by Rod D. Martin
May 12, 2006

A semi-feudal oligarchy and an impoverished peasant and urban slum-dwelling class.

High unemployment and rock-bottom wages.

Inefficient capital allocation and low productivity.

Insufficient respect for private property, rule of law, and personal freedom.

Endemic corruption at every level and within every branch of its oppressive, overbearing government.

Since before independence, that’s been Mexico’s story in a nutshell. While its current leader, Vicente Fox, has attempted to institute some reforms, he’s clearly failed to turn his country around.

Now comes a doozy of a proposal by Mexico’s government — a proposal to legalize marijuana, cocaine, and virtually every other hard drug you’ve ever heard of, introducing every Mexican to the joys of drug addiction and turning every traveler from Mexico — illegal immigrant and American tourist alike — into a suspected (and pretty likely) drug mule.

If border security wasn’t important enough to certain leaders before, it surely will be now. This latest move highlights what everyone, from Tom Tancredo to your Hispanic gardener, already knew: Mexico is a wretched, dysfunctional place. And if you lived there, you’d want to flee too.

For the most part, like generations of Europeans and Asians from equally wretched places before them, those Mexicans flee here, to the greatest land of liberty and opportunity in history. And they depart with the hearty but bizarre blessing of the Mexican government, which seems to view hard-working human beings as liabilities, not assets, as mouths to feed, not hands to produce.

This is the attitude of Socialists. You hear it from American leftists too. It is nothing if not mind-numbing. And societies who think this way always fail.

Now clearly, in the coming years and decades, with tens of millions of baby boomers retiring, America will continue to require more decent, industrious citizens — lots more of them, in fact. We just ask them to come legally.

So since we need productive people, and since Mexico appears to want more drug abusers, perhaps we should consider a swap.

Let’s take all the honest, hardworking Mexicans who want to come. Anyone who’ll learn English, pledge allegiance (to our flag), pay their taxes, refuse welfare, and steadfastly pursue the American dream is welcome. Bring them on.

But in exchange, we’ll give Mexico — and our liberal hippie crowd — exactly what they want: every American drug offender, free to go.

We’ll empty our jails of them, and drop the prosecution of those not yet there. Crackheads and potheads, meth heads and junkies, we’ll offer them full and complete pardons, with just one condition: they move to Mexico — renouncing their U.S. citizenship — forever.

Heck, if you think about it, this is such a great idea we should create an incentive program, for druggies we haven’t caught yet. Consider it an amnesty program on PCP: we’ll pay to help users pack their bags and head south, where they can indulge their habits to their hearts’ content, without fear of prosecution or stigmatization of any kind.

They just better not come back.

Of course, not even the brain-dead Mexican government would agree to import our drug-addled losers.

But honestly: why should we care? That same Mexican government actively floods our country and flouts our laws. Some parts of the border endure as many as five thousand illegals crossing per day, while Mexican officials publish “travel guides” to teach them how.

And oh by the way, what do you think will happen when Mexico’s drug legalization takes effect? How nearly impossible will drug enforcement become south of the border? How vastly more complex will interdiction become north of it? How many more American kids will die?

Mexico’s new law is a big Bronx cheer at America. It cannot go unanswered. And it won’t. If anything will get the border closed, this will be it.

And why stop with that? If Mexico’s government can aid and abet a massive illegal immigration problem here, maybe it’s time ours returned the favor. Sending Mexico thousands of addicts will definitely get their attention. Just threatening such a “reverse amnesty” will produce an apoplectic fit.

Well, good. It’s high time Mexico got its house in order. This whole mess shows how self-inflicted Mexico’s wounds truly are. It also demonstrates the wondrousness of America. Mexicans by the millions are voting with their feet for our system — for capitalism, for opportunity, for freedom — like so many refuges from the USSR.

So if Mexico won’t get their act together, maybe it’s time for us to “help”.