We should build a wall with towers and shoot to kill anyone trying to get through. Why is this so hard to figure?

Anything amiss if we "loan" an Apache chopper to the local sheriffs that just so happens to take out the next intruder in military uniforms and tooling around on our side of the border in a humvee?

Then ask "El Presidente Supremo" Vinny Fox uh........whut ya gonna do ’bout it? Huh?

Unless we are ready to shoot employers who are deliberately breaking the law in a campaign to depress the wages of the unskilled American worker, it is unjust to talk about shooting the impoverished migrant willing to take those jobs. In the scale of moral culpability, these lawless employers are the greater villains.

Jesse & David - I hope you aren’t planning to stretch your militia posse too thin. After straining at the bit to shoot looters in New Orleans, Muslims in France, and such, we don’t want you to get too far ahead of your supply lines!

David- I think the idea of the tunnel is to cross the border without being seen getting through the barrier. The tunnel goes UNDER the barrier, you see, so a tower probably won’t get you much closer to the tunnel-diggers. Very possibly, these tunnels are getting longer because the barriers are getting more effective.

Now, if you wanted to be proactive, David, you could start building TUNNELS and then you could intercept these people when their tunnels meet yours -- and shoot ’em!

I’m with "jesse fan" - yeah, what are they gonna do about it? We need to kill those border-clinging Mexicanos! Maybe we should just drop a few small nukes on their side of the border to let ’em know we mean business!! White Power!

Fung:

I assume you care about international law, yet you seem to turn a blind eye to this situation. One of the fundamental axioms of international law is that a nation’s borders are inviolate. It is against international law (assuming no treaty to the contrary) and very bad manners to let one’s citizens invade another country, and do nothing about it.

Do you think Mexico is in the wrong here? If not, why not? If yes, then what should they ought to do? Assuming they fail to try and stop this breach of international law, what can/should the US do in response?

Hey Steve, is it bad manners to build your factories in someone else’s country and then pay the workers there a ridiculously low wage as well as disregard safety because there’s no pushy OSHA to worry about, thereby depriving Americans of jobs because they demand too much money (i.e., more than a few bucks a day)? I just want to be clear on what’s good manners and what’s not!

Steve- Did Mexico bulid that tunnel, or did soldiers in the "war against drugs" build it?

I am reacting to the one-trick pony gun-totin’ posse on this blog. Every time the god-given right of white people to rule this country is threatened, certain elements need to git out the Hoppe’s and renew their memberships in the local paint ball club in order to hone their skills.

The growth in number and length of tunnels is a perfect sign that the War against fill-in-the-blank does not work, unless one’s aim is to create smarter, sneakier, more desperate opponents.

Having lived on the Texas/Mexico border, I can tell you that many local Texans revel in the stories (current and historical) of Rangers and Sherrifs and good ole boy posse members crossing the Rio to administer good ole American justice. In many cases, the drug trade thrives because of the participation of corrupt American officers of the law. The best part is the way the authorities look the other way.

I’m with Phil and wm. Who has crossed more borders with toxin-producing factories, missionaires, missiles, armies, Fast-food, DDT,Walmart, sweat-shop quid pro quo than the USA?

We know from this comment that Mr. Sparks has no qualms with international law being violated, at least when it comes to Bush’s domestic wiretapping. I presume he was entirely dismissive of any arguments against the invasion of Iraq that posited it as a violation of international law.

But if we allow Mr. Sparks a cafeteria-style plan regarding international law -after all, we’re all entitled to agree with some international laws as just and not others- and take him seriously when he speaks solemnly of "the fundamental axiom(s) of international law...that a nation’s borders are inviolate" one must wonder if he has any regrets about the U.S. invasion of Iraq. If we compare deaths & injuries of the invaders/invaded in the 2 scenarios, how would it look? Thousands of Iraqis have died after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, but how many Americans have died because of the Mexican "invasion?"

