Ruben Naverette jr wants you people to live and work like Helots

[sasquatch]

http://www.cnn.com/2009/OPINION/11/27/navarrette.competition.immigration/
San Diego, California (CNN) -- When I speak to college students, I always push two messages: If you work hard, take risks, leave your comfort zone and never give up, you can do anything you want to in life; and part of life is competition, because no matter what you want, you can bet that someone else wants it too.

Competition. A simple concept and a beneficial one. It makes us better by forcing us to work harder. Sadly, it's also an idea that is going out of style in a society where students expect to get good grades just for showing up, where everyone gets a ribbon no matter where they finish, and where parents scheme to get their kids into college by lobbying state legislatures to create set-asides for in-state residents at public universities.

When we're not hiding from domestic competition, we're trying to shield ourselves from the foreign variety. High-skilled workers don't want to compete with those from China, India or Pakistan. Low-skilled workers are just as afraid of those from Mexico, Guatemala or El Salvador.

<snip>
Imagine that. What people in other countries accept as the natural order, we continue to resist. What our own parents and grandparents came to expect decades ago when they went after a job, we think we're above. We've come to think that competition is cruel because there are winners and losers; so we spend all our time devising new ways to minimize the losing.

Our elected officials should inspire us to be better people, and to learn to accept competition as part of life. Instead, most of them are too busy telling us what we want to hear so we'll like them better and buy whatever they're selling at the moment.

<snip>
Of course, protectionists claim that the playing field isn't level since foreign workers will often accept less money to do the same job, thus putting American workers at a disadvantage.

Tough. President John Kennedy had it right. At a press conference in March 1962, while fielding a question about military reservists who were upset at being mobilized and deployed to Europe and Southeast Asia, Kennedy made the point that there is no level playing field -- not ever.

<snip>
What in the hell is this dickhead talking about? What countries is he talking about and not only that we are the most productive workers in the world w/out and benefit for our work. So keep working harder you Helots, maybe someday you'll get lucky and be able to whore yourself out for corporate America like Ruben. Just remember to cash in your conscience and by some really high quality knee pads.

[Arctic Dave]

1. Looks like someone is jacked up on the Rand.

[sasquatch]

5. That's a dangerous drug that should be outlawed

[Ikonoklast]

2. I wonder if I can hire recent Indian MBA grad to write the same editorial

as Mr. Naverette, for one-third the price.

And foreign competition doesn't have work rules, safety regulations, pollution controls, workers compensation, taxes...well I could go on, but they have a huge advantage because of what they do not have to pay in the costs of overhead, as U.S businesses have.


I love these guys that preach to the rest of us from a safe position.

Fuck him and his smugness.

[Vinnie From Indy]

3. Navarette is an idiots idiot!

The fact that he gets paid to dispense his insane drivel is really quite amazing.

Navarette hopes the reader will conveniently not dwell on the fact that much of the labor force that "competes" with American workers for jobs are working in authoritarian, undemocratic countries. Navarette hopes the reader will not ask whether it is proper and just to turn a blind eye to the vast corruption and lawlessness that pervade all of these other labor pools. He would rather that Americans do not focus on the fact that the natural order in many of these "other countries" is be born, be forced to work for pennies from the age of 6 years old until death in a toxic stew of unregulated industrial discharge and then die from lack of any retirement safety net or health coverage.

Ruben "dumbass" Navarette writes,
"Of course, protectionists claim that the playing field isn't level since foreign workers will often accept less money to do the same job, thus putting American workers at a disadvantage.

Tough."

That sums it all up folks! Ruben really could care less about American workers and it shows in spades with this silly editorial.

Another gem of that deserves it's own place in some future museum of stupid is this gem,
"parents scheme to get their kids into college "

Ya' got that America! Now all your hopes and dreams of having your children have a better life through education, education that you pay dearly for with your taxes, is considered by Ruben to be "scheming."

[sasquatch]

6. Also he thinks work should be as traumatic and unforgiving as war

He didn't directly say that but he aluded to it.

[blue97keet]

4. What does this idiot Naverette suppose that Kennedy had in mind when

he mobilized the military reservists? National "protectionism" perhaps? Making our own level playing field perhaps? Taking steps to minimize the losing for sure, whatever the perceived threat was at the time. Wouldn't it be irresponsible for the President of the United States to ignore any threat to national security whether military or economic?

[sasquatch]

7. Yeah, why didn't they let the "market" decide who should run those countries