hay bales, crawled inside machines, driven tractors and trucks in incredibly dirty conditions in 100+ F environments without A/C.
I see lots of “MAGA people” in construction, farming, and logging, doing very demanding dirty work in the heat of summer.
I think you need to check your prejudices.
It’s not a question of capability but of inclination. As we’ve discussed before, the stats are clear: white U.S. citizens simply won’t do field labor unless forced. Full stop. The BLS stats are all there for decades and decades if you don’t believe me. As a result we’ve built the entire agriculture system around the assumption of a large migrant workforce who will work for low wages. Claiming that we can get rid of that workforce and still have food for less-than-stratospheric prices is absurd: https://www.visaverge.com/news/trumps-immigration-policies-and-their-impact-on-u-s-agriculture/
Is this the best situation possible? Of course not. But until such time as automation exists that can pick these crops economically, it’s the only option.
As for “I see lots of MAGA people doing dirty jobs,” how does that change the statistical reality that MAGA people don’t pick the crops? I refer you again to the BLS stats:
https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/farm-labor
“Pray elucidate.”
In the VERY short term, there MAY, in fact, be some damage – the government and certain private factions have encouraged a horrible state of affairs, and fixing it will indeed be unpleasant. There may not – these kinds of dire predictions are incredibly self-serving, and their track record is not very good.
Of course, the very press release you are quoting puts the lie to your primary concern and claim:
“estimated 42% of the U.S. crop workforce is now blocked from entering, facing deportation, or leaving the country.”
So, the other 58%…. who are they, again? Oh, right, the MAJORITY of the people who do that work are here legally and many of them actually are citizens, STILL doing that work despite being undercut in pay by illegal aliens doing the labor and being paid under the table.
And that’s the case in virtually every industry that “benefits” from illegal alien labor.
The “jobs American won’t do” are literally being done primarily by Americans in nearly every case.
Stop listening the THE SKY IS FALLING BECAUSE OF THE BAD ORANGE MAN people, OK? They have cried wolf hundreds of times now, and you still fall for it.
“despite being undercut in pay by illegal aliens doing the labor and being paid under the table.”
Dude, no. That’s not how that works. Again, I’ve been there: I got paid the same as the legal citizens the same as the legal migrants the same as the illegal migrants – one summer it was pears, for example, and you have a bin. You fill the bin, you get paid for that bin (they weigh it). You get paid for whatever you pick, and we all got paid the same per pound. I got paid less because I picked less, because I wasn’t nearly strong enough to handle the up and down the ladder every day carrying 50 pounds of pears in a chest bag. But there was no “under the table,” and the fact that some of the workers weren’t documented didn’t affect their pay or mine. I think the only folks I know of who got paid less were the felons on work release (which was…an interesting experience). Everybody else got market rate.
“The “jobs American won’t do” are literally being done primarily by Americans”
Note that I didn’t say “Americans” generically, I said “real Americans” in quotes, using the sarcastic tone of MAGA and Stephen Gobbels Miller. Yes, lots of the folks picking the crops are citizens. They are also predominantly Hispanic/Latino (see BLS stats linked above to Joe’s reply). Miller’s fantasy that he’ll be able to purge the country of brown people and get all the white people to do the work is meth pipe insanity.
“Dude, no. That’s not how that works.”
I will totally ignore obvious, documented, proven, and personally-experienced facts because you said “Dude”.
“As a result we’ve built the entire agriculture system around the assumption of a large migrant workforce who will work for low wages.”
You have cause and effect backwards, there.
“Yes, lots of the folks picking the crops are citizens. They are also predominantly Hispanic/Latino”
And…? Don’t project your own racism on the rest of us.
“Don’t project your own racism on the rest of us.” The point of the argument is that the Trump administration is trying to get rid of as many non-whites as possible via ICE, and doing so has a clear and direct impact on the food supply since the majority of field workers are not white. Saying that isn’t racist, it’s just pointing out reality and BLS statistics.
