aslightlycrankygeek says:

Nazis – just doing the jobs the federal government won’t do.

Somebody says:

# 59 SimonSezz said:

“Calling that socialism would be equal to calling a neighborhood block party socialist.”

There were two ideas in my post. The first being that Obama-lovers as well as Obama-haters were inconsistent in regard to their feelings about socialism in general and national socialism in particular.

The brown-shirt / vigilante issue is a separate item. My point there being that socialists of all stripes tend to have an affinity for brown-shirts.

I was not conflating the two.

You can be a vigilante or member of a lynch mob without being a socialist.

Whether the converse is true, who knows? There are no historical precedents.

Joseph Ravenstine says:

#64 Government does not focus on illegal employment because there are a number of industries than could not survive in a global market without exploiting the gray market for labor. It is not only cheaper to employ an illegal because you pay them less, it is cheaper to employ an illegal because as an illegal worker you don’t document, you don’t insure (or more importantly you do not pay claims,) if you are going to document someone you pay then at double rates for 30 hours while you have them work 60, if you withhold taxes you do not report it you instead pocket it.
The last point always drives me a little nuts; advocates often say that illegal workers pay into the Social Security system yet receive no benefits; a supposed win for the SS system. This is often not true. In order to collect and pay SS you have to have SS numbers for the employees. As an employer I have experienced the system; it does not take long to get a letter that says a SS number is bad or to have the government use you as a debt collector when you are ordered under penalty to withhold an employees income. If you have hundreds of employees with bad numbers your business would be pretty easy to spot if anyone cared.
As long as the focus of public policy is to suppress wages and lower the threshold to consumerism while not relenting on government influence and control, the powers that be must continue to support a gray market economy. People in influential positions prefer the current state as is makes every business a back door friend or a front door foe. Why would they give up this relationship without fighting to keep it to the bitter end?