Fung, Phil are up to their usual tricks and now they have B.O. as a new friend, but they can make all the little sarcastic jokes they wish to make and it won’t change the fact that America is facing a CRISIS because of the huge numbers of illegal aliens flooding into this once great nation. It is soon going to become the United States of Mexico and the Mexicans will finally win the Mexican-American war albeit not with guns and tanks, but by sending all their little muchachos and muchachas across the river while the Libs welcome them in with open arms. So keep on welcoming them but having this many Spanish people charging in here all the time is most certainly NOT GOOD for this country. If shooting them when they try to cross the border is what it takes, then I say so be it.

Entries in Sandra’s Dictionary:

"Welcoming" (v), any action that does not involve shooting.

"Threat" (n), (1) a person with dark skin, (2) a person who acts, thinks, talks differently than Sandra does, (3) a person who thinks.

Phil Thompson and Fung:

Both of your fact patterns are very different from mine (with the exception of air pollution). Mexico had to allow Walmarts, factories, and the like to be built there before they were built. No executive snuck across the border and planted a factory without the Mexican government’s consent. This is very different from a government allowing (or not even attempting to stop) its citizens to go into a country when it knows they are violating that country’s immigration laws.

As far as air pollution, I do not believe America is part of any international treaty concerning air pollution (this would be Kyoto I imagine), nor does America have a treaty with Mexico concerning this. Since there is no traditional international law concerning air pollution, there is no law without some positive law being enacted through treaty. Since there is no treaty, there is no law, no law, no violation. Your arguments are rather weak, very sad from people who profess to worship international law and dislike American hegemony and the like.

Bored Observor:

Laws can be "broken" (although they are not really broken) when necessity compels it. It is unclear whether the UN Charter allows a country to preemptively attack another. It is clear there was some perceived threat of danger. If someone claims he has a gun, and I reasonably believe him, I’m allowed to kill him. The same holds true for Iraq. Even if this were not the case, there is no pressing necessity for Mexico to violate international law and allow its citizens to invade America. There may have been necessity with Iraq, but there is clearly no necessity concerning immigration, so your argument is worthless.

Steve- First of all, please show me where I have professed to "worship international law"??

Second, it looks to me like you are suggesting that the U.S. has no moral guidelines other than other countries’ laws. (No law, no violation) If this is true, then apparently, we can enter into any agreement with a government whose laws are minimal and/or not in the best interests of its people, and then we can strike a deal with that government, and be complicit in its exploitation of its citizens.

So, we can ban DDT here, but if there is no such ban in country X, then we should unload our stock piles in country X. No law, no violation. We have a minimum wage here, but none in China, so we can exploit workers in China. No law, no violation.

I must adress two individuals here.

First, Mother-Froth, Froth, first of all I in no way desire your support in any manner. I have no patience with racist trash. If you are so gung ho about "White Power", there are, I am sure, a number of websites that cater to your supremist tastes.

Now Fung, my comment about the use of the Apachechopper was sort of tongue in cheek. Remember I said sort of. When troops of a foreign nation cross onto your side of the border uninvited.........well I would think that is an act of war. No?

Now maybe you feel that our response should be based only on relativism. That is we respond only if Russian or Chinese troops crossed our borders but not Mexican troops. I mean we must be fair. Right?

Even so let us consider that these "troops" were not even real Mexican soldiers, but drug dealers or smugglers. What is wrong with taking them out? I mean,it by doing so could only improve the gene pool of Mexican citizens.

Think ’bout it.

Fung:

That is exactly what I was suggesting, and why I think international law is a rotten system. International law deals with law between nations, not abstract moral theories. Compliance with the law does not make an action moral, it only makes it lawful, just like all breaking of laws is not immoral, though it is unlawful.

International law allows the government of each country, whether legitimate or not, to enter into treaties for its countries. If County X enters into a treaty with the US to supply it with DDT, this is lawful, unless a prior treaty outlawed this and neither party to the new treaty denoucned the old treaty. The UN World Order is built on this notion of nation states, which is one reason why the UN is a joke.

