Both the president and president-elect of Mexico denounced U.S. plans to build a fence along its southern border.
That's nothing new, of course. Mexican officials are always denouncing the U.S. for any move that suggests there actually might be a border between the two countries.
But what was interesting about the latest tirade was the language used by President Vicente Fox and President-elect Felipe Calderon.
"It is an embarrassment for the United States," Fox said. "It is proof, perhaps, that the United States does not see immigration as a subject that corresponds to both countries."
Calderon shook his head in agreement and chimed in: "The decision made by Congress and the U.S. government is deplorable. Humanity committed a grave error by constructing the Berlin Wall, and I am sure that today the United States is committing a grave error in constructing a wall along our northern border."
Mexican leaders think we should be "embarrassed" about wanting to keep their people out of our country. It doesn't even occur to these elitists that the embarrassment should rest with the country whose citizens can't wait to get out.
Fully 10 percent of the Mexican population has voted with its feet and left Mexico. If Fox and Calderon and the rest of the Mexican political elite are so smart, why can't they figure out a way to keep their own population employed and content to stay? It's not just the open border that is attracting millions of Mexicans; it is the oppressive, authoritarian, corrupt system of governance along with a socialist economy that is driving hard-working people to leave.
If I had presided over that kind of utter failure, I would be embarrassed. But Fox and now Calderon says it is the U.S. who should be embarrassed. These hombres don't humiliate easily, do they?
And that brings us to the comparison of the border fence with the Berlin Wall.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to recognize that the Berlin Wall was built to keep people in, while the Mexican border fence is designed to keep people out.
There is an important distinction. One was built by a tyrannical government that understood no one would stay in the Communist hellhole being created if they had a choice. The other is being built by a country that has patiently put up with a quiet invasion by millions of people cast into refugees by an uncaring, degenerate, depraved series of regimes who have no use for the poor working man.
For years these neighbors of ours have taken advantage of America's good-natured attitude, our tolerance, our wealth. They have used the U.S. as a dumping grounds for its unwanted – its excess population which it considers just more mouths to feed.
Who do you think should be embarrassed in this equation?
As an American, the only thing I am embarrassed about is how long it took us as a nation to wake up to this abuse, to this exploitation that we have been experiencing for so many years.
It's embarrassing when people who have reached a level of achievement in their lives – like Fox and Calderon – cannot make moral distinctions between the Berlin Wall, constructed by a totalitarian government holding its own population captive, and a border fence meant to control who comes into a country.
Yet, over and over again, we hear this analogy made – and presumably it resonates with certain people.
The fact that these men, who have presided over this evil in their own country for so long, are unhappy and squawking about the fence assures me it is the right thing to do.
Maybe we should work faster.
Related special offer:
"State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America"