Wednesday, July 13, 2005
Why do we have borders?
What is the true purpose of a border? Is it to keep certain people out? Is it to keep people in? Is it so maps can have distinct lines in order to make certain areas different colors and, therefore, easier to read?
A border defines the physical boundaries of a government's jurisdiction. Within those borders there are certain uniform laws and standards that govern the people and activities. Outside the borders there may be another set of uniform laws and standards that are far different from those within. Borders allow those who think somewhat alike and pledge affinity to each other to co-exist in mutual harmony while setting themselves apart from those who are within a different set of borders.
One primary task and responsibility of our Federal Government is to protect and defend our country's borders from negative outside influences. I think this task had been taken far too lightly. We have a rather unique form of government in this country. We were a true experiment 200+ years ago and this experiment is a work in progress. Methinks the experiment has gone awry.
Opportunities in the USA are a primary reason why so many people come to this country from some other country. Freedom and liberty afford anyone willing to put in the time and effort the chance to make something more out of themselves. Small businesses fuel this economy far more than do the major corporations. Lots of people want the chance to build their ideas into a profitable business and to reap the resulting benefits of good decision making.
Social programs are another reason why many people come to this country. Since the Great Depression era many social programs offering government sponsored assistance have become entrenched in our economy. However good intentioned these social programs were in the beginning, they will inevitably become a haven for laziness and a poor work ethic. Why not get it from the government if it is being offered rather than work hard and suffer to achieve success?
We are a nation of immigrants. This is for certain and is often used as an argument for keeping our borders open and accessible to anyone to live the American Dream. (Of course, anyone who achieves the American Dream of success has to start defending his success to the underachiever crowd crying that the rich get richer while the poor get poorer.)
Anyway, I used to have the belief that our borders should be wide open to anyone as long as they behaved like good citizens and didn't break our laws. I no longer feel this way. There is a process for immigrants to follow to join our country. In this age of global insecurity due to increased terrorism, we cannot afford to have open borders any longer. Open orders assume the best in people, that people will obey our laws and be good citizens. All well and good for most people, but not anywhere near good enough to combat terrorism. And fighting terrorism is job number one for our Federal Government.
I think we have done an extremely lousy job of monitoring and protecting our borders. 10-20 million illegal aliens in our country today? Why have we let this happen? Why do we continue to let this happen? We spend precious time and energy debating a flag-burning amendment, trying to ban gay marriage or keeping a brain-dead woman alive. Why can't we spend time closing and defending our borders or rounding up some of the millions of illegals already here and sending them back home? After all, that IS the Federal Government's job.
It is hard to separate politics from political decisions. This may sound extremely stupid but let me explain. Political decisions are any decision made by our politicians. Politics is the art of someone convincing/deceiving people into thinking that what the people believe/want is exactly what the politician believes/wants even though he/she may have an entirely different agenda. It is walking on a thin line. Politics is a game people play. Political decisions are not a game at all but fall prey to politics all the time.
I say this to explain that politicians cannot be taken at face value. Ever. One needs to know a politician's hidden agenda, and they all have one, in order to judge what they say as opposed to what they mean. Politics keep our borders porous. Kowtowing to Vicente Fox, for instance, is politics. Mexico receives a whole lot of money from the United States. Their economy is horrible to begin with but if the flow of money from illegal aliens in the US to families in Mexico were stopped, their economy would be in far worse shape. Politics keep this money flowing by refusing to make the political decisions necessary to stop illegals from entering in the first place and by not exporting these illegals in the second place.
The term "political correctness" is one of my most hated terms. PC sucks and I refuse to conform to its' rules. Call a spade a spade and realize that terrorism is terrorism, not insurgency. A terrorist is not an insurgent, not a bomber, not a freedom fighter. A terrorist provokes terror and calling it something else does not change that fact. A person who entered this country illegally is an illegal alien, not an undocumented alien. The key word is illegal and illegal has become victim to political correctness, yet this person is still an illegal alien.
