More on the SPP thing

This SPP thing is getting a tad nasty. Several leading conservative bloggers led by Hot Air's Allahpundit have seen fit to chastise their brethren over reactions to Tom Tancredo's O'Reilly factor appearance and his revelation of the SPP, which I wondered about below.

The only reason my antennae went up was due to the vacuum of information surrounding this iniative coupled with some recent immigration stories in our local news. As stated, it wasn't clear to me whether the program was good or bad, but I was leaning towards bad only because of past practice regarding the enforcement of immigration laws combined with the natural desire for profit.

Hot Air linked a rebuttal at Right Wing News, but let's be clear, the 'superhighway' concept is NOTHING NEW. Iniatives such as the Kansas City Smart Port (Memphis is also an inland port) and other are designed to open markets and cut bureaucratic red tape to make mo money, not some nefarious merging of the three governments.

Much of the driving force is coming from the Kansas City Southern Railroad and its maverick president Mike Haverty, who purchased Mexican railway FNM back in the 90s and have called their amalgamated lines the NAFTA railroad. The use of Lazaro Cardenas as a deep water port for bypassing the high cost west coast ports and their longshoremen and congestion is strictly profit-based. The use of that port could cut hundreds of miles off the route between the far east and southeast US. Just look at a map.

But there are other factors involved besides a simple following of the money. If containers arrive at Lazaro Cardenas and cross the Mexican border, how will that affect the container inspection process, already a topic of concern? Another unwanted side effect of streamlining cross border cargo trains might be enhancing the conduit of choice for many illegal aliens--the rail lines.

So, from my perspective this whole SPP thing is less a plot hatched by the local chapter of the Illiminati down at the Masonic Lodge than an attempt to maximize profits by exploiting trade possibilities between the three nations, with some window dressing about fighting infectious diseases and security threats thrown in for good measure. It's what capitalists do.

But what governments do are protect the interests of society. Maybe the SPP will help, let's start the debate. But if you really think about it, the Justice Department should trump the Commerce Department every time.