Barbed Wire on the Border

 

Couple of observations from Hopper down here in the Lone Star state …

 

(1) Though I’ve been living down here in Texas for two-and-a-half years, my house is about a half hour north of Dallas. That means I’m roughly 420 or so miles away from the closest point of the southern border. That’s almost three times more distant than my parents, who live in the mountains of Pennsylvania, are from the Jersey shore. Or as far as New York City is to Niagara Falls. Or about 45 minutes longer than it takes one to drive from Los Angeles to San Francisco, if you’re on the left coast. So the border crisis does not really affect me in a way that keeps me up at night.

 

(2) Texas is basically 98 percent red (conservative), with the major exception being the People’s Republic of Austin. While our neighborhood HOA disallows political signage of any type, you occasionally run into the loony Beto fan with election posters plastered all about or a house with one of those cringy hate-has-no-home-here placards creeping unobtrusively in a shrub off to one side of the front door. Again, by the same ratio, about two houses in every hundred.

 

(3) Conservatives down here are very proud of Governor Abbott. Maybe a presidential candidate in ’28 or ’32? I dunno; he’s getting up there in age. He is in a wheelchair (but doesn’t flaunt it; I was here a year before I discovered this). He’s doing (mostly) all the right things down here. At least in sparring with the Biden Administration and handling the border. I hear some people bicker about him being soft on crime or guns and not as strong as he could be about state economics, and I can complain too, but by and large I’m a fan.

 

(4) We absolutely love it that he has been sending illegal immigrants up north. I say keep sending them if they keep coming. We’re enjoying Mayor Adams of NYC squirming in trying to deal with the immigrant problem – and the crime and economic shocks it brings with it – as well as the Chicago Mayor. We also loved packing them off to Martha’s Vineyard. I – and many others down here – say start resending them there. And also target other liberal enclaves, such as Hollywood, Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, and Aspen. Oh – and don’t forget Washington DC!

 

(5) These are not just publicity stunts. If a national government comprised of states dictates a policy that would affect only a handful of such states detrimentally, and those handful of states are essentially outnumbered in dictating policy, I believe it is reasonable that such states may address the issue so all states – or at least those states dictating the policy – can experience the detriment too. Like many hotbed political issues nowadays, it’s best said simply in a meme:

 

 

 

(6) In an effort to deter illegal immigration, Texas has strung up barbed wire along certain parts of the border. This was struck down as illegal by the Supreme Court. Interestingly, all four female justices voted against the Texas position. Now, I am not really a legal guy; Law doesn’t hold my interest. But for the life of me I can’t fathom why the government would take the side of disallowing a state to respond to what basically amounts to an invasion. Just doesn’t make sense without that proverbial tinfoil hat.

 

(7) It is an invasion. My mouth dropped to the floor recently when a relative likened the illegal influx of Mexicans and Central Americans to Jews fleeing Nazi Germany in the 1930s. And I still hear the old “as a Christian, how can you be for a wall? (or barbed wire at the border)?” Well, one can be a Christian and be against an invasion of 5,000 migrants a day, many of whom are military-age young men, and most of which is done without documentation or screening. This is not the same as callously stepping over a local homeless person walking up the stairs to the church. Apples and oranges.

 

(8) There will not be a second civil war over all this. Abbott and Texas stood up to whoever is running the Biden Administration with a concise letter which essentially emphasizes a state’s right to defend itself, a right that overrules federal mandate. Over a dozen southern and western states joined in solidarity with Texas. The federal government will back down, is backing down, for several reasons. The media is not reporting it front-page. It’s a lose-lose proposition for the Democrats going into an election year, and the Border Patrol is starting to let slip that it would not interfere with state agencies further.

 

Anyway, just some thoughts from an amateur in the area but not at the area. I welcome any correction or explanation or respectful disagreement. Otherwise, back to regularly scheduled programming in a day or so. Just wanted to vent, I guess.