3/2/06

A brief edition of Local Views of the Gnus today. We’ve talked before about the border between the U.S. and Mexico and the considerable degree of public opinion in the U.S. that people should be prevented from crossing that border from south to north. I’m spinning off a collection of pieces in last Sunday’s Chronicle about the various proposals that are on the table concerning that issue. Although spending taxpayers’ money is never as dirty a deed as it’s portrayed to be by the people who are against it, the ideas about fencing the border are completely incredible. How about $1.32 million per mile for a ten foot, 700 mile fence, $90,000 per mile for surveillance cameras and $50,000 per mile for underground motion detectors? That sounds like a great investment when anyone with a good bolt cutter and two good legs can breach that fence.

What I liked about The Chronicle’s coverage was the comparison to other similar efforts throughout history, such as the Great Wall of China and the Berlin Wall. They might be great architectural accomplishments, but ultimately, the idea that you can fence people in or out is completely ridiculous. Build as much fence as you want. If people want to come from Mexico to the U.S., they will come. The border between the U.S. and Mexico is an artificial distinction of relatively recent origin. The only way to solve the perceived immigration problem is to solve the economic problem. Nobody cares much about people crossing the border from Canada to the U.S., because Canada is an economic equal. People coming from Mexico are poor. They come to the U..S. to make some money. Some people see that as a ripoff, but it’s really a bonus. Mexican immigrants, legal or illegal, don’t ripoff the U.S. economy, they contribute to it. When people in Mexico have economic equality with people in the U.S., nobody will care who crosses the border.

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This is an obscure little item, but I think it raises an interesting question. The U.S. Census Bureau counts prison inmates as residents of the communities where the prisons are located, but the bureau is asking Congress to approve counting the inmates, instead, as residents of the communities where they lived before they were incarcerated. The idea, apparently, is that communities where prisons are located get exceptional clout in those government funding things which are based on the census. I’m not sure why the Census Bureau cares, but the real interesting question is why prison populations are significant enough to influence a community’s revenue from the government. It’s widely known that we’re locking up too many people, but it never occurred to me before that it would influence the census data. That would suggest that if you’ve got a prison in your town, there might be more people in the prison than there are in the town.

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We talked last week about San Francisco Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval and his recent contribution to the image of San Francisco as a bastion of left wing whacko politics. This week, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted 7-3 for a resolution advising Congress to impeach Bush and Cheney for the obvious reasons. The obvious response to this is, "Why bother." Local government has no direct influence on Congress, and Congress has no obligation even to respond. Why would you care if your local government makes a statement about national politics? But think about it. The Washington establishment isn’t going to take San Francisco seriously, but if local governments all over the place adopted similar resolutions, things would change dramatically in Washington. It’s actually a way to create grass roots influence on national government. Maybe we should be encouraging our local governments to give advice to the feds.

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The city council of Placerville has decided that a symbol of peace is a little too controversial for a public display in that town. An organization proposed installing a six foot cedar post bearing the message, "May peace prevail on earth" on public property. The city council decided that was just too radical for Placerville. I guess Placerville just isn’t quite sure that peace is a good idea.