Decision ‘08

Shining City On A Hill Or Fortress America?

That’s the choice framed by the editors of the Wall Street Journal when they ask if America is to belong to Ronald Reagan or Tom Tancredo. Last weekend, I suggested Republicans adopt an agenda with both a long and short view of the immigration issue. The WSJ agrees:

The immediate danger is that Republicans will ignore their longer-term interests by passing a punitive, and poll-driven, anti-immigration bill this election year. Any bill that merely harasses immigrants and employers, and stacks more cops on the border, may win cheers in the right-wing blogosphere. However, it will do nothing to address the economic incentives that will continue to exist for poor migrants to come to America to feed their families. And it will make permanent enemies of millions of Hispanics, without doing anything to draw illegals out of the shadows and help them assimilate into the mainstream of American culture and citizenship.

This is not Ronald Reagan’s view of America as a “shining city on a hill.” It is the chauvinist conservatism usually associated with the European right. How Republicans conduct and conclude their immigration debate will show the country which kind of “conservative” party they want to be.

We’ve got to keep the focus on ‘illegal’ and not on ‘immigrant’…

13 Responses to “Shining City On A Hill Or Fortress America?”

1 peter Says:
March 31st, 2006 at 8:46 am
Mark, we’re in total agreement on this one –
2 Mark Says:
March 31st, 2006 at 8:49 am
Hey, it was bound to happen sooner or later (I kid, I kid)…so we both hold similar positions on Springsteen, immigration, and bootleg tapers…I think that’s enough to form a political party on, isn’t it?…
3 Mussolini Says:
March 31st, 2006 at 10:05 am
Without a WALL, everything else is useless.

With a wall, we can screen everyone who wants to come in - and I say let them all in if they aren’t criminals. After that, amnesty, accelerated citizenship, and the promise of the American dream. This nation was built on immigrants.

With the wall, we can eliminate cross-border incursions by the Mexican Army protecting drug runners.

Drug legalization with distribution and control by the US government would eliminate the drug cartles and the crime they foster. Tax money from the drugs could be more wisely spent educating kids rather than harassing dope-heads who are going to pay, steal, do whatever it takes to ruin themselves anyway.

That two-part approach solves the border issue.
4 peter Says:
March 31st, 2006 at 12:00 pm
A political party — hey, I never thought about that! — we could call it the Mugwumps — hold it, weren’t they Republicans who supported a Democrat for President? — no, scratch that — but I like the way you think….
5 djg Says:
March 31st, 2006 at 1:13 pm
A new party… Wouldn’t it be great to found one that supports sane policies without kowtowing to legacy alliances… and can win elections? Dream on. The GOP seems to have been hijacked by the overly-idealistic. Maybe we can hijack the donks in retribution?

On immigration there are unfortunately no good long-term solutions. On one hand, there is a clear economic need that will always trump enforcement (viz the war on drugs that has been lost the day it began -isn’t it time to finally dump the Prohibition?). You can go after suppliers, users, build walls, execute trespassers, but enforcement only changes the method of delivery, not the result.

So the solution appears to be to recognize and legalize this immigration via some kind of guest worker program. But wait, isn’t it the guest workers who are now rioting in France and assassinating Dutch politicians?

The thing is that as long as we allow insular enclaves of foreigners into our national body we will have a seed of extreme instability. This was equally the fatal error of Roman emperors and French politicians. But how does one force assimilation? Both the Romans and the French have found that coherent foreign bodies resist assimilation even as they benefit from the largess of their hosts.

Only the Chinese, over the past 3 millenia, have shown a consistent ability to assimilate all comers. Their secret was (and is) an extremely insular and homogeneous culture that is absolutely sure of its own superiority. No multiculturalism for China, thank you very much.

We in the US have missed our opportunity to build such a culture, if indeed we ever had it. Even the French, insular and self-congratulatory as they are, are proving unequal to the task. Add to this difficulty the fact that the incoming foreign bodies are themselves insular and resistant to outside influence, and terrifying spectre of collapse a la late Roman empire begins to be apparent. What to do, what to do?
6 Rightlogic Says:
March 31st, 2006 at 7:21 pm
The logic of your last statement - “We’ve got to keep the focus on ‘illegal’ and not on ‘immigrant’…” - must be drawn from the WSJ article, since it certainly isn’t based on the national debate taking place on illegal immigration. You have been taken in by a paper that obviously is biased toward business and cheap labor, and is using facile generalities to obscure the difference between immigration and illegal immigration.

