Mac-Coleman

28 July 2014 - 

Don’t Fence Me In!  Bah!

Recently, I drove around Houston without a passport.  I didn’t pass through controlled entry points as I went from downtown Houston City offices to Cleveland, to Crosby, through Kingwood, Atascocita, Humble, Summerwood, Deer Park, and Fall Creek.  After all, I was in Texas, in the United States, north of the Rio Grande.  My travel on public roads was restricted only by the limits of time and gasoline. 

It’s good to be an American. 

I did see a lot of fences, however.  They defined and protected businesses, homes, and government-maintained, collective commons.  When the fences defined property, they often hid their precision with attractive stone, wood, flowers, and shrubbery.  When the fences protected property, they were stark wrought iron or concrete structures, often with spikes or barbed wire; and, security cameras were everywhere. 

Fences punctuate virtually every statement of property in Houston and probably in every town in America. 

It was particularly instructive to see the fences in residential neighborhoods.  In affluent areas, high fences often surrounded entire neighborhoods, with guarded or electronic entry points.  Fences between the large houses were limited in variety to what local home owners’ associations permitted.  Internal fences defined individual property lines, and external fences defined and protected the community as a whole.  These neighborhoods looked like ordered, mini-states protecting themselves from unruly outsiders.       

Less affluent neighborhoods had no defining, outside fences.  Houses were smaller, yards were less scenic.  Nonetheless, many property owners had built fences around their own houses and yards.  High, spiked, metal fences were clearly meant to define and protect sovereign, individual property owners from a larger, unruly neighborhood.  They reminded me of the fence at the end of our cul-de-sac, which we finally convinced our home owners association to help pay for in order to keep feral hogs from continuing to destroying our property and from the real possibility of their attacking our grandchildren. 

It is obvious that no Houstonian or government entity is tearing down fences.  Definition and protection are paramount requirements in a world where people may be good, but not very good. 

Individual property definition and protection, neighborhood and town definition and protection, and state definition and protection are merely graduated assurances of the fundamental American rights of self and property protection.  Ordinary people understand this.  Their actions—their fences—are more eloquent than any politician’s speech on the subject.   

A poll of Houstonians would probably confirm what I have seen: Fence owners span the entire political spectrum.  Democrats, republicans, libertarians, socialists, fascists, criminals, and even illegal immigrants preach a lot of things, but they all directly enjoy the benefits of fences. 

Is it hypocritical to benefit personally from being an American citizen and at the same time to build fences around the nation to restrict illegal immigrants from enjoying those benefits?  No. Defining and protecting our country are fundamental elements of national sovereignty.  Such protective fences are no more hypocritical than the practice of maintaining fences to protect one’s personal in any Houston neighborhood. 

It is hypocritical and illegal, however, for politicians to pander for votes by circumventing existing immigration laws and to thereby enable the current immigration crisis.  America is America because it is ruled by laws, not by fiat.  A legitimate rebellion would ensue if local politicians and supporters mandated the destruction of all personal fences in a neighborhood to deal with a rise in local home break-ins.  So, why is it noble for the President, living in the most securely-fenced house in America, to tell the rest of America that the national fences to their sovereignty must come down?

For political gain, the President is exploiting transnational ties in ethnic communities, the acquiescence of caring people, and the money from businesses who benefit from illegal labor.  His shameless actions reject constitutional law and dilute national sovereignty—far more than does his hapless approach to any current shooting war or international crisis.  Politics are destroying our sovereignty. 

The U.S. government no longer controls our borders.  Illegal foreigners, foreign criminal cartels, and foreign governments now control our southern border.  The President acquiesces, and foreigners define who is and will be American. 

Mr. President!  Enforce existing laws.  Close the border.  Protect, do not tear down, our sovereignty. 

Otherwise, you should find a retirement home in El Salvador along a golf course—with plenty of high fences, of course.