Rove on amnesty: "I don't want my 17-year-old son to have to pick tomatoes or make beds in...Vegas."

[deadparrot]

According to a congressman's wife who attended a Republican women's luncheon yesterday, Karl Rove explained the rationale behind the president's amnesty/open-borders proposal this way: "I don't want my 17-year-old son to have to pick tomatoes or make beds in Las Vegas."

There should be no need to explain why this is an obscene statement coming from a leader in the party that promotes the virtues of hard work, thrift, and sobriety, a party whose demi-god actually split fence rails as a young man, a party where "respectable Republican cloth coat" once actually meant something. But it does seem to be necessary to explain.

Rove's comment illustrates how the Bush-McCain-Giuliani-Hagel-Martinez-Brownback-Huckabee approach to immigration strikes at the very heart of self-government. It is precisely Rove's son (and my own, and those of the rest of us in the educated elite) who should work picking tomatoes or making beds, or washing restaurant dishes, or mowing lawns, especially when they're young, to help them develop some of the personal and civic virtues needed for self-government. It's not that I want my kids to make careers of picking tomatoes; Mexican farmworkers don't want that either. But we must inculcate in our children, especially those likely to go on to high-paying occupations, that there is no such thing as work that is beneath them.

As Tocqueville wrote: "In the United States professions are more or less laborious, more or less profitable; but they are never either high or low: every honest calling is honorable." The farther we move from that notion, the closer we come to the idea that the lawyer is somehow better than the parking-lot attendant, undercutting the very foundation of republican government.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NTZhZDdiYmJlNDViYTAwOWExNmUyMmQ5ODlmMWYwYTU=

[sakabatou]

1. What do you expect from Pig-boy?

[Judi Lynn]

37. If he has Rove's attributes, he might find work sniffing out truffles!

On edit, adding TRUFFLE PIG.

[fooj]

2. 17 years old? Oh goodie. Sounds like he's just about ready to serve his country.

[LibDemAlways]

3. How about his 17-year-old thinking about a career in

the military, another path taken by some who want to become US citizens, or is that beneath him, too?

[Hippo_Tron]

6. Well,Rove will probably just say that his son wanted to join the military

But all the spots were taken by poor black people.

[LibDemAlways]

10. True, so he'll no doubt end up at some prestigious private

university majoring in partying - and later get a cushy six figure "job" courtesy of some crony of daddy's. But mostly he'll bide his time and wait for his inheritance like all filthy rich repuke offspring.

[Epiphany4z]

4. it might do the boy some good

I'm just staying..you can learn a lot from a little old fashioned hard work.

[RandomKoolzip]

5. I'm going to say something unpopular here.

*I* wouldn't mind picking tomatoes for a living. In fact, what I do for a living isn't all that far above picking tomatoes: I'm a line cook. I've been a janitor, I've worked fast food joints, retail, been a dishwasher, yadda yadda yadda. Yeah, it ain't cushy, but some of us honestly don't mind that kind of work. It's low responsibility, and it subsidizes whatever creative endeavors we may indulge in, from music to art to writing to whatever. Some of us make careers out of such work; again, there ought to be no shame in this. We don't mind hard work.

What we DO mind is that we're not compensated fairly for our labor. Why should a line cook NOT make enough to pay his rent? Why should ANYONE have to work two or three jobs simply to keep his/her head above water? Why should a person working full-time at any job be homeless? Or even in poverty at all?

THAT'S the thing that pisses me off, not the work itself.

Okay, having said that: Rove is a walking piece of shit. I hope he gets ball cancer.

[Mojambo]

18. I can't imagine why that would be unpopular.

Very good post. I share your sentiment completely.

[RandomKoolzip]

30. Well, the implication is that that kind of work is SO backbreaking

and SO degrading that NOBODY should have to do it; almost as if they regard physical labor itself as an indignity.

In reality, it's the sub-poverty wages that we consider to be an indignity.

Just thought I'd clear that up.

[patrice]

52. Oh, they definitely do "regard physical labor itself as an indignity."

I've taught in upper-middle high schools. Chaperoned their parties, hanged (hung?) out with parents. I've heard people talk about the rif-raf.

