Before I begin, I am not a fan of Governor Perry… nor am I a Perry hater. Some (a few) things about the man I like… some make me cringe (like that he’s a lifer politician). Up until recently I don’t think that Herman Cain has a chance in hell but who knows. We may actually get one right this go around. We sure as hell missed the last time and I for one couldn’t believe this country could be so collectively stupid.

In my opinion… with absolutely no humility… illegal aliens are here for one reason. Entitlements. Bait. Whatever you want to call it. The standard of living in their country is pitiful for most and we offer, por nada, a pretty substantial uptick in their quality of living. I don’t think that the feds have even the slightest bit of intention to lessen the tastiness of the bait. I think that the situation has grown to the point that it’s a monster that cannot be killed. Our entitlements provide the bait, the standard of living in Mexico provides the impetus to come here, and we have I.C.E. (was INS) to round them up and send them back home. Each feeds on the other. We have shiny new detainment centers and border crossings to help curb the illegal problem (the crossings somewhat curb the drug problem but that’s another rant). I can’t drive anywhere in TX, within 100 miles of the border, without having to go through a border check station and affirm that I am an American Citizen. How is that stopping an illegal alien from making his or her way across hundreds of miles of cactus and snake infested desert to come work at some mediocre job that nobody here wants? If you stop the illegal immigrant problem you have to dismantle the giant government organization that was created to “solve” the problem and that’s not going to happen. In the real world they would just double the size of it and call it something else…

The illegal immigrants have come here for more years than any of us has been alive. They work in our fields, our kitchens, and in other places that NOBODY wants to work anymore. Kids ( and the unemployed) today don’t want to work at McDonald’s, they want to live off of unemployment or go to college (though some humans just aren’t college material), drink like fish (do fish really drink?), fornicate like mice (I’m good with that. I wish I was in college), graduate, and get an executive position at some internet marketing firm. So guess what… the speakers at Mickey D’s now say Hola. Como Esta. Puede I tomar su orden.

Why is that? Why are they taking low paying jobs at McDonald’s? Because there are so many here that all the “good” jobs are filled but the bait is too good to pass up. They used to go home when the farm season was over. Now they stay, make an anchor baby or two or three or more, and generally take up non-residence in our wonderful country. They do so because we give them everything that they need to improve their quality of life from what it was in their country by orders of magnitude. In short, we bait them and they come. Their country is a sh*t hole so they come here. Thank God the Canadians have their economy turned around or our politicians would be trying to build a stupid fence on the northern border too.

• In state tuition for the kids of illegal aliens.

Rick Perry was slammed for backing this. I initially misunderstood his proposal as low or no tuition so I was one of the people who criticized it. But… all that OUR LEGISLATURE did was to make it possible for the anchor babies, that our federal policies create, to go to college. We don’t need anymore McDonald’s employees. If some kid whose parents came across the border can pony up for the tuition and make good enough grades to get into UT, why is that bad? Would you rather he or she was a member of La Razza or pushing drugs somewhere? If the kid is smart enough and works hard enough why in the hell is it a bad thing to make it possible for a kid that went to school in Texas to further his or her education and become a more productive member of society? We are the ones that made it possible for the kids parents to come here and work. Compared to all the other freebies that get doled out, I’m don’t understand why this one is so bad. Enlighten me.

• The fence.

Are people really that stupid (don’t answer that, I don’t want to know)? Do most Americans really think a fence is the answer to the illegal immigration mess? A fence along the entire border? Really? Are they going to put it on Mexican property or are they going to rip off the landowner and make him or her put it on their property? Are we going to fence out those damned Canadians too? What happens if someone comes by boat (Vietnamese, Cubans)? Shouldn’t we fence off the coast lines? Jesus Christos people, at what point do we surround ourselves with a force field and let nothing come in?

I’ve got a barbed wire fence around my little 13 acre universe. The neighbors cows, deer, and even seismic crews have traversed my property without my permission in spite of the fence. Since I don’t have 24/7 surveillance I have no doubt that I have missed other trespassers. If we aren’t going to take away the bait, 24/7 surveillance is the key to getting more for our money (notice that I didn’t say solving the problem). If we feel that we have to put on the appearance solving this problem (and we really don’t want to solve it), put some resources in the air and watch the border. Put the existing (don’t double down on an already over bloated governmental entity) human assets on the ground to work chasing credible and confirmed sitings of illegal traffic not driving along some ill-conceived fence.

The fences that exist now barely slows them down. They go under, over, or through them. Detecting and repairing breaches in the fence eats up valuable personnel and resources. I don’t mind the fences in El Paso or other large border towns that have hiding places in proximity to the border but even those don’t and won’t solve the problem. The problem is their poor standard of living and our bait. Our political system has created and expanded a government entity known as I.C.E. to “solve” an unsolvable problem. If we solve the problem we will have to dismantle or re-task I.C.E. to some other manufactured crisis and that will result in even more spending.

Make no mistake, if the government creates it and runs it, then it’s a cost center. In the business world a cost center is a negative number on the balance sheet.