What Should Have Been

Something dawned on me today. Every time in our past when immigration swung out of control as it is today natural forces brought it back under control.

The first great wave of immigration occured just before the Civil War. When the war swung into gear, for obvious reasons immigration was brought almost to a halt.

The second great wave of immigration was shut off by a variety of factors, but one of the largest was WWI. By the end of the war the unrestrained spigot of immigration was almost completely closed for forty years.

Which brings us to today. Nine eleven should have been the precipitating factor that allowed us to get immigration back under control, but it wasn't. I'm hardly originating this idea, but it struck me that had our government, our president cared one whit about actually securing the homeland our borders would have been shut tighter than a goddamn drum by nine eighteen.

But they weren't, and they still aren't and these same jokers show no peculiar interest in doing so. Things at the end of the last great wave got a little flaky right before the spigot shut off, some of the situations might sound familiar...

Bug business said it would be un-American to stop immigration. They insisted they wouldn't be able to find workers unless we had unrestrained immigration. Farmers testified before congress that crops would rot in the field. An odd, weakened Northern version of the KKK sprung to life and became a serious contender in politics, in the Northern states (if you want to compare this to the Minutemen I would say there's some truth to it, but probably not as much as you may think, ed).

And let's not forget the violent riots. I've always believed history is a prologue to the present if you pay attention, and the parallels between what I see today are astonishing in similarity to back then at the end of the second great wave.

God gave us a golden opportunity to deal decisively with a pernicious problem. Out of that horrible tragedy this could have been the shining moment, but it wasn't. Our government in all their venal wisdom blew it in a big way, one hopes they will pay a price for this malfeasance.