Governments and citizens are used to thinking of a border as a real, physical place: a fence, a shoreline, a desert or a mountain pass. But while geography still matters, today's borders are being redefined and redrawn in unexpected ways . They are fluid, constantly remade by technology, new laws and institutions, and the realities of international commerce -- illicit as well as legitimate. They are also increasingly intangible, living in a virtual and electronic space.
So illicit commerce of people and goods now determines where our borders lie? Claiming borders do not "matter" much anymore doesn't make it so, but by enforcing our physical borders we can at least gain some control of the movement of commerce, technology and people. All it takes is a fence and men to guard it - see, Moises, it isn't that hard after all!
Moises presses his case by comparing the United States to North Korea:
If a paranoid police state such as North Korea is incapable of controlling its borders and deterring illicit trade, there seems to be little hope for open, democratic and technologically advanced nations seeking to uphold their sovereign borders.
Er...maybe because with all of North Korea's hostility, they are still realistically at least a quarter century behind us in technology, and have no hope of controlling their border due to a lack of resources. Now South Korea has plenty of technology, as well as food, jobs, and freedoms most North Koreans would jump for in a heartbeat. But it is because that border is so heavily guarded that these people don't just slip in, like Mexicans do into America.
Sorry Moises, nice try, but your "borders without borders" arguement is a stoner study hall conversation, and nothing more.
Next, Richard Rodriguez tells us to not even bother trying to stop the influx of illegal immigrants, since we are all about to be one country in fairly short order:
I think historians will come to recognize the illegal immigrant as the great prophetic figure within the Americas.
The extent of the Mexicanization of U.S. culture renders any notion of a fortified border irrelevant.
But a recent poll taken twice (over several months) by the Pew Hispanic Center found that more than 40 percent of Mexicans would emigrate to the United States if given the opportunity. Twenty percent would be willing to emigrate illegally.
A nation that cannot feed its young with dreams but cuts its milk with memory and sand is going to starve the future; it is going to die. The only place where people will continue to hold on to Mexico will be in the United States.
So, let me see if I get this straight - because Mexico is a failed nation-state, America should just open its gates to all its inhabitants and abandon our culture, and submit to being Mexicanized - after all, it has been prophisized!
Hmm...if a family's home is falling apart, and they have no desire to fix it, should they be allowed to simply move into their neighbor's house, without permission, and live there? Of course, Spanish would now need to be spoken in their new home and Mexican cusine would now become mandatory. And for the law-abiding family that has worked hard, payed taxes, and obeyed the law? Sorry, folks! It's destiny, according to Rodriguez...
Note how so many of the people making the above arguement are hostile to American culture, or are "multiculturalists". See, when all cultures are created equal, than there is no reason why we shouldn't submit to the language and value system of another! Comprende?
Seems like Mexico's President Vincente Fox believes it too:
1 comment:
would it hurt the WAPOST to put even one columnist on who may disgree with the coffee Klatch in the editorial boardroom, you know, just so they don't appear...biased?
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