David Sweet: We can do better in Santa Cruz - Santa Cruz Sentinel

Early every morning, groups of able-bodied men gather at three or four locations in Santa Cruz County to wait on the curbsides in hopes of obtaining a few hours of casual employment.

[The Observer]

Isn't "Leadership Santa Cruz" really run by the boys from the Farm Bureau to help assure our community dumb down and illegal "slave" farmworker supply here.
http://www.leadershipscc.org/cms/board
CAB, too.
By the way, where are they "leading" us to, anyway?
Sentinel, please post a picture of these criminals so our community can see their faces, like you do w/ other suspected law breakers on your front page.

[QuestionMan]

When we have the new "facility", do you really believe the "traffic hazard"/"health and safety" problem will cease and these illegals will leave their position on the street?
Dream on!
Imagine how the property owners who are affected FOR YEARS/DECADES!!!! by this must feel. Or how their property value is so adversely affected?
Do any of you supervisors, city councilors, or LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS CARE?
DA BOB LEE & SHERIFF ROBBINS-PLEASE FOLLOW THE LAW AND YOUR OATH OF OFFICE. MAKE OUR STREETS SAFE (even if they are falling apart!)
IF YOU DON'T, YOU SHOULD ALL BE RECALLED AND REPLACED!
APPARENTLY, THAT'S GOING TO BE THE ONLY WAY TO HAVE OUR LAWS AND OUR COMMUNITY PROTECTED FROM THIS MENACE TO OUR PRESENT AND FUTURE AND OUR CHILDREN!
RESPECT AND ENFORCE OUR LAWS, AND PROTECT AND RESPECT OUR LEGAL CITIZENS AND RESIDENTS FIRST, PLEASE!

[Dave]

Mr. Sweet is part of the "Gentry Liberal" that is creating a slave class in this country. Because of folks like him we are encouraging millions of people with 18th century skills into a society that requires 21st. Century abilities. We are putting these folks into a no win situation. They will never be able to realize the American Dream. People such as Mr. Sweet were the ones that occupied the grand homes in Mississippi and Alabama that felt that they were doing right by taking care of the servants that served their family for years.(Served their families was another name for SLAVES)
Mr. Sweet, really take a step back and see what you and the other "Gentry Liberals" are doing to both this nation as well and maybe more importantly to these people that you think you are helping.

[Douglas Deitch]

Dave wrote:

Mr. Sweet is part of the "Gentry Liberal" that is creating a slave class in this country...People such as Mr. Sweet were the ones that occupied the grand homes in Mississippi and Alabama that felt that they were doing right by taking care of the servants that served their family for years.(Served their families was another name for SLAVES)

The "new plantation owners" like Driscolls, Dole's, et al have a new and better plan and idea for us, their "servants" here (legal or not)(and our water!) and you can now see it in action on River and 41St, in our schools, on our roads, in our courts and jails, etc...
except now they have Professor emeritus Sweet, Chancellor Blumenthal, President Yudof, Chairman Blum, and rest of UC aiding, abetting, and hugely profiting ($5 million a year royalties-5th biggest UC revenue generator) from this w/ them yearly?
http://www.cityonahillpress.com/article.php...
http://www.scsextra.com/story.php...
http://pogonip.org/WaterDocs/KingberryWeb.pdf
http://www.scsextra.com/story.php...

[Pajaro Joe]

I can understand David Sweet supporting the day labor center, since it's his pet project at CAB. And it was fair having the accompanying column by Bob Messing, which was shorter but very effective in opposing Sweet's platitudes. But why was it necessary to squeeze in the 3rd opinion from Julie Arroyo, basically saying rah-rah for the day labor center? Looks like the editorial thumb was on the butcher's scale in this "balanced" debate.

[Brian]

Another "progressive" Santa Cruz joke: let's aid and abet illegal aliens while pumping up the taxpayer-funded budgets for our non-profits!