I've also seen the snickers and smirks on the faces of the princesses of cupcake land when my beautiful niece (the nurse practioner with 2 master's degrees) mentioned at a baby-shower that she had mixed concrete and laid stone when she and her husband landscaped their yard. They all but laughed in her face.

Physical labor is for those too stupid to avoid it. :sarcasm:

[yurbud]

22. I have done restaurant work, house painting, cannery work, and cleaned shit out from under outhouse

I enjoyed aspects of all but the very last and if I needed to, would do them again if I earned enough to make it worthwhile.

[Kixel]

28. Great post!

Anyone who makes you feel bad about what you do isn't cool. As long as you are happy, that's all that matters-unless you can't pay your bills. That is bullshit.

[Arkansas Granny]

31. I have done my share of jobs similar to what you have mentioned.

These used to be the sort of jobs that most everyone did when they first entered the workforce and then worked their way up to better paying jobs. Now this type of work is considered to be beneath the majority of Americans even though it is honest labor.

[RandomKoolzip]

32. That's another misconception.

Lots of people think that only teenagers work at McDonald's, or that if you work hard enough and kiss enough ass, eventually you'll exit the service sphere. The truth is that teenagers account for a minority of service industry workers, and that it's mostly adults who depend on these kinds of jobs for their livelihood.

The implication that being a janitor is "beneath" anyone is sad; it's a job just like any other, and those who take on the responsibility ought to be compensated like a full-fledged member of the human race. Many of us don't see the service sector as something to "rise out" of. Many of us LIKE this kind of work, so why shouldn't we be paid at a level commensurate to our needs as adults?

[Arkansas Granny]

40. I did not mean to imply that only teenagers work those jobs and

I hope I didn't leave the impression that they are beneath anyone whether teenager or adult.

[enigmatic]

44. awesome post, bro

You're exactly right on this.

[blonndee]

49. Thank you! I agree. There's nothing wrong with that kind of work, not at all.

For many people life does not = work, and even if it does, (to be cliched) there is honor in an honest day's work, no matter what that work entails. I've been personally fulfilled by and enjoyed work like cleaning houses and low-on-the-ladder construction-related work like cleaning up lots and nailing wall board. (Actually, putting up wainscotting was one of the most fun jobs I ever had.)

It doesn't make sense to me that people think certain jobs are "beneath" them. In fact, I think the types of jobs most people wouldn't do ought to be paid MORE! You put it much better than I, but when people start spouting off about immigrants or labor they think sucks, I always try to ask, "How much would YOU have to be paid to do that job?" And THAT is a much better indicator of what that work is really worth.

[Katherine Brengle]

50. Why on earth would that be an unpopular view here? I am with you 100%. nt

[Sterling]

56. Amen!!!!!!!!!!!

Great post.

[eridani]

60. Living wages are definitely the key here

If picking tomatoes paid a living wage, you'd have more people considering it as a career. Don't know that it would ever be a passion, but there are plenty of things to be passionate about that picking tomatoes might possibly support comfortably.

[aquart]

7. Our Founding Fathers deliberately did not create an aristocracy.

And these monarchists have been trying to correct that "oversight" ever since.

Call them what they are: fascists. monarchists.

They see themselves as the only Americans and as the "ruling class." "Fortunately," like before, their insane policies will drive all of us to ruin, thereby causing a bit of a shakeup.

[Ishoutandscream2]

8. Maybe that would give your son some character, asshole

But I guess it would be beneath your son to do such menial labor. At 17, I was washing dishes, keeping a kitchen clean, and busing tables at a greasy spoon restaurant. The kitchen could get up to 120 degrees in the summer. I would come home all grimy and dirty, and very tired. All for the princely sum of 2.90 and hour.

With that type of experience, I sure as hell wanted a better life and got an education. But the two years I did that particular job taught me a wonderful lesson in life. Something that Karl's quite probably asshole son will never have to experience. After all, that's the Republican way.

