My home is protected by neither Lasers nor Alligators

I was surprised at the magnitude of the resistance to the idea of building a fence on the U.S. border with Mexico. It might be that I skew liberal in my writing and therefore the readers and comments skew left as well. Offhand I’d say that about two thirds of commentators viscerally hate the fence, and a third think it should have automated machine guns and an alligator infested moat.

The predominant anti-fence sentiments are that it would be disrespectful to Mexicans, and that it is unfair to put a fence across the south border and not the north.

After much thought, I have come to the conclusion these comments are just plain stupid. I believe that they are classic examples of knee-jerk herd-minded liberalism that is poisonous to honest intellectual discussion. I imagine a similar flavor to the student communist movements of the mid 20^th century in the developed nations.

We need a fence in the south because there is already a fence in the north. It is called Canada. It is a sparsely populated winter wasteland, inhabited by people that are culturally identical and nearly as wealthy as Americans. There is no superior barrier to illegal immigration than lawfulness and economic equality.

But the massive gradient in wealth, education, and healthcare across the Mexican border absolutely ensures that, absent a hard barrier, large scale and uncontrollable illegal migration will occur continuously. Hundreds of millions of people from Central and South America would prefer to be in the U.S., and it is not in the best interests of Americans to accept this flow of new residents at its naturally occurring rate. The only way to slow it is to create a physical barrier, and to help improve the economies of our neighbors to the south. Improvement to a level sufficient to stem the tides will take many decades. We are left with the current need for a fence.

A nation has the right to determine the sources and pace of immigration. There is absolutely nothing xenophobic about this – it is simply anarchistic to suggest a country should not have the right to make and enforce these decisions.

Likewise, it is intellectually dishonest to compare the southern border to the northern. There is a reason that banks install better security than I have in my house. They have more at risk and a higher probability of incursion.

Dennis Miller said, "What is this 'tat', and how can I get some of it to trade?" In that vein, doesn't the phrase "giving someone lip" sound like it should mean something much more fun than it actually does?

Completely unrelated(ly), my wife thought of the best name ever for a warmongering cat: Hungry Hissinger. Nukes: cats ask for them by name!

Enough comedy for now. I was accepted to write for Damn Interesting a couple of weeks ago. Damn cool site - check it out. Anyway, it takes a lot more time to write for them than it does to blog. I'll try to post here and there, but with 2 kids on the way it is going to be slow going. I have to get off my but and stack up some firewood for the winter too. Or I guess I could always just do what I did last winter: cut/split a few wet pieces at a time and use explosives to get them lit every day. BTW, if you are my insurance agent, I'm just kidding. If you anyone else...seriously. Explosives. Also vegetable oil (in a pinch).

Well, it is 5:30AM and I haven't slept yet. Sorry this post is so short and ditzy. I hope it made you laugh a little.