Rudy Giuliani Doesn't Get It--It's the Physical Fence, Stupid!

"Border security is about more than just physical borders" -- that's a revealing quote from Rudy Giuliani's essay, "The Resilient Society: A Blueprint for Homeland Security," appearing in the Winter 2008 issue Manhattan Institute's City Journal. Why is it revealing? Because Giuliani proves, yet again, that he is not really serious about protecting American security and sovereignty. He might wish to combat terrorism, and that's much needed, but what's also needed is a plan for securing America. And in Giuliani's mind, that's NOT needed.

Surely, if the topic is homeland security, well, then, the idea of a wall or a fence along our border should figure prominently in Giuliani's article, right? WRONG! The word "wall" does not appear in the 3786-word article (except for references to bureaucratic walls), and the word "fence" appears just once, included in the same clause with the "virtual technological fence" idea that the open-borders crowd has always pushed as an alternative to a real fence. The open-borderers like "virtual" fences because a) they are glitchy and thus don't always work, and b) if they do work, they can always be switched off. Either way, the open-borderers will be happy. Now all that the global elites have to do is bamboozle the bubbas with Giuliani, their latest (although not their only) bait-and-switch candidate.

Of course, the idea of a "double fence"--you know, the kind of fence that really impedes unwanted border flow is not mentioned. And the magic words, "fence by date certain" are nowhere to be seen. With this article, Giuliani asks us to trust him. But as we shall see, Giuliani is operating from the wrong intellectual model of border security and national identity.

Giuliani and his intellectual and political mentors and allies have not earned our trust. They have earned our distrust.

With this article, Giuliani is signaling to the champions of the status quo--the Manhattan Institute, which published this article, is home to Tamar Jacoby, perhaps the single most tireless champion of open borders and unlimited immigration anyone on the conservative/neoconservative side of the spectrum--that he is still within the "enlightened" globalist consensus that prevails, still, in New York and Washington DC. What's needed is the tonic of Heartland common sense--It's the Fence, Stupid!

Giuliani was a great mayor of New York City, back in the 90s, but in addition to his personal problems, he seems unable to fully make the jump into the 00s. And that's ironic, because Giuliani was reborn after September 11, 2001.

As Rudy says with every breath he takes, that 9-11 changed just about everything. It certainly changed our view of the world, and the dangers lurking out there. The planet turned out to be a lot more complicated than just a bunch of countries waiting to get their first McDonald's franchise. Yes, of course, we must always interact with the world, but 9-11 sure reminded us that we needed to be safe and secure in our own country.

Doesn't it make sense to secure your little patch of earth first? Enjoy serenity and sovereignty in your own home? That way, you can tend to your garden, and then venture out, and invite others in, as you might wish? Isn't that the way most people think and operate in their personal lives? They go out into the environment to work and play and worship, but then they come home to their own little nest, or castle, or retreat. Home Sweet Home. I mean, when was the last time that Giuliani invited you to just drop by house any time, unannounced, and stay for awhile?

So why should countries be different? If walls are good for the Giuliani family--however defined--then they good for your family and my family, too. And by logical extension, walls are good, too, for the American Family.

Giuliani sees 9-11 as a profound terrorist act, and of course, it was. But it was more than just the herald of a long war against Al Qaeda. It was also a signal to us that it's not only a few rogue bands of terrorists who are hostile to us, but whole cultures, dedicated to jihadism, Salafism, Islamism, Castro-ism, Chavez-ism, Putinism, whatever. How to deal with such cultures? The first answer: keep a safe distance apart. On our own good time, without the sort of riots that have perplexed France in recent years, we should consider our best options for countering terror.

But in the meantime, let's double-down--and double-fence!--here at home. As the San Francisco Zoo now knows, if experts tell you that the wall around your tiger cage isn't high enough--build it higher. People will thank you for your foresight--or, in the case of the recent tragedy--curse you for your fecklessness.