[devilgrrl]

9. This is coming from the National Review???

:wow:

[rodeodance]

11. oh oh, somebody tattles of little piggyman!

[sodenoue]

12. roverer is a nazi pig f8cker

That is how sh8t works you fascist! When you are young you work at whatever jobs you can get be it picking tomatoes or lawn care or construction or cooking or whatever. That is part of coming up; sh8t falls down. Making beds is better than a number of jobs I have done. Anyway all jobs are necessary to a functioning society; the janitor is as necessary as the teacher or the policeman. What we could do without are f8cking political consultants!

[patrice]

16. Solidarity sodenoue!

:hi: Welcome to DU! :hi:

[no_hypocrisy]

13. Next question, Karl: How many years do you estimate the products

of our amnesty will want to continue "picking tomatoes and making beds in Vegas" on less than the minimum wage, living crowded in apartments, sleeping on mattresses on the floor in shifts, etc. And will their children desire to go into their "fathers' business" or will they want the American Dream?

This only works for a couple of years. Then what?

[patrice]

14. OMG, it has a son!!!

Pardon my ignorance, but I didn't know.

Well, the way things are going, that kid and his cohort may end up picking the tomatoes in some gated compound, somewhere in the World, such as Paraguay. While the rest of us fight for their garbage.

[Bluebear]

42. Can you imagine what it turns out like?

[patrice]

51. Trying not to . . . .

:puke:

[Bluebear]

65. Sorry for the image lol

[mitchleary]

15. If not the military

he should be delivering his dad cases of Astroglide in prison.

[acmavm]

17. Well then the little SOB better take his son to India or China

because that's where all the jobs will be. He'll be damn lucky to pick tomatoes or change bedding if he stays in this country.

[yurbud]

19. how did Karl conceive a kid?!

[rzemanfl]

27. It was a grudge pregnancy, somebody had it in for him. n/t

[area51]

62. "how did Karl conceive a kid?!"

He didn't. To my knowledge, the 17-year-old is his step-son.

[BlueManDude]

20. Picking tomatoes or making beds is not dishonarable work - it's the wage that's

dishonarable. Americans aren't above doing any job - but it needs to be done for a living wage.

[RandomKoolzip]

33. Precisely.

:applause:

[NYC]

21. The job does not degrade the man; the man degrades the job.

George Bernard Shaw.

[yurbud]

23. a clash of Purtian work ethic versus Southern gentry slave ethic

Puritans thought work improved your character. Slave owners naturally thought it was demeaning since it was normally reserved for slaves.

I suspect that rank and file republicans would agree far more with the Puritan work ethic than the slave owner ethic since they don't have enough money to sit on the porch sipping mint juleps while they watch others work even if they live in the South.

[liberal renegade]

24. Hell

I didn't think he was man enough to make a little baby boy...

[DBoon]

25. I paid for my college living expenses doing janitorial work

Fuck you Karl Rove

[DinahMoeHum]

26. With any luck, his son's gonna have other priorities. . .

1) changing his name,
2) hiding from a vengeful citizenry,
3) visiting his father from a federal prison.


:evilfrown:

[Sal Minella]

34. Or he'll just develop a pilonidal cyst.....

[checks-n-balances]

59. One can only hope

:evilgrin:
Hell isn't punishment enough for that SOB, and I sure hope his kid (if he actually exists) doesn't try to outdo his father the way gwb did, ruining the world in the process...

God help us.

[judaspriestess]

29. what a vile pig

I emailed the mayor of LV Oscar Goodman.

Lets see if he gives a shit.

[Jack Rabbit]

35. No amnesty for Rove!!

:bounce:

[Vinca]

36. I'm sure Karl's son will be enlisting - that's why he can't pick tomatoes.

Right?

[Selatius]

38. My family comes from a long line of farmers.

There is nothing wrong with picking tomatoes in a field or becoming a wood smith who makes beds and other home furniture. It takes discipline, and it is hard work, but nothing so good ever came so cheaply.

If I became a picker of tomatoes, the job itself isn't what I'd dislike. What I dislike is an employer who treats me like crap and refuses the idea of paying me a living wage. I have two choices in that case: 1) fight for better wages and benefits or 2) get fired for fighting and go find a new job.