You want racist? How about Steven Miller? Now *that* dude is a racist… https://www.commoncause.org/articles/top-5-most-awful-things-you-need-to-know-about-stephen-miller/
I’m not the one trying to create a white Christian ethno-state.
“The point of the argument is that the Trump administration is trying to get rid of as many non-whites as possible via ICE”
Again, don’t project your own racism on others.
After years of deliberate, race-based policies by the government to bring in minorities and avoid whites (yes, there are explicit examples of this, on both counts), the majority of people here illegally aren’t white. Um… duh?
Removing people here illegally is removing people here illegally. Their race doesn’t matter to almost anyone on the right. They are here illegally, so they need to be removed.
And yes, I know of examples of white people here illegally – the media tried to make a big deal of one since Trump’s reelection, acting like it was a big gotcha, and the right shrugged and said, “Yeah, he’s here illegally, he should be deported. What’s the issue?” The left was mystified by this… and refused to change their bedrock assumption that somehow, the people who DON’T care about race are the racists, and they (who care about race on every dang topic and want people treated differently by race) aren’t.
The vast majority of people on the right do not care about race… or at least, they didn’t. After years of having it shoved in everyone’s faces, I’m sure it’s more than it used to be. I’m sure some of the white guys who have been explicitly excluded from jobs and entire industries (and now, the media is running stories on how they are “abandoning” the work force, what a joke) care now.
And that’s BAD. Treating people differently by race tends to produce people who see the world through the lens of race, *AND THAT’S BAD*. One of so so SO many reasons all this race-based stuff is bad.
There’s no projection. Stephen Miller, the architect of the ICE purge, family separation, and pretty much all of the worst elements of our current “immigration policy,” is explicitly a racist, and his efforts to get as many non-whites deported as possible is a direct extension of that, not a side effect.
https://www.splcenter.org/resources/hatewatch/stephen-millers-affinity-white-nationalism-revealed-leaked-emails/
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/11/leaked-emails-show-stephen-millers-unfiltered-anti-immigrant-views/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/01/trump-stephen-miller-anti-white-racism-plan
https://digitalchew.com/2025/12/stephen-miller-racism-remarks-stir-up-backlash/
And so on.
I do agree that treating people differently by race is bad as general policy. But we also have to deal with a legacy of the government doing so for decades and in the process distorting what could otherwise be a rational system. Example: H1B visas were, until recently, handed out like candy to tech firms because they have HR departments dedicated to bringing in folks that way. Migrant worker visas to pick crops, on the other hand, H1A, come with huge administrative requirements on the employer to “prove” the locals won’t do the work, and doing so is so difficult and expensive it’s far easier to simply avoid the visa process entirely.
If we had a fair, rational, non-racist system of immigration that made it simple to get through the process I’m happy to take race out of the discussion entirely. Unfortunately we have a white nationalist in the white house (ironic) who’s very very interested in getting the non-white people out and thus making the immigration process, including asylum, as difficult as possible. For the non-white people, anyway, white south africans get a free pass because they’re…wait for it…
https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/trump-brought-6-000-white-204425513.html
“There’s no projection.”
I will entirely grant you, for the sake of argument and without even looking at the evidence one way or the other, that Stephen Miller is a white-supremacist racist.
The existence of one such person, even in such a position, does not speak for literally millions of people supporting the removal of people here illegally. Or are the non-white officers under him all racist against non-whites, too?
And where is the application of that “one racist makes it all racist” standard to… literally every single thing the Democrats do, at this point? It’s *explicitly* so, in nearly every case.
“But we also have to deal with a legacy of the government doing so for decades and in the process distorting what could otherwise be a rational system.”
Yes. And the very first step should be even enforcement of the law, so we can get some idea of what needs to change in the actual law, not just in behaviour of so-called “law enforcement” (which is not what they have been doing much of the time in this area for a long time).