[Jess Wundrin]

Isn't it scary that the pro-ILLEGAL day laborer center is supported on this page by UCSC professor emeritus Sweet and current teacher Arroyo? Insn't that a great message for impressionable students, that they can cherry-pick laws, and only obey those they agree with? I wonder how many burglars agree with laws against theft?

[My take]

Disgusting commentary.

[Douglas Deitch]

My take wrote:

Disgusting commentary.

Conclusion UC?:(unfortunately?)
We only have enough water regionally to sustain only 15,000 of our current 20k farmworkers. Reportedly, we also have 20k undocumented workers coincidentally, as well.
Been this way for decades now already.
Disgusting commentary, I agree.

[Anayeli]

The thing is they may come here to "lift" themselves and their families out of poverty, but they are actually adding to the poverty of the United States, where we have a highly developed welfare system of which Sweet is a huge part here in Santa Cruz.
The above description of "gentry liberals" is accurate.

[America in Decline]

I love how David Sweet touts his credentials like he is a feudal lord or "gentry liberal" while acknowledging that he is a criminal who hires foreign labor, illegally, and wants an official system in place that traffics foreign labor illegally in Santa Cruz County. Maybe when the new illegal labor center opens we locals should go there and supplicate to Sir David and bow at his feet and thank him for fracking us over, once again.

David Sweet thinks he is the intellectual vanguard of the foreign criminal alien class, but what he is really doing is undermining 70 years of real progressive work, which fought for the minimum wage, worker's comp, safe working conditions, 8 hour day 40 hour week for the American working class. David Sweet spits in the face of our contractor's laws as well.

David Sweet, who never had to work an honest day in his life as part of the working class and gets paid full salary by the California taxpayers, is just like every other feudal lord progressive in Santa Cruz County. While getting paid their high salaries by the state or their non-profits financed by the local government, they impoverish the rest of us, the uncorrupted and least politically connected, with their asinine policies, so as to keep themselves in power. That is the circle of corrupt political life in Santa Cruz County

These "progressive" carpetbaggers have not only gone so far as to impoverish locals and profit from our misery, but they have the audacity to actually bring in foreign scabs to bring down the wages of Americans even further-- and during a recession, no less.

Seriously, what kind of scumbag is David Sweet, who would undermine the Santa Cruz tradesmen who has to pay for licensing, taxes, insurance, worker's comp, overhead, etc by trafficking illegal workers into Santa Cruz who have already shown their contempt for US law by working here illegally in the first place. Not only that, they are given a competitive edge by our local politicians, who have given them the right to break every federal, state and local law that regulates labor, immigration, contracting and business.

When will the madness stop? And what is it with us native Santa Cruzans? Are we masochists to keep allowing these faux progressives to frack us over and over again?

[James Anderson Merritt]

It is an important principle of US law that any law that is enacted outside of the authority of the constitution is null and void: no law at all. There have been numerous instances of laws that criminalized or penalized certain behaviors, which were later declared unconstitutional. They never should have been law in the first place, and those punished for violating them should never have been criminals.

After several thorough readings of the Constitution, over the years, I must admit that I have never been able to find in it any authority for our federal immigration laws. Yes, the federal government can repel invasions, and yes, it is responsible for defining the process by which non-citizens are naturalized into citizenship. But what clause in the constitution gives the federal government any power to say to non-invaders "you cannot come in," or "you cannot stay," or "you cannot work"? When this question was first considered by the Supreme Court, they couldn't find such a clause either, but declared that it wasn't necessary: the powers to keep people out and eject them were "inherent powers of nations." That just seems like convenient, arbitrary handwaving to me. This nation was founded on the idea that the government would have only the powers given to it by the constitution and no more. This is why such things as taxation, waging of war, and several other governmental activities that people had long regarded as "inherent powers" of nations were specifically covered in the Constitution. As far as I can see, the Supreme Court pretty much invented the federal immigration power out of whole cloth, and used it to uphold the Chinese Exclusion laws. Thus supported, Congress proceeded over the next several decades to build up a body of immigration law, much of it having nothing to do with the process of becoming a citizen, and most of it pandering to popular xenophobia directed toward various immigrant groups.

