Border Creep

And we're back, after a short hiatus here at MC.

I have been quite busy in Mexico for the past week, and while there made a few cultural observations that might prove increasingly relevant in the days to come.

The argument over illegal immigration (or migration, as it has been more accurately described) has raged on for years now. Former President Bush seemed more or less unilaterally in favor of "amnesty", establishing a swift and easy path to citizenship for the millions of Latin Americans living illegally inside the Estados Unidos. Congress was on the verge of passing this, but overwhelming opposition from the American people killed it.

For latin migrants, it's a question of simple economics. Barely scrape by in Mexico, or earn a decent wage in America. For us, it's akin to a cultural invasion, but one that we have on a national level neither affirmed or denied.

Without a clear message from the United States either way (most people want illegal migrant workers removed, and the borders secured. Congress evidently doesn't know what it wants, Obama has not given the issue much attention, and many businesses continue to use and encourage the flow of cheap labor), one can hardly blame the migrant workers (whose culture views laws more as obstacles to work around than anything personally binding) from moving up to where they can potentially make as much in a day as they would in a week back home.

As usual, the question is more complicated than either side of the debate presents it. The facts lie rusty and unacknowledged, while the MSM focuses primarily on the emotional aspects of the conflict.

On the one hand, it's clear that illegal entry should not be rewarded with citizenship. It's also very unclear what effect the massive importation of another culture will have on America.
Well, perhaps not entirely unclear. A quick trip to most cities within 100 miles of the border
and towns all across the sun belt will make it obvious what changes are already occuring. Just going to El Wal-Mart here, hundreds of miles from the border, has become quite a cultural experience. We even have a few tiendas (Mexican corner shops, essentially) popping up around town.

On the other hand, with hospitals closing all over the country, and millions of untaxed dollars flowing southward, (forming the major portion of several Latin American economies, in fact) it could be argued that we are clinging to some principles while ignoring others, at our own great expense.

And there is a more serious problem, that has been almost totally ignored:
Without the influx of people from the south, the US birth rate falls below "the line of no return" for declining cultures. As we have previously noted, Europe has already fallen below this line, and is in the process of a massive cultural shift towards Islam, a fact that the German government has even admitted.

Any culture that decides to stop having children in sufficient numbers, dooms itself to eventual decline and collapse or displacement, by sheer lack of population. This is an inescapable historical fact.

Of course, one might reasonably question whether maintaining our culture with the importation of another culture is really possible, since as history has shown, the incoming culture will displace our own. However, as stated above, it's not a question of our culture surviving as is. We simply are not raising enough children in our own culture to perpetuate it. We can either take whoever is willing to, along with such elements of their culture as they bring with them, or slowly disappear.

Taking all that into account, regardless of where the immigration debate goes, or what solution is eventually settled on, it seems that some Spanish classes might be in order. They will be, shall we say, necesario?

-()4|<.