To my 14 year old granddaughters,
You asked me the other day, why we need borders. I got the idea that you think borders and countries is a silly, outdated notion. Now, I'm not going to give you the 'I'm older and I know better' answer. Nothing is that easy.
First, always examine where your information came from that brings you to your 'informed conclusion'. A wise man said, "If you're not a liberal when you're young, you have no heart. If you're not conservative when you're old, you have no brain".
Your 'heart' is in the right place. You'll never get an argument from me on that.
I remember going 'mano a mano' with my dad at about your age when I thought Abraham Lincoln was nothing less than a saint. They taught me that at school. At about 40, I figured out Daddy was right. I have every confidence you will snap out of it long before I did.
Every young generation believes it is the most enlightened generation ever! How could it be otherwise? They, after all, have been the recipient of all the knowledge and mistakes made throughout history. Really? These bright eyed, "we are the children of the world" types have a knowledge of history? Or have they somehow otherwise 'decided' how things should be for all of us?
Rome was once the most powerful, educated, rich state known to the world. They even became 'enlightened' as a society, unlike the heathen hordes infesting much of the planet at the time. But the Romans were 'enlightened', so they began to let in the hordes. Some were wanted to work at arduous, menial tasks that 'enlightened' people no long lowered themselves to perform. Some were let in, well, because the Romans were sure they could conquer the rest of the worlds savages by sharing their, 'enlightenment' and wealth.
Soon, the Romans were outnumbered and overpowered. They became the outsiders and the poor and powerless. And their leaders never missed a beat at their lavish lifestyles to notice until Rome burned. After Rome fell to the hordes, the world was plunged into centuries of struggle, starvation, conquest, discrimination, war.
I do admire both of you that you will speak up and ask the questions. Remember this: I am a child of the sixties, for better or worse. We invented that protest crappola and love and peace at all costs. You all haven't even learned how to make noise yet. :<)
So, a few hundred years later, some poor fools from Europe show up at Plymouth Rock, running from persecution and feast with their hosts, the American Indians. Your ancestors gladly gave territory to these 'immigrants' they encountered. At first.
They considered the 'white man' their brothers, all created by the same great spirit. Within a century, the native population was reduced to a mere percentage of itself. They had been 'removed' for the settlers.
No country or culture in the history of the world has survived opening it's borders to anyone who wanted to come. Ever. All the 'enlightenment' you seek can not change that. If the USA is merely a place of transit for the world's lost peoples, we will cease to be.
I suspect some good hearted person has given you one narrow view of immigration. They and you fail to understand this is not about any one person you may know or any person or race of people. It is about human nature. The powers suppress the hordes of angry, defiant, uneducated mobs or the mobs take over. There is NO other way. And they both usually happen with violence.
Then about 1776, came along some very stubborn men, Virginians and others determined to form a government and nation where violence and injustice did not rule the day but rather the PEOPLE ruled, and they were ready to die to achieve it. Never before or since has there been a group of people of so varied backgrounds to achieve what they did. The power would be in the hands of the people, not it's rulers. The concept has never lasted as long or worked as well even though some had to be conquered to get there and a lot of innocents suffered. Freedom isn't free. You can't just walk into a country and take it. You earn it as a peope. You had ancestors in that squabble as well. Probably on both sides. LOL. You've earned the right to be confused.
"All men are created equal". THAT is who we are. That means the rest of the world has the same chance and better odds, of having the same things we achieved. We beat England, the most powerful military power ever known. We didn't even have a Navy, but we destroyed theirs!
"All men are created equal?" Not to the Reconquista movement which is the most racist people I've encountered in the country in my 59 years. Not the radical Muslim worldwide movement. They want you dead, Infidel! And you will never be 'enlightened' enough to make them happy.
These groups hate you, me and our form of government and practices of religion and culture. They don't believe in or practice the rule of law, justice, freedom of speech. They see the first amendment as their right, not ours. They seek to silence you and often do. They believe you owe them something, your country. Why, I ask. Why does a child born in America today owe another child born somewhere else anything?
More recently, there has been a war in a place called Kosovo. A few decades ago, it was a Serbian occupied country and had been for centuries. Beautiful old churches, Serbian pride. The Serbs saved our forces more than once in WW2. Good, peasant types the Serbs were.
They let in some roving Albanians and more just came in, turning it into a country they no longer recognized , destroying the churches and government, always at war. Now the Serbs are 10 percent of the population. Kosovo has become an Albanian Muslim country in a few short years, filled with drug running, terrorism and our government is helping them accomplish it. No one came to the Serbs aid when they were invaded. And when the Serbs tried to defend their country, they were stopped by the 'children of the world'.
We should all seek 'enlightenment' and knowledge, but something has failed when we believe our experience can be the same for people who have no use for it.
Only 37% of Americans now live where they were born and raised. The world is on the 'move' and it's a dangerous trend. We are all lost when there is no place left to call 'home'. Do keep in mind that the USA admits more legal immigrants (about 2 1/2 MILLION per year) than the rest of the world's countries combined. About 50% of the legal entries are Mexicans. Another 5 to 10 THOUSAND cross our unprotected borders per DAY. A town the size of mine, coming in every day.
There are villages in Mexico with no one but children and old people left because everyone else is here. Their families and their economy is destroyed because we 'enlightened' Americans want our cheap labor. We are not helping the people of Mexico by making them gypsies and orphans!
More Americans have died by illegal immigrants since 9/11 than died on 9/ll plus Iraq plus Afghanistan and then some. About 25 of us die everyday at the hands of illegal aliens. All the 'enlightenment' on earth won't stop the death. Only protecting our nation and our borders will, while foreigners who broke our laws are sent home to make freedom and prosperity in their own countries.
And that's why we have borders.
