JoeSpareBedroom wrote:
"Rudy Canoza" wrote in message
link.net...
JoeSpareBedroom wrote:
"Rudy Canoza" wrote in message
thlink.net...
JoeSpareBedroom wrote:
"Rudy Canoza" wrote in message
thlink.net...

There are undoubtedly some agricultural functions that can be achieved
either mechanically or by hand labor. If the labor costs rise a
little,
from their current artificially depressed lows, machinery would move
in.

Erase that idea from your head. Farm machinery manufacturers have been
working for decades to find ways to harvest certain delicate crops. If
they
could build such things, farmers would buy them in a heartbeat.
*Some* things are amenable to cultivation and
harvesting by entirely mechanical means, but if the
cost of labor is low enough, it will be used in place
of machinery. If the cost of labor rises enough,
machinery will be used.


Take away migrant labor, and you'd better be ready for your kids to hit
the
fields to do the harvesting. Nasty, hot dirty work. It wrecks your back
even
if you're young and in shape. I'll bet a year's pay you'd hide your
kids in
Canada if our government required that kids put in a year of this type
of
work.
Governments in democratic market-oriented societies
don't ever "require" that people do certain tasks,
apart from (occasionally) military service. That's a
pretty stinky red herring you trotted out there.

Europe manages to grow a lot of food, including a lot
for export, without a large pool of illegally resident
farm workers. In addition, an already large and still
growing majority of illegally resident immigrants in
this country do not work in agriculture. We are
increasingly hearing stories of farmers allegedly
unable to get their crops harvested because of labor
shortages, even *with* undocumented immigrants.

The fact is, people are going to have to pay the price
for their food, and that price is probably going to
rise. Nothing inherently wrong with that. People eat
far too much food as it is, and a price rise will get
them to eat less.
Addressing your comments out of order:

The foods people might eat less of are exactly the ones they should eat
more of: Crops that are harvested by human hands.
You're trying to pass off a moral judgment as nutritional advice. Forget
it.

What moral judgement? What people should eat more of? Be careful answering
this.

What's to be careful about? Your language suggests you
see some kind of moral virtue in hand harvesting.

People can eat all kinds of mechanically harvested
vegetables. Most fruits don't lend themselves to
mechanical harvesting, but it isn't the high cost of
labor that keeps people from eating fruit.

As far as crops and machinery, certain crops CANNOT be harvested by any
known machinery,
That's fine. But certain crops can be.

The ones that can be harvested by machine ALREADY ARE. The rest are done by
hand, not because it's cheaper, but because the machinery to harvest it does
not exist. Perhaps robotics will change this in the future, but not yet. If
you think strawberries can be picked by machine, you're nuts. Same with
*all* tender produce. I think you are not a gardener, or you'd know these
things.



Now, for required work: The U.S., a democratic country:

"The first peacetime conscription came with the Selective Training and
Service Act of 1940. Active conscription ("the draft") ended in 1973.
Currently, male U.S. citizens, if aged eighteen through twenty five, are
required to register with the Selective Service System, whose mission is
"to provide manpower to the armed forces in an emergency" including a
"Health Care Personnel Delivery System" [4] and "to run an Alternative
Service Program for men classified as conscientious objectors during a
draft."

I see no reason why we could not have a conscription arrangement
(obviously with pay equivalent to what migrants make) for agricultural
work,
Most Americans see plenty wrong with it. Thankfully, views like yours are
in a decided, unsavory minority.
or cleaning hotel room, public bathrooms, and doing the grunt work in
restaurant kitchens. It would pay better than what the military pays new
recruits.

Other countries with required service. [snip crap about military
conscription]
I already covered that. We're talking about mandatory work in areas other
than military service. Democracies don't do that.


So, you'd find it wrong if the government said everyone from age 18 to 21
must put in 6 months of work in certain jobs that most people hate.

Yes. The government in a democracy is of, by and for
the people, and I can guarantee you that the people in
the United States do not want that.


At the
same time, you think it's fine to require military service,

No. It isn't okay. What made you think I believe it
to be okay?