Bring On the Alligators!

[Republicans] said we needed to triple the Border Patrol.  Or now they’re going to say we need to quadruple the Border Patrol.  Or they’ll want a higher fence.  Maybe they’ll need a moat.  Maybe they want alligators in the moat.  They’ll never be satisfied.

 - President Barack Hussein Obama

The response to this little bit of unpresidential levity is what you would expect.  The media guffawed.  Republican Congressman Joe Walsh (R, IL) wrote him a letter saying, now that you mention it, alligators aren't a bad idea.  The usual suspects have lined up on both sides: decrying "racist" "hate" on the one hand, and on the other hand calculating the cost and logistical elements involved.

Nothing new here?

More by accident than by design, President Obama raised a good point: Are our national borders worth defending with deadly force, or aren't they?  All the ink spilled over the immigration issue has made it clear that this is not an issue subject to reasoned argument - it's a discussion about first principles: Is it legitimate to defend a national border with deadly force or is it not?

In that sense, immigration is similar to abortion - abortion either kills a human being or it does not.  If it kills a human being, abortion is murder and must be banned.  If it does not kill a human being, there's no reason not to permit abortion or even to care particularly.

The "pro lifers" are slowly winning the abortion battle because ultrasound and other medical advances let people look inside the mother and see a baby waving back at them.  Similarly, all the bad news about jobs, crime, and welfare costs are showing more and more people the down-side of open borders.

Borders, Schmorders

The concept of totally open, unregulated American borders is relatively new.  Even in the glory days of Ellis Island, immigrants were first dumped onto the Island for a customs inspection - which was the whole point of it being an island.  It was no mere rubber stamp either; hundreds of thousands were sent back for health problems, mental weakness, or simply no visible means of support.

There was a time when Democrats did not hesitate to kill foreign invaders; Franklin Roosevelt was no slouch in beating back the Imperial Japanese and their Nazi allies in the early 1940's.

Republicans showed equal vigor in defending us against unarmed illegal aliens; in 1954, President Eisenhower organized "Operation Wetback" to round up and deport illegals.  The operation was so well publicized that the government didn't even have to do most of the work; many deported themselves before INS could find them.

Today, things are different.  Despite the murder of American law enforcement and civilians by illegal immigrants and Mexican drug cartel operatives and many other serious crimes against both life and property, our President persists in ridiculing the very idea of stopping illegals.  No, not every illegal immigrant carries a weapon, but all are trespassing and stealing something that does not belong to them.

Is there a moral or legal limit to the amount of force a nation can use to defend itself?  Enquiring nations want to know.  Europe, fearing a tsunami of Africans fleeing Arab violence and upheaval is considering ending its quarter-century-long open-borders agreement - but despite the gains of political parties who are bent on expelling foreigners, Europe's elites are more concerned with reports of Western ships not helping drifting boatloads of illegals than they are with stopping the invasion.

Just last week, Israel was invaded by mobs of Muslims armed with rocks.  While the Israeli army would have been perfectly justified in machine-gunning them all, a mere handful were hurt and the rest were simply arrested and thrown back across the border.

Somebody understands!

Why such pusillanimity?  History recoils at the memory of the Berlin Wall where the East German Stasi machine-gunned their own citizens who wanted out.  Making your entire country a prison camp is obviously wrong.

Does that make all walls evil?  Of course not!  If you imprisoned someone in your house, you'd be a monstrous criminal, but everyone locks their front door to keep people out who don't belong there.  Only in the last few decades would anyone have even thought of arguing that a nation had no right to stop foreigners who illegally wanted in.

For all that Mr. Obama claimed that he'd done everything that the Republicans asked to secure our borders, even the media knows that's a lie.  The border is about as open as it's ever been.  While there have been more deportations, we still host several tens of millions of people who have no right here, with no serious attempt to do more than nip around the edges.

The left has made it perfectly clear that they don't believe there should even be such a thing as borders.  They do not accept the idea that some people have a right to be here and others don't.  The American people have rejected this view every time it's been put to them, but voters keep getting ignored.

Serious Solutions for Serious Times

So, in the spirit of Reagan's "bold colors," let's set out precisely what Republicans, conservatives, and the American people rightfully demand of their President: secure borders and deportation of all illegals the moment they're encountered by anyone in official authority for any reason.

If alligators will help, use alligators.

If the Army with machine guns will help - and it's hard to imagine that it wouldn't - use the Army.  If our Army cannot defend our nation's territorial integrity, what good is it?

If landmines will help, use landmines!  After all, the border between North and South Korea has them, and one very rarely hears about any immigration in either direction there, despite incentives even stronger than along our southern frontier.  The Mexicans may be poor and oppressed, but they aren't starving and eating grass like the Norks.

Mr. Obama talks happy talk about being serious, but he means the exact opposite.  It's time to get serious about being a country and defending Americans.  For that matter, it's time the Europeans get serious about being countries and defending their own borders; it looks like Denmark and France may be waking up from their long slumber, and we wish them well.

Yet again, the French are more aggressive about doing what needs to be done than we Americans; something needs to change here.

When the Left screams about people dying, there is only one response - the same one we give when the police gun down an armed thug: Don't commit crimes, and you'll be just fine.  Break the law after you've been warned, and you deserve what you get.

Why is that so hard?