Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Local Liberals Demonstrate in Mexico City - Of Course Not!

The Monday, May 12, 2008 edition of The Daily Progress, page A2, contains an sympathetic article on illegal aliens entitled, "Walking the path illegal: Virginia pair hikes from Mexico to illustrate immigrants' plight." The author, Jeremy Borden, profiles local two open borders activists.

He states that the pair walked in the footsteps of Mexicans' to draw attention to Mexico's failed economic policies that drive them to leave their homes. It would have been nice if he had enlightened readers as to what those policies were and exactly how they failed.

Readers might be asking themselves, 'Why aren't these two marching on Mexico City to protest the Mexican government's failure on behalf of these poor people?' One might wonder why they don't think it is worthwhile to encourage Mexico to become a place where their citizens might have economic opportunities.

Wouldn't that sound every bit as noble and brave as trying to force our country to toss aside our immigration laws and national security in order to assuage their race-based liberal guilt?

Activist Jeff Winder blamed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) for the economic problems in Mexico. It would have been interesting to hear how that jibes with the "great sucking sound" Ross Perot predicted NAFTA would bring, and when a great number of American manufacturing jobs actually went to Mexico.

The article is balanced, somewhat, with one quote from Christian Schoenewald, chairman of the Albemarle GOP, who disagrees with the idea of open borders. Schoenwald said that it was "not a conservative-liberal issue" but no liberals who support defending America's sovereignty were interviewed, although they are presumed to exist.

One idea for a follow-up article might be the story of immigrants who came to America legally, followed our immigration laws to become citizens, and think that others should as well.