If you get any of your news from any source other than the mainstream press you have probably heard about the NAFTA super highway. For the last couple years bloggers have been blogging about it and almost any political chat group has been chatting about it. I never took it seriously and dismissed it as mere fantasy from the tinfoil hat crowd. I reasoned that if a new roadway connecting Mexico, the US and Canada was being build to facilitate increased trade between our nations, that that would probably be a good thing and was nothing to get upset about.
It seemed that the same people who were alarmed about the NAFTA super highway were the same ones who want us to return to the gold standard, abolish the Federal Reserve and are always worry about the Council of Foreign Relations, the Bilderbergs, and the Illuminati. I was not alarmed. The John Birch Society folks and the other paranoid super patriots are generally harmless, good intentioned, conservative folks who just kind of went off the deep end on certain issues. I don’t get too worked up about them. Then I noticed that the kooky left, the folks who believe 911 was an inside job, started talking about the NAFTA highway also. It is amazing how often the kooky right and the kooky left share a lot of the same concerns.
With the advent of the Ron Paul campaign, the NAFT Superhighway began getting more and more publicity. Ron Paul’s opposition to it became a major part of his campaign. Next thing you know other conservatives, including Duncan Hunter, and Tom Tancredo, were taking positions pledging to stop it. Then the established responsible conservative publication Human Events started reporting on it. Then, CNN’s Lou Dobbs started reporting on it.
According to opponents of this NAFTA Superhighway, a secret organization run by shadowy government figures is in cahoots with foreign corporations who are determined to undermine American sovereignty. This group is supposedly building a ten-lane highway the width of several football fields, with freight and rail lines and oil and natural gas pipelines and electric power lines running alongside the roadway. It will run from deep in Mexico all the way into Canada with feeder roads connected to it throughout. That is not the extent of what they have planned however. This superhighway is just part of a bigger plot to form a North American Union with a single currency and open borders. The North American Union would be similar to the European Union. The organization that it putting this all together is something called the “Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America,” or the SPP.
The SPP does exist but it looks like just another little agency with a small bureaucracy. The purpose of the SPP is to facilitate increased security and prosperity among the US, Canada and Mexico. Other than maybe wasting a little money it appears nothing to be too concerned about.
Another entity that is part of this plot to build this roadway and take away our sovereignty is the America's SuperCorridor Organization (NASCO), which is a partnership of public and private entities. The map you see is their map but it is not showing a new highway at all, but shows the location of existing interstates. NASCO had been referring to these existing highways for years as the "NAFTA Superhighway,” They advocate improvements and promotion of this corridor. You can think of NASCO as a kind of regional Chamber of Commerce.
The Texas legislature has approved the development of a big ten-lane limited access toll road called will Trans Texas Corridor, which would parallel I-35 and stretch from the Mexican border to Oklahoma. I am not so sure what is so sinister about that. It may be a bad idea, but the elected representatives of the people of Texas think it is good idea, so who am I to say they are wrong. Quite frankly, I like the concept of funding new roadways by toll revenue.
I am not going to provide links to document this, if you are interested, just Google the terms, “NAFTA Superhighway”, “SPP”, “North American Union”, “NASCO” and “Trans Texas Corridor” and you will get about a half million hits. Read them. I see no evidence that there is anything to be concerned about. There is not a NAFTA Superhighway. There is nothing to be alarmed about. There is no grand plan to divide America by a roadway that is under the authority of a non-American entity. I do not see a threat to American sovereignty.
With a war in Iraq and the accompanying concern about mid-East stability, with a faltering economy, concern about global warming and energy security, and a housing crisis, I have more important things to worry about other than a fantasy highway.
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Excellent post Rod although a waste of time trying to convince the loony toons of the truth.
ReplyDeleteWith your permission, I am cross posting this with full credit on my blog. Perhaps it will sink into some of these narrow minded fools
I don't know what the fuss about this highway was either. It was one of the few issues that I didn't care for every time Ron Paul would bring it up.
ReplyDeleteGood post.
ReplyDeleteNASCO uses EXISTING roads, in support of the EXISTING NAFTA agreement. The idea is to harmonize the wildly different regulation that each state and province has regarding truck lengths, loads and brake systems - so that a truck can easily cross the continent under one set of standards.
They're even careful not to take away cargo from the rail lines, since the governments have to maintain highways and not rails.
I wish that those who believe in the "10-lane mega-highway to Winnipeg" conspiracy would simply apply common sense: We already HAVE free trade - we've had it for 14 years. And yet the highway (down to a single lane in each direction in at least one place) and railroad going north to Winnipeg aren't overloaded. What would a Trans-Texas Corridor-style megahighway be used for?
It would be used to facilitate the movement of good and people across a continent, ease congestion on existing highways and improve a crumbling infrastructure.
ReplyDeleteBut to the opposition, anything that remotely has anything to do with Mexico, benefits Mexico or gives them reason to slam Mexico is bad.
More at http://mexicotrucker.com