New U.S. Refrain: Fence Me In

20 May 2006 |permalink | email article

The lyrics of Cole Porter’s classic 1940s song, “Don’t Fence Me In,” have taken on a chilling new meaning in Bushworld. The hysterical illegal immigration debate shows no sign of resolution soon with the Senate voting to construct a 370-mile fence along the 2,000-mile southern border with Mexico, which could cost up to $2.2 billion.

Even W., the would-be cowboy who in March told CNN en Espanol “it’s impractical to fence off the border, pandered to his extremist base and last week said “it makes sense to use fencing along the border.” It was a symbolic litmus test in setting immigration policy about which he’s procrastinated for six years.

Porter’s music conveyed a Western sense of optimism, a more open, welcoming country that has historically for generations greeted immigrants who over time became citizens despite the slurs they endured. His lyrics were expansive but not claustrophobic, as in “I can’t stand fences.”

Ronald Reagan, more a real cowboy than W. will ever be, had that innate sense of real America, cool and never uptight about solving border problems. Meeting with Mexico’s president and even before running himself, he disdained the notion of a “nine-foot” fence.” Today, the effectiveness of fences as high as 15 feet to prevent intruders is open to serious doubt.

Will this administration and its “fortress America” posture, granting the need to be mindful in a post-9/11 world, now start considering fence-building along isolated portions of the Canadian border to thwart terrorists, if not illegal immigrants?

Consider the stand at the ready,vigilante-like Houston-based Minuteman Civil Defense Corps Border Fence. It’s a project of the Declaration Alliance, a public policy and issue advocacy organization “that aggressively addresses continuing assaults that the American Republic continues to endure.” The fundraising pitch of its progeny proposes fencing will be built with privately donated funds “to secure America’s borders from illegal aliens and an criminal cartels.”

Will the next American president have enough courage to remember Reagan’s words, and tear down this multi-billion dollar border disgrace at taxpayer expense which contrasts so negatively with the image of the Statue of Liberty?

It’s bizarre enough that the Republican-led Senate feels so insecure that it’s voted for a law to establish English as “the national language” of the U.S. I have assumed from the first grade that English was our national language. Do we really need a law to confirm it?

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