By the North Gate (Immigration & NoPo II)

Charles Krauthammer, as always predictibly an echo chamber for the Neolithic Right, weighs in on the immigration issue here (I hate to link to this goober, but since I'm quoting him I suppose I have to.)

Also typically, his answer to the terrifying invasion of the Little Brown Meskins is to throw up a wall and, presumably, mine, shoot and/or harpoon those who will insist on trespassing.

His money quote re: all this contravallation? "The Chinese had success with it, as did Hadrian. In our time, the barrier Israel has built has been so effective in keeping out intruders that suicide attacks are down over 90 percent."

Well, I hate to use artillery to flatten one weasel-like conservative columnist, but let's stop and think about this for a moment:

These societies were or are AT WAR with their enemies on the other side of the wall. Their choice was simple: keep the enemy out or fight them constantly. Is this what Krauthammer is saying? That we're at war with the Terrorist Beaners? That it's win or die, the barbarians pour in over the wall and we're all burning alive in the rubble of our villas, without even our lawns mowed, babies diapered and food processed? Heavens!

Or is this just the typical vaporing of a conservative idiot, whose knowledge of history is as self-serving as his political orientation?

Ya think?

I note with some grim humor that the Hammer of the Krauts doesn't add to his list this wall, equally useful in controlling movement across an international border.

Perhaps because he doesn't want to remind us that governments who build walls between peoples often find themselves building walls and barriers against their own people. Or that even the most fearsome barrier can and will be overcome if the people trying to cross it are desperate and brave enough.

The real issue - the one Which Dare Not Speak Its Name - is that the institutional poverty, misgovernance and social maladjustment of most Latin American countries is so profound and so destructive that to address it would take every penny that the U.S. has spent on poorly planned foreign adventures and more. Much more.

So instead we get this idiotic argument that all we need to do is fence these little heatherns out and everything wil be Good. God will once again be White and in His Heaven, the food will magically get harvested, processed, cooked and served by Real Amurikans (actual Citizens) who will suddenly, magically, want to work for the pittance we want to pay for these jobs to prevent our food, clothing and service costs from reflecting what it would cost to pay humans actually living wages to do these things.

As Hadrian himself might have said: Nam tua res agitur, paries cum proximus ardet.

It is your business when your neighbour's house is on fire.