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A Voice from Fly-Over Country
March 17, 2011
Mexico — It’s Time
to Support Its Revolution
by Robert L. Hale
MINOT, NORTH DAKOTA — President George W. Bush declared his desire to export democracy to the world. Of course, his idea of exporting democracy was to export our precious resources, including our young military men and women, by waging wars around the world.
Over the past decade, this effort has resulted in expending tens of billions of dollars and spilling the blood of thousands of young Americans. What has been accomplished? The Middle East is in shambles, China is on the rise militarily and financially, and Europe and America are on the verge of bankruptcy. It appears that what has actually been accomplished is to demoralize America, waste precious resources, facilitate global destabilization, display America as a bully, and stimulate domestic unrest.Over the past 30 years, 15 to 20 million illegal immigrants have poured over our borders, the vast majority from Mexico. One of the federal government’s few legitimate responsibilities is to protect these borders. Not only has the current Administration failed when border states attempted to meet this responsibility; it has brought legal action to stop them.
Those debating illegal Mexican immigration either do not understand or chose to ignore the real issue underlying illegal immigration — why are so many Mexicans fleeing their own country and risking arrest and death to come to the United States?
The reason is simple. Mexico’s government is corrupt — the country is run by thugs. Corruption pervades every facet of Mexican government and life; graft, brutality, and the failure of the rule of law have become a way of life.
The Mexican government, led by its President, encourages its citizens to leave their country and flee north for two reasons:
1. Those who leave, if they were to stay, would provide the core of a revolt against the corruption he encourages and supports and under which he and his cohorts thrive.
2. Illegal immigrants in the United States provide a major stream of revenue for Mexico’s anemic, faltering, third-world economy.Mexican President Felipe Calderon recently visited Washington, D.C. His message to the American people was a call for “comprehensive migratory reform in [the United States].” Specifically, he called for the United States to grant legal status to illegal aliens. President Obama agreed and pledged to work to make it happen. For the sake of the Mexican people, let’s hope they both fail.
What Mexico needs is to have the 15-20 million illegals in the United States return home and take control of the current government and reform it. Illegal immigration has provided an option to some Mexicans while leaving the rest of the population under the corrupt political control of the existing regime.
The only reason Mexico is not a thriving and prosperous country is because of the political corruption that has controlled the country for more than a hundred years. If America really wants to “export democracy,” then let’s send Mexicans back to take control of their own country and make it what it is capable of becoming.
The best thing Americans can do to protect us from a dangerous world is to have neighbors who respect the rule of law, respect human life, believe in honest government, and do not impede their citizens’ efforts to provide better lives for themselves and their families.
Canada does this. Canada is one of our strongest trading partners; we have no border problems with Canada. The same could be true of Mexico — IF its citizens did what Americans did some 235 years ago. They declared their independence from the corrupt political system infesting their country. They overthrew it and instituted a government that respects freedom, human rights, and the country’s unique culture and heritage.
We have seen illegal immigrants demonstrate in America’s cities to demand legal status; we have seen the American Latino community support these concerns. The concerns should be focused, not on changing the United States, but on the abuses of a corrupt and rotting political system in Mexico. Those concerns should be focused on reforming Mexico and making it a beacon of democracy.
If this were to happen, all of North America could demonstrate to the world what freedom and lawful government means.
It is time we export Revolution to Mexico. We do this by upholding the laws of the United States, by requiring our federal government to perform its Constitutional duties (namely, to deport those in this country illegally), and by supporting those who seek to reform or replace Mexico’s corrupt political system.
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A Voice from Fly-Over Country is copyright © 2011 by Robert L. Hale and the Fitzgerald Griffin Foundation. All rights reserved.
Robert L. Hale received his J.D. in law from Gonzaga University Law School in Spokane, Washington. He is founder and director of a non-profit public interest law firm. For more than three decades he has been involved in drafting proposed laws and counseling elected officials in ways to remove burdensome and unnecessary rules and regulations.
See a complete biographical sketch.
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