No one is discussing or alluding to an anti-immigration debate in anything I’ve read, except for the left-wing pointy-headed crowd who are engaging in rhetorical race baiting. The entire debate among the American people and the pundits who are listening to them is centered on illegals and how they affect our society in a hundred ways, how they diminish our security, and how they are shaping the future American culture.

The tired, overused statement about “our nation is a nation of immigrants” isn’t germane to the discussion. We’re talking about illegal immigration, which sharply divides this issue from the past immigration waves. Using this kind of rhetoric is both disingenuous and intellectually vacuous.

Furthermore, the idea in a subsequent response that, after closing off the border, we “let them all in” completely ignores the reasons a nation develops an immigration policy in the first place. A nation cannot absorb the world. It cannot absorb even a modest percentage of a country the size of Mexico, without infrastructure, institutions, economic balance, and cultural identity beginning to break down. It has nothing to do with xenophobia or race, and everything to do with numbers. If you study the immigration waves in our nations past, and the immigration policies which governed those times, you will find that (mother of shocks) there were numerical limits imposed.

Finally, I would argue that the lack of assimilation we find in the Mexican enclaves of our cities has nothing to do with Mexican immigrants having culturally insular tendencies toward America, any more than European immigrants did. America has been exemplary in its ability to assimilate a wide range of races, cultures, and ideology, more thoroughly than any current or historical society. China doesn’t absorb, it threatens. You assimilate, or go to prison. And certainly there are no reasonable or logical parallels to be drawn between Muslim riots in France, Netherlands and our immigration problems; theirs is a problem of race and ideology. Our problem has to do with our society’s ability to work with and draw in the current immigrants without being overrun by them.

This is why it is of the utmost importance to differentiate between immigration and illegal immigration. Immigration is controlled by immigration policy. Illegal immigration is uncontrolled, and will ruin us.

So as we discuss this issue, let’s avoid the tendencies toward rampant and unreasonable emotionalism. Let’s call into question the moral and racial sophistry. And let’s not fall all over ourselves in regard to the facts. There are good, long term solutions. The problem isn’t finding them. The problem is whether or not we will find the moral courage to implement them.
7 djg Says:
March 31st, 2006 at 9:31 pm
I am glad that someone has taken up the debate about the underlying issues. Let us attempt to address the issues of “immigration” vs. “illegal immigration”.

The debate about the legal aspect of immigration turns on our ability to enforce limits. Before we can address it, we ought to recall that the source of illegal immigration that is so much in the news, Mexico, is only our third largest, and is behind Canada and Ireland. China and SE Asia are right behind Mexico. This means that a comprehensive anti-illegal enforcement policy would have to encompass these countries of origin. Race-bating aside, let us examine Mexico since it so much in the news today.

There is no doubt that an economic gradient exists between the US and Mexico. US employers have a demand for unskilled low-wage labor. Mexican poor, openly aided by their government, have a strong incentive to fill this need. US is attempting to interdict the flow. This is exactly analogous to all other attempts by governments to regulate trade in the presence of strong gradients: witness illegal drugs today, alcohol during the Prohibition, tea and sugar in 1774. In every case the attempt to interdict has failed due to smuggling. As an aside, the smuggling tends to evolve into organized criminal activity, as in fact it happened with the East Coast piracy in the 1700s and bootlegging in the 1930s. The stronger the government’s efforts to interdict the flow, the more profitable it makes the smuggling, and the more violent and better organized do the smugglers become. It does not seem to matter how draconian the enforcement is, and whether it is directed against the supply or demand side. For instance, the Soviet Union, despite strong enforcement backed by brutal punishment, was never able to stop the importation of Western goods, illegal drugs, or even such goods as building materials (or the exit of its unwilling citizens). The only way proven to stop smuggling is legalization. In the case of immigration this would mean opening the borders, which is patently absurd, as US and Mexican standards of living would equalize in the manner of water levels when sluice gates open. This means that the best we could do is reduce the flow of illegals by selectively opening the border, which is in fact the proposal of the Administration. Presumably, we could further reduce the flow with vigorous enforcement, which would have to encompass far more than just a wall on the south border.