Turn your head and ignore the situation. It will go away eventually. As an avid procrastinator, I can relate to this philosophy. But NOT when it comes to protecting our national security. All politicians are aware of the weaknesses we have at our borders but none of them want to suffer the political consequences that may come as a result of dealing with the issue head on. But this is exactly the kind of issue that politicians SHOULD be paying attention to.
Protecting our borders, defending our country and its' interests overseas and providing a court system to settle disputes are the PRIMARY functions of our Federal Government. What can we, as concerned citizens do if our elected representatives are not addressing their primary functions. In the business world, those people would be fired. And while we cannot simply fire them, we can choose not to elect them again. The problem with this approach seems to be that once someone is elected, they tend to remain in office until they choose not to be. People tend to think that all the elected representatives are corrupt and only concerned with their own political success except for the ones that represent me. So they will re-elect their "good" rep and cry for everyone else to not re-elect their "bad" rep, but everyone else is preaching the same mantra, so the situation doesn't change.
This is like the Law of Inertia, a body at rest tends to stay at rest unless acted upon by an outside influence and conversely for a body in motion. So the make-up of Congress is basically governed by the Law of Inertia. This makes it really easy to sidestep any issue that will put their political career in jeopardy. And if everyone sidesteps the issue of border security, border security will continue to be a problem.
So I ask the question again, Why do we have borders? They really don't seem to be of concern to the powers in charge. If the leaders of our government won't address border issues, how can the citizenry do so. Quite rightly this was attempted earlier this year when hundreds of volunteers positioned themselves along the Mexican border and intercepted people trying to enter illegally. And these thoughtful citizens were branded as vigilantes by our own president himself. Government is inert on this issue because politics get in the way.
Yet many people throughout the nation applauded these fine folks' efforts at bringing some semblance of protection where very little exists. If common, ordinary people can take action like this and make a difference, there is no reason why we, as a nation, cannot enforce the existing laws on immigration and restore our border security to actually secure our borders. We should demand this from our politicians. Politics be damned!
OH
A border defines the physical boundaries of a government's jurisdiction. Within those borders there are certain uniform laws and standards that govern the people and activities. Outside the borders there may be another set of uniform laws and standards that are far different from those within. Borders allow those who think somewhat alike and pledge affinity to each other to co-exist in mutual harmony while setting themselves apart from those who are within a different set of borders.
One primary task and responsibility of our Federal Government is to protect and defend our country's borders from negative outside influences. I think this task had been taken far too lightly. We have a rather unique form of government in this country. We were a true experiment 200+ years ago and this experiment is a work in progress. Methinks the experiment has gone awry.
Opportunities in the USA are a primary reason why so many people come to this country from some other country. Freedom and liberty afford anyone willing to put in the time and effort the chance to make something more out of themselves. Small businesses fuel this economy far more than do the major corporations. Lots of people want the chance to build their ideas into a profitable business and to reap the resulting benefits of good decision making.
Social programs are another reason why many people come to this country. Since the Great Depression era many social programs offering government sponsored assistance have become entrenched in our economy. However good intentioned these social programs were in the beginning, they will inevitably become a haven for laziness and a poor work ethic. Why not get it from the government if it is being offered rather than work hard and suffer to achieve success?
We are a nation of immigrants. This is for certain and is often used as an argument for keeping our borders open and accessible to anyone to live the American Dream. (Of course, anyone who achieves the American Dream of success has to start defending his success to the underachiever crowd crying that the rich get richer while the poor get poorer.)
Anyway, I used to have the belief that our borders should be wide open to anyone as long as they behaved like good citizens and didn't break our laws. I no longer feel this way. There is a process for immigrants to follow to join our country. In this age of global insecurity due to increased terrorism, we cannot afford to have open borders any longer. Open orders assume the best in people, that people will obey our laws and be good citizens. All well and good for most people, but not anywhere near good enough to combat terrorism. And fighting terrorism is job number one for our Federal Government.
