Mariner feels compelled to address the immigration issue. Amid all the other pressures in a rapidly changing society and a rapidly changing planet, immigration serves as the most dependable barometer of progress or failure. How Homo handles immigration will tell the world whether humans are up to the task of surviving in the new biosphere.

Humans are accustomed to tracking history by the occurrence of wars. It took over 300 years of savage fighting for the Vikings and British to settle their differences; it signaled a transition from tribal government to monarchy. It brings to mind the current war between Islamic theocracies in the middle East and Jesus-oriented nations. It took about 1,000 years and innumerable wars to move from Roman theocracy to a separation of church and state. It took four wars in the 1850’s and two world wars in the 1900’s to move from economic colonialism to independent national economies.

Measuring history and the future by wars is more like taking taking one’s temperature at the moment rather than measuring progress over time. Immigration management is not a war as such but rather a timeline depicting how humans adapt to the pressures of a changing world.

Migration is an intrinsic behavior, not a war. It’s been around since Homo habilis left Africa more than 60,000 years ago. While on the subject, when was the last time the reader moved, AKA migrated? There is a distinct difference between an act to dominate and an act to survive.

So do not succumb to the current belligerent attitude about immigration; society will be measured by it’s methods of accommodation, not how high the fence is.  Immigration is just beginning to rise at unusually high rates. To some degree, one can fault incompetent dictatorships – how does one build a high fence around a dictator?

More significantly, the changing climate will cause many nations to fail because of economic and habitable failure – yes, even Florida.

Beneath it all is a slow, painful transition from capitalist society to socialist society. Not that capitalism will disappear, just that saving as many people as possible from inhabitable lives will require more distributive philosophies of government.

Ancient Mariner