This brings us to immigration in itself. This portion of the argument really is for background only, because as I show in the previous paragraph, we have no choice about accepting immigration, merely a limited choice in the manner of accepting it.

Let us address the lesser matter of economic impact first. Each economic immigrant that enters the country has the effect of depressing the pay scale for his (or her, I am not biased) professional segment. Mexican illegals depress the wages of the 5% or so of Americans who have no skills and may in fact have a desire to work. Indian engineers entering the country depress the wages of all engineers (although not as much as the Indian engineers who remain at home and work in outsourcing shops). Mexican illegals exacerbate the wage depression phenomenon, because their wages are actually in effect being subsidized by the states in the form of services provided to them and their children that are not offset by the taxes which the illegals do not and cannot pay. However, if we did succeed in stopping immigration, the result would be rapid inflation as all pay scales adjust upward to make up for the drop in supply.

No for the matter of security. We have ample historical evidence of what happens when new groups are accepted into a body politic and are allowed to retain their tribal/national/religious identities. Rome fell directly because of the emperors’ policy of admitting barbarian tribes whole. They saw it as the lesser evil, but in the end it was the greater. Byzantium, by contrast, preferred to pay tribute, fight, or manipulate the barbarians out of their territory. Byzantium outlasted Rome by 1000 years. Parthian, North Indian, and Mesopotamian empires’ experience echoes Rome’s. China stands as the sole example to the contrary. Ancient Egypt could be counted as another but its history is now so ancient that it is difficult to relate out experience to its. For 3000 years, China was invaded and sometimes conquered by Huns, Magyars, Finns, Mongols, Turkmens, Uighurs, Tatars, Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Turks, Kalmuks, and thousands of other tribes. All of these peoples remained in China. Today you would be hard-pressed to find a Kalmuk or a Turkmen - they are all Chinese. China did not assimilate them by force or threat - it was never in position to do that to its conquerors. China assimilated them because it was more civilized, more insular, more cohesive, and more self-righteous than the barbarians. It took generations, but it always happened. We do not yet know how good the US will be at assimilating newcomers, it being still a very young nation. To date, however, we have been rather bad at it. We have in the US a number of groups who identify themselves as other than Americans, and who proudly point to their distinct cultures, languages, customs, and religions. Instead of insisting on their assimilation, we bend over backwards to accommodate them. We go as far as printing multilingual ballots! The past weekend’s rioters in LA who sported Mexican flags are a very small example of the results engendered by admitting foreign bodies. France had a more vigorous reminder. To say that France’s problem is not a result of insularity but of religion and ideology is like saying that the problem is not that it is night time but that the sun is not shining. The problem is in fact the insularity, which in the case of France’s Muslims is generated by religion, ideology, and not a little bit by race.

Note there are more Mexicans here both absolutely and in proportion, than there are Muslims in France. And their children remain Mexican just as the Muslims’ children remain in that community, so there is no sign of assimilation. Our troubles are only just beginning.
8 Rightlogic Says:
April 1st, 2006 at 9:15 pm
An interesting reply by djg, and I find we agree on several major points concerning the facts and debate on immigration. And, in fact, backing up and looking at the problem in its national and philosophical context, we stand on the same side of the issue. That notwithstanding, let’s address the several points of djg’s response, and dig into the issue.

Yes, I agree the issue of illegal immigration turns on our ability to enforce limits. But here we immediately begin once again to meld the separate issues of legal and illegal immigration. The two issues are interrelated, but not interchangeable. Now please note, this is not an academic exercise in semantics. Understanding the separate nature of these separate issues, and keeping them separate within our discussions, is key to our ability to understand each other.

When we talk about the comparative number of immigrants from Canada, Ireland, Mexico, China and Southeast Asia, we are talking about general immigration. The vastly overwhelming number of illegal immigrants are from our southern border, and over 1/3 of those are Mexican…almost all are Hispanic. The number of Hispanic illegals has grown to an influx of over 500,000 per year. The numbers of illegal immigrants from elsewhere in the world have not appreciably changed; therefore we need no new policy to address them. The problem is coming from our southern border. Any new law or enforcement we enact to address our southern border problem would apply equally to an illegal from any other area or nation.

