Louder and funnier

I missed the President's speech last night, but reading through it this morning, I'm wondering: who's zoomin' who?

The steps I have outlined will improve our ability to catch people entering our country illegally. At the same time, we must ensure that every illegal immigrant we catch crossing our southern border is returned home. More than 85 percent of the illegal immigrants we catch crossing the southern border are Mexicans, and most are sent back home within 24 hours. But when we catch illegal immigrants from other countries, it is not as easy to send them back home. For many years, the government did not have enough space in our detention facilities to hold them while the legal process unfolded. So most were released back into our society and asked to return for a court date. When the date arrived, the vast majority did not show up. This practice, called “catch and release,” is unacceptable and we will end it.

We’re taking several important steps to meet this goal. We’ve have expanded the number of beds in our detention facilities, and we will continue to add more. We’ve have expedited the legal process to cut the average deportation time. And we are making it clear to foreign governments that they must accept back their citizens who violate our immigration laws. As a result of these actions, we’ve have ended “catch and release” for illegal immigrants from some countries. And I will ask Congress for additional funding and legal authority, so we can end “catch and release” at the southern border once and for all. When people know that they’ll will be caught and sent home if they enter our country illegally, they will be less likely to try to sneak in.

Okay, he was the governor of Texas, and he's this stupid? It is well known that Mexicans illegally cross the border and, if they are caught and returned to Mexico, simply re-cross the border again at the first opportunity. They keep doing this until they don't get caught, either at the border or by La Migra somewhere in this country. Does he truly believe he's stopped anything, or that he's going to stop anything?

And if I've got this right, this is straight out of Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers:

On a visit to Bethesda Naval Hospital, Laura and I met a wounded Marine named Guadalupe Denogean. Master Gunnery Sergeant Denogean came to the United States from Mexico when he was a boy. He spent his summers picking crops with his family, and then he volunteered for the United States Marine Corps as soon as he was able. During the liberation of Iraq, Master Gunnery — Master Gunnery Sergeant Denogean was seriously injured. And when asked if he had any requests, he made two: a promotion for the corporal who helped rescue him … and the chance to become an American citizen. And when this brave Marine raised his right hand, and swore an oath to become a citizen of the country he had defended for more than 26 years, I was honored to stand at his side.

So, apparently, illegal immigrants who can get into this country and then are willing to join our armed services should be allowed to be American citizens. Military service is a sponge that washes all illegality away.

Huh?

Once again, the problem is people, and the solution is power. Specifically, military power. That's what Culberson was calling for; that's what Bush is calling for. Free flow of capital across borders, but not the free flow of people. Heinlein was onto the same idea 45 years ago with the path the citizenship lying only through military service. It is the divine right of kings to be secure in their subjects. Kings owe their fealty to money, but kings can only rule by demanding fealty from their subjects. If we cannot demand fealty from those within our borders, how can we trust them to be good members of our society? And if we cannot be sure they are validly citizens of our society, how can we be sure we have their fealty?

Which isn't the problem at all. As Rick said below: "We didn't cross the border, the border crossed us." This is an issue fomented in Colorado or Wisconsin, not in Texas or California. The proof that the Mexican border in Texas actually runs just below Houston west just south of Austin to El Paso is proven by Culberson's blinkered bigotry. No one in San Antonio, the third largest city in Texas, is advocating for stricter border control; and you'll find little support for it in Brownsville, or Eagle Pass, or Del Rio, or El Paso. You'll note all the border patrol stories on CNN come out of Arizona, not New Mexico, not California, not Texas.

But the real issue is fealty, and who is subject to the king's rule. If illegal immigrants can prove themselves as soldiers, if they can establish beyond a doubt their loyalty to the powers of the government, then they are worthy to hold citizenship. And good soldiers, of course, are always loyal to the king; who must, in turn, remain ever loyal to money.

Now do you see why the kingdom of heaven cannot be of this earth, and yet must be proclaimed as here, now, present among us? Because otherwise life is just a sad joke waiting for a better result on "the other side." And even medieval Europe didn't live under that bleak and pessimistic a weltanschaaung.