Convictions

Having a blog is, at times, like strapping a lightning rod to your forehead and grabbing your nine-iron to go play eighteen holes in an electrical storm. It's easy to have opinions and spout them off. I believe that Todd Rundgren is doing the music world a horrible disservice by tarnishing the memories we all have of the seminal New Wave band "The Cars." The fact that it is being called "The New Cars" and nobody else seems to like it much doesn't sway me. I have courage and faith in my convictions. It is what I believe.
"I believe that robots are stealing my luggage." - Steve Martin
Pop culture gets a pretty fair workout here on Entropical Paradise. I fully expect to hear back from someone about why I should give "The New Cars" a fair shake before I dismiss them out of hand. I might even get a comment about my decision to strap a lightning rod to my forehead, instead of carefully aligning it with my spine in some other fashion. These are, after all, opinions. Land of the Free, Home of the Brave and all that rot.
All of that is a run up to this one: I checked myself twice, then three times about this border patrol question. I don't generally receive two quick hits like I did last night, but I seemed to have twanged a nerve. As the moderator of some mild form of discourse, I felt the need to consider the alternatives. My ongoing concern about the immigration issue isn't about a need to control it, it is how we go about it. I have no issue with the weekend "Minuteman" sitting in his folding chair, waiting for those wily Canadians to sneak across into the wilds of Montana. I feel very differently about erecting a fence along our southern border. It has a faint smell of Berlin in 1961. Erecting a wall between the two sides of that city effectively decreased emigration (escapes - Republikflucht in German) from 2.5 million between 1949 and 1962 to 5,000 between 1962 and 1989. That would seem to be a pretty good model to follow if limiting emigration (escapes) is the stated goal.
Wait a second - wasn't that the Communists who built that wall? Didn't we always want them to tear it down, as it stood as a symbol of oppression? Maybe I'm missing something. As for the relative severity of the border patrols of Canada and Mexico, that seems like a no-brainer to me as well. Of course people want to flee an oppressive system, even if it is only on display in the enforcement of immigration. Read the history of the United States as a continuum instead of selectively and find that each new wave of immigration has caused doubt and fear.
Again, I don't know of anyone who is suggesting that we open the door and start handing out citizenship to the United States to anyone lucky enough to find themselves inside our borders. I am saying that I won't buy "The New Cars" CD.