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Articles:
Counterpoint
That's
It…I Have No More Respect for McCain
Friday,
April 7, 2006
There
was a time when Arizona senator John McCain was perhaps my
favorite politician. I think it was during the 2000 presidential
primaries that I first took notice of him. He had sound ideas,
solid reasoning, and wasn't afraid to go against the grain.
He was a former Vietnam POW with military experience and a
track record of overcoming adversity. I liked him so much
I voted for him in the 2000 GOP primary.
Of
course, George W. Bush beat him for the presidential bid that
year. From that point on, my respect for McCain has slowly
evaporated.
Bush
ran a lot of negative campaign ads against him that year,
suggesting that his time in a POW camp caused him mental illness
and would make him unfit as president. I found Bush's attacks
to be vicious and baseless. Despite these unfair tactics,
the following years saw McCain become one of Bush's biggest
supporters. Republican party dogma must have dictated that
McCain suck it up and play cheerleader for his former foe.
Every time I saw McCain on television or in print professing
his undying love for Bush's policies, I had to cringe. McCain
seemed to no longer have original, thoughtful ideas of his
own. He was reduced to being a political puppet for the administration.
Still, it took one recent event to finally cause me to throw
up my arms and swear off McCain forever.
The
following was taken from an Associated Press article from
April 4, 2006, where McCain addressed a group on the issue
of illegal immigration:
McCain
responded by saying immigrants were taking jobs nobody else
wanted. He offered anybody in the crowd $50 an hour to pick
lettuce in Arizona. McCain insisted none of them would do
such menial labor for a complete season. "You can't do
it, my friends."
Spoken
like a true politician with no real-world life experience.
Somehow the GOP thinks it represents the "common man",
yet here we have a fine example that they do not.
This
is because I, along with any other red-blooded American who
has ever grown up or worked on a farm, has indeed performed
"such menial labor for a complete season". On top
of that, I know I wasn't making "$50 an hour". I'm
sure few if any other American farm workers make even half
that.
Sure
you have the "corporate farms" that rely on massive
amounts of startup capital, cheap migrant labor, and economies
of scale to make relatively large profits. Those like me who
grew up on "family farms" grew up relatively poor.
When
I was younger, I didn't work because I wanted to. I worked
because I had to. I don't think most people outside of farming
can understand this. It required the dedication and hard work
of every family member to simply break even in a given year
and put food on the table. I remember helping out from the
time I could walk, and by the time I was in elementary school
I was working 30-40 hours a week. When it was time to plant
cabbage, I'd come home from school and have to get on the
planter. When it was time to pick pumpkins, I'd be right off
the bus and out in the field. Sure there were slow times,
such as winter. Other times we'd be very busy, even when school
was in session, and I would have to make time for school,
work, and homework. Some days I wouldn't even go to school
so I could work. Thankfully, I was an excellent student and
managed to succeed in both school and at work.
This
was all an unusually busy schedule for an average American
kid. I didn't get to play baseball or football or involve
myself in other extracurricular activities. I went to school,
worked, and did homework. The kicker is that John McCain can,
in short, kiss my ass because most of the time I didn't even
get paid. When I was younger I'd get a small amount to go
blow on toys once or twice a year, maybe 30-50 dollars each
time. As a teenager my parents were better about paying me
since they didn't want me to work somewhere else. I think
for most of those years I received $5 an hour.
Despite
this, I'm not at all bitter about my work experience growing
up. I think it gave me an excellent work ethic that benefits
me to this day. Not only that, but I learned to enjoy farm
work. Even now, with a manufacturing business of my own, I
still make time to help my parents. I get paid $20 an hour
at my own job, and my parents manage to pay me $10 an hour.
Why do I take a pay cut to do "such menial labor"?
First, I enjoy it. I like being by myself, working outside,
absorbing the weather and proving to myself that I can still
work hard. Second, I feel that I need to repay my parents
for instilling such a strong work ethic into me, and for generally
doing all they could for me.
Surely
my pay is far from the $50 an hour John McCain suggested no
American is willing to work for on a farm. John McCain needs
a reality check. Although he may not know it from his Washington
vantage point, there are indeed Americans who perform menial
farm work for next to nothing. Hard physical labor for low
wages isn't restricted to Mexican immigrants. While John McCain
may be unwilling to pick lettuce for $50 an hour, I know I
would. If someone offered me $50 an hour to do the work I
did as a kid, and still do today, I would feel like I won
the lottery.
I
just wish Republicans would stop claiming to represent the
common man. I consider myself common, and I know they don't
represent me. It must be easy to slander the work ethic of
American farmers when you're born with a silver spoon in your
mouth and have no concept of real work.
Politicians
will continue to sit on their butts, collecting healthy checks
from their constituents and their lobbyists, with no freaking
clue about what happens outside of the beltway. They'll sleep
well at night thinking our "menial work" is safely
in the hands of migrant laborers, freeing the opulent American
masses to screw off as they please. They're out of touch with
the reality that Americans CAN perform those jobs, indeed
DO perform those jobs, and NEED those jobs. There's no time
for screwing off when you're jobless and your government is
doing all it can to put illegal immigrants in positions you
would love to have.
Politicians
have no concept of the value of a dollar, of the value of
hard work, or of the value of free time. They may never worry
about paying their bills or taking just ONE weekend off in
a year to take a poor excuse for a vacation. They seem to
think all Americans are just like them…free from want
and eager to have illegal immigrants free themselves from
pesky work. Somehow, we keep electing aristocrats like McCain
to represent us. He, like most politicians, simply has no
clue what it's like to be "common".
Recent
polls indicate a substantial majority of Americans oppose
illegal immigration. Attempts by our leaders to legislate
to the contrary show how they merely work for lobbyist money
and not for their constituents. How do we fix this broken
"democracy"? I have no idea. I just know if John
McCain has a check book and lettuce farm handy, I can free
up a few months to give him a lesson in American work ethic...
Perhaps
the most valuable result of all education is the ability to
make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to
be done, whether you like it or not.
--Thomas Huxley
What
we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness
only that gives everything its value. --Thomas Paine
Politics
isn't about left versus right; it's about top versus bottom.
--Jim Hightower
Little
ol' boy in the Panhandle told me the other day you can still
make a small fortune in agriculture. Problem is, you got to
start with a large one. --Jim Hightower
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