Saturday, June 17, 2006

Close the borders?

Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo is leading the push to close the nation's borders. I don't question his loyalty as an American but I do question his loyalty as a Coloradan, because if it makes sense to close the national borders it must make sense to close state borders.

So it's time Tom for you to start agitating to build a great big fence around Colorado and to recruit a few thousand armed men and women to stand guard. Time to stop all the boring people from Kansas, gay-lovers from Massachusetts, pot smokers from California and people who talk funny from Texas from moving here, forcing up property prices, taking 'our' jobs and generally ruining our state. While we're at it, let's slap some massive tariffs on sugar and oranges from Florida and cars from Detroit. Finally, don't forget that the rest of the US is full of terrorists like Timothy McVeigh, the Unabomber and whoever sent the anthrax. Got to protect Colorado from these evildoers.

Sounds crazy doesn't it? But if it doesn't make sense for Colorado to close it borders to the rest of the country, why does it make sense for the US to close its borders to the rest of the world? If it makes sense to allow poor people from rural Alabama to move to Colorado in search of a better future by working hard, why doesn't it make sense to allow poor people from Mexico to come to the US to do the same? If it makes sense to buy sugar from Florida because they can grow it much cheaper than we can in Colorado, why doesn't it make sense to buy it from Australia who can produce it even cheaper still? And are you any less dead if you're killed by a domestic terrorist rather than a foreign one?

The idea of closed borders taken to it's logical conclusion gets you North Korea. All Americans would agree that's a bad thing. But if we all agree that a big dose of economic and social isolation from the world has horrible consequences, what logic tells us that a moderate dose of the same poison is good for us?

No comments: