Huckabee: Immigrants are Taking Jobs Away from Aborted Fetuses

Last week David Brooks called Mike Huckabee "the most normal person running for president."

Just two days later, Brooks' go-to guy, speaking before a Christian conservative group, espoused his pet view that the immigration issue should be linked directly to the abortion issue:

Sometimes we talk about why we're importing so many people in our workforce. It might be for the last 35 years, we have aborted more than a million people who would have been in our workforce had we not had the holocaust of liberalized abortion under a flawed Supreme Court ruling in 1973.

That's right: Huckabee's twisted logic says that immigrant workers are filling a labor shortage caused, in large measure, by abortion. Huckabee didn't fill in all of the details at this recent conference, but others on the lunatic right-wing fringe--Tom Delay and Charles Colson among them--have elaborated this crackpot economic theory at greater length.

These GOP loons contend quite explicitly that the post-1973 generation of aborted fetuses--had their mothers been forced to carry them to term--would now be filling the low-end service jobs that most citizens refuse to take. The argument turns on the insidious assumption that abortions hail mainly from low-income sectors. And hence Huckabee and his ilk are insinuating that a life of economic hardship is better than no life at all. Further, lives of lawful destitution are better than lives of illegal destitution. Such "workforce" lives are morally fungible, thus permitting a direct trade-off calculation between actual versus aborted workers (even though the estimates of U.S. abortions since 1973 range wildly in these right-wing circles from one million to 47 million).

Now Huckabee is going public with this whispered immigrant-fetus linkage because he clearly thinks it makes for good right-wing politics: Killing two scapegoats with one stone.

Where to start to parse out the idiocy?

We have all sorts of labor shortages, depending on the wage proposed. Many immigrants fill highly skilled positions. Does Huckabee think that Roe v. Wade is responsible for our relative shortage of technically trained computer programmers? Does he really think that many of these jobs are being outsourced to India and China because those countries have had fewer abortions?

CEOs are making obscenely high salaries, supposedly because the demand for qualified people far outstrips the supply. Does Economics 101 Huckabee-style say that a reduction in abortions will eventually bring down CEO pay scales? Or does the crackpot theory operate only on the low-end of the wage scale?

Immigrants have been filling shortfalls in U.S. military recruitment. Isn't Huckabee diminishing their patriotism and national service by suggesting that those positions would have been better filled by native-born yet never-borne Americans? (As Rumsfeld said, you go to war with the army you have, not with the army you wish we had, had we not aborted them, as unknown unknowns--or something like that.)

For that matter, U.S. deaths in Iraq deplete the numbers in our domestic workforce. So do HIV deaths. So do deaths caused by killer bees. Why stop at abortions when you're tallying the imaginary numbers of displaced workers owing to potentially preventable deaths?

For that matter, how can Huckabee be so sure that a good number of immigrant workers aren't here precisely because of abortion forbearance in their home countries? Would he require that favored immigrants document their status as abortion-averted persons?

For that matter, his utilitarian argument against abortion is a double-edged sword: By parity of reason, in times of foreseeable labor surpluses in certain sectors, selectively advocating abortion would make for strategic national economic policy. Just as the Federal Reserve monitors monetary supply, shouldn't Ben Bernanke also be forecasting the optimal number of abortions given future workforce needs?

Then again, maybe Huckabee is merely being self-deprecating: He's trying to give us an explanation for why there's such a dearth of respectable candidates for the presidency.

Anyway, you get my point: We have another mainstream GOP candidate spewing utterly whacked-out nonsense. And mainstream media pundits such as David Brooks are trying to normalize such fatuity.

Comments

[jgmurphy]

This guy thinks there's a "labor shortage" in this country? Is he nuts???

No, Mikey: Immigrant labor is not here to address a "shortage." Immigrant labor is here because exploitative employers refuse to pay native born Americans a living wage for their labor and thereby have turned to folks desperate enough to work for the below-poverty pittance they will offer.

Someone should smack him down on this "labor shortage" nonsense---but quick.

[desertdweller]

Huck should read "Freakanomics." Granted, there would be a substantial number of potential worker bees among the abortees. But there would also be a substantial criminal element. Serial killers, child rapists, arsonists, white collar criminals, corrupt politicians, republicans (sorry, I know that's redundant).

[mellene]

I would think since the right wing evangelicals are opposed to almost all social programs, then why shouldn't they support abortion since the goverment no doubt will have to pay for them if they live long enough to grow up. Wouldn't this save the goverment an incredible amount of money which we'll need as we're broke?

[felinetta]

Huckabee thinks the earth is 6000 years old. Oh yeah, great candidate. I also think he's not the great guy everyone thinks he is.

