Peggy Noonan writes on the problem of illegal immigration: "We don't really have to solve the problem forever. We just have to solve it now." Her argument is that we have been swamped with a wave of immigration, legal and illegal, and we simply need to absorb that wave before allowing still more. As she puts it, build a wall, but leave a door in it that can be opened later. Good advice, I think.
You know the facts. Immigrants are here in huge numbers, unlawfully, in the age of terror. They swell the cost of local life–emergency rooms, schools–which has an impact on local taxes. There are towns and cities that feel, and are, overwhelmed. And no one will help them.
The essential reason, I think, is that America's elites don't want America's borders closed. Businesses want low-wage workers; intellectuals are wed to global visions of cross-border prosperity; politicians want Hispanic loyalty and the Hispanic vote. It's not convenient for any of them to close the borders. If Americans on the ground are enduring difficulties over this, it's . . . too bad. This is further eroding America's already eroding faith in its institutions.
I think there are two unremarked elements of the debate that are now contributing to the government's inability or refusal to come up with a solution.
The problem is not partisanship. It is not polarization, not really. Sentiments on this of all issues in the nation of immigrants are and would be complicated, nuanced. The problem is doctrinaire-ness. Even as both parties have become less philosophical, less tied to their animating philosophies, they have become more doctrinaire. The people who should be solving the immigration problem are holding fiercely to abstractions–to big-think economic theory, to emanations of penumbras in the law–instead of facing a crucial, concrete and immediate challenge.
The second element is definitiveness. Our political figures say they have to concentrate on an overall, long-term, comprehensive answer to the immigration problem. So they huff and puff about the long-term implications of this move or that, and in the end they do nothing.
They are like people in a burning house who sit around discussing the long-term efficacy of various kinds of water hoses while the house burns down around them.
Do take a moment and read the whole thing. Noonan opens with a great anecdote about Abraham Lincoln. That alone makes clicking the link worthwhile. But her advice is sound, too. We need time to digest and time for those who have come here to learn to be American. I have said all along, build the wall and many things become very solvable.
But build the wall and control the border first.
Nothing will happen about illegal immigration, sorry to say. I expect it to disappear as an issue in the public discourse.
I prefer the armed wall concept, with thoroughly modern boder passage points for inspection of everything, and the rest of the border featuring a military reserve between the border and the armed wall area. Throw in lots of sensors, a CIWS hardpoint every few clicks, and the reservation as a ‘free fire and weapons testing range’. Nice, deep pilings along with that, and geophone system for subsurface detection. Throw in a bit more at river crossing points and automated pumps for those farmers needing same.
Fences make good neighbors. Armed walls make for respectful ones. Get the border patrol to the checkpoints and hand the wall over to NORTHCOM. Take in the $5B range if done with private help or lots more if done on an ‘All-Federal’ basis. Cost of the superstructure of an aircraft carrier, sans everything, just the hull and fittings is: $5B. Can’t say a good, armed wall system with secured doors is a bad thing, really.
If we are serious about National Sovereignty…
Noonan was a speechwriter for both Reagan and Bush I.
I never know how to respond to articles by sophisticated and knowledgeable writers that are so naive I have to spend more time wondering if they are lying or foolish, than actually critiquing
the contents of the article.
This is a case in point.
She states the reason why the politicos want open borders: control of the votes.
She states the reason why their corporate masters want open borders: cheap labor. Then she says the problem is doctrinaire-ness.
No, the problem is that the voting pubic is incapable of voting for politicians who will vote for the public good instead of their corporate masters’ welfare.
The “doctrinaire-ness” is just a smokescreen put up to keep people distracted, in case sports scores and celebrity marriages don’t work.
The problem is that the electoral system is broken, and we have to fix it.
I’m not sure if the voting public knows where its interests lie, and are capable of discerning which politicians will serve it. If so, that would indicate that the balloting process is flawed.
It might be that the voting public still really does believe what it is told in the corporate media, and still relies to an unGodly degree upon authority figures for its vision of the world and our society, and the voting public is incapable of understanding where its interests lie, and who is serving them. It’s probably a little of both.
As the public gets more sophisticated, and finds other sources of information, the voting booths have to become even more corrupt.
I never understand people who go on at great length bemoaning the lack of common sense in our politicians, like the politicians are trying to help us, but are just incompetent.
I’ll believe the Bungling Fools theory of government when I see rich people go into office, and come out broke, and their friends, as well.
As it is, they go into office kinda-somewhat rich, and they and their friends make out like bandits, and end their term in office very rich, indeed.
These are not fools. These are not people incapable of effective action, lacking purpose, direction, or common sense. When serving their own interests, they seem to do OK.
These are the foxes in the hen house, and I get upset every time I read an article by someone who pretends she doesn’t know that.
Nice elitist view of the world, there. All those poor ignorant voters.