What Did I Tell You About Republicans & Immigration?

(Cross-posted at The Liberal OC)

My goodness! John and Ken are looking for outrage, but don't know where quite to send it. Peggy Lowe reported at Total Buzz earlier today that the KFI shock jocks were commanding their droneslisteners to bombard our lovely Orange County Supervisors with phone calls asking them why they voted to outsource the processing of traffic and other misdemeanor tickets to a company in Tijuana, Mexico.

However what Peggy learned, and John and Ken missed, was that the Supes never voted for this. It turns out that this was a court-approved program, which means that this is the result of a state superior curt decision, and NOT the OC Supes. But don't worry. Chris Norby went on John and Ken today, and the shock jocks are now commanding their droneslisteners to direct their obscenity-laced calls to the court. Now ain't that klassy, or what?!

OK, OK, so this IS a real problem. Our personal information is being outsourced to some Mexican company. Should we be outraged? Yes. What should we do about it? As I said earlier, we should rethink our trade policies.

Do I think trade is good? Yes. Do I think globalization can lift the developing world out of poverty AND help our nation continue to prosper? Yes, but ONLY if we do it right. This means that we don't forbid developing nations from subsidizing any of their industries while we continue to subsidize our own mega-corporations. This means that we treat other people in other parts of the world with the same respect that we treat our own people. This means that we respect the natural resources of every nation, not just our own. Oh yes, and this means that we don't allow our mega-corporations to raid other societies' economies and force these people from the developing world to become economic refugees that get labeled as "illegal aliens" as soon as they cross our border looking for a better life.

So John and Ken don't like our misdemeanor tickets being processed in Mexico. OK, neither do I. What can John an Ken actually direct their listeners to do that wouldn't just solve this little problem, but the BIG problems of immigration and the outsourcing of every good American job? How about reforming NAFTA to make North American trade fairer for American workers AND the Mexican people? But will these Republicans ever be interested in constructive solutions that get to the root of the problem? I doubt it.