As could be expected, Democrats, “migrant activists,” and lots of other folks are really, really ticked off about Texan Governor Greg Abbott’s latest “stunt.” He has had Texan troops and police (Department of Public Safety) install triple-concertina barriers along a stretch of the Rio Grande in El Paso.
Not on its border with (Old) Mexico. Oh, no. On the border between the Republic (well, former Republic) and the State of New Mexico. And of course, Her Imperial Highness, Michelle Lujan Greshim, first of her line, is very vocal and absolutely furious about it. As are, on her behalf and that of the border jumpers (who may be inconvenienced by it), a lot of other folks. Including denizens of DC.
Reports vary from 1-1/2 miles to 18 miles of wire, and none of us have time to run down there to see which reports are true. There are pictures of the concertina (in standard military configuration of two rolls in the ground with one roll on top of them, giving a barricade of about 2 meters height and 2 meters wide) near and under one of the bridges connecting El Paso and the New Mexico city of Sunland Park. Sunland Park, with about 14,000 residents (and untold and constantly changing numbers of border jumpers) borders both the States of Texas and Chihuahua. It is apparently a suburb both to El Paso and Ciudad Juarez. In this area (two Texas counties and all of New Mexico’s southern border), if the Albuquerque Journal is telling the truth, the US Border Patrol has seen almost 400,000 people “informally” cross the border from Chihuahua into New Mexico and Texas in just the first three+ weeks of FY24 (which started on 01 October 2023).
By the way, the concertina appears to have been installed by the book, although we cannot see from the photo and have not heard reports that US Army doctrine is being fully followed. (Doctrine states that wire barriers like this are to be fully covered by fire: generally by SAW (M249 squad automatic weapons) or even the M2 .50-caliber, a heavy machine gun.)
Although the Rio Grande is not an imaginary line drawing the boundary between the two States, or between Texas and Chihuahua (and the rest of the United Mexican States), it is certainly not a tremendous barrier to crossing. (A friend of ours whose grandfather immigrated to Colorado from Sonora many years ago claims they aren’t wetbacks – just “wet-knees.”) It is a highly-symbolic feature and society and culture and government are very much different from each other. Not quite so much as between Texas and New Mexico – at least right at the border.
And most of us treat the borders – the statelines – truly as imaginary. The major differences? Things like different sales and service tax rates and fuel excise taxes and what colors the cops have. And exactly which set of bureaucratic thugs hassle you. (And once upon a time, the age at which you could buy certain things, like tobacco, alcohol, and funds – but no more.) To many of us, those differences are important. As was the case during the Beer Flu, when some states didn’t choose to go all authoritarian and totalitarian and lock down (like us here in South Dakota).
Is it – should it be – different when one State is threatened directly or indirectly by another State’s actions? Before the War between the States, the States on either side of the Ohio River did feel threatened by actions across the river regarding the status of slavery and freedom. And the Ohio is a far greater barrier to travel than the Rio Grande at El Paso (or anywhere else, honestly). But as far as I can find in the history books, none of those States fortified the border – the shorelines – or established checkpoints. Is Texas justified in doing this now?
And if so, should it be just a couple of miles along the one place where a river and not a fence or roadway or row of survey monuments divides the Land of Enchantment (and Her Imperial Majesty) and the Lone Star Republic (and its stunt-performing Elected Big Boss)? Or should all the lengthy line between Santa Fe’s and Austin’s jurisdictions? Do we need triple-standard concertina wire between Texico and Farewell (just east of Clovis, NM), or just outside Texline up northwest of Amarillo? Do we need dry moats (nobody has enough water for wet moats in the Llano Estacado and Guadalupe Mountains) to prevent border jumpers who came across from down south (and all the other places) into New Mexico from then succumbing to the tempting fleshpots and big-bucks jobs in Texas?
And will the fences, the walls, the concertina, and the ditches be properly (militarily) installed? Covered by fire and constantly observed? And with people willing to fire on border jumpers? Or for that matter, actual armed and violence-seeking invaders?
Your thoughts, dear readers?
The Price of Liberty 
Don’t remember who said that you can have a welfare state or you can have open borders, but you can’t have both.
Sanctuary city people in DC and Chicago and New York are finally seeing first hand the consequences of trying to have both. Mayor Brandon is just starting to realize how fast he’s running out of other people’s money, and it looks like the Sanctuary thing is going to give, not the welfare state. Though eventually, that will have to yield, too.
The question is whether a group of people are permitted to have a society with rules they like. Provisos, yeah. Can you put locks on your doors to deter intruders? Can you build a fence on the imaginary line around your property to exclude others? Can a neighborhood opt to become a gated community? At what size does a group of people lose the “right” of self-determination, the right of association?
I suspect Her Highness is just upset that border crossers have an easier time entering “her” state, so that’s what they choose to do, but she doesn’t New Mexico to have to cover the costs of that policy choice.
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Actually, Her Highness is so grossly Woke that she seems to WANT to have more and more border jumpers in New Mexico to overwhelm the State. I understand she falsely portrays herself as Hispanic because she has immersed herself in a warped Mexican/Latino culture – the Lujan family is far more Anglo in ancestry and culture – and powerful politically (and therefore almost certainly corrupt) for a long time in NM. But she is a modern Democratic liberal/Tranzi who believes that traditional American values and economic activity are evil and must be destroyed. She sees an ever-increasing presence and power of Hispanics – whether native born or migrants – as what New Mexico should become. She is an environist, who ran on a platform of destroying New Mexico’s oil, gas, and coal industries and has largely succeeded. The Pandemic Panic was used by her to suppress opposition and expand control, and it may be that by flooding the State with border jumpers of all types, she hopes to drive Anglos and non-conforming whites and blacks and even AmerInd out. Her list of totalitarian and autocratic actions – crimes in many cases – is very long.
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Right. Didn’t express that very well. I think all Democrats and most Republican’ts desire an end to whatever is left of the arrangement of 1788. A fundamental transformation.
But what they cannot tolerate is any contrast between their new order and those who took a slightly less involuntary collectivist arrangement, because people might realize that there is a difference in the outcomes betwixt political systems and reject the less voluntary one as inferior.
All statists know to their very core that unless they impose their system on all, theirs will end up in the dustbin of history.
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