Also, as far as I can tell, control of immigration, insofar as such control was exerted, was originally a function of the individual State governments. I'm not sure how the States quit taking responsibility for immigration and the Federal government took over the function. But it does seen as if the federal immigration law, except to the extent necessary to provide for naturalization, if any, is not constitutional, and therefore null and void. Has anyone actually studied the issue and come to a different conclusion? If yes, please explain the relevant facts and reasoning here!

[palmspringsbum]

America in Decline wrote:

Seriously, what kind of scumbag ... would undermine the Santa Cruz tradesmen who has to pay for licensing, taxes, insurance, worker's comp, overhead, etc by trafficking illegal workers into Santa Cruz who have already shown their contempt for US law by working here illegally in the first place. Not only that, they are given a competitive edge by our local politicians, who have given them the right to break every federal, state and local law that regulates labor, immigration, contracting and business.

When will the madness stop? And what is it with us native Santa Cruzans? Are we masochists to keep allowing these faux progressives to frack us over and over again?

That line on River Street was one of the first things I noticed here. I'd never seen anything like it. Not anywhere. Of course, I know slavery when I see it. I am from the deepest, darkest South. But you never say anything remotely like that there. They slept indoors for one thing, not in the dog run next to the pet store.

[palmspringsbum]

never -saw- anything remotely like it...

[disabuser]

I concur with the assessment of David Sweet and the other liberal elites like him. They live off the taxpayers while advocating for importing poverty and, of course in a market system, therefore impose the same upon many legal workers. I watched him angrily pontificate in meetings about the living wage ordinance. "Sweet" is a misnomer. He is a self-righteous ideologue.

Sweet says that there is a "fundamental human right to reliable employment" but everyone know that isn't true, even if you do have a legal right to work. For illegal immigrants, there is no right to employment in this country at all, in fact just the opposite. And the violation of the law in their employment undermines, not the right, but the opportunities of legal workers for employment as well as their ability to extract "decent working conditions and a living wage" in the labor marketplace. But of course these people act like markets don't matter because in fact they didn't with regard to them. These are ideological parasites that push their agendas on the taxpayer's dime and then turn around and bugger them.

[countersTrike]

Main thing is the matter of legality- not the workers; but lawsuits tying up a kind-hearted employee who has ended up paying hundreds of dollars and spending lots of court time. Talk Jocks have been all over this on the radio. some guy got sued for $thousands$ because a worker got injured on his property.

Experience talks volumes! Very bad idea to hire a day worker (green card or not). I would rather spend my millions on $4.50 gas (oil is going back up) or double food costs and feed myself.

[America in Decline]

Why do you spew this idiotic nonsense on every immigration thread?

Has the Supreme Court overturned our immigration laws? No.

Guess what? The Supreme Court has the final say on constitutionality on any law, state or federal, not James Anderson Merritt.

And yes, the Congress has the right to protect our borders from foreign invaders and foreign violence. I kindly suggest you go reread the Constitution, because the clause it there. The Congress also has the right to regulate international commerce and labor comes under the definition of commerce.

James Anderson Merritt wrote:

