Posted on 03/05/2007 7:30:35 AM PST by FLOutdoorsman
If it were built, the road would be one of the engineering wonders of the 21st century -a trade route a quarter of a mile wide, carving a path from Mexico through the heart of America to Canada.
In its most radical form, it would allow lorry drivers to travel hundreds of miles from the Mexican border deep into the US before reaching customs and immigration controls in Kansas.
Backers of the idea, labelled the "Nafta Superhighway", after the North American trade pact, say it would revolutionise patterns of commerce across the continent and enhance the economic prospects of millions. But its critics say it could spell the end of US sovereignty. In arguments akin to those deployed by critics of the European Union, opponents say that opening borders will hit businesses, create a terrorist threat and allow illegal immigrants and drugs to flood in.
Opposition is strongest in Texas, where the state's plans for a vast road project, known as the Trans-Texas Corridor, are well advanced. Once complete, the corridor could become the first leg of a Nafta Superhighway, crossing the Mexican border at the Rio Grande, near Laredo, and then pushing north to Kansas. It would include a toll road with 10 lorry and car lanes, a high-speed railway, and oil, gas and water pipelines.
With costs estimated at $183 billion (£94 billion), the 1,200 ft wide road would consume one million acres in Texas alone. Construction could take up to 50 years.
Many of those fighting the project are conservative farmers who would normally be supporters of President George W Bush but who are suspicious of his support for more free trade. At a meeting in the Texas town of Temple last week, more than 100 people gathered to hear news from Corridor Watch, a group fighting the road.
At a community hall built by Slovak immigrants nearly a century ago, many of the men wore cowboy hats, while their wives arrived with casseroles to sustain the gathering. Despite bowing heads for the Pledge of Allegiance, the meeting expressed anger at what the road would mean.
Hank Gilbert, a rancher, said: "At the Battle of the Alamo people came from all over the US to fight for our sovereignty. Now we are giving it away to the very people we fought." Like many protesters, he believes the link will make it easier for cheap goods to flood into the US. "Farmers fear that this kind of globalisation will put them out of business," he said.
In Texas, the superhighway would be so wide that critics say it would be too expensive to construct overpasses except in the cities, severing tight-knit rural communities.
The superhighway is being promoted by a pressure group, the North America's Supercorridor Coalition, which includes business leaders, trade groups and government officials from Canada, Mexico and the US.
However, officials of the federal government in Washington deny that there is any transnational plan. A member of the Department of Transport told a congressional committee this month that all the government wanted to was improve existing roads.
Many conservatives disagree. They link the highway to agreements being negotiated behind closed doors between the Mexican, American and Canadian governments that they believe will transform the North American Free Trade Association into an EU-style superstate. They point to an agreement signed by Mr Bush, Vicente Fox, then president of Mexico, and Paul Martin, then Canada's prime minister, in Waco, Texas, in March 2005.
The Security and Prosperity Partnership is intended to promote co-operation on security and boost economic opportunities. But it set alarm bells ringing on the Right because it formed working parties that fall outside the control of Congress.
Republican Ron Paul, a Texas congressman, says it is part of a drive for "an integrated North American Union" - complete with a currency, a cross-national bureaucracy and borderless travel. "It would represent another step toward the abolition of national sovereignty," he said.
Imaginary border = imaginary country = imaginary sovereignty = imaginary Constitutional law = real traitors within our government. Please excuse me if I sound too negative but the perceived reality here is a grand plan folks, a NEW WORLD ORDER at our door step. What the power elite want the power elite usually get because we the common people of the US continue to just verbalize our discontent as we watch it happen. I'm not being haughty, I'm just very sad that the United States once was a wonderful dream that many have sacrificed and died to keep it a reality.
I'm glad your keeping the powder dry..
If this behemoth is ever constructed, it would be far better for the US if it was done in tandem with two other massive engineering projects:
Re-creating our national rail and airport systems OUT of municipal areas, connected to them by high speed cargo and passenger rail. Then upgrading our national rail infrastructure to high speed, that while connecting with major cities, would bypass them for transshipment.
Great Idea! That's too common sense for the Gov't though.
" the 1,200 ft wide road would consume one million acres in Texas alone. Construction could take up to 50 years. "
And this is what Ron Paul thinks is a viable alternative? The North American Union? I can see it now...we'll have to change the flag...and the national anthem...
WTF? These people are selling our country out from under us!
Sounds like Jorge Bush has been at it again. If the stakes weren't so high, this would really be laughable. It doesn't matter who you vote for anymore, both of these political parties are nothing more than traitors. One sells you out for votes, the other for money. You figure out which is which, because it really doesn't matter.
Coming to a flagpole near you!
'Jose, can you see . . . '
It's not even that they want to do away with the border, it's that we have a defacto "one-way" border that only poor mestizicans can afford to ignore. Ask a white middle-class mexican how easy it is to come to the United States.
National initiative to tackle highway, freight, and aviation congestion
The flag doesn't look right yet, but you nailed the anthem!
"And this is what Ron Paul thinks is a viable alternative? The North American Union?"
No, Ron Paul is opposed to it. He's one of the very few who have said a thing about it.
" But it set alarm bells ringing on the Right because it formed working parties that fall outside the control of Congress. "
Thank you for correcting me. I speedread right past the 'alarm bells' sentence and I'm obviously not in Paul's district so I've not been familiar with him.
Tell 'em, "Watch the mail for your Kelo notices."
20-mph. Road will be limited to electric cars.... Just watch. Go 1-mph over the limit, you will get all kinds of traffic tickets.
It's going to be a privately financed toll road. Noncommercial traffic won't be allowed, as far as I know.
You two may appreciate this article about property rights/trade.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1795503/posts
Why do I have a funny feeling the U.S. taxpayers will be paying for it?
We obviously need to oppose the elimination of customs at the border. If we don't inspect vehicles until they are in the middle of the country, the highway effectively becomes an extension of the border.
I also see no need for a high speed railway bisecting the US, and find it pretty doubtful that much of congress is going to vote for a high speed rail that will take you to Fargo.
The highway that is proposed in this article is something I would definitely be against, but I'm extremely skeptical that this article really represents a genuine credible proposal.
Maybe we should close down interstate 10 because of the drug trafficking? Or I95 because of the mob hauling cigarettes back and forth? Or we could close a couple of east/west rail lines because - well just because.
I've got an idea - ban guns because by your reasoning they cause crime. The roads themselves are not the problem. The problem is who pays for them, if they are private toll roads then tolls need to be paid, and there should be no public monies funding their construction. If they are public roads then taxes (my monies) will cover it. The illegal immigration argument can cover any area you want to paint it with.
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