The U.S. and the World are still reeling from the effects of living in a post-911 society.  At the height of America's prosperity, at the moment that the U.S. was at a new peak in greatness, some group or groups attacked the World Trade Center.  Since that time, Americans have become the equivalent of a veteran of war who instinctively falls to the ground from the POP! of a backfiring car.  The World, too, is angered that the Giant would attack Iraq for what so far points to a Saudi Arabian job.  While Michael Moore's movie, Fahrenheit 911, was full of spin, one assertion is undeniable: the House of Bush and the House of Saud are more than just partners, maybe more than simply friends.  Fear is the undercurrent.  Americans fear Muslims.  Muslims fear Zionists.  Europe fears the American/Muslim conflict.  As insurgents slowly rip away at the grunt-fabric of the U.S. military, and as America continues to bomb anything that moves, and as Europe cringes with each punch and counterpunch, the U.S. Government is quietly legislating the destruction of the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, and the very essence of our diverse, conflicted, yet victorious in the face of dire odds, country.  The final piece of the puzzle will be exactly what we ask for.  In the end, the U.S. will shut her borders, not from immigrants and diplomats, but from its own citizenry leaving to a freer outside.

            About a year ago, this author was ranting to my Father about how the surveillance cameras were watching us, but the borders remained open.  My Dad looked at me very carefully and said, "Son, don't ask for that.  If they can't get in, we can't get out.  Mexico ain't that bad."

            1996 and 2000 Libertarian Presidential candidate Harry Browne admitted for us in his book, The Great Libertarian Offer: "We can argue about open borders vs. closed border.  But the truth is America's borders are open and they will remain that way; no matter who is in the White House or Congress.  That is because government is no more capable of keeping immigrants out of America than it is of keeping drugs out."  Written in 2000, this still holds true.  Writing specifically about President Bush's border policy, extreme conservative talk show hot, Laura Ingraham, in an article called "Does Bush Policy Border On Insanity?" wrote: "When Bill Clinton says we live in an 'increasingly borderless world,' we"re not surprised. But, when a Republican president advocates a policy that will make our borders effectively meaningless, we should be outraged."

            The conservatives are walking right into a trap.  First the U.S. will get the police-state legislation.  Second, as a reward for not revolting, the government will close our borders (after millions are made legal citizens.)  The last phase will be to use the tyrannical Intelligence Reform Act, Patriot Act I, Patriot Act II, and FEMA bills to totally enslave us.  With the borders closed down by troops, tanks, and technology just like we asked for, we will have nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

            In 1946 Winston Churchill coined the phrase Iron Curtain.  Shannon Duffy, PhD, defines it bluntly.  From her essay, 'The End of the Cold War: The Soviet Bloc':  "The Communist bloc countries were run with closed borders (no one was allowed to leave or enter without governmental approval)."  In 1952, President Truman approved $4.3 million to aid refugees escaping from behind the Iron Curtain.  If the United States closes its borders, will there be a country to aid us in escaping?  Bush took care of that with Iraq.  Now the world holds animosity toward us.

            The newest cattle call for closing our borders is coming from an Asian-American woman, author Michelle Malkin.  Her books title says it all: Invasion: How America Still Welcomes Terrorists, Criminals, and Other Foreign Menaces to Our Shores.  She makes such a great case for shutting the borders down that her arguments are being supported and endorsed by none other than The National Alliance, the White Supremacy group that gave us the terrorist handbook, The Turner Diaries.

            Two things must be proven before citizens should ask for closed borders.  One, it must be proven that such a measure, which will surely strip us of some freedoms, will have an equal or greater increase in real, tangible security.  Two, we must find protections for free travel outside and back into the country.  Controlling travel is a plank of the Communist Manifesto.  Hmm.  Even if these things could be done, and they can't, we must admit one simple fact.  To adopt closed borders, we must refute our American Heritage.  Because, if we are willing to sacrifice the promise of comfort for the weary, then we are no longer what we once were, and in such an America our forefathers would not have been allowed admittance.

            The Intelligence Reform Bill just swept through the House and Senate.  World Net Daily stated that while the bill did force federal mandates on the admission of driver's licenses to U.S. citizens, a provision 'barring States from issuing driver's licenses to illegal aliens' was intentionally not included.  That was from a 2004 article entitled, 'Intel Bill to Install Internal Passport?  Congressman: Driver's license provision initiates plan - not proper in a free society. One guess which Congressman that was.  If you said Ron Paul, you'd be correct.  In his own personal press release, after voting 'nay' to the bill with a minority of 75, Paul wrote: "Those who are willing to allow the government to establish a Soviet-style passport system because they think it will make us safer are terribly mistaken."

            Yet, the passports have passed, and we will comply again.  What can one do?  Quit driving?  The borders, however, are still wide open.

            This is the building of an insidious Hegelian Dialectic.

 

Problem: Terrorists, criminals, and immigrants (oh, my) are flooding into the country.  We are losing jobs, being victimized, and will ultimately be hit by a weapon of mass destruction.

Reaction: First we want to give power to a gargantuan police state to protect us.  When that doesn't help, we want to centralize the intelligence agencies (which have been the main drug kingpins and mind control agents).  We want walking papers so the cops can check all citizens who venture outside their homes.  Finally, we want the borders shut down, now!

