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Hypocrisy 101 – Don’t Want Mexican Immigrants? Don’t Hire Them [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-01-01

There seems to be an epidemic of hypocrisy in the US. Almost half the country believes our greatest problem is illegal immigration. Many also believe that there is too much legal immigration. But these same people consistently encourage this immigration by hiring foreigners (illegal or otherwise – no one seems to care) from south of the border.

I live in a coastal city with many old and now quite expensive houses that require continual maintenance and renovation. I estimate that 95% of the construction workers are Mexican or Central American immigrants who mostly do not speak English.

My suburban neighborhood has at least 50% Mexican lawn crews keeping the neighborhood looking orderly and attractive.

In California, in wealthy areas like Bel Air, the gardens, hedges, and lawns are tended almost exclusively by Mexican immigrants. Further north, in places like Oxnard, Mexican immigrants do most of the planting and harvesting of food.

On the surface, people claim to dislike immigration but scratch the surface and it becomes immediately clear what they truly care about is cheap labor. This attitude ranges from wealthy tech executives to homeowners who need a new roof.

The former President consistently hires cheap foreign labor for his hotels but rails against illegal immigration trumpeting his “America First” rhetoric. He supports H1B visas along with his billionaire friends as they strongly imply that American tech workers as lazy and inferior.

After all, the “best and the brightest” foreign tech workers must be superior (and conveniently cheaper) as compared to American workers. This hardly screams “America First” and more likely screams “Foreigners and Guest Workers First.”

So, when the popular former president is obviously a hypocrite and gets away with it, it gives permission for his supporters to be hypocrites as well.

The people who own construction and lawn businesses and use these immigrant workers are at least 50% Republican as are the people who have their lawns tended by them. As business owners and comparatively wealthy owners of property who can afford to have their yards groomed, the percentage of “conservatives” employing Mexican immigrants is probably much higher.

So, the question becomes, “What is the downside of being a hypocrite – of claiming to be against Mexican illegal immigration while strongly encouraging it by hiring these same immigrants?”

Thus far in looking at our politics, it seems that hypocrisy and continual lying pay big dividends. But there is a saying adapted from the Greek philosopher Sextus Empiricus that goes something like, “the wheels of justice grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine.” The popular translation is, “justice may be delayed but it is not denied.”

The New Testament is not fond of hypocrites. For example, Mathew 23:27 says of hypocrites, “… you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.”

There may also be a psychological element to such justice for hypocrites. Another biblical saying is that “a house divided against itself, that house cannot stand” (Mark 3:25) Hypocrites are a house divided – they have two faces, two identities, two sets of ethical beliefs – the surface ones and the deeper ones that contradict them. There is a kind of cold war going on within them. It can mostly be ignored but it creates a kind of low-level anxiety that arises from being internally dishonest and contradictory. Such anxiety might explain the seeming irritability and pessimism of so many.

It will be interesting to see if hypocrisy continues to pay big dividends in the coming years. So far, the market seems to reach new highs almost daily.

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