The discussion, as it often does, veers immediately into the area of labor economics and trade regulation. I would love to take the time to discuss these interesting issues, which are some of my favorites (being the fiscal conservative and free market advocate that I am) but they do not pertain to what we are discussing. Once again, we are mixing the issues of legal and illegal. By bringing these economic issues into the discussion, one is assuming that those who are against and want to change illegal immigration also want to stop the flow of migrant workers. I have never understood this tendency, since it is patently false, and stems from presumptuous emotion. This is one of many parts of this discussion where the distinction of legal and illegal is paramount. Stopping illegal immigration does not stop migration; it only controls it. We want to know who you are, what you are, and how many you are. These are questions which any nation having a sense of self preservation will legitimately ask.

I agree we need migrant workers, especially in the agriculture trade, followed to a lesser degree in the service sector. But we don’t need the outrageously high numbers coming across as they are now; hence, the call for controlling our border. I have always held the idea that addressing the physical border itself is not enough; we do need to create a much streamlined immigrant application system. This system would include both an increased clerical workforce for application processing and background checks (with time-sensitive deadlines), as well as a large checkpoint workforce for on-the-ground processing. These border checkpoints should be immigrant-specific, separate from the existing border checkpoints, to prevent the disruption of tourist trade and commerce. In conjunction, we need a system whereby a legal immigrant is required to periodically submit (electronically or physically) residency and contact information as well as employment status. By this system, we would pragmatically answer all of the issues currently facing us concerning illegal immigration; criminal background checks, legal status with certifiable I.D., collecting all taxes due, and controlling immigrant numbers. But, as we have agreed, all of this is predicated on controlling our southern border.

The flow of illegal immigrants does not have a direct correlation to illegal commodities or the resultant black market smuggling operations, since it presents a different set of physical logistics. People need air, water, food, and moderate temperatures, as well as periodic breaks to defecate. Black market goods such as drugs, cigarettes, building supplies, etc. need none of these things and can be hidden for days or weeks in very small spaces. The greatest percentage of illegals now simply cross a dry river bed and attempt a very dangerous journey over arid terrain. Getting across the desert is the difficult part; getting across the border is easy. Therefore, practically speaking, it is a border issue.

The statistics on the effectiveness of well planned and substantially built border walls are unarguable. Where they have been utilized in the passed 48 months, crossings and captures have plummeted and moved to more dangerous areas where these security measures don’t exist. If we combine this same dual wall plan with advanced electronic surveillance, motion detectors and drones, while buttressed by increased feet on the ground, illegal immigration would come to a virtual standstill. Yes, there would be immigrant smuggling, but compared to current migrant numbers, this would be miniscule. As to the recently proffered comparison of our Border Wall to the Berlin Wall, that analogy falls on its face. One wall was built to keep people in; ours is to keep people out. Theirs was for repression, ours is for security.

Concerning our ability to assimilate new ethnic groups, my interest lies in the modern era, so our comparisons are apples and oranges. You are looking at civilizations over millennia; I am looking at governments and constitutions. Ours is one of histories longest running governments. Unlike other civilizations, our national culture is based on a national ideology rather than a national identity. This ideology, based on Natural Law, allows the greatest individual freedom man has ever known in history. Over the course of our first 180+ years, we very successfully assimilated large and diverse groups into our culture and ideology. It is true that we have become corrupted in our ability to assimilate others into our national culture due to the rise of the “multicultural worldview”. Djg alluded to this by mentioning bi-lingual ballots and our accommodation-vs.-assimilation mentality. Yet, this is a more recent phenomenon, only within the last 30 years.

Given the proper control of the number of immigrants we allow into our country, I believe we can still successfully assimilate the large Latino population. I believe this for two reasons.

First, before the wave of southern immigrants became unmanageable, Latino families were successfully integrated socially, economically, and politically over the course of (on average) two generations. If the numbers are once again brought under control where we are not importing an entire society, this natural assimilation will continue.

