The recent immigration rallies have been quite interesting for many reasons.  One that I have noticed is that many people just attend and expect no consequences for cutting school and skipping work.  Free speech trumps the normal rules, in their minds.

Well, a local painting company decided differently.  In a move that spurred a union grievance, Laitala Enterprises fired the 17 (some say 19) workers for violation of company policy when they left work to attend a rally in downtown Seattle.

Boss says painters walked off job

Attending Monday’s immigration rally in downtown Seattle cost about 20 painters — all of them Latino — their jobs.

The painters left work for Laitala Enterprises in a Fife subdivision two hours early to go to the march that was attended by about 30,000 demonstrators as Congress considers immigration reforms.

"We weren’t going to let 17 people leave early for basically no excused absence," Monroe-based home-painting contractor Terry Laitala told The Seattle Times. "We let people leave early if their family is sick," he said. "They didn’t have a reason. I mean, they did, but none that fit into our policy."

Laitala said the workers were fired for breaking company rules.

The workers’ union didn’t agree on the number of painters fired. It said 19 painters were dismissed.

On Wednesday, the union filed a grievance after Laitala refused to reinstate them, said Jeff Kelley, an organizer for District Council No. 5 of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades.

A couple things occurred to me.  First, once again I have to grumble how much I hate unions that help people recover form their own actions, as opposed to their historical mission to protect people from abuses by the company.  These people left early, they should deal with the consequences, right?

Nope.  This quote from the article illustrates this point.

Both Laitala and Duran said that the workers weren’t warned what consequences they faced if they left work early.

The ACLU has taken a consistent stance on flag burning.  For it apparently, if these articles below are an indicator (source-ACLU.org)

• ACLU Calls Flag Desecration Amendment Assault on Free Speech; Says Measure Fails Very Principles Flag Embodies
• Reasons to Oppose the Flag Desecration Amendment
• ACLU Warns Against Flag "Protection" Amendment to Constitution; Says Bill Threatens Freedoms Represented By Stars-and-Stripes

A quick search found articles dating back to 1998.

So I know they will be immediately ready to defend this guy:

A Tucson man was arrested Tuesday for his role in the burning of a Mexican flag as part of a counterprotest at a pro-immigration rally.

At about 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Tucson police cited Roy Warden, 58, on suspicion of assault, criminal damage and reckless burning, and then released him, according to Sgt. Decio Hopffer.

Oh, I grant that the charges are all directed at public safety and property issues, but I have to wonder if the same charges would have been issued at an immigrant group burning the American Flag.

I would hope so, but in the light of the attitudes towards the protests lately, I have to wonder.  Kids get bus rides home after skipping school, illegal immigrants self identify in rallies and are not detained…etc.

But regardless, it just seems to me that had that immigrant rights group done the burning and been arrested, they would be more likely to get ACLU representation then Mr Warden and his group.

And of course, this all still continues to avoid the real issues.

Also seen on Stop The ACLU.

Sometimes Ann makes me cringe with some of her comments and how she says them, but in this post I find little I disagree with.

So enjoy this over your coffee this morning. 

Brown Is The New Black

This is the only country on Earth that thinks it’s not sporting to consider our own interests in choosing immigrants. Try showing up in any other country on the planet, illiterate and penniless, and announcing: "I’ve seen pictures of your country and it looks great. I think I’d like to live here! Oh, and by the way, would you mind changing all your government and business phone messages, street signs and ballots into my native language? Thanks!" They would laugh you out of the country.

What seems not to have occurred to the "NO HUMAN BEING IS ILLEGAL" crowd is that this is a country, not a public park.

There are more than 6 billion people in the world, many of whom apparently like the idea of living in the wealthiest democracy on Earth. But if the billions of people of the world did live here, it wouldn’t be "here" anymore. America is special for a reason that must transcend the right to vote — or everyone would be trying to immigrate to Iraq right now.

America has a seller’s market in immigration, but thanks to Teddy Kennedy’s 1965 immigration law, we no longer favor skilled workers from developed nations, but instead favor unskilled immigrants from the Third World. Kennedy’s bill promptly cut the number of European immigrants in half and increased Third World immigrants to 85 percent of the total.

Not surprisingly, post-1965 immigrants have sharply higher levels of poverty and welfare dependence. Europeans may not seem like ideal new immigrants, but the truth is, if what they want is welfare, they’ll stay in France.

It’s as if we’ve got the last Xbox 360s available on Christmas Eve and instead of doubling the price, we’re entertaining low-ball offers. Or more accurately, we’re paying our customers to take the darn things off our hands — and the customers are still indignant with us.

One area of frequent debate is the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy and the subject of gay people serving in the military.  As I have recently posted, colleges are citing this as a reason to attempt to bar military recruiters.  This weekend in Santa Cruz, the military was chased out of a job fair, and even had stones thrown at their vehicles, something I see as inherently childish by the students.

Like the immigration debate though, the real issues are being lost in the feel good rhetoric.

The DADT policy at it’s heart is not a ban of gay people serving.  It merely says that you must keep that aspect of your personal life to your self.

This is something any gay person knows when they join.  It is not a secret.  That is issue one.  As to whether that policy is fair or not, that is an entirely separate issue.  Those who join under that policy have to abide by it, by the contract they signed, and the oath they swore. 

Leaving aside any debate of the fairness of the policy, let’s look at something the ACLU does not want to address. 

She is suing, with the help of the ACLU, to overturn the policy and stay in.  She faces a steep battle for the reasons cited.  She swore an oath to obey the policy and signed a contract knowing it existed.

But what no one wants to address is that the suit is a useless exercise.  If she wins, and if she is allowed to serve openly gay, DADT dissolved, the fact is she still will not be able to serve with full equality.  You see, women do not serve equally with men.