PDQ, there's no question that many aspects of the Mexican government are absurd and corrupt and unjust. Are you suggesting that we follow their example? Does that make it sensible for us to respond in kind?

In a global economy, why have citizenship at all? Citizenship just serves to exclude. We're all human beings, all struggling to survive. Why should some have the privileges of citizenship, and others not?

You're right that artificial trade and immigration barriers can serve to drive up wages and prices - but they also tend to create waste and inefficient busywork employment that is demeaning to workers. Labor unions can be very wasteful and inefficient - but they don't have to be. We need to seek economic policies that are both efficient and just. Labor unions have a real place in serving as a voice for labor in our quest for economic balance - unions are misused when all they do is preserve the wasteful status quo. Labor must have a strong voice in our economy, to ensure that the economy serves both capital and labor.

I know there are restrictions on foreigners owning land in Mexico, but I don't believe it's impossible. It's my understanding that many Americans live in luxury along the coastlines of Mexico, with a far higher standard of living than the locals have. An open border might result in a land-grab that would give wealthy Americans all the best parts of Mexico. That's a problem we need to resolve. California has laws that give the public access to almost the entire coastline of the state - perhaps Mexico needs something similar, to protect the public interest over the desires of the wealthy.

Yes, there are all sorts of problems associated with open borders. I suggest that we need to resolve those problems, instead of continuing to build bigger walls to try to keep the problems out. I lived inside the circle of the Berlin Wall for two years - I don't want another Berlin wall built to protect America from imagined evil. And if we build a wall to the south, then maybe we'd better build a wall to the north to keep out all those illegal Canadians - and their marauding mooses, too. You people just don't seem to realize the threat to Homeland Security posed by terrorist Canadian mooses.

-Joe Offer-