Secondly, the differences between the European Muslim problem and our illegal Hispanic problem are much more than semantics. It is ideology vs. uncontrolled numbers. Let me illustrate it this way. If you cut down the numbers (albeit drastically) of the illegals flowing into this country, the assimilation of our Hispanic community would continue as it did before. On the other hand, you could cut the European Muslim immigration by any factor you want to use, and the problem of their militant enclaves would not change, nor their lack of assimilation over many generations. This is due to their radical belief that their higher mission is to subjugate their host country, and is taught both by their scripture and by their local Imams. This has no correlation to our own problem. The fact (which djg points out) that our Hispanic numbers far exceed France’s Muslims is a case-in-point.

A more apropos discussion is djg’s corollary between our nation and Rome’s problem. Had their absorption of other peoples not been wholesale, they would have extended the life of the Empire by half. So also is it here; we must control the numbers.

Please forgive me for such a long response. From now on, I’ll limit myself to fewer points.
9 Mark Says:
April 1st, 2006 at 9:25 pm
No apology necessary - we appreciate your contribution and you can comment as often, and with as much length, as you like…
10 djg Says:
April 1st, 2006 at 11:01 pm
As righlogic correctly points out, we are essentially in agreement on the fundamentals of the immigration issues. We differ primarily in our assessment of the practicality of enforcing border controls and assimilating the immigrant segments in question.

Before it makes sense to speak of enforcement methods, it is important to assess the nature of the illegal immigration into this country. As rightlogic points out, 1/3 of the illegals in this country are Spanish-speaking migrants from Mexico and points south. While I do not have at my fingertips a breakdown of the relative proportion of South and Meso-Americans to Mexicans, we know that it is significant and has a direct bearing on the feasibility of controlling illegal migration, because it demonstrates the failure of Mexico’s rather strong attempts to control its own southern border. Furthermore, 2/3 of all illegals are not from points south at all, but are rather from Canada, Ireland, China, and Southeast Asia. If we actually succeed in terminating immigration across the Mexican border, we will simply substitute illegal immigration from the north via ocean routes, which is how the Irish and the Asians are now getting in. Not to mention that will only a marginal increase in costs the Hispanic illegals will be able to take the same successful routes. From this, it follows that to effectively control illegal immigration we must control both land borders as well as the coasts. Even if we do achieve effective border control, the fact is that most Canadians and Irish enter legally and simply overstay their visas — and we still cannot control their illegal population.

This brings us to the feasibility of erecting effective barriers to migration. I did not bring up the Berlin Wall to illustrate moral equivalence but rather to demonstrate the futility of using barrier methods of interdiction. Despite the wall, the dogs, the machine guns, the informers, and the best technology available, the wall was frequently crossed - and that was in the middle of a dense metropolis. The Soviet Union had a 60 meter-wide plowed-earth stripe along its entire land border whose purpose was to show up footprints. The border was patrolled at frequent intervals by K-9 teams and helicopters, planted thick with booby-traps, and was lighted at night with high-intensity lights. These precautions did not deter thousands from trying and succeeding in crossing the border outward (and dozens of professions from crossing it inward), as long as they were prepared to run the risks. Our illegals, particularly Hispanic illegals, have already demonstrated a willingness to risk their lives in making the crossing. Perhaps a larger number will die in the attempt or will be interdicted if we do erect a better barrier. Perhaps fewer will attempt the crossing given the option of a legal channel. But only when the economic gradient is eliminated will all illegal immigration actually stop. This means that both the cost of the crossing must go up very significantly (in terms of money or of lives) and the economic reward of success must go down just as much, and this is the more difficult part even than interdiction. Even if we set aside the questions of political feasibility of forcing employers to police immigration, and if we find an effective way to defeat the counterfeit documentation that the illegals routinely possess, a high economic reward will remain for employers to flout the law, which means that they will continue to do so.

Let us now address the issue of assimilation. First, permit me to defend my use of historical examples. Rightlogic mentions that we have one of the world’s longest running governments. At 250 years, it is pales when compared to Western Rome with its 400 years of Republic + 500 years of Empire, Eastern Rome with 1000 years of empire, Russia with 1200 years of autocracy, and I have already mentioned China with its unbroken record of empire beginning with the Han dynasty founded around 500 BCE. Using these models permits us an historical example far longer than the past 30 or even 250 years from which to draw conclusions.

