Great Walls of the Twentieth Century

Since a couple of my readers seem to think that building walls on the Mexican border is a good idea, let's spend some time this week looking at how good border walls have been in this century.

My favorite is the Maginot Line. The French were not afraid of hardworking Germans coming over to steal jobs (French unions already took care of that sort of thing), rather hardworking members of the Wehrmacht coming over to steal the whole country. So, they built a string of fortifications called the Maginot Line, which was supremely effective in keeping the Germans on the other side of the Rhine.

So effective that there are no photos whatsoever of German troops marching through the Arc de Triomphe, nor of Hitler looking over the rooftops of Paris.

Of course the big difference between a wall of heavy fortresses on the Rhine and a wall on the US-Texas border is that the Germans had Panzers (and a will to conquer, and a recent grudge, and a psychotic neo-pagan leader with a Wagnerian vision of world domination). We are dealing with people who want to come over to work and support their families, which would be bad, because then many Americans might have to stop spending $60 a month on cable television, and would have to go down to being a four car household, and might even have to cut down on the sugar coated chocolate knockers for breakfast.

I love the Maginot Line, however, because I had a roomate in college from France. When he would get out of line I could fix him with an icy stare and say, "Frankreich! Achtung! Remember the Maginot Line! You must obey!" This was good, as it kept variety to our discourse, which would have otherwise been little more than regular questions of "well, Francois, is this a bathing week, or non?"

So, go ahead support border walls. It puts you in the same league as the, uh, French and their noted valor (Best Frontier Defence - Gold Medal).

Especially since this is seen as some sort of job protection thing. Do we get a 37 hour work week and six weeks vacation, too? Well, now there are a couple of things I could get behind.

We would still be able to bring in former colonists to be domestics and farm laborors, though, right?

Because even with a completely closed border, we still won't be able to find Anglos willing to pick pears.