I just caught part of a TV show called UK Border Force. Immigration officials arrest a man they think suspicious. A bystander gets indignant and starts yelling “this man is not a criminal”. The bystander is detained and rants and raves a bit, saying entirely understandable things like “people are trying to make a life better for themselves” and “I’m not a criminal, I’m only talking about rights”.
He ends up getting arrested for “obstruction” for his trouble.
An immigration official later talks about how the other onlookers reacted. Some of them applauded the immigration officials, others apparently “thought that it was morally wrong.”
She concludes, “but we’re here to do a job, so we do what we’re told.”
You can’t reason with authority.
Update: It gets better. Later in the same episode, immigration officials raid a spring onion farm where illegal immigrants from India are working. One of them actually says, “They are being paid £135 for a 40 hour week, which I reckon is about £3.75 an hour, which is a couple of pounds below the national minimum wage.” Another one says, “It’s horrible coming out to a job like this, where you see they’re working long hours for little money in conditions you wouldn’t want to keep animals in really. They’re not criminals. They’re here because they want to better their lives. We understand why they do it. If I had to feed my kids I’d do exactly the same thing.” The immigrants are duly shipped back to India. Well done! Okay, the barn they work in is not heated and the roof is a bit leaky, but they have a microwave and a radio and it’s not *that* bad. There is some concern that because they work for their accommodation and get driven to work in a van that this is forced labour, but I don’t find this convincing. The immigrants themselves say that they are doing this because they are poor back home. Shipping them back to India out of sight might make the socialists feel better but it ain’t helping no-one.
She concludes, “but we’re here to do a job, so we do what we’re told.”
The Nuremberg defence, as it is sometimes known.
Indeed. See also my update about the illegal workers; I think the same defence is at play. Either that or some cognitive dissonance.
There are only a couple of issues that matter here. Are the workers being paid what they were promised in India and treated as they were promised? Do they have the right to leave the job if they wish to? That’s about it. It is of course much easier to ensure that the answer is “yes” to both these things if what they are doing is legal and/or they are not hiding from thugs working for the immigration department.
Well, one problem is that the babies they have here will be “anchor babies,” also known as “citizens.” This will entitle these uneducated foreigners to get on the welfare and public education gravy train.
Another problem is that illegal aliens from third-world countries are bringing in malaria (from Haiti) and an extremely difficult and expensive to treat form of tuberculosis (Mexico and Central America) as well as various exotic diseases from Africa. They are free riders on the health care system to start with, and leave behind disease that wasn’t here when they arrived. Medical and dental resources going to these people should be going to our own poor and underinsured.
If the farmer can’t pay decent wages to Americans, then America should IMPORT its onions, and the farm should shut down or switch over to another crop. My step-father is a farmer — all of his workers were born in the USA. If he can do it, so can others. Why doesn’t immigration arrest the FARMER?
They must be Hindus. Nobody in Britain would dare treat Muslims like this.
“If the farmer can’t pay decent wages to Americans, then America should IMPORT its onions, and the farm should shut down or switch over to another crop. My step-father is a farmer — all of his workers were born in the USA. If he can do it, so can others…?”
Because the farm is in the UK not the US.
Laura: whether it’s the UK or the USA, the only problem is the welfare system. Stop handing out other people’s money and the freeloader problem becomes moot. Sure, import stuff if it’s cheaper to import, but the only sensible thing to do is get rid of all market distortions, including trade tarrifs and minimum wages. Then we’ll find out the real most efficient way to get onions.