George Hutchins is a Republican who wants to be the next congressional representative for the people who reside in the 4th District of North Carolina. He’s a veteran and former US Marine who served in the first Gulf War. He’s persistent (he ran in 2010, 2012 and is running again in 2016). And, unlike many of his fellow travelers, his plan to solve the “illegal immigration” issue isn’t solely based on building a giant fence all along the US border and/or deporting millions of people.
No, George Hutchins has a better idea. An idea so obvious its hard to believe the current Republican Presidential candidates haven’t promoted it themselves. I could tell you what he is proposing, but I’ll let this image from his own campaign webpage lay it all out for you, instead.
That’s right. Mr. Hutchin’s solution is prison labor, or if you prefer, slave labor. And guess who just happens to be the single largest group in the US Prison system? Non-Hispanic African Americans at roughly 37 to 38 percent! And guess who comes in second place? White people not considered Hispanic represent between 32 and 33 percent of all prison inmates (sorry, I have no breakdown based on those ethnic groups other than “Hispanic” who fall within the “White category). Hispanics who are also “white” represent around 22 percent, and all other races and ethnic groups account for roughly 8 percent.
Now, I know some of you are going to ask would anyone really go for this idea? Would anyone actually vote to reinstitute legalized slavery in the United States? To which I say, have you seen what’s happening at the Donald’s political rallies lately? Or what happened at Sarah Palin’s rallies in 2008? Of course Republican voters will flock to any candidate who proposes this idea like flies drawn to fresh dog shit!
And if you think the 13th Amendment prohibits this “solution” to the immigration issue, well think again.
Ratified at the end of the Civil War, the amendment abolished slavery, with one critical exception: Slavery and involuntary servitude actually remain lawful “as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.” In other words, according to this so-called punishment clause, if you get pulled over with the wrong controlled substance in your trunk, there’s nothing in the 13th Amendment to ensure you can’t be considered a slave of the state.
So, which Republican presidential candidate will be the first to support legalized slave labor to eliminate incentives for “illegal immigrants” to some to America? My money is on Trump, but you never know what the wild and crazy Ben Carson might say next. Stay tuned!
It’s all fantasy. It operates in another, gauzier reality. Trump is from the land of TV. Dr. Carson is sort of like “Father Knows Best” with a whip and a Bible. But kindly. He loves us. It’s for our own good and maybe the people next door will finally shut up. Hillary is the imaginary Hillary. She is becoming the Hillary we all want. Issues? No issues, just anger, fear, and the kind of satisfaction you get from eating a meal that’s a little too much for you. We’ll kick the Russkies’ asses like we kicked the Bernie supporters’ asses. And look! It’s almost like we have a queen. Look at her perform the ceremony in the Rose Garden!
The reality is just out of reach. The wars are spiffed up with platitudes or, better, ignored. There are no connections between what we do here and the children drowning there. Because the wealthy will be protected, the burden will fall on us. It’s cheaper to build a statue than to fix the schools. Children should be seen and not heard, unless we beat them, in which case we shouldn’t see them at all. Preparing the next generation for the war that never ends. Somewhere behind that high wall are the leaders of our next generation to whom we will tip our sodden caps. Maybe they will bless us with their silver spoons as the limos drive by.
We will need a stronger magic. More blood sacrifices. More secrets. More spying. More fantasy. NCIS agents quipping to each other while they twist the arm of the bad guy who knows where the atom bomb is hidden. He’ll spill his guts by the end of the show. Then the commercial about something to help us sleep. Is there any milk for the baby?
It will require a very strong magic to stop the water from rising. But we believe. Isn’t that enough to stop the water?
This nothing new. Prison farm labor is policy that comes from ALEC. The inmates are paid cents on the dollar and the prison gets a cut too. It’s all about not raising taxes to pay for the people who work in the jails.
Amusing the choice of watermelons.
Good thing there’s no such thing as a racist Republican, huh?
What I would think would be good would be to allow and encourage parolees to work in ag labor. It would have 3-4 good results:
I don’t support the use of inmate labor, however.
you’re asking parolees and their families to move to a completely different context from where they were born, grew up and have family and ancestors and learn a trade that may not interest them. didn’t that happen (minus the families) on a large scale in the recent past a few thousand miles east of us?
Do you know anything about getting jobs after you have been in jail? There is a labor need, and the parolees could be given that choice. Having a job makes getting the next job easier.
It’s amazing to me how every single reasonable idea is met by hidebound inflexible steel-plated resistance. “Why, that’s never been tried! I’m sure it won’t work. It wouldn’t work for me.”
When you have committed a felony, sometimes you have fewer choices than are offered to those who have not committed felonies.
well, something is needed, absolutely the problem must be addressed, but one can’t move people into a completely foreign context and expect them to thrive – if it’s offered as one of several options, with major retraining and support for families who’d be moving to an unfamiliar context that could work. But in my experience, most people have ideas about what they’d like to do for work if they had the chance; and recidivism would be much lower if parolees were supported in finding work that they can relate to; some skilled interviewing of parolees over time to see what they’d like to do and serious work training for those professions and job placement would be great. Also, proximity to supportive families, and friends, children, grandchildren all are components motivating a person.
As repulsive as this is, whatever makes this creep think that if it were economically viable that it wouldn’t exist on a large scale already? It’s not as if prisons are sitting in large AG fields and there is no cost to deploy prisoners as farm labor field hands.
Love the watermelons, but where’s the cotton? Time to watch Bamboozled
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0215545/
The 13th Amendment came up on a radio show with Huckabee and slavery fan Jan Mickelson, with the idea that criminals could be sentenced to make restitution for their crimes, as suggested in the book of Exodus.
But if it’s not punishment then it doesn’t meet the 13th Amendment criterion. This new proposal, on the other hand, is truly scary…