Fences make bad neighbors

Bachmann Goes After Perry on Immigration and Pledges Border Fence - NYTimes.com: "PERRY, Iowa — Representative Michele Bachmann gave one of the great stem-winding speeches of her campaign Saturday about the burdens illegal immigration places on American taxpayers, and she signed a pledge to build a “secure double fence” along every foot of the border with Mexico."

Robert Frost's "good fences make good neighbors" was flinty and catchy and wrong. Back then we all nodded. Today we think we can halt migration with fences. Think again. We are not seeing immigration. We are seeing what Toynbee called a volkerwanderung, what Bob Marley sang about - "movement of the people". Hell, we encouraged it and it continues to build our country. Why do thousands of other locales light up with Occupy sympathy events? Because America is still the hope of the world. It is because of democracy, the same democracy the GOP is trying to defeat by simply making it hard for ordinary people to vote. Think democracy and free access. Think that if you are conservative. What could be more libertarian? To put it politely, but not with proper alliteration, screw fences.

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