Industries don't actually pick sides anymore.

They give money to everybody.

For example... Rupert Murdoch.

Conservative leader of Fox News.

Except.... his last big fundraising events have been for Hilary Clinton and Barak Obama.  (Unless he had a big one this election cycle.)

People made a big deal because Newscorp gave big to republicans this year....even though overall they've given more to democrats in general.

Basically what they do to get around this is they have the company donate to republicans, but then all the CEO's and big wigs donate a similar amount to democrats.

For example, BP gave more money to Democrats to Republicans.

Why play a side when you could play them both?

I'm against immigration unless the potential immigrant is very valuable to society.

If I was in charge of the immigration office for Canada I would make the the potential immigrant:

- Speaks English (or french if he's going to Quebec, but for all other provinces must be English)

- Has a college/university education

- Has enough money to put a down payment on a house and live off of for at least a few months (so he doesn't have the audacity to ask for government assistance right after moving here)

- Isn't eligible for free health care until at least 1 full year of living here and paying taxes

- Isn't eligible for any kind of government assistance for at least 3 full years of living here and paying taxes

- Doesn't have any kind of diseases/conditions/problems that are contagious in any way or expensive to treat

- Doesn't have a criminal record (goes without saying)

What I dont get is where are all the Americans that want to get down and dirty and pick fucking strawberries for minimum wage with no benifits. They dont exist. Illegal immigrants allow cheapskate companies to hire people for less than minimum wage to be over worked.....and they do work their asses off because they are trying to feed their families. Companies will continue to do so unless severe penalties are brough up against businesses that hire them. Sure they should be deported but the fault lies in the employers. This is just the my view as a liberal.

As for Conservatives personally I think its more Republicans that pander with the anti immigration issue. They are not one in the same. Republicans pander to the Bible Belt/south or whatever you call it. Racism is big(er than the north) down there so they are playing up to that crowd(not that they are racist, but they dont mind the votes). Conservatives, for the ones I talk to feel the way I do for the most part, but feel border security is more important than anything. I feel it is important, but an implausable idea to have closed borders withoul going full blown military on them. The last thing we need is more money spent on more millitary.

No they exist.

The problem is people don't get paid minium wage for picking strawberries.

Minimium wage laws don't count for agriculture.  You get paid like 2 dollars an hour picking strawberries.

The problem is Americans don't want to work for less then minimium wage, at a job where there is no fucking reason they should be paid less then minimium wage.  

Besides that there are a LOT of jobs illegal aliens do americans would do.   Construction makes GREAT use of illegal aliens like that.  Plumbing, whatever... why pay a  plumber 20 bucks an hour when you can pay him 7?

They work fast food, retail, hell a lot of them are electrical engineers and shit.(the kinds that fix stuff not develop stuff)   They work for small companies, do the work... pay them half what you'd pay a legal engineer, sign off on the work as if you did it or pay another worker to sign off on it... and bam.  HUGE profit.

Heck, construction companies often don't pay half their legal employees over the table so they can stay below the required employee numbers to get special "small buisness" bonuses.

As for racism, you'd be surprsied.  If you actually read anything on racism... the most racist place in the country is actually in the NE.  Or more specifically cities.

The south is just though of as more racist due to the civil war, and the Klan.

Truth is though, fewer things cause more racism then your oldschool defacto segregated cities.  Where white people live in their nice houses with a bunch of other people towards the outside of the city, and drive in town to their jobs.

Occasionally driving past the "bad neighberhoods" that are always full of black people or hispanics.  And the neighberhoods they grew up in are now all "bad neighberhoods..." full of those same people with hardly any white  people anymore.

Lots of people start worrying and moving once a few black people move into their neighborhood because they think the property value will go down and crime will go up.  (Even though property value ALREADY is going down, and black people moving in is instead just a matter of the neighberhood not worth either Racism or the prices just being cheaper.)

@Kasz. To the best of my knowledge the most racist part of America is rural deep south. Places like rural Mississippi, places where they still have segregated proms.

Mississippi?  Thought that only happened in georgia... either way... they're VERY isolated incidents.

When you are actually talking about measuring things like hiring discrepensy and who gets called back for job interviews and the like...

it's always the north.

Like when you do the "send in resume's and do interviews randomly with black names and people."

I'd bring up the journal articles but I don't have accesses to sociological journals anymore since i'm out of college.

Or bring up minority unemployment rates, but i swear to god, they hide them for some dumbass political reason where they don't want some states to get called out vs other states.

I've checked like 3 government websites and none of them seemed to track state by state minority unemployment.  Or it just might be I can't find it because the website layouts have all the charm of a 6th graders website on geocities.

Closest I could find is that Minnesota has the second highest level of dispairty of unemployment between white and black people and white and latino people.

With Wisconsin being higher for White and Black, and Rhode Island higher then white and Latino.

Which, doesn't tell me much.  Minesota I believe leans liberal.   Rhode Island is liberal.   RI is in the NE, the other two are in the central area.

Doesn't really tell me much though... I mean, their minorities levels are probably so low it's outlier territory.

Racism exists everywhere. It's not just one place or another. However, I've noticed that the most minority racism occurs in suburban areas, whereas the opposite happens in city areas. It really depends on what the population looks like. Blacks are just as racist against whites as white are to blacks. Substitute any race with any other mentioned previously.

My concern though is that whites tend to have more power than any other minority, and what we do with it is allow things like agriculture to exploit minorities/others. 

My parents are conservatives. It has nothing to do with the law, but rather the lack of forerunning thought. By definition a conservative is someone who likes to keep the status quo and established ideas. Even a liberal can care for the law and I can barely stand them. He's actually correct though in the fact that the laws are being broken by people who aren't law makers and are lobbying for their will to be done. This is pretty much common knowledge to anyone around the world today who has a computer, a somewhat stable government and television.

There you go. Despite how much moralizing one wants to do about people breaking the rules, it comes back to people afraid for their very livelihood.  When the economic times are real good, and people work and feel secure, there is less concerns with immigrants coming in.  When the bottom falls out, you see what is described in that film happening.  People feel their lives are at stake.  This threat, on the conservative side, can be beyond the material here and now.  The belief is foreignors come in, bring different values that can undermine and destroy the social fabric of a country, and thus threaten the ability to make a living.  Again, the heart of the real reason for hating illegal immigrants.

The issue of illegal aliens has to do with jobs at the below minimum wage standards.  if this is disagreed, name what white collar employer was replaced with an illegal alien.  My job at IBM wasn't replaced by an illegal alien that doesn't speak English.  The job was sent to India or done with a foreignor who is on a work visa here, because apparently IBM has problems finding workers.  Again, the illegal alien is only a threat to jobs at the bottom, or the safety net I believe conservatives think will be there for them, if everything else fails.