It is an important principle of US law that any law that is enacted outside of the authority of the constitution is null and void: no law at all. There have been numerous instances of laws that criminalized or penalized certain behaviors, which were later declared unconstitutional. They never should have been law in the first place, and those punished for violating them should never have been criminals.
After several thorough readings of the Constitution, over the years, I must admit that I have never been able to find in it any authority for our federal immigration laws. Yes, the federal government can repel invasions, and yes, it is responsible for defining the process by which non-citizens are naturalized into citizenship. But what clause in the constitution gives the federal government any power to say to non-invaders "you cannot come in," or "you cannot stay," or "you cannot work"? When this question was first considered by the Supreme Court, they couldn't find such a clause either, but declared that it wasn't necessary: the powers to keep people out and eject them were "inherent powers of nations." That just seems like convenient, arbitrary handwaving to me. This nation was founded on the idea that the government would have only the powers given to it by the constitution and no more. This is why such things as taxation, waging of war, and several other governmental activities that people had long regarded as "inherent powers" of nations were specifically covered in the Constitution. As far as I can see, the Supreme Court pretty much invented the federal immigration power out of whole cloth, and used it to uphold the Chinese Exclusion laws. Thus supported, Congress proceeded over the next several decades to build up a body of immigration law, much of it having nothing to do with the process of becoming a citizen, and most of it pandering to popular xenophobia directed toward various immigrant groups.
Also, as far as I can tell, control of immigration, insofar as such control was exerted, was originally a function of the individual State governments. I'm not sure how the States quit taking responsibility for immigration and the Federal government took over the function. But it does seen as if the federal immigration law, except to the extent necessary to provide for naturalization, if any, is not constitutional, and therefore null and void. Has anyone actually studied the issue and come to a different conclusion? If yes, please explain the relevant facts and reasoning here!

[Porfirio Diaz]

Thank you disabuser for your regular commentary.
So, from your perspective as an academic from the field of economics, why is it that Dr. Sweet's intention is to continually undercut the rights of US workers? Is it that he has a larger perspective than our local concerns? We all know that in the bad old days of the COMINTERN guided by the USSR, the intention of intellectuals was to globalize the movement for worker's rights, even at the price of weakening national and local organizations. Is that still at play here with Dr. Sweet?

[disabuser]

Porfirio Diaz wrote:

Thank you disabuser for your regular commentary.
So, from your perspective as an academic from the field of economics, why is it that Dr. Sweet's intention is to continually undercut the rights of US workers? Is it that he has a larger perspective than our local concerns? We all know that in the bad old days of the COMINTERN guided by the USSR, the intention of intellectuals was to globalize the movement for worker's rights, even at the price of weakening national and local organizations. Is that still at play here with Dr. Sweet?

I imagine that Mr. Sweet has socialist leanings. That is quite common among the academic elites. Of course socialism has tendency to become more like club socialism, where those who belong to the club are treated one way and those who aren't bear the costs. You certainly see that here with government employee privilege and there are no more privileged government employees than University of California professors.

The problem is that, for most of us, we are subject to market forces. It does no good to imagine a world where government officials with infinite wisdom distribute economic goods in some just and universally acceptable manner. And those who act like they can choose to ignore realities in favor of the their particular ideological fantasies create much harm. In the case of immigration, we see very strange ideological bedfellows. You have libertarians who support it imagining a world without a huge social welfare system and where development is allowed to fill whatever demand comes from immigration. I see coalitions of the left and right in support of mass immigration where, outside of that, they share almost nothing with respect for their visions of what kind of society we should have. Ideology detached from reality is certainly one of the greatest evils we face. Most people need some kind a moral rationalization for their actions, and ideologies can supply that even as they remain blind to the real world consequences of what they do.

[Bingo]

disabuser wrote:

<quoted text>
I imagine that Mr. Sweet has socialist leanings. That is quite common among the academic elites. Of course socialism has tendency to become more like club socialism, where those who belong to the club are treated one way and those who aren't bear the costs. You certainly see that here with government employee privilege and there are no more privileged government employees than University of California professors.
The problem is that, for most of us, we are subject to market forces. It does no good to imagine a world where government officials with infinite wisdom distribute economic goods in some just and universally acceptable manner. And those who act like they can choose to ignore realities in favor of the their particular ideological fantasies create much harm. In the case of immigration, we see very strange ideological bedfellows. You have libertarians who support it imagining a world without a huge social welfare system and where development is allowed to fill whatever demand comes from immigration. I see coalitions of the left and right in support of mass immigration where, outside of that, they share almost nothing with respect for their visions of what kind of society we should have. Ideology detached from reality is certainly one of the greatest evils we face. Most people need some kind a moral rationalization for their actions, and ideologies can supply that even as they remain blind to the real world consequences of what they do.

Bingo!