Morning blogsters:

There's a growing flap about the border between Mexico and the US.  I mentioned a while back about the Minuteman movement, the group of citizens who, for reasons of their own, have decided to take matters into their own hands and give some uninvited assistance to the US Border Patrol.

Generally, there's a lot of strong feeling about this in New Mexico.  Almost everyone has an opinion about it, and there seems to be a clear dividing line separating the two viewpoints.  As for the Minutemen, themselves, I have a notion they're just a lot of good old boys looking for a cause they can bluster about and maybe feel important.  Probably the same fellas in spirit who were making the news as 'militia' men during the 1990s.

But the fact is, the security of the US Border has always been a mixed bag.  It's gotten more so as a result of the fact most Americans don't care for certain kinds of low-paying work involving heavy labor or distasteful tasks.  Those kinds of jobs have to get done and illegal aliens are the people who are happiest to do them.

Shutting down the US Border probably won't solve the problem.  So long as there's a need for grunt labor at low pay and a heavily populated nation to the south where people are happy for any sort of job, human ingenuity will find a way through the border for them.  The situation resembles the attempts to interrupt drug traffic.  So long as there's a market the price of illegal drugs and jobs for illegal aliens might go up, but the drugs and the aliens are going to keep coming.

As for the Minutemen, I'd guess they're a mostly harmless lot.  Just good old boys with enough time on their hands and money to toss around to draw some attention to a problem that needs attention of some sort. 

They appear to differ from the '90s militia folks in these parts in the sense that they, at least, aren't blustering with demands that public lands they hold grazing rights to should be handed over to them with a clear title.  The '90s militiamen agenda had a lot more to do with furthering self-interests than these appear to do.

Jack