Rightlogic further mentions that our nation is built on a national ideology rather than a national identity. In fact we are uncomfortably accommodating a large number of mutually incompatible ideologies that range from Marxist socialism to libertarianism, and from secular rationalism to fundamentalist theocraticism. The empires of the past were much more than we are characterized by their use of ideology as the binding glue for their diverse ethnic makeups. Rome went from warlike conservatism to allegiance to the emperors to Christianity. Byzantium had its Orthodox faith, and China its remarkably stable Confucian way of life. Of these examples, only China was successful in suppressing multiculturalism. Rome tried to harness it and failed. Byzantium exported theirs — to the West primarily, thus accelerating its collapse. Only one civilization that I can think of was successful at accepting corporate foreign bodies without assimilating them or collapsing in the end, and that was the Indian, owing to its unique caste system that permitted all kinds of foreign bodies to be incorporated as new castes. Nonetheless, the price that India paid for its acceptance remains significant considering its record of self-rule over the past 2500 years — less than 200 years total.

Rightlogic is partly correct in ascribing divergent motivations to the the extremists from Islamic camps in Europe and to the Hispanic illegals. I say “partly” because the vast majority of the European Muslims are not extremists and are in fact economic immigrants who came there to fill much the same role as the Hispanic illegals do in the US. Which does not prevent their children (and this is the significant part - they are remaining a separate body into the second generation) from participating in violent riots. The Hispanic illegals also show a lack of movement toward assimilation into their second generation, and their children have over the past weekend also demonstrated an easy willingness to become radicalized. In fact, and despite arguments about paths to citizenship, the Hispanics have not demonstrated any desire to make the US their permanent home country. They as a rule continue to espouse allegiance to their birth countries and a desire to return there when they have made their “fortunes”. Therefore I am much less sanguine than rightlogic in the idea that our body politic can accommodate them over a longer term. Given that I am also less sanguine that we are capable of making a significant dent in their numbers, I remain highly concerned with the future of the nation.

I am more guilty than anyone of longwindedness, so the apologies if any should be mine. I only hope that someone in authority is actually paying attention.
11 Mark Says:
April 1st, 2006 at 11:10 pm
djg, same message to you - post as often, and at as much length, as you like, we’re glad to have you here…
12 Rightlogic Says:
April 4th, 2006 at 1:34 am
Returned from my weekend trip this evening, and found a response from djg waiting for me concerning our earlier discussion.

Our exchange has been interesting, and yet we are obviously finding it difficult to communicate our ideas and propositions to one another without wrangling over concepts and words which do not lend themselves to practical solutions in dealing with U.S. illegal immigration. I am as guilty as anyone in allowing an exchange of ideas to descend into theoretical academic exercise. While this is stimulating, it doesn’t bring us closer to building a workable consensus on the issue which we can promote to our neighbors and push our elected representatives toward supporting.

Nevertheless, I’ll attempt to more thoroughly answer some points you brought up in your last response, which seem to indicate that my positions on some historical points have been clearly misunderstood. In a subsequent response I’ll attempt to make my discourse more practical by using the comparison between the ancient civilizations in question and our own country to illuminate the source of our own immigration problem, as well as illustrate my belief that traditionally we are well equipped to assimilate moderate numbers of immigrants into what constitutes “the American Culture”.

As I stated in my previous response, when making historical comparisons to our own nation and its ability to assimilate immigrating cultures, my interest lies in constitutional governments. If that has somehow not been made clear, allow me to repeat it now. Although some profit can be gleaned from looking at Imperial Empires, dictatorships, and Monarchies concerning this issue, the parallels of those empires to our own situation are limited for reasons I will explain later.

In regard to your assertion that other civilizations are much older than ours; I completely agree, for that is more than obvious, but had nothing to do with what I was trying to communicate. To reiterate my previous point: to my knowledge, ours is the oldest constitutional government that any society has remained under contiguously. Even the governments of many empires and dynasties lasted little longer than our own, including the Chinese Dynasties, which were far from unbroken.

From the year 2000 B.C. during the Xia Dynasty, or if you wish, the Shang Dynasty dating from 1700 B.C. (of which there are ancient Chinese historical records recorded from verbal tradition) until A.D. 1911 at the end of the Qing Dynasty, there were 16 major Dynasties with 24 separate periods of different Imperial governments. This accounting would not include the era of the Warlords rule after the collapse of the Han Dynasty in the third century, or the period following the tenth century collapse of the Tang Dynasty that saw a continent and people fractured by civil war and popular rebellions, resulting in an entire generation ruled by five northern Dynasties and ten southern Kingdoms. Throughout this long 3000+ year era the average lifespan of a Dynastic Government was 178 years. Of course a few lasted twice as long, and several were much shorter.