Moreover, many cultures that aren't obviously hostile are, well, different. There's nothing wrong with foreign cultures, of course, but trying to meld different cultures is oftentimes troublesome, and best done in small doses, so that the host country can effectively and humanely assimilate newcomers. When in Rome, do as the Romans do--there's good practical political wisdom in those words of St. Jerome.

But Giuliani, as mayor and even now, seems blind to these larger cultural-historical concerns. In New York City, he was a champion of bilingual education, for example, in addition to supporting all manner of services for illegals. Has he really gotten the message that NYC is a special place in America, separate and distinct in many ways--central to our country, of course, but neverthess not the model that most Americans wish to emulate in their own communities? This piece in City Journal tells me that he is still looking at the world through Brooklyn eyes.

And so, for example, while bilingualism is still an article of faith to The New York Times and the Ford Foundation, most Americans recognize that it has been a disaster. Learning foreign languages is fine. But English is the language of America.

Furthermore, multiethnic societies are fine--Americans come in all colors--but multicultural societies are civil strife, even civil war, waiting to happen. As Giuliani himself said when he was running for mayor in 1993, there should be "one standard." He was talking mostly about criminal justice at the time, but the same principle applies to societies as a whole. Too bad he hasn't kept that "one standard" dictum in mind as he seeks to oversee America's overall destiny from the White House.

If Giuliani were still thinking about "one standard," he would see the value of one culture for a nation. The bitter lesson of the last 20 years: Multicultural societies flounder. Think the former USSR, think Yugoslavia, think Ethiopia, think Lebanon. Think Israel, if you include the Palestinians. And also a great many African countries, where the borders were carelessly drawn by divide-and-conquer colonialists; today, those same borders serve as cauldrons in which hostile ethnic rivals to duke it out in "elections." At last count, 124 people had died in the wake of Kenya's recent balloting. Tribal democracy is not democracy--it's just slowmotion war. So the answer is to replace tribes with nations. But that takes time and patience, and it can only take place if there's a "time out" on new fuel to the ethnic fire. And now, we might add to that list of ethnically riven countries, sadly, Iraq, Afghanistan, and oh yes, Pakistan.

All these sad countries deserve our compassion, and perhaps our aid. But what we should NOT do is import their ethno-religious rivalries here into the US.

And a big strong wall would symbolize our determination to preserve and protect the American way of life.

Even after months on the campaign trail, even after the failure of the Bush-Kennedy immigration "compromise" last spring, Rudy doesn't get it. It's obvious that he never will.

We've Been Warned--Thanks to Frank Miele, Who Rightly Connects Border Security and National Sovereignty

Frank Miele, managing editor of The Daily Interlake in Montana, gets it right: The issues of border security and sovereignty are closely connected. If you don't have the first, you don't have the second. Sovereignty can't exist without border security. And without border security, there is no American sovereignty--which is to say, no America.

So Frank's piece is worth reading in full:


Fence fiasco: Or Feliz ano nuevo

FRANK MIELE

The decline of American sovereignty would typically be a big story in any year, but with all the news coming out of Hollywood this year, maybe it was a bit overshadowed by more significant events.

I mean, how can the virtual surrender of a 231-year-old nation to the Pollyanna-ish forces of political correctness possibly compete with the dramatic real-life struggles of Briitney Spears, Angelina Jolie, Tom Cruise, and the nation’s hot new nymphet, Britney’s baby sister, Jamie Lynn Spears?

But every once in a while, when Fox News could get their cameras to focus a little higher than their blonde news anchors’ ankles and thighs, a significant story would slip through by accident.

Most recently, we learned that Congress — that hallmark of American integrity — had pulled a fast one on the voting public by undermining the border fence which it had so ostentatiously supported before the 2006 midterm elections.

Back then, Congress voted to approve two layers of reinforced fencing, as well as additional physical barriers, roads, lighting and electronic surveillance” across portions of the border totaling 700 miles.

