The madness that has become America keeps revealing itself in one frenzied episode after another. The current spasm is expressed as a need for a twelve foot high, barbed-wire topped concrete wall across the U.S.-Mexican border, to keep out "illegal immigrants." Congressman Steve King (R-Iowa), did a show-and-tell performance in Congress - carried live on C-SPAN - with a model of such a wall. He spoke from personal experience about such a measure - he assured his colleagues - because he had once been in the business of manufacturing concrete products of this type - a business his son now operates! He estimated that the wall could be constructed for as "little" as $500,000 per mile!
As I watched this pathetic show, I was reminded of the dread fear with which the bulk of Americana now views the rest of the world. "Terrorists," "illegal immigrants," "Muslims," and members of the "axis of evil," are the more prominent examples of the bogeymen against whose "threats" we must build unsurmountable walls, secret torture facilities and prisons, surveillance capabilities, and an all-powerful domestic police-state, all designed to insulate ourselves from any contact with a world we deem increasingly hostile.
This idea of a border wall also reminded me of one of history's better-known fiascoes: the French "Maginot line" of post-World War I vintage. Running the length of the border between France and Germany, the French deluded themselves that this facility would deter the Germans from any future attacks which, of course, it did not. The current mania for a border wall is also reminiscent of the "Cold War" hysteria that led otherwise intelligent men and women to construct bomb shelters in their backyards. Fear does have a way of mobilizing madness.
Rep. King ended his sales pitch with a concern for keeping out of the country Mexicans who "show disrespect for our laws" by not pursuing prescribed methods for coming into the country. I wonder just how sincere the man really is. If it his desire to keep out those who show disrespect for our laws, would he be inclined to vote for a similar twelve-foot high wall to keep out such people as President Bush, Gen. Hayden, and others who "show disrespect" for laws prohibiting, for example, widescale surveillance of personal telephone records without a warrant?