[Catherine Vincent]

39. That figures he would say something like that. It's not surprising.

"let somebody else do that kind of work" is what he and others like him think. His kind is too good for work like that, no we can't have it! :eyes: This is one of the main reasons why I wanted prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald (who used to be a janitor while in college) to indict his sorry azz!:mad:

[hatrack]

41. Denigrating the work denigrates those who do the work

And that makes it a whole lot easier to think of those "ignorant Mexicans"/"ignorant trailer-trash"/"ignorant welfare mothers" as doing what they're "best suited" for, doesn't it, Karl? Doesn't it?

No, no, they're not subject to the one-way ratchet down, they're not paying the price for global labor arbitrage. They're just doing the jobs ordained for them by destiny, aren't they, you fat-ass shit-for-brains?

And besides, you also get the added benefit of reducing them from people to "THEM" - the surly and unwashed "THEM" so easy to portray in border-swarming gated-community-swamping hordes, don't you Karl? Handy when it's time to turn on the Fear-O-Meter for tne next election cycle, huh?

Ironic that this comes from a pampered shit who never worked harder than lifting a martini glass or cutting a fart in his putty-soft amoral life, isn't it?

[Boojatta]

43. I don't understand

"I don't want my 17-year-old son to have to pick tomatoes or make beds in Las Vegas."

Did somebody suggest that people should be conscripted to pick tomatoes or make beds in Las Vegas?

Given that there has been a history of military conscription, it would on the other hand make sense for him to oppose the war in Iraq on the grounds of not wanting his son to have to drive over explosive devices in Iraq.

[Bobbie Jo]

45. IMO...all 17yr olds should pick tomatoes and make beds....

It's called Work Ethic, Mr. Rove.:eyes:

[Fridays Child]

46. k/r

[Swamp Rat]

47. Why not? His kid has eight tentacles fer pickin' tomaters.

[patrice]

53. Run away!!!!!!

Son of Cthulu!!!

:hide:

[Katherine Brengle]

48. I read a great local column the other day, by Marc Munroe Dion --

he asked a very good question - in our city, textile factories used to make this a very comfortable and even affluent area, but in recent times jobs like that are being shipped overseas and the factories are slowly but surely shutting down - but he asked, why do we call factory work and piece work "uskilled" or "low skilled" work?

I have no notion of how to do the work these "unskilled" workers do. Some of it, I don't think I could ever do well (like sewing - just never got the knack of it, it takes deft hands and a great deal of skill).

What ever gave us the right to call middle managers "skilled" workers and factory seamstresses "unskilled" workers?

Why is sewing a collar into a shirt worth less in pay than selling stocks to a millionaire?

We live in an upside-down, right-side-out world.

[The Backlash Cometh]

54. But it's okay for someone's mother to do it, as long as she's not an American?

Or someone else's 17 year old son, as long as he's not an American?

[The Backlash Cometh]

55. Come again? Equal status regardless of occupation is the

foundation of republican government? Can someone explain that further?

[cui bono]

57. ugh

[Yavin4]

58. Rove Wants His Son To Be A Prison Guard

That way they can spend quality time together when Rove is in jail.

[maxrandb]

61. Rove has a wife???

which one plays the man?

[EstimatedProphet]

63. HONEST work should NEVER be looked down on!

I put my way through college pushing a broom. Rove probably never did an honest day's work in his entire life! And he has the nerve to look down on a large proportion of Americans that do that job and take pride in doing it!

[grasswire]

64. it's almost a racial slur, IMO...

...considering the fact that most of the service workers in D.C. have brown skin of one kind or another.

What a bozo he is.

[earth mom]

66. Hey WARMONGER Rove: Your 17 year old son should enlist to fight in your war.

:grr:

[Saphire]

67. well, that's a repug for ya, any thing less that being an executive

for a large corp is just unacceptable. Sorry, KKKarl, but it's the folks that pick tomatos and make beds that also make this country. Asshat!!!