Common Sense

This is almost the best metaphor anyone could hope for to help describe The Minutemen, the gun-toting kooks on the border who just can’t stand illegal immigrants. From Anderson Cooper:

If you have been following the border debate, you no doubt know about the Minutemen. They are volunteers who patrol the border, hoping to deter and detect illegal immigrants. They don’t try to apprehend border crossers themselves; they watch them cross and call the Border Patrol. Their critics call them vigilantes. They respond by saying they are vigilant.

I didn’t really know what to expect when I went to meet the Minutemen. At 8 a.m. Saturday, about a hundred volunteers gathered in a trailer park near the border. They set out in a convoy of trucks and SUVs to a remote section of the border where they began to build a barbed-wire fence.

There is a fence along parts of the border, but it stops from time to time. So the Minutemen began drilling holes for posts and stringing barbed wire. They didn’t know if they would be stopped by the Border Patrol, but the atmosphere was festive.

They are building a barb-wire fence… but it is only 1/4 mile long. That frames the flaw in their thinking beautifully.

A fence can be an imposing monument to how we don’t want people to come into this country illegally. But any fence can be overcome. The Great Wall of China was overcome by the Mongols is was supposed to keep out. The Berlin Wall wasn’t able to keep East Germans in; dozens managed to escape through some very ingenious means.

Anyone sneaking into this country illegally need only go around this little patch they have constructed.

If we really want to stop this influx, and we really want to secure our border with Mexico, we have to work smarter, not harder, to find a way to live with the extremely large immigrant population in our own country. Maybe today we will find out exactly how much a part of the fabric of American life they are and we can really start that work.

If we are really worried about terrorism, then we are screwed. We have thousands of miles of border with Mexico, we have thousands of miles of border with Canada and we have thousands and thousands of miles of coastline. It is impossible to secure all of that and make this Fortress America. Let me say that again so that it sinks in: It is impossible.

I don’t think terrorists will get in that way, though. They’ll do exactly what they did before. They’ll use fake passports to come here through our airports. The 9/11 hijackers flew in from Germany and Europe. Out of 20, only one was stopped at Customs and turned away. Instead of risking life and limb coming here through the desert, they’ll fly in first class on Osama bin Laden’s money.

The terrorism debate and the immigration debate are much, much larger than just our border with Mexico. The sooner we realize that, the sooner real solutions can be done.