The first indication of Bush’s open borders philosophy

A flashback to something I had forgotten: In my September 2000 article, “My Bush Epiphany,” I pointed out that George W. Bush was not just a proponent of large-scale immigration and multiculturalism, but that he had articulated a view of America’s relations with its southern neighbors that strongly implied support for Open Borders. I wrote:

W.’s delusions of cultural similarity don’t stop there. “Differences are inevitable” between Mexico and the U.S.,” W. continued. “But they will be differences among family, not between rivals.”

Coming from the Republican candidate for president of the United States, the statement boggles the mind. It was bad enough when the Democrats in the 1980s started their socialist rant (soon echoed by the Republicans) that Americans are all “one family.” But now George W., “The Man from Inclusion,” has taken the “family” idea several steps further. For W., it is not just the United States, but the United States and Mexico, and ultimately the United States and the whole of the Americas, that constitutes one “family.”

With this thoughtless cliché, W. is moving in symbolic terms toward the goal that Mexico’s newly elected president Vicente Fox is calling for in concrete terms: the opening of the U.S.-Mexican border. After all, who would want to maintain national borders and high-tech barriers between members of the same family? Within a family there is unconditional support, mutual obligation, and the sense of a shared destiny—not armed patrols and checkpoints.

Whether or not W. himself understands the logical implications of his “family” rhetoric, its political consequence if he becomes president will be the same—the further delegitimization of our borders and our national sovereignty.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at September 29, 2005 02:19 PM | Send