The North Should Build a Fence
This problem has been ignored for far too long. Unauthorized immigration by Southerners into wealthy Northern states is draining the Northern economy and changing our way of life. Finally, a solution.
Uneducated, impoverished, and with a poor command of English, Southerners are invading by the millions. Between 1900 and 1970, over twenty million undocumented Southerners crossed the border into the North. Millions more have come since then, seeking to take advantage of our robust economies and generous social benefits.
The numbers cited above tell only half the story, however. The Total Fertility Rate--that is, the number of children an average woman will have over her lifetime--is dramatically higher for Southerners. Mississippi's TFR, for example, is 2.26, while Vermont's is a far more civilized 1.69 (far below replacement rate.) If just half the population of Mississippi immigrated to Vermont, there would be more Southerners than Northerners in that state within a single generation! Such an influx would place an enormous burden on our public school systems, hospitals, unemployment offices, and police force.
It's not just that they're uneducated, gun-wielding maniacs, though. Southern culture is very different from Northern culture. We in the North prefer active lifestyles and healthy eating. Southerners seem to care only for driving their pick-up trucks from the local BBQ joint to the nearest Wing Stop. One look around Times Square will confirm it: the only fat people around are wearing shorts and have cameras slung over their necks. Thus the Southern immigrants pose a public health concern too. The average BMI in the North has increased dramatically in the past 30 years, though it thankfully still lags behind that of our neighbors to the South.
Perhaps if they learned the language we'd be more welcoming. But they sternly refuse to speak proper English, preferring instead their own incomprehensible dialect. "Y'all" and "might could" are making their way into the casual conversations of Northern gentlemen with alarming speed. How long before we're all speaking with a twang?
My proposal, then, is to build a fence across the waistline of this great nation of ours. The Mason-Dixon line would be a fine starting point for compromise, but we may wish to keep Maryland on our side so as not to lose Washington, DC. We'll still have immigration, of course, but on a vastly reduced scale. Highly educated Southerners (Ph. Ds, M.D.s) or those with special skills which cannot readily be found in the North will still be able to obtain work visas easily. The rest, who would simply be a drain on our economy, will simply have to wait their turn. Ten years seems fair.
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Comments:
May '10
Re: The North Should Build a Fence
As a transplanted Connecticut Yankee to Georgia (almost 20 years), I wholehearted agree to the fence. I'll even kick in a double-sawbuck.
Dec '10
Re: The North Should Build a Fence
Boots on the Table
Foxman
So you do acknowledge that the North won? This could make you an exception. · 3 hours ago
Edited 48 minutes ago
Who said it was over? · 1 hour ago
That Gen. R E Lee guy
Nov '10
Re: The North Should Build a Fence
Not JMR
"[I]t is looking to theregimeabove all that the city must be said to be the same."
Aristotle's emphasis here on regime means that the end or purpose of the regime is its form.
This brings up the whole distinction between matter vs. form.
For Aristotle there are two types of matter relative to political form: human beings and "culture." What we today think of as "culture" (habits, mores, etc.) is for Aristotle simply the residue of past political choices or forms.
But not every matter (113 million transplanted Mexicans, Russians, or whoever) can accept every form. Open immigration is folly.
As the second of two proffered alternatives, Aristotle writes: "Or must it be asserted that the human beings are the same for this sort of reason, but that the city differs?"
The purely democratic view just is this latter alternative: i.e., the polity is all matter. Everyone is equally a part of the city.
The oligarchic view, however, is that it is all form. The city is the same chiefly with respect to the regime.
1/2
Edited on April 20, 2012 at 5:18pmNov '10
Re: The North Should Build a Fence
2/2
Aristotle is more in tune with the oligarchic view. Human beings are the matter in the regime, capable of receiving the form.
Most modern political science today -- and, mirabile dictu, libertarianism which sees economics as primary in all instances -- takes the view that human beings are not formed in politics, but that politics is derivative. Politics is a kind of flow or process with inputs and outputs back into society. Politics is nothing special from this view. Government cannot change society, it can just rearrange the matter.
In this view, politics is identified precisely with what Aristotle says it should not be.
Aristotle recognizes that there is matter, but he is more concerned with form; and I think on that basis alone Aristotle has something to teach us today.
The form and end of the regime are connected. The form is a means to the end, but it is also a part of the end...
Edited on April 20, 2012 at 5:16pmOct '10
Re: The North Should Build a Fence
Xennady
Not JMR
I always thought Aristotle was making just the opposite point--that a nation is defined by its laws and institutions, not its ethnic makeup.
Bluntly, the idea that a nation will stand when its laws and institutions are faced with even a voting plurality of citizens - e.g. as in California- who do not accept the bedrock assumptions of the culture- personal responsibility, limited government- is fatally flawed.
· 1 hour ago
Exactly. A nations laws and institutions should be a reflection of its citizenry. In America, t's questionable whether this is still true.
The magical thought that government controls culture is what got us into nation building in the middle east; you can't simultaneously scale back a totalitarian state and expect the culture to drastically change.
