Of Kinder Eggs and Oranges and the Insane Border Situation

 

I’m a big fan of Mark Steyn and always enjoy his guest host appearances on Tucker Carlson Tonight. I’m also a big fan of Hillsdale College which takes no federal money and sends out a fascinating monthly publication called Imprimis featuring an article by a politician, pundit, etc. So when I got the April/May issue with an article by Mark Steyn I felt doubly blessed. One portion of the article pressed my “culture is insane” button so I’ll share it. (Actually, most of the article did, but one portion especially about the border situation):

Getting back to the southern border, it perfectly symbolizes the bifurcation of our society. We’re told there’s a health emergency. We’re told we can’t open our businesses or attend weddings or funerals. Yet at the same time, every day, thousands of people pour across the southern border, test positive for COVID, and are then driven to a nice hotel and put up there at taxpayers’ expense. [Yup! Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of Americans live on the streets of our major cities.]

It’s also interesting to compare the southern border with the northern. Prior to the pandemic, when the border with Canada was open, my kids had their Kinder Eggs confiscated by the Department of Homeland Security when we would cross the border going south into Vermont. Kinder Eggs are chocolate eggs with a kid’s toy inside. They are sold in Canada, but they are banned in the U.S. because the Food and Drug Administration calls the toy a “non-nutritive embed”—and that’s good enough to send Homeland Security agents swinging into action! There is always a big crackdown before Easter on Kinder Eggs. [We once had a naval orange confiscated as we returned from Canada into Maine. Really. We could bring in our apples because they grow in Maine, but oranges were verboten—unless they were cut up! But the agent wouldn’t let me cut it up.] So at the northern border there are lots of things, down to Kinder Eggs, that are illegal. But at the southern border you can come in with pretty much anything you want, including COVID. Why is that? It is because some groups serve the needs of the ruling class and others don’t. License is extended to the former and not the latter.

People ask me, “Why are you going on about Kinder Eggs? They’re not important. It’s more important that so-and-so is up two points in Iowa and three points in New Hampshire. That could be a real game changer.” To which I answer no, that’s not how it works. If they take the small freedoms away from you, whether it’s the freedom to eat Kinder Eggs or to enjoy a high pressure shower, you will lose all the larger freedoms, which is the world we’re in now.

I used to get occasional pushback when I’d talk about rights. “Rights are abstract things,” people would say—“they don’t have anything to do with our real lives.” Well, after the last year, we know they have everything to do with our real lives. When you’re told you can’t open your hair salon, when you’re told you can’t have family or friends over for dinner, when you’re told you must wear a mask in your own garden, there’s nothing abstract about it. This is where all the stupid Kinder Egg laws have been trending for years. And it’s why we need to push back.

Think about it. Our southern border isn’t just leaking Kinder Eggs and oranges; it’s leaking drug cartels poisoning our people with deadly fentanyl, sex traffickers buying and selling our children, terrorists planning new 9-11s, forest fires, and other acts of terrorism. Meanwhile the vigilant agents on the northern border confiscate toys and fruit. Talk about a culture filled with nuts and fruits running things. Mark Steyn is right; it’s time for pushback! Start with Mass and the rosary, then consider running for your local board of supervisors or school board. The Church emphasizes subsidiaries. All politics is local and taking back the culture begins in your own little neighborhood.