Look, the left cannot have it both ways. It froths at the mouth about the US unlawful invasion of Iraq, and then gets upset when international law would allow something immoral. If morality ought to be the basis of international law, not nation state consent, then I do not see how the left can argue, in good faith, that the invasion of Iraq was immoral. Saddam was a very very bad man. One is silly if he suggests that the Iraqis are worse off today than they were under Saddam.

All I ask is that you choose your international "law" basis--consent of nation states or morality. If you choose morality, that is fine, but you will have to exile many UN states (since their governments are illegimate), support the Iraq war, etc. If you choose consent then everything I have said about international law is probably right.

jesse-fan - Well, you may not desire my support, but I’m not going to back off just to make you feel better. There’s nothing "racist" about wanting to preserve one’s heritage, even if that just so happens to be white. No one should be scared by "White Power" - why are you? Dain can explain this all better than I can. I’m more of an action man rather than a words man.

Look, while I’m in favor of liberalizing the immigration laws, I think we need to enforce the laws that we have. But under what conception of criminal justice is it acceptable to shoot people on sight simply for trying to enter the country illegally?

John- how about under the conception that the people trying to enter the country are also bringing in drugs, as many Mexicans do? I certainly think that would be an ok time to send a very loud and clear signal that this kind of stuff WILL NOT be tolerated by the U.S.

Fung’s dictionary:

Threat (n), 1) George Bush 2) Dick Cheney 3) Ann Coulter

Friend (n), 1) Any Mexican 2) Any person seeking to enter the United States

Someone needs to get his definitions cleared up!

Well, how do we deal with drug smugglers in any other case? We apprehend them, try them, and if they are found guilty we punish them. Killing people as they cross the border, based merely on the possibility that they MIGHT be carrying drugs (and I haven’t seen any statistics on what percentage of illegal immigrants are even involved in such activities--the phrase "many Mexicans" is pretty vague) sounds like something that would happen in Iran, not here.

Well, I know ziltch about international law, so if you want to bury me with facts, I will wave the white flag right now.

But, it seems to me that laws are only one layer of control over the behavior of persons, or the actions of governments. Other layesr involve morality, ethics, and the recognition of our peers.

When people are mature, autonomous, and competent, we expect them to obey the laws, but we hope that they might transcend them, so to speak. For instance, I want my neighbors to avoid robbing my house while I am away. In some neighborhoods, I lock my doors, and in others, I do not, because I know that my neighbors are not constrained by the law -- instead, robbing me is not a consideration of theirs because they are decent, moral people.

Many on this blog are proud to be Americans. If I am proud to be an American, it is NOT because of the size and force of our army, but because of our history of integrity AND freedom. Just as I am not proud of obeying the speed limit, I am not proud of my government when it "merely" obeys the law. I am proud when we help other countries, or when we tax ourselves to provide everyone an education, or when we model integrity and excellence across the world. I am not proud when we allow our corporations to take advantage of low standards in other countries that we don’t allow to apply within our own borders.

When we DO that, then I am not surprised that people can both hate us and want to join us at the same time. Better to be in the tent, than to be outside of the tent, as the saying goes....

As for shooting people on sight -- I am with John. First, there seems no confidence that these people were real military. Second, the Mexican military recently DID cross our borders to help with the Hurrican aftermath. Third, Sandra’s bizarre assertions aside, there are many ways to deal with criminals other than shooting them. First, they must be apprehended. Among other things, we might want to question people, and find out who is building tunnels, and how, and where some other ones might be. We might want to separate the drug-runners from the terrorists from the mothers and children escaping warlords and dictators in Central America and South America. That is all more difficult to do when we shoot people on sight.

I think we are going to have to let all of these Mexicans in. I guess their new line is that they were all "born American, but in the wrong place."