BSODmyself

I’ve been a bit perplexed lately by all the news coverage about immigration protests. It’s one of those issues that kind of runs together in my mind — guest worker programs, more border patrols, fast tracks to American citizenship, building really big walls and fences to keep illegals out, yo quiero Taco Bell. But here’s what I’ve gotten out of it so far.

First and foremost, you have to state exactly what you’re talking about. Stop using euphemistic terms. You’re talking about Mexicans wandering into and being in the United States without permission. You’re not talking about Canadians. There’s not a whole hell of a lot of coverage about tons of Irish people just showing up and deciding to stay.

Secondly, you need to look at this illegal exodus from Mexico in terms of security. Now I’m not a shill for the concept of Fatherland and Motherland Security, but you really do have to consider this. I’ve heard estimates that there are approximately eleven million illegals in the United States currently. That’s a sub-population, who if they were a US state, would be Ohio. And they are walking down the streets in major urban areas waving the flag of a foreign land. This is a terrible marketing idea that will discourage current citizens from welcoming illegal immigrants with open arms. This is particularly true in a day-and-age where the government has jacked up the typical citizen to believe that terrorists from other countries are lurking around every corner with an intent to kill them.

A third way of looking at this issue is economically. A commonly-cited justification for illegal immigration has been that there are jobs in the United States that are simply beneath the current American citizen. Now I’m not sure what propaganda office in Mexico City (or Washington, DC) is spouting this nonsense, but if I needed to support my family and didn’t have a job, I would snake toilets at the National Diarrhea Convention to feed and clothe them. Not that I know how to snake a toilet, but I’m sure I could be trained and pick it up fairly quickly. Would I enjoy it? Probably not, but I contend that there is no job that Americans wouldn’t take if their family’s lives depended on it.

If Mexico is such a bad place and people are clamoring to leave in droves, why doesn’t the United States simply declare war on Mexico? I’m sure some conservative genius in the White House could point out that eleven million illegals would constitute a substantial invading force or even a highly organized network of terrorist cells. The Mexican government’s complicity in encouraging its citizens to cross the border could be debated on the floor of the United Nations. The White House could even mobilize its Televangelist Special Forces Teams to take the “Just War” message to the masses watching Fox News. Hmmm… Something about that seems kind of familiar, but I digress.

The result would be this: The Mexican army would surrender. They would say, “Take us prisoner, and haul our asses to the United States.” While Vicente Fox would protest and resist, he’d just be protecting his job security like all bureaucrats do. Hell, he might even go for the idea of becoming an American, traveling to California and landing the lead role in the next Zorro remake. Mexico could be made a territory or a colony, all-the-while going through the process of becoming the fifty-first state.

I wouldn’t call declaring war on Mexico a libertarian solution. No, it is far from it. It’s an idea that I would suspect only authoritarian wackjobs would seriously hold. But then again, there’s a lot of authoritarian wackjobs at work in the US government today. Personally, I believe that peaceful and productive people should be allowed to cross borders and become citizens of whatever country they choose. The big question in my mind still is how to determine who’s peaceful and productive and who’s not. Declaring war may be an easy solution for some, but it would be far more advantageous to attack the problem of Mexico’s economy than to attack the people of Mexico who are just trying to make a buck.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 2nd, 2006 at 3:25 pm and is filed under Politics.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.