Solution:  Government: "OK.  We'll shut the borders down for your protection.  There will be no way that people can get in (or out) unless we let them."

 

            The problem with this is, by the time they shut the borders, it may be too late get out.  Forget making it to the border.  With Homeland Security, the cameras, the surveillance blimps, the passports, the soon-to-be internal road checkpoints, and the tattletale brigades, we won't get two blocks without our movements being monitored and aberrations reported.

            Let's take the first reason for accepting such a closed environment.  If we were to do this and the government could make good on the promise of security; well, even then I won't accept it.  But, it is a tempting trade off.  However, if we examine the Soviet model, we see that terrorists were not stopped from entering the country by the Iron Curtain.  Terrorists were culled from natives, but so were anti-Communist revolutionaries able to gain entrance into Mother Russia.  Follow the line further, and we see the final result: the Gulag State.  When Stalin was unable to stop the flow of dissidents from within and without, he totally closed the border.  When that didn't work, he used Soviet Law to incarcerate millions and send them into the hellhole of the Archipelago.

            The United States government has used the 9-11 incident to implement security measures.  These measures have taken away several civil liberties, and worse, has taken away Natural Rights.  This will cause more dissension.  The attack on Iraq is in process, and future battles with Iran and Syria are already planned.  This will cause an influx of terrorists into America.  We did, after, enter the Arabian Peninsula BEFORE they ever attacked our shores.  The government, the terrorists, or the dissidents (in order of probability) are going to do something big one day.  At that time, the Federal Government (after millions of terrorists, criminals, welfare-parasites, and fortunately some well-intentioned immigrants have made it in) will close down the borders of America, even while they erase them economically through the Free Trade Area of the Americas.

            By this time, there will probably be a draft in place to fight Iran and Syria.  Canada and the U.S. signed the 'Smart Border Declaration' in 2001, which will screen for draft dodgers.  Why did they do that if there is no draft, and no draft is planned?  World Net Daily reported in 2002 that, "A U.S. Border Patrol officer has encountered four heavily-armed Mexican Army soldiers on the U.S. side of the border."  From a May 31, 2004 Border Trade Alliance report: "The Department of Homeland Security plans "to permit the Customs service to capture fingerprints and other profile information on hundreds of millions of people who enter or leave the United States each year."  Canada and Mexico are our only contiguous land access.  Perhaps NAFTA, which benefited Canada and Mexico to the detriment of America, was a trade-off.  Regardless, when the time comes, our neighbors will be ready to staunch the flow as much as possible.  Canada and Mexico must do this or suffer sanctions.

            Of course, it was Benny Franklin that said, "They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."  Edmund Burke added, "The people never give up their liberties but under delusion."  H.L. Mencken finds a lowest denominator: "All government, of course, is against liberty."

            From the left, we have almost the same sentiment from the brightes, except that they suggest more immediacy.  Thoreau claimed, "Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty.  The obedient must be slaves."  Mikhail Bakunin's allegory relays what will naturally come out of a police-state crackdown.  Bakunin: "To revolt is a natural tendency of life.  Even a worm turns against the foot that crushes it.  In general, the vitality and relative dignity of the creature can be measured by the intensity of its instinct to revolt."  It was the completely decadent, insanely genius William S. Burroughs who throws cold water on us concerning guns (I have noticed an increase in gun-supporters amongst leftists).  Burroughs said, "After a shooting spree, they always want to take guns away from the people who didn't do it.  I sure as hell wouldn't want to live in a society where the only people allowed guns are police and the military."  Finally, Hubert Humphrey, the president that could have been, sums all this freedom and police talk up very nicely.  "There are not enough jails, not enough police, not enough courts to enforce a law not supported by the people."

            We support laws that are being used to track and trace every facet of our lives.  Yet, the Federal Government is allowing millions of illegal aliens into the country every year, with almost no move to stop it in decades.  Bush has proposed amnesty for these illegals.  When the slave-labor supply is at maximum capacity, and the terrorist cells and CIA front-groups have slipped through, the Fed will comply with our wishes.  All along we have been begging for a closed border.  Appearing to give us what we want, the New American Gulag will then begin.

            The Libertarian Party has been admonished by members of the Constitution Party, Republican Party, and others for a certain platform stance.  Immigration.  The LP's platform states the following: "America has always been a nation of immigrants! We condemn the xenophobic immigrant bashing that would build a wall around the United States! Such Orwellian nightmares (liberty infringements) have no place in a free society, but are the natural outgrowth of an obsession with restricting immigration."

            Let us all step back.  With 100% closed borders will the government 100% prevent a terrorist attack?  No.  While most people acknowledge that there need be a system to restrict terrorists and criminals from entering the country, there used to be a day, maybe not so long ago, when Americans would have taken it upon themselves to protect themselves, their families, their communities.  If we demand that the borders stay open, and also require that we be allowed proper weaponry for war, we might live up to the demand of that responsibility.  This is a war.  The jury is still out to many as to whether it is against the police state or the Islamic Terrorists.  Either way, it ultimately will be up to us to defend the Homeland from enemies, both foreign and domestic.