Today’s political correctness means we cannot discriminate against individuals who may bring in infectious diseases like AIDS.
by Pat Buchanan
Because of the peril of swine flu, Joe Biden said yesterday, hewould urge his family to stay out of “confined places” like airplanesand subways here in the United States.
Yet, the Obamaadministration will not consider closing the United States to airplanesand buses coming in from the epicenter of the epidemic, Mexico City.
Does this contradiction make sense?
America,at this writing, has recorded fewer than 100 cases of the swine flu.One victim has died, a 2-year-old Mexican boy. He was flown out ofMexico City to Matamoros, crossed over with his parents into Texas, wastaken to a hospital in Brownsville, terribly sick, then transferred toa Houston hospital. There he died.
Clear from this is that Mexicans, seriously ill, may head for theUnited States, where the medical care is known to be far superior andalso free for the indigent.
This is understandable.
Whatis not is the United States conducting business as usual on the Mexicanborder, when tourists are fleeing Cancun, cruise ships refuse to put into Mexican ports, Texas is closing schools, Europeans are shuttingairports to flights from Mexico City and Obama is telling parents topull the kids out of school if the flu shows up.
Is this a serious medical menace to Americans or not?
Somescientists claim this is a mild hybrid strain of the flu that visitsevery season, no big deal. But the World Health Organization has raisedthe threat level of H1N1 swine flu to Category 5. This means the worldis at imminent risk of a pandemic. Yet, the death toll, as of now, isonly one in the United States, and 159 out of 2,500 sickened in Mexico.
Still, the political fallout here could be immense.
Accordingto Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, in a normal fluseason, 35,000 Americans die. Thirty-five thousand! That is more than10 times the number who died on 9-11 and about as many as we lost inthe Korean War.
And if this Mexican flu is anything like theHong Kong flu that killed 33,000 Americans in 1968-69, or, Lord forbid,the Spanish Flu that killed 25 million to 50 million worldwide in1918-19 — more Americans died from it than all the Americans killed inWorld Wars I and II combined — this administration is dangerouslybehind the curve.
Back in 1980, Gov. Jerry Brown’s refusal touse the pesticide malathion on the Mediterranean fruit fly almostkilled his career. For the Medflies made it over the mountains into theCentral Valley and ravaged California’s crops and orchards. And we wereonly talking then about farm produce, not tens of thousands of livespossibly lost.
Obama’s coolness may prove correct.
Butif he is perceived at having refused to close the border to busesbringing in sick Mexicans, or airports to planes coming in from MexicoCity, so as not to offend the open-borders crowd, and a deadly epidemicensues, full responsibility will be his. And he will pay a far greaterprice than George W. Bush did for being AWOL in Katrina.
For apresident’s first duty is not to the NAFTA-mandated free flow of goodsand people between the United States and Mexico, but to protect thehealth and lives of the American people.
In the 1940s, it wasnot uncommon, when there was an outbreak of measles, mumps, chickenpox, scarlet fever or polio, for homes and families to be quarantineduntil it could be demonstrated to health authorities that everyone inthe house was free of the disease.
Today’s political correctness means we cannot discriminate against individuals who may bring in infectious diseases like AIDS.
UnderNAFTA, GATT and globalization, America threw open her doors to massimmigration and accepted an invasion of illegal aliens that brought 12million to 20 million into the country.
With them has come araft of diseases never seen here before, or eradicated years ago:multiple drug resistant tuberculosis, malaria, leprosy, measles,syphilis, Chagas disease, dengue fever and new strains of hepatitis.Even bed bugs have invaded half the American states.
However”mild” Mexican swine flu may prove to be, it is wreaking havoc inMexico. And, already, that country is suffering from a collapse in theprice of oil it sells to the United States, a reduction in theremittances sent back from Mexican workers in the United States due tothe downturn here and a collapse in tourism due to the cartels war thattook 6,000 lives last year.
Now, with tourists fleeing, hotelsemptying out and athletic events being canceled, Mexico could be hitwith a second devastating economic blow, from which she does not soonrecover.
In January, the U.S. Joint Forces Command identified two large nations in real danger of “rapid and sudden collapse.”
One was Pakistan, the other Mexico.
Unfortunately, the boys at the JFC seem to have gotten it right.