That will have disparate results, *because the law has been enforced disparately for years*. That is impossible to avoid.
Give up on enforcing the law (and just accept disparate treatment all the time)
OR
Enforce the law (and get at least some disparate results for a time while the system stabilizes)
One of those choices has some chance of ending the disparate treatment. The other builds it in forever, INTENTIONALLY.
“If we had a fair, rational, non-racist system of immigration that made it simple to get through the process I’m happy to take race out of the discussion entirely.”
“that made it simple to get through the process” That part is not required. The US has closed our borders to nearly all immigrants for literally decades at a time in the past. Countries have the right to do that.
And it can be as complicated as we want. (I DON’T want, but that’s not the point.)
“Unfortunately we have a white nationalist in the white house (ironic) who’s very very interested in getting the non-white people out and thus making the immigration process, including asylum, as difficult as possible.”
Again, considering the HORRENDOUS abuse of the asylum process for the last MANY years, that restriction is entirely reasonable. It should be hard. It should require something specific.
“For the non-white people, anyway, white south africans get a free pass because they’re…wait for it…”
Something specific like “people of the race of the applicants are being openly and explicitly killed in their home country because of their race”.
These processes have been used for explicitly and openly racist purposes for years now (I’m not going to do the work for you, but there are years of quotes from people on the left about getting non-white people here). Even if your claim is absolutely true, it’s an microscopic drop of racism in a vast ocean of racism “the other way” – why the complaints now?
As so very often, ONE STANDARD OF JUDGEMENT, please.
Now, that’s not to say I *prefer* any racism (none would be better), but “racism only for certain races” is… well, *even worse*, as it is permanently baked in racism instead of a “spinner” that can at least apply in any direction.
And again, this is all without contesting anything about exactly ONE guy. You have ONE guy, and thus, everything is poisoned. The rest of us have DECADES of examples of legitimate reasons for (at least very nearly) everything being pushed, *even by that one guy*.
“Conan, what is best in life?”
“To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.”
But drinking their tears is good, too.
There won’t be any hard labor in the glorious New Man workers utopia.
The comrades (no owners) free grocery will give each according to his needs.
Forward. Yes we can.
Excellent! USSR, North Korea, Cuba, East Germany, and Venezuela have shown us the way.
Just ignore JS. He is here to disrupt not engage.
If by “engage” you mean “preach to the choir” then yes, you’re right. I find value in argument and clearly articulated disagreement, so I’m definitely not here to join the cheer squad. The more pointed the discussion the better.
And I’m always fascinated by your calls for other folks to ignore me. You think they can’t manage that by themselves? At least I give folks the benefit of the doubt that they can manage their own arguments.
No, I believe he is here in good faith.
And as annoying as his generally foolish and brain-dead “arguments” are in most cases (like his most recent point in this thread that is essentially “disparate impact”, that it somehow MUST be racism if most of the illegal aliens aren’t white), having an earnest representative of the left here really is good for discussion purposes.
It would be nicer if there was more meat to most of those arguments or if so many didn’t boil down to Orange Man Bad (either apply those standards across the board or stop freaking out), but it’s still useful (even if unpleasant) to deal with “the real thing”.
ORANGE MAN BAD! ORANGE MAN BAD!
(Sorry, momentarily overcome by my Tourette’s…)
Heh. 🙂
You annoy me often, John, but I stand by what I said. I am actually glad you are here.
Most of the time.
About 1980ish, a girl I met at a motorcycle dealership in San Jose invited me to take a ride down to the first field she had worked here in the US. She was from Mexico, and was doing landscaping and working on starting her own business. One of the things that I recall was noticing that most of the field workers had short legs, and generally weren’t very tall. This field was ground level crops.
She did not have short legs, which was often a problem for females that wanted to ride. I could certainly see a fitment problem for the generally taller whites here in the US trying to work the ground level crops. I wonder how much of a factor that actually is for hiring here for that sort of work?