The Divide

The edge. The verge. The line. The boundary.


Trump fought with juvenile foot stomping against the influx of people from southern regions across the imaginary line between the US and Mexico. Far more than many of his other antics, this battle provided early exposure to the cruelty and callousness predicted by critics of the new president and the creeping extremism of American conservatism.


The dirty secret for American liberals of course is that the Obama administration deported more southern border immigrants than either of the preceding US presidents.


Now the immigration is ticking up again and Biden is faced with a puzzle that he will surely complicate for ridiculous political reasons.


Immigration—“illegal” immigration—has a very easy solution. Ignore the law. Decriminalize entry into the US. Done.


What about the economic impact of all these new people? Won’t we have to care for and provide for these people? Won’t this cost too much?


Yes, we should provide for them. What is too much? The problem with the economic argument against immigration is the bottomless barrel of financial power the US government holds in many other areas of the political structure, namely the military. There lies an immense pile of assets to provide for the needy in the coffers of those who covet bullets and bombs.


The military spending and the history of military spending will always be my goto answer when people say “we can’t afford that.” The US can afford anything. Trust me.


Now about the reasons for immigration from the southern regions. There is “more” here than there is there. It’s that simple. More money. More freedom. More opportunity. Surprisingly, more safety. More everything. We could argue for eternity as to the source of all this “more.” But the fact we can all agree on is this “more” actually exists.


For a nation that purports to hold dear the principle of charity to deny threatened and needy people anything is inherently wrong. But beyond the falsity of withholding charity, there is the cruelty of employing the violence of the law to keep people out. The word “enforcement” encases the source of judicial and political violence unleashed when you deny hospitality to desperate people.


Let me state the obvious for a brief moment: They will get in.


You cannot enforce a border, a boundary, any line, any divide without both creating death and destruction and also failing your own principles.


Consider the differences between people. True differences between people are trivial. Poverty, culture, skin color, lands of origin are all as trivial as hair color, shapes of noses, height and weight. Your fellow human being could tomorrow be in the position of power you hold today. Any imaginary divide you create stands the chance of holding over when this change happens. The worlds oldest and bloodiest conflicts are undoubtedly sourced in trivial differences conceived by egotistical political sources.


The divide is imaginary. The boundary is a fiction. The border is a pencil line. The verge, the edge is a myth.