Many Dynasties became weak from internal corruption until a popular revolt, a rival Warlord, or a northern nomadic invader swept away a ruling Dynasty, broke their royal bloodline or bureaucracy, and created another. With the advent of each new government, economic and political institutions were changed, alliances were made or broken, civic philosophies went in or out of favor, boundaries moved, Kingdoms were fractured or expanded, Capitals were relocated, taxes fluctuated, and forms of government varied, although most remained essentially Imperial. But no historian looks at the great Dynastic Period of China as having one government.

What did remain constant through a good part of this period of history was the continuing development of the Chinese philosophy and the sinicizing of their culture to the surrounding peoples. With that we are certainly in agreement.

But again I digress. These were not Constitutional governments. Some may not feel the distinction is of any relevance in understanding our own culture. I believe it is of seminal importance, which I will address in my next response. Regardless, it was my original point.

Rome, on the other hand, was a Constitutional Republic, although in the first 300 years of the Republic, the Constitution was not written, but instead was composed from elements of verbal law and traditions, and was passed down orally. Yet this gave way to other written laws (the Twelve Tablets), the role of the Senate changed, new bodies politic were instituted, new ruling classes developed out of Plebian commercial wealth, and once again the government and constitution changed several times before its first 400 years. There were even times during particularly difficult military campaigns that the Republic placed a Proconsul over the Consuls with next to absolute authority (which wasn’t much of a stretch, since the government itself was an Empirical model with the powers of an Emperor divided between two consuls and the Senate). Our Constitutional Government has lasted longer than any the Romans instituted.

At any rate, hopefully our next exchanges can grapple with some issues more at the heart of our own problems. You raised numerous and interesting points in your last entry, and I’ll try to address them tomorrow:

1. The U.S. Constitutional ideology
2. National origins and demographics of illegals
3. Cultural assimilation of U.S. immigrants
4. Effectiveness of border barriers
5. Divergent motivations of European Muslim immigrants and the U.S. Hispanic population

Should make for a good discussion. Meanwhile, if anyone else out there is watching from the sidelines and has some elucidation on this issue, jump in with both feet.

But for now it’s late, I’m tired…

I had “miles to go”, and now I’ll sleep.
13 Rightlogic Says:
April 4th, 2006 at 10:14 pm
The effectiveness of a wall or other barriers along our southern U.S. border has been called into question, and several pundits on the left have proffered their usual inflammatory analogy of comparing it to the Berlin Wall, attempting to create the illusion that the idea is akin to a totalitarian state.

These same pundits, in concert with some Senate republicans and most Democratic politicians, are vilifying the House Republicans for their version of an immigration reform bill, claiming they are insensitive, heavy handed, and unwilling to tackle all the other issues involved in immigration reform.

These other issues would include; application and processing procedures, labor market requirements, tax collection, I.D. validation, immigrant location and employment status, employment eligibility verification, deportation enforcement, status of current illegal immigrants, paths to citizenship, immigrant cultural assimilation…the list goes on.

The debate is raging around the idea that without a comprehensive plan which addresses these myriad issues, a border fence won’t make any appreciable difference.

I believe just the opposite is true.

The House Republicans know (as do the majority of the American people, which numerous recent polls overwhelmingly reveal) that without the physical deterrence of a southern barrier, and policy which gives immigration enforcement some teeth, any policy dealing with all the other issues is pointless.

No one in the House, or anyone else who has been promoting the idea of a border fence, has said that this is the answer to our illegal immigration problems. They simply know that it must begin here. If it is done the other way around, the border fence will never be built, the new laws will increase the mass exodus north, and our problems will this time be our undoing. It happened in 1965 (that immigration reform was a disaster and still is) and in 1986 (that immigration reform resulted in increasing illegal numbers more than eight-fold) and will happen now if we don’t begin with serious deterrence.

