Borders Part 2

“Villa bandits who raided Columbus, New Mexico, caught by American soldiers in the mountains of Mexico and held, in camp near Namiquipa, April 27, 1916.” from NARA

Lots of INTENSE feedback about post yesterday on borders.

I’m just reporting reality as I perceive it.

Since Pershing went after Pancho Villa, it’s been clear that along one thousand nine hundred and blahblah miles of desert, even the fiercest efforts of government are gonna, at best, disappear into the dust.

from the Mexican Border Service photo collection. 

And they had Patton!

(How ’bout this by the way:

Pershing was permitted to bring into New Mexico 527 Chinese refugees who had assisted him during the expedition, despite the ban on Chinese immigration at that time under the Chinese Exclusion Act. The Chinese refugees, known as “Pershing’s Chinese”, were allowed to remain in the U.S. if they worked under the supervision of the military as cooks and servants on bases. In 1921, Congress passed Public Resolution 29, which allowed them to remain in the country permanently under the conditions of the 1892 Geary Act. Most of them settled in San Antonio, Texas.

).

What kind of conservative believes that the federal government can put a wall here and stop people from moving across it?

close up of this 2012 NASA composite image

Does declaring an new federal attempt to impose “no tolerance” enforcement seem more tyrantish or freedomish to you?

Does the fear of brown people from south of our border, like the fear of psychotically violent black people, have something to say about our own guilty conscience?  There isn’t a country from Mexico to Chile that hasn’t been severely screwed by the USA.

Look, I’m no expert.  My book about Mexico, Central and South America was the work of an enthusiastic amateur, not a serious scholar!

From where I sit, in Los Angeles, California, USA, I can understand the traditional politician approach of talking any way you want to get elected and then not going anywhere near actually doing anything about the border.

The current president got elected by sticking his fork in this electrical socket.  I’m not seeing how it ends?  Best case he declares victory and moves on.