Commentary

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May 6, 2010

by: Ross Kentner

History, they say, repeats itself. You be the judge.

On December 16, 1773, after officials in Boston refused to return three shiploads of taxed tea to Britain, a group of colonists boarded the ships and threw the tea into the harbour. This celebrated event went down in history as the Boston Tea Party and helped to precipitate the American Revolution. We should remember that the primary objection to Britain’s Tea Act was that it violated the colonists’ right to be taxed only by their own elected representatives.

Fast forward to early last year and the emergence of The Tea Party movement, a populist protest group described by the Economist magazine as the most vibrant force in American politics today. Tea Partiers are anti-stimulus, anti-deficit, and anti-bailout all of which makes them anti-Obama. Are they for anything? you ask .

They are definitely for Arizona’s legislation designed to discourage illegal immigration. A dozen other states are reportedly looking into adopting the measure that authorizes police to stop anyone they suspect is an illegal immigrant and demand proof of citizenship.

Remember Paul Revere? He was among the first "minutemen"…a highly mobile, rapidly deployed force that allowed the colonies to respond immediately to war threats. They also have their modern day counterparts and their approach to the threat of illegal immigration is another historical throwback, this time to the Great Wall of China.

There were other walls in antiquity and, of course, the Berlin Wall and Israel’s current efforts are probably the best examples of what the Minutemen have in mind to keep illegals out of the U.S. But the pressure south of the border is inexorable and human trafficking will increase on the high seas and in the air.

I should make it clear here that it’s easy for Canadians to be smug about a law that promotes racial profiling. We don’t have thousands of illegal immigrants competing for jobs and putting pressure on our social resources. I doubt we would be any more tolerant if newcomers were flooding our communities without being legal immigrants.

Just as symptoms aren’t the disease, the flow of people across the border is not the real problem. As Canadians we should realize the symptoms will eventually evidence themselves here unless we work as North Americans to resolve the problems that plague Mexico.

Commentary, with Ross Kentner, can be heard on 560 CFOS Tuesdays & Thursdays at 7:08 am and 5:08 pm