January 12, 2008
Saturday Forum
A Los Angeles Reader Reports Freeloading Hispanic MTA Riders Forced End Of "Honor System"; etc.
From:
Ray Rogers (e-mail
him)
In my
letter of November 3, 2007, I asserted that the Los
Angeles MTA and the Sheriff's Dept was enforcing
fare-checks on the Red Line Subway only during
the hours when virtually all riders are white-collar
Anglos and never during the hours when the train
is nearly 100 percent Hispanic workers.
My conclusion was that the MTA would rather lose
revenue from free riders than cite and offend
Hispanics.
Lo and behold, last month the MTA announced that the
"honor system"—the method whereby Hispanics rode
free—would no longer be in effect.
At a cost of $30 million, turnstiles and other
physical barriers requiring ticket purchase will be
installed. The justification for this, according to the
MTA, is to offset the huge losses (estimated at $5.5
million annually) of revenue incurred by people riding
illegally for free. [Seeing
the Light on the Subway, Matthew de Bord, Los
Angeles Times, December 11, 2007]
Gee, I wonder who they might be?
Funny that the MTA would rather spend all that money
to put up turnstiles when it could simply enforce the
fare checks against Mexican immigrants—I'm assuming
these are non-natives as one hears
only Spanish spoken on those trains during those
hours—as energetically as they do against passengers who
hold professional positions with corner offices in
downtown skyscrapers.
Well, far be it from me to say, "I told you
so!" but…I told you so!
Rogers, who lives in
Hollywood, sent an e-mail to MTA administrators pointing
out the discrepancy in enforcement as it was applied to
Anglos and Hispanic riders but he says he has yet to
receive a reply
[PermaLink] [Top]
[Letters Home]
A California Reader Says That The Washington Post Wrote Another Idiotic Editorial…But Printed His Response To It
From:
Michael
Scott (e-mail
him)
Re: Joe Guzzardi’s Column:
The Other Side: Gripped By Panic Over Immigration
Patriots’ 2007 Triumphs
Shortly after the December 13th
Washington Post editorial that was the subject of
Guzzardi’s column, [The
Immigration Swamp, Editorial, Washington Post,
December 13, 2007], the Post followed up with an
equally idiotic one two weeks later about how badly
America needs illegal alien workers.
Naturally, the second editorial used much the same
hysterical language as the first while it preached about
"jobs native-born people don’t want". [Immigration
Ground Zero, Editorial, Washington Post,
December 26, 2007]
But the
Post published my reply! I include it here for
your readers in the hope that some of the U.S. Census
Bureau statistics I cited might help them in their
future arguments about who is the most adversely
effected (American citizens, of course) by
cheap illegal alien labor.
"The Post
hyperbolized when it faulted Arizona law for its failure
to recognize ‘the plain reality of America 's need for
(illegal) immigrant labor’
"According to a July
Census report, there are 54,277,000 Americans ages 16 to
64 who aren't in the labor force. This includes 23
million ‘less-educated’ adults who, for a variety of
reasons, don't have a job.
"Narrowing this down
further, there are 14 million people actively seeking
employment who can't find a full-time job in today's
economy, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. If
the supply of illegal workers were to
dry up through
Arizona's new enforcement programs, employers in the
state would be forced to respond by offering higher
wages, increased benefits and improved working
conditions.
Employers would have more incentives to
modernize and eliminate unnecessary workers. The
result would be a new deal
for unskilled American and legal workers because they
would be better paid and have more enlightened work
environments.
"Can you imagine it:
Shifting the costs of illegal immigrant employment from
the taxpayers to the marketplace?"[If
Arizona's Law Succeeds, December 28, 2007]
Scott is a long time
activist against illegal immigration
[PermaLink] [Top]
[Letters Home]
A California Great-grandmother Thinks That English Language Learners Have Destroyed The Quality Of Education For Natives
From: Betty Baldwin (e-mail
her)
Re: Michael Martin’s Letter:
A Teacher Says English Language Development Should Be On
Students Time, Not Part Of The Regular School Day
I agree totally with Martin’s letter.
I am seventy years old. My husband of 54 years and I
raised a son and a daughter and have two grandsons and a
great-granddaughter. All either attended or are
attending California schools.
For years, I have been watching the ruination of
California’s educational system at the expense of
legal citizens.
The costs of additional classrooms for the
expanding alien student enrollment, bilingual
teachers and free meals is all money detoured from our
children’s education.
Too many
non-English speaking students plus too few schools
equals catastrophe for native learners. And now,
according to
James Fulford, aliens from Mexico are
commuting to our schools.
Years ago, children that did not speak English were
not given any special classes. They learned English
because their parents realized that to achieve anything
in America, knowledge of our language was essential.
Now, the reverse is true. We Americans have to be
bilingual to get a job in our own country.
Let Mexico and other countries take responsibility
for its own. The US is not one great big welfare
department for the entire world.
Baldwin retired seven years
ago from her position as a waitress. During her
employment at various restaurants over the decades, she
writes that she saw many Americans lose their jobs to
illegal aliens.
[PermaLink]
[Top]
[Letters Home]
An Arab-American Reader Says Aliens In The Country For More Than Two Decades Aren’t Owed Anything
From:
Mara Alexander (e-mail
her)
Re: An Economist’s Blog:
Victor Davis Hanson On Deportation In NRO
If illegal aliens have been here for 20-40 years and
haven’t managed to legalize themselves through the
amnesty provided by the
1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act,
245i, marriage to a U.S. citizen or because of their
US citizen children, they really aren’t owed another
opportunity to "legalize" themselves.
Alexander, originally from
Michigan, did research in the New York area for her
graduate degree on Muslim immigrants. Her previous
letters about baseless charges of racism and the
November 2007 Michigan State University riots are
here and
here.
[PermaLink]
[Top]
[Letters Home]
An African-American Student Wonders If She’s Been "Duped" By Her White Friends
From: Vanessa Reynolds (e-mail
her)
Re: Joe Guzzardi’s
Columns:
Mirrors Of Privilege—Whites Are Guilty, Case Closed
and
"Mirrors Of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible": A
Dishonest DVD About Race In America
What?
You mean my white friends
and classmates have been duping me for years when all
along I thought they liked me? But now some
DVD producer wants me to think that they’re really
racist?
And my teachers are racist
too? Hmm, as I recall, they bent over backwards to make
sure I was treated equally. But deep down, according to
California’s State Superintendent of Public Instruction
Jack O’Connell, they're full of "white privilege."
This is more of the same
ridiculous ideology from
Sacramento bureaucrats to cover up for their own
failures.
What a waste of time and
money all these videos and training sessions are.
[PermaLink]
[Top]
[Letters Home]
