Senator Jeff Sessions won the 2006 “Guardian of Small Business” award from the National federation of Independent Businesses, so he should be pro-business, right? But here he is now denying the right of business owners to hire whom they want.
Well, what if your child wants a job? What if you want a job? What if your spouse wants a job and is looking at a job and now we’ve got another, what, 250,000 job applicants, contrary to law?
The first thing we should do is be focusing on getting jobs for Americans that are unemployed. Are we going to keep Americans on welfare and benefits while we bring in more and more foreigners to take jobs when we’ve got Americans ready and willing to take those jobs?
Obviously the reason to hire an immigrant over a citizen is because you think the immigrant will provide greater value for the price of their labor. So Sessions is demanding that businesses be forced to operate with less efficiency.
Of course Sessions is also implying that Americans can’t compete. If he’s right, then that’s their damn problem, and exactly the kind of thing conservatives don’t generally care about. If he’s wrong, where are the conservatives who should be shouting at him for his disdain for hard-working Americans?
So it seems to me that Sessions is both anti-business and disdainful of blue collar Americans. I doubt conservatives will think deeply enough about these issues to recognize that, though. They’ll just applaud his anti-immigrant stance, because for all their talk about liberty, they don’t really believe in liberty for those who take great risks and sacrifices to come to America to get some of it.
The Bawdy House Provisions 
Wait, you watch “E!”? Dude…
I’m assuming this is on the wrong post, but the answer is that sometimes my wife does, and sometimes I’m in the same room. And The Soup is on E.
Yeah, how did that happen. I guess more than politics is stupid. Sorry.
As you know, I am for an “open border” policy. If you want to come here and are willing to work, I say “Come on in!” If the people that are already here think America is a “closed shop “Fuck ’em! They don’t understand what the “free” in free market means.
Sessions’ remarks are typical of Republicans who claim to be for “business” and “freedom” but who are actually quite amenable to protectionist federal legislation when it suits their personal tastes, or when it appeals to a voting demographic they are courting.
I find the differences between pro-business conservatives and xenophobic conservatives to be rather interesting. Pro-business folks probably have more financial clout for fundraising, but inevitably run up against a much larger group of anti-immigrant folks who cast many more votes.
Personally I have my own internal conflict on this issue, and it’s sort of backward from the standard situation. Morally I’m all about personal freedom and support an open border policy. Rationally, however, my business could benefit greatly from draconian border control. We build automated equipment for tree nurseries. Traditionally these nurseries have relied heavily on immigrant labor. Our equipment replaces much of this labor with machinery. Therefore anything that curtails the supply of immigrant labor could increase the demand for our products.
I suspect that being anti-immigrant isn’t necessarily being anti-business. Sure it hurts some existing aspects of business, but it opens new opportunities. At the end of the day the work will get done one way or another, but the specific groups who “gain” and “lose” may be changed.
No relation
There is a difference between being pro-business and being pro-free market. Business hates the free market like a cat hates a bath.
The net neutrality debate is an interesting arena where this is playing out.
I don’t think there is enough free in in the market of ISP’s for there to be a free market side of the argument.
Since the FCC voted to use Chairman Wheeler’s model, and will not require local loop unbundling, most people aren’t going to see any ISP choice beyond what they have now for years and years, if ever.