The more freedom a government grants, the less it influences culture. If you imported 10 million Pashtun from Afghanistan and plopped them all down together in a densely populated area inside the U.S., within a couple of decades you would have civil war or a newly declared Islamic Republic of America, but this is based on culture, not eye, hair, or skin color.
Edited on April 20, 2012 at 5:19pmJan '12
Re: The North Should Build a Fence
Well. I do get tired of so much humidity. So with my terminal degree in hand and an acknowledged skill in turning pork shoulders into the nectar of God, I may petition to spend summers in Vermont (or New Hampshire - I can never tell them apart).
As to the late unpleasantness; we got our asses handed to us. But that's ok; after a hundred years of punitive tariffs and selective federal retribution, regional bigotry seems to be on the wane.
Well done OP. Good post.
Dec '10
Re: The North Should Build a Fence
I don't see this post as anti-Southern. Any conservative who isn't admiring of the South these days is unconsciously self-loathing. Or suicidal.
Not JMR has written a clever Swiftian post probing the wounds caused by illegal immigration and the, perhaps, flawed arguments we've been making for border security. I give it a thumbs up (still no "Like" this post button?).
However, the valid argument for border control is all about culture and assimilation in my opinion. Therefore, I'd have made the case for "parenthetical" walls separating the left-coast/right-coast from the heartland interior. And, of course, we'd give the Left "sanctuary" outposts in Madison, Chicago, and Austin, with similar trades for conservative cities in the Parenthesis States.
Jan '12
Re: The North Should Build a Fence
I love Not JMR's post. And I still think I could be like the one eyed man in the land of the blind if I could get the denizens of northern Vermont (or New Hampshire - I can never tell them apart) to taste my bar-be-que.
Edited on April 20, 2012 at 5:56pmOct '10
Re: The North Should Build a Fence
That fence is a great idea! Obviously, California is included in the North. In a less than a generation we will also conclude that our interests have diverged. Let the South go and prosper. Leave the North with the entire Federal state of affairs. Can I bring a shovel to help get things started? Oh, and we need to be exceedingly cautious about visitors from the North. Stringent visa controls and all that. ;-)
Jan '12
Re: The North Should Build a Fence
Hang on just a sec! Waddn't that picture on the post of a fence to keep out the northern horde?
Nov '10
Re: The North Should Build a Fence
I went to college in New England and was posted for three years at Ft. Bliss, Texas (El Paso); otherwise I have lived my life in North Alabama. On the basis of that experience, I'll contribute to the construction of the fence, if it bars movement BOTH ways and if we southerners have free rein to manage our own affairs, foreign and domestic.
The last time we wanted that, the Yankees got their panties in a wad and we had a fight on our hands.
May '10
Re: The North Should Build a Fence
M1919A4:
The last time we wanted that, the Yankees got their panties in a wad and we had a fight on our hands. · 28 minutes ago
Y'all got your "panties wadded" first because the nation elected a man who believed a man should be able to enjoy the fruits of his labor. Abe was a "right-to-work" kinda guy before the South acted like they invented it or something. ;)
Jan '12
Re: The North Should Build a Fence
I don't recall that Aristotle ever went to the States.
Dec '11
Re: The North Should Build a Fence
Oh sure, Southerners, you'll keep out the Liberals from the North, but you won't be able to keep out the Liberal that hides in each and every one of you! Eventually Southern states will adopt a statist view, and then you have to build another fence, and then another, until you have divided the country out of existence!
Sep '10
Re: The North Should Build a Fence
Are you kidding? If you're building a fence, let the South keep Washington, DC! It's the biggest drain on the economy!
Sep '10
Re: The North Should Build a Fence
The Research Triangle--especially Chapel Hill--is a blue sector, but the rest of North Carolina is not quite that blue. Electorally speaking, the urban concentrations have the advantage of numbers, but geographically the blue Yankee influence ends pretty much at the town borders. When I lived in Chapel Hill, the natives said that the name of nearby Cary, NC stood for "Containment Area for Relocated Yankees". Probably still true.
Nov '10
Re: The North Should Build a Fence
Thank you!
Nov '10
Re: The North Should Build a Fence
I need to give your argument some thought... and I probably need to read Politics again. I'll shoot you a PM when my response is a little more organized.
Nov '10
Re: The North Should Build a Fence
How comforting to see that some things never change . . . .
Keith Preston
M1919A4:
The last time we wanted that, the Yankees got their panties in a wad and we had a fight on our hands. · 28 minutes ago
Y'all got your "panties wadded" first because the nation elected a man who believed a man should be able to enjoy the fruits of his labor. Abe was a "right-to-work" kinda guy before the South acted like they invented it or something. ;) · 2 hours ago
and, besides, "It was Twelve years old".
Jun '10
Re: The North Should Build a Fence
Foxman
Boots on the Table
Foxman
So you do acknowledge that the North won? This could make you an exception. · 3 hours ago
Edited 48 minutes ago
Who said it was over? · 1 hour ago
That Gen. R E Lee guy · 4 hours ago
He's not the boss of me.
Incidentally, he quit the field, he didn't surrender the South. The last General Officer to lay down his sword was Stand Watie several months after that, in Indian Territory.
Edited on April 20, 2012 at 9:26pm