I think we have done an extremely lousy job of monitoring and protecting our borders. 10-20 million illegal aliens in our country today? Why have we let this happen? Why do we continue to let this happen? We spend precious time and energy debating a flag-burning amendment, trying to ban gay marriage or keeping a brain-dead woman alive. Why can't we spend time closing and defending our borders or rounding up some of the millions of illegals already here and sending them back home? After all, that IS the Federal Government's job.
It is hard to separate politics from political decisions. This may sound extremely stupid but let me explain. Political decisions are any decision made by our politicians. Politics is the art of someone convincing/deceiving people into thinking that what the people believe/want is exactly what the politician believes/wants even though he/she may have an entirely different agenda. It is walking on a thin line. Politics is a game people play. Political decisions are not a game at all but fall prey to politics all the time.
I say this to explain that politicians cannot be taken at face value. Ever. One needs to know a politician's hidden agenda, and they all have one, in order to judge what they say as opposed to what they mean. Politics keep our borders porous. Kowtowing to Vicente Fox, for instance, is politics. Mexico receives a whole lot of money from the United States. Their economy is horrible to begin with but if the flow of money from illegal aliens in the US to families in Mexico were stopped, their economy would be in far worse shape. Politics keep this money flowing by refusing to make the political decisions necessary to stop illegals from entering in the first place and by not exporting these illegals in the second place.
The term "political correctness" is one of my most hated terms. PC sucks and I refuse to conform to its' rules. Call a spade a spade and realize that terrorism is terrorism, not insurgency. A terrorist is not an insurgent, not a bomber, not a freedom fighter. A terrorist provokes terror and calling it something else does not change that fact. A person who entered this country illegally is an illegal alien, not an undocumented alien. The key word is illegal and illegal has become victim to political correctness, yet this person is still an illegal alien.
Turn your head and ignore the situation. It will go away eventually. As an avid procrastinator, I can relate to this philosophy. But NOT when it comes to protecting our national security. All politicians are aware of the weaknesses we have at our borders but none of them want to suffer the political consequences that may come as a result of dealing with the issue head on. But this is exactly the kind of issue that politicians SHOULD be paying attention to.
Protecting our borders, defending our country and its' interests overseas and providing a court system to settle disputes are the PRIMARY functions of our Federal Government. What can we, as concerned citizens do if our elected representatives are not addressing their primary functions. In the business world, those people would be fired. And while we cannot simply fire them, we can choose not to elect them again. The problem with this approach seems to be that once someone is elected, they tend to remain in office until they choose not to be. People tend to think that all the elected representatives are corrupt and only concerned with their own political success except for the ones that represent me. So they will re-elect their "good" rep and cry for everyone else to not re-elect their "bad" rep, but everyone else is preaching the same mantra, so the situation doesn't change.
This is like the Law of Inertia, a body at rest tends to stay at rest unless acted upon by an outside influence and conversely for a body in motion. So the make-up of Congress is basically governed by the Law of Inertia. This makes it really easy to sidestep any issue that will put their political career in jeopardy. And if everyone sidesteps the issue of border security, border security will continue to be a problem.
So I ask the question again, Why do we have borders? They really don't seem to be of concern to the powers in charge. If the leaders of our government won't address border issues, how can the citizenry do so. Quite rightly this was attempted earlier this year when hundreds of volunteers positioned themselves along the Mexican border and intercepted people trying to enter illegally. And these thoughtful citizens were branded as vigilantes by our own president himself. Government is inert on this issue because politics get in the way.
Yet many people throughout the nation applauded these fine folks' efforts at bringing some semblance of protection where very little exists. If common, ordinary people can take action like this and make a difference, there is no reason why we, as a nation, cannot enforce the existing laws on immigration and restore our border security to actually secure our borders. We should demand this from our politicians. Politics be damned!
OH
# posted by OH @ 6:39 AM 