The president signed the bill, too, even though he has generally been an obstructionist on any issue that involves the United States standing up to its neighbor to the south.

That’s because the voting public was getting restless, wondering how the government could justify allowing 20 million illegal aliens to take up residence in our country, utilize public services, and demand their “right” to U.S. citizenship!

Back in October of 2006, I wrote a column subtitled “Lies about the fence,” in which I warned that the bill authorizing the border fence did not provide any funding for it, and was just one more political shell game.

I was partly wrong. Despite my warnings, apparently FIVE MILES of the purported 700-MILE fence has actually been built in the last year, for which, I suppose, we should be grateful. At this “frenetic” pace, we can get the entire 700 miles built by the year 2147. Perhaps the descendants of Vicente Fox and George Bush can hold a picnic as the last fence post is put into place in the 22nd century while they toast the 100th anniversary of the founding of the United States of North America.

There has never been any doubt that President Bush was against the fence, and Mexico’s former president Fox said at the time the bill was passed in 2006 that the fence was an “embarrassment.”

Heck no, the embarrassment is that this country CAN’T build a fence.

Just as predicted by advocates of border security last year, the project has been met with one bureaucratic or congressional stalling tactic after another. The latest sleight-of-hand was seen in the $555 billion spending bill signed by President Bush last week.

Remarkably, the Republican senator from Texas, Kay Bailey Hutchinson, added language on a voice vote that essentially strips the 2006 Secure Border Fence of any teeth it had. Here’s what she added about funding for the fence:

“Nothing in this paragraph shall require the Secretary of Homeland Security to install fencing, physical barriers, roads, lighting, cameras, and sensors in a particular location along an international border of the United States, if the Secretary determines that the use or placement of such resources is not the most appropriate means to achieve and maintain operational control over the international border at such location.”

In other words, it leaves total discretion for whether to build the fence or not to the administration that opposed the fence in the first place. Way to go, Congress, and feliz ano nuevo.

• Frank Miele is managing editor of the Daily Inter Lake. E-mail responses may be sent to edit@dailyinterlake.com.

And one of his posters provides this useful photograph, from San Diego, above.

Wisdom for a Sunday

"Speak not in the ears of a fool: for he will despise the wisdom of thy words. Remove not the old landmark; and enter not into the fields of the fatherless." -- Proverbs 23:9-10.

The Fence by Date Certain Pledge

A border fence to stop the flow of illegal immigration into the US is the single biggest step we can take to secure our homeland. This should be THE voting issue in 2008, with an eye toward getting a total and complete fence--a physical fence, not a virtual fence!--by mid-2009. If the voters make it absolutely positively clear to politicians that they want this fence built, it will get built.

So Americans, mindful of their national sovereignty and homeland security, should respectfully request all candidates for federal office to sign this Fence by Date Certain pledge:

Whereas, America's national sovereignty and homeland security are under threat;

Whereas, millions of illegal aliens--including drug smugglers, sex traffickers, jihadists, and terrorists--have come across our borders in recent years;

Whereas, America is less safe and secure as a result of this federal inaction on border security;

Whereas, Americans, once informed and made fully aware of threats to their well-being, never fail to do the right thing;

Whereas, Americans have a demonstrated genius for effective action and a "can do" spirit--as the Seabees say, "the difficult we do immediately, the impossible takes a little longer." So this fence must be built by Americans, with American materials.

And so we, the citizens of the United States of America, have joined together in a patriotic union to respectfully but insistently request that all of our federal elected officials sign this Fence By Date Certain Pledge--or explain to us why they refuse:

I, _____, pledge to vote for, fully fund, and speedily expedite the construction of a secure double fence across the US-Mexican border within six months after the convening of the next Congress.

Signed,

_____

End of pledge. It's that simple. Either they sign or they don't.

Copyright (C) 2007, James P. Pinkerton -- permission freely granted for non-profit use.