Aspen
Walls are not symbols of freedom. Where they have been constructed between liberty and tyranny, throughout the world and our history, Americans have fought nobly to bring them down. In this pursuit, we can never rest.
The cost is always great, both in terms of money and life. Tremendous sums of each have been expended defending this ideal. Even today we are spending $200 million per day and a dozen American lives per week towards this pursuit in Iraq. Whatever the motives of the powerful few, the men and women on the ground are fighting for freedom. Ultimately there is nothing else worth dying for.
Yet, we hesitate to wage a battle for freedom on our own soil – the freedom that Mexican workers seek here. We can give it to them at a cost lower than that of any war we have ever waged, and there is no need for sacrificing lives. This campaign can be won without flexing our military muscle.
Maybe we have become so complacent in our own freedom that we fail to see it in peril. We have never faced a threat like this. Mexicans are looking for our jobs, living off our resources.
But we have mistaken them as the enemy.
They are not the opponents. They are striving for freedom from a corrupt government and inefficient economic system to which they are held hostage. They seek the freedom of choices that come from education and the means to earn a living. Most immediately, they are desperate for release from the strangling grips of poverty and hunger.
The impoverished people of Mexico are asking to stand next to us, beneath our broad shoulder. We only have to extend the arm.
The popular argument against taking this action is of money. The cost to our federal government in unpaid income taxes and increased services to undocumented workers is estimated at $10 billion annually. This cost is paltry compared with that of traditional warfare.
Moreover, we actually receive more than we give up economically in this fight for freedom. It is believed that there are currently 10 million undocumented workers of voting age in the United States. Presume conservatively that each is working 1,500 hours per year earning $2 an hour less than their American counterparts and you will calculate that they are saving the American consumer $30 billion each year.
Consumers spend a good portion of these savings on services, the demand for which creates new higher-paying, skilled positions domestically that Americans actually want to fill.
Why else, then, do we hesitate to help? Is it because they won’t speak the Queen’s English that we have adopted as our own? Yes, it may cause inconveniences to us at stores and restaurants when we can’t easily communicate our wants. Yes, it is ironic that in some parts of this country more people now speak Spanish than English. But, may you say your prayers tonight in any language you choose, and thank The Almighty that you have the freedom to do it.
Are we concerned that some outlaws from Mexico will cross the border, too? There is no doubt that they will, after all. Yet, what of that tradeoff? When our country fought to free the innocent of England, France and the rest of the world from the evil crush of Nazis, fascists and communists, we protected thieves and murderers amongst them, as well. With freedom so obviously at risk, that price was meager. Since when is it not worth setting the guilty free to bring justice to the innocent?
By now we should know that it is not possible to cultivate freedom selectively. It is far too great an ideal to manipulate to fit our immediate convenience. Measures we take to keep downtrodden Mexican workers out of our country serve doubly to keep them subjugated in their own.
It is one thing to remain neutral in the protection of freedom, but to actually further the cause of oppression weakens the underpinnings of freedom’s bulwark. In a nation that has sacrificed so much to build it up, it is folly to go forth now to see how delicate we can make freedom before it stands no longer.
Roger Marolt (roger@maroltllp.com) is a lifelong Aspen resident who often wonders why.
