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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2> </FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2>Mike Lorrey
said <</FONT><A href="mailto:mlorrey@yahoo.com"><FONT face=Arial
size=2>mlorrey@yahoo.com</FONT></A><FONT face=Arial size=2>></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>> <BR>> Actually, the Iron Curtain and the
Berlin Wall worked pretty well for<BR>> most of the Cold War. It certainly
kept most all eastern europeans from<BR>> escaping, such that by the 70's,
defections were rare things. Hadrians<BR>> Wall worked pretty well too at
what it was intended for: regulating<BR>> trade and migration, not defending
against invaders.<BR>> <BR>> Nobody expects a wall to last forever,
assuming it should and calling<BR>> its failure at that unrealistic
assumption to define the whole idea as<BR>> a failure is a
fraud.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Its a matter of perspective of course - but
the 'successful' Berlin Wall/Iron Curtain were the cause of a generation or more
or conflict and tension and promoted a vast ideological divide. The Wall/Curtain
promoted border skirmishes and helped consolidate the ruthless
oppression of many. It was also the root cause of untold stories of
individual tragedy, blighting, families, trade, peaceful relations, etc
etc - not to mention the fact that very presence of this
barrier rammed home the fact that the world was at loggerheads and operating
under the ever-present threat of nuclear destruction. T</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain
were hated icons of miserable, failing governmental policies!</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I suggest that such walls are extropian
'successful' only at the limited the local level - they appear to promote
order. At the macro level. They are the source of trouble, conflict ...in short,
disorder.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>> <BR>>> Europeans do not generally
agonise about their stroll-through<BR>>> borders: Why should the US? If
you have no objections to the people<BR>>> being there anyway - just make
the 'back door' the 'front door!'<BR>> <BR>> Once again, european
countries have far tighter immigration<BR>> restrictions against
non-europeans than the US does. Its why our legal<BR>> immigration rates are
far higher (we take in more than the rest of the<BR>> world combined).
</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>According to this press release I quickly grabbed
from the UN site:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0mm; TEXT-INDENT: 12.7mm"><FONT face=Arial
size=2>"Around 175 million persons currently reside in a country other than
where they were born -- about three per cent of the world’s population. The
number of migrants has more than doubled since 1975, and sixty per cent of the
world’s migrants currently reside in the more developed regions, with 40 per
cent living in the less developed regions. Most of the world’s migrants live in
Europe </FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2>(56 million), Asia (50 million) and
Northern America (41 million). Almost one of every 10 persons living in the more
developed regions, but only one of every </FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2>70
persons in developing countries, is a migrant. <SPAN lang=en-US>In the 10 years
from 1990 to 2000, the number of migrants in the more developed regions
increased by 23 million persons, or 28 per cent."</SPAN></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0mm"><FONT face=Arial size=2>Nothing there to say the
US is doing more than its share I think? </FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0mm"><FONT face=Arial size=2>Australia is almost all
migrants - it is difficult to find a second generation adult in some towns, but
that is by the by... Controlled migration on a global scale is an entirely
recent 20th Century phenomenom. Yet, we already take it for granted -
ignoring the fact that throughout the entire history of the world people have
mostly been able to wander where they will. In fact, there is no reason why this
should not be the case again at some future point. Personally, I would hope so.
I have lived and worked on three continents and I value my freedom
to travel. However - this freedom is an accident of my birth, I could
easily have been trapped for life with a passport unacceptable to Western
democracies... </FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0mm"><FONT face=Arial size=2>I have a good deal of
sympathy with migrants. Sure they want want more money and a better
life and why not? Who am I, and who are, you to deny these people a chance
to win or lose? The conflict there is in this world arises IMHO in the
persistent attitude that one person's comfortable life-style can, and should, be
maintained by denying basic resources and basic freedoms to someone else. THAT
is why fortified borders are to be opposed - they are at bottom just an
indication that we love our state of blissful ignorance and are unprepared to
tackle the real reasons for militancy, terrorism and hatred.</FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0mm"><FONT face=Arial size=2>My comments directed at
Kevin previously have little to do with walls - What makes me seethe is the
parochialism that is so easily satisfied by retiring into some (figurative or
physical) walled enclave of privilege. We have the entire world to deal with
now. We can't afford to protect our small patch and let everyone else go to
hell.</FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0mm"><FONT face=Arial size=2>Europe, America, Australia
- all have much to learn in this regard. WE don't know what overcrowding
is!There are 200 million people jammed like sardines into tiny Java - while just
to the south is a land mass a hundred times bigger or more with only a few
hundred thousand people spread across an area many times the size of Texas... I
am only surprised they haven't moved in already!</FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0mm"><FONT face=Arial
size=2>Jack</FONT></P></DIV></BODY></HTML>