[transendentilist]

I started posting about this two days ago. I was outraged that a public official could make such a bizzare, and hurtful claim.
He subtly infered that these mothers of the aborted fetuses were on the same par as Adolf Hitler and the Nazi's "Final Solution." This is despicable on so many levels, I don't have the space here to mention it all.
How in hell did these rightwing nut bags ever get into public service in the first place.
Huckabee is against abortion, evolution, gays and gay marriage. He is for the DEATH penalty, he supports bush's war crimes, he wants creationism to be taught in our public schools, and he is pro NRA. These people are destroying America from within.
Who needs al Qaida, with religious terrorists born and raised within our midst?

[Lelu]

Not enough brave people in the media are willing to call these people out and there's a very incestuous relationship between the corporations that control everything and the media and the nutty right-wing. The root cause is of course greed and they're just selling America's values down the toilet.

[cw9580]

I would love to hear what the gurus of Freakonomics - Steve and Steve - Levitt and Dubner have to say about Huckabee's theory. Apart from clinging to the "God delusion" he does speak intelligently - more so than the wingnuts leading the Republican pack.

Message for the Dems: don't screw this one up. Rudy, Mitt and McLean would finish America as we knew it, off.

[Overd0g]

Yes, he's got a stupid argument. They actual fill a void caused by minimum wage laws. Minimum wage laws make illegal any job that cannot produce less than it's value. Business needs illegals, because American's can't work for less than the minimum, and Dems need them because they know that the jobs they have illegalized are necessary. IOW, to maintain the illusion that government can dictate wages, a supply of labor that doesn't comply is needed lest the businesses collapse.

[DemandTruth]

Hey, we're all about the "free market", right?

In my opinion, if a business can't find a way to run itself efficiently and responsibly, paying workers a decent, living wage while also making profits, that business shouldn't be in business, and good riddance. Simple as that. Same with safety. If businesses can't find a way to make safe products, they have no business being in business. Simple as that.

If the CEO of a company has to make only a 10 million dollar annual bonus instead of a 50 million dollar annual bonus so his business can provide a living wage and health benefits for his workers, so be it. You won't see me crying any tears over his lost 40 million dollars when he's got 10 million to spare, just for "working" at his 8 martini lunches and golfing junkets.

[CyrusBeaucephus]

yup its whacked out BS, and after 7 years of Bush it sounds reasonable to many people. I thought Reagan was bad, but compared to Bush he was nothing. I want my America back

[rabun666]

Huckabee thinks the planet is 6,000 years old, so what he says about aborted fetuses being unemployed, well consider the source.

[Chubbster]

Distilled to the essence.

[JHD]

Appealing to the folks whose thinking is based on faith rather than logic will get you elected in this country. There are lots of them and they get out and vote. Huckabee probably noted that this kind of rhetoric got Bush elected twice. Bush may be unpopular because of his war but that doesn't mean that Carl Rove's strategies aren't still valid today. I wouldn't be surprised if Rove himself didn't come up with this piece of work.

[Pacific231]

You can lead Mike Huckabee (or any other rabidly xenophobic Jesus freak) to the facts, but you can't make him think.

[MaciasJ]

You can, however, make a camel think.

[thesimulacra]

So in other words, Huckabee is arguing that illegal immigrants are taking jobs that no Americans will do? So how is this a problem then? Oh shit, I resorted to logic again. My bad!

[rst2536]

When Huckabee claims immigration
Is filling the abortion gap,
He’s preaching to the congregation
That wants an immigration cap.
But if a fetus by abortion
Is liable for the disproportion,
Then why smear immigrants with shame
When fetuses should bear the blame?
If fetuses were not aborted,
That doesn’t mean when come of age
They’d gladly work for any wage
No matter how low down and sordid.
But give illegals that to earn
And fetuses won’t come to term.

[flatus]

The reason for the large number of illegal immigrants is that we still have companies in this country that can't go offshore.
The solutuion is to bring cheap labor in.

We could probably overcome this if we once again allowed children a position in the workplace.

[MaciasJ]

Exactly!! Right on.

Due to the recent threat of immigration crackdown, some farmers are already moving their farming operations into Mexico. (Where, they state the workers have less of a work ethic).

I apologize for not posting a link, this was an article I read.... like 2 months ago?

[Trittydi]

This is a perfect example of just how insane these people are.
*

[iswearington]

huckabee and the other flat-earthers and right-to-lifers-have yet another obstacle to overcome in their deranged reasoning.even they they may keep fetuses from being aborted..they still have to find a way to get these fetuses pass being tried as adults as they approach puberty and facing the death penalty they so heartily indorse.