May 13, 2005

What's Pete Seghesio's billing address?

Open Borders warrior Professor Bainbridge excerpts an absolutely hilarious article from Wine Spectator magazine. The article is basically an ad for illegal immigration disguised by "some of my best friends are Hispanic" coverage of the Sabor de Napa event. Call it enlightenment, but with a profit motive:

...As vital and energizing as Hispanics are to the wine industry, their contributions to California's overall economy are so pervasive and indispensable that I doubt we could exist without them. They are today's labor force, just as Europeans and Chinese were in centuries past. One of the great ironies is that as the wine industry pays homage to Hispanics, there is talk in the state capital of tightening the border and making it hard for Hispanics to cross...

...It's also a double-edged sword, since many other Hispanics entered California illegally and aren't citizens. Shutting down or even constricting the flow of immigrants across the border would be disastrous well beyond the wine industry.

Hispanics are the backbone of the wine industry, pure and simple, says Pete Seghesio, CEO of Seghesio Family Vineyards in Sonoma County...

...The bottom line, though, is this, says Seghesio: "If people really knew the percentage [of Hispanics working in California] that's driving our economy, there wouldn't be any of this talk from our government..."

Whether he knows it or not or is willing to admit it or not, Seghesio is receiving a massive government subsidy for any illegal aliens that he employs. If Seghesio employs illegal aliens, does he pay for their medical care? How about their schooling? What about all the other medical, social, environmental, and political costs associated with illegal aliens? Is he paying for that, or is he pushing the cost off on the rest of us?

How many illegal aliens are Seghesio, Wine Spectator, Professor Bainbridge, or the rest willing to sponsor? If the California wine industry is important to anyone, then perhaps they should pay the full and correct price for their products instead of shoving the costs off on the rest of us.

UPDATE: Apropos of nothing, did you know that Nanci Pelosi owns a couple vineyards in Napa? Now, they're probably too small to be concerned about. If they were much larger - or grew higher-quality grapes - we might raise substantial concerns about her past support for illegal immigration.

Posted to Immigration2005a at May 13, 2005 08:17 PM

Comments

It is unbelievable that anyone would hold that the problem with the labor force is that there are not ~enough~ illiterates, non english speaking, or unskilled. Who could believe that the problem with the low income is that their wages are too high and their rents too low? How could anyone maintain that our society has too few mwdical indigents, or food stamp recipients, or that our public schools are lacking in prime dropout material? No rational answer to these questions can be given by the antimerit immigrationists.

Posted by: John S Bolton at May 14, 2005 12:14 PM

"vital and energizing"

Again with the stupid cliches -- and this time for cheap, unskilled labor.

Posted by: x at May 15, 2005 09:03 AM

And nobody seems to notice that these wealthy exploiters of Mexican labor such as Seghesio sound, in their justifications, eerily similar to the antebellum apologists for Negro slavery...even to the same high-pitched contempt for anyone insane enough to object to it.

Why academics and "liberals" are universally in favor of the reintroduction of a Peculiar Institution is another question....

Posted by: Shrewsbury at May 17, 2005 08:22 PM