We are simply saying this; do things in the right order. Build the fence with its related surveillance technologies, and only then legislate reforms that serve our economy and give us a good handle on immigration management. This approach is based more on logic and less on inflammatory rhetoric and politically correct ideology.

Since the left broached the subject of the Berlin wall, let’s examine the physical logistics of that barrier and the empirical data of its effectiveness.

The year was 1949, and vanquished Berlin had been divided in half, with East Berlin going to the Soviets and West Berlin in the hands of the western allies (vis-à-vis the U.S.). West Berlin became an island surrounded by Soviet territory.

By 1961, up to 20,000 people emigrated every month from East Berlin to West Berlin. These included many of the top professionals, scientists, engineers, and skilled laborers who were all looking for lucrative opportunities involved in the Marshal plan, and wanted to escape the constant shortages of goods and services connected to a terribly stagnant economy (sounds familiar). This was a brain-drain for the Soviets, and was adding to East Berlin’s economic demise.

In 1952, the border between East Germany (GDR) and West Berlin was closed. For commercial reasons, the border between the two cities remained open. Traveling between the two cities still required a 30 day inter-zone pass, and East Berliners had to have permission to cross.

Then in 1961, the Soviets decided to create a buffer zone and erect barriers on the border between East and West Berlin. The first barriers were simply made of barbed wire and paving stone barriers, which were subsequently improved several times with fences and aggregate. Then in 1965, the actual wall was erected. Between 1965 and 1979, the wall was improved four times and became more and more difficult to cross.

In its final form, it was two concrete walls between 30 and 100 meters apart topped with a large concrete pipe. Just within the east wall was a no-man’s zone covered with gravel aggregate to reveal footprints. Next came a sharp trench to prevent vehicles from breaking through. Finally against the inside of the west wall was a control road, watchtowers, and the west wall. The entire complex was situated on the East Berlin and GDR side, so that the GDR police had access to the outside of the western wall of the barrier. This border was 155 kilometers long with 293 watchtowers.

How effective was the Berlin Wall? Between 1949 and 1962, 2.5 million people emigrated from East to West Berlin. After the wall was built, between 1962 and 1989, only 5,000 people made it across the barrier. The majority of these people made it across between 1961 and 1965, before the improvements were made.

That means that in the 13 years before the wall was built, over 20,000 people a month stole across the border. In the 27 years after the wall was built, only 15 people a month made it across the border.

Seems very successful, from the East German’s point of view. And if anything, the East German people had a greater incentive than the Mexicans here do to steal across a border.

Now how does that coincide with empirical data regarding our own border barriers to date?

Let’s use the comparatively new triple border fence directly south of San Diego. The area between the Pacific Ocean in the west to the edge of the mountains in eastern San Diego County is roughly 14 miles. This was the most heavily traveled corridor for illegal immigrants in the nation until 1993, when the first steel fence was built. This slowed the traffic to some degree, but it was still heavily used. In 1996 the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection decided to add two more fences to the system. By April 2004, the eastern 10 miles of the border segment project was completed, but hit an environmental snag with the San Diego Commission concerning the last 3 ½ miles. The commission voted overwhelmingly for the completion of the project in February 2006, and work has resumed for the last segment.

The fencing system runs from the Otay Border Crossing in the San Diego Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. The primary fence is 14 feet of welded steel. A road runs parallel to the fence on the north side, after which is a second 14 foot steel fence. Then another road, with a 16 foot chain link fence. Stadium lights and motion sensors complete the system.

In conjunction with the new fence system, a federal initiative called “Operation Gatekeeper” provided more agents for patrolling the area. Now, with lights, sensors, and cameras, agents have time to react to an intrusion. Most illegals are apprehended or thwarted before they make it over the second fence.

Previous to the fence being built, the Southern Border Patrol reported that at regular intervals, hundreds of illegal aliens would simultaneously rush the border, overwhelming the border agents and avoiding capture. Violent crime was rampant in the area, and smugglers and bandits preyed upon both illegal aliens and residents.

Today, violent crime in the area north of the completed fence is almost at a complete standstill, and the number of illegals detained in the corridor has dropped from 25,000 to 3,000 per year. All this before the system is even completed.

Conclusion: Fences work.

A border fencing system is not a policy panacea to our illegal immigration problems. But it is the foundation from which we can build one.