"What's wrong with slavery?"

[sufrommich]

This is from an Iowa GOP "kingmaker" radio host who has been courted by every GOP candidate:

I said, "Well I'd would put them on the end of the highway, on western part of the interstate system, and I'd put them on the eastern side of the state, right there on the interstate system, and in the north on the Minnesota border, and on the south Kansas and Missouri border and I would just say this: 'As of this date' -- whenever we decide to do this -- 'as of this date, 30--' this is a totally arbitrary number, '30 to 60 days from now anyone who is in the state of Iowa that who is not here legally and who cannot demonstrate their legal status to the satisfaction of the local and state authorities here in the State of Iowa, become property of the State of Iowa.' So if you are here without our permission, and we have given you two months to leave, and you're still here, and we find that you're still here after we we've given you the deadline to leave, then you become property of the State of Iowa. And we have a job for you. And we start using compelled labor, the people who are here illegally would therefore be owned by the state and become an asset of the state rather than a liability and we start inventing jobs for them to do.

When a caller confronted Mickelson and said his plan amounted to "slavery," Mickelson replied, "What's wrong with slavery?" Mickelson told the caller his plan was "moral," "legal," and "politically doable" and should be modeled after Maricopa County (Arizona) Sheriff Joe Arpaio's "tent village"

MICKELSON: Yes, yes, absolutely in a minimal fashion. We would take a lesson from Sheriff [Joe] Arpaio down in Arizona. Put up a tent village, we feed and water these new assets, we give them minimal shelter, minimal nutrition, and offer them the opportunity to work for the benefit of the taxpayers of the state of Iowa. All they have to do to avoid servitude is to leave.



http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/08/19/ia-radio-host-jan-mickelson-enslave-undocumente/205020

[randys1]

1. Privileged white assholes like this make me very angry. YOU do not belong here, ASSHOLE

[ladjf]

2. Everything is wrong with slavery. Or, to put it another way,

nothing is OK about slavery.

[DirkGently]

3. Nice double-bind to put on immigrants.

So, people come here for work, and accept sub-legal wages because we don't grant much in the way of legal entry. It confers a net economic benefit on the country because the labor is cheap, and the immigrants pay a variety of taxes in most cases.

But they -- or this guy, anyway -- feels entitled to chain people up and make them work as slaves, because he is so aggrieved that the already super-cheap labor they are providing is "illegal."

That is quite an entitled point of view.

[Sunlei]

4. republicans know our 13th amendment allows slavery of 'prisoners', see how they have accepted this.

Seems to me like our entire Gov. doesn't care much that our prisons hold more then the entire world combined.

Many prisoners in USA are paid 20 cents an hour to slave for a 'profit' business.

Items like tampons, extra toiletries or phone calls to family have to be paid for by prisoners.

[hifiguy]

5. If you have to ask that question.

You aren't even qualified to be a human being, much less one with a microphone.

[0rganism]

6. not just slavery, state-owned slavery

this is an amazing embrace of the tactics used by such paragons of virtue as Pol Pot and Stalin. have to do a little extra legwork to "privatize" it after the fact, i guess.

[closeupready]

7. Someone tell me how the Heartland is better than the Northeast...?

Because it sure seems like Midwestern Republicans think they are the personal repository of great American 'family values'. Like Michelle Bachmann in neighboring MN.

[Shrike47]

8. This man should be pressured/forced off the air.

Slavery is moral?

[gratuitous]

9. Very cute

I wonder what his response would be if you suggested raising taxes on him and his rich pals?

What's wrong with taxes to pay for stuff, Mr. Mickelson?

[WinkyDink]

10. Can we please start dropping these vermin onto ISIS territory?