[UPDATE below.]

I don’t lie:

The Senate agreed Thursday to add $600 million to the effort to stop the flow of illegal immigrants across the U.S. Mexican border. The money would be used for such purposes as adding 1,500 new enforcement agents and deploying unmanned aerial drones to improve border surveillance.

Incidentally, I heard Senator Schumer use the term “task strike force” on the radio; that’s what prompted me to Google the news story for you here. There was also talk of “boots on the ground.”

You know, the same language that we previously used when talking about countries that we had just invaded.

Let me just state the obvious: The country will not turn from a moderately free place, into a military dictatorship, overnight. Before we can have predator drones patrolling New York City, hunting down the people who dare to blog against the regime in DC, we first have to deploy those drones in far-off places filled with brown people with funny names. And then when the American public gets used to that, we can deploy the drones in far-off places (to most Americans) with the ostensible purpose of keeping out brown people.

It doesn’t really matter whether “illegals” are good or bad for the economy. The question is, do we really want Chuck Schumer and his pals telling Americans that they are deploying unmanned drones in the US–to thunderous applause from “conservatives”?

UPDATE: When I first typed this up, I wrote “task force” which doesn’t sound so bad. But that’s because I goofed and plugged in a much more innocuous term. What Schumer actually said was that they were going to send a strike force to the border, to keep us all safe. For example, check out this news article to see the terminology:

The money will pay for 1,000 new Border Patrol agents to form a special strike force to be deployed where needed; 250 new Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and intelligence analysts; 250 new Customs and Border Protection officers at ports of entry; new communications equipment; and unmanned aerial drones to patrol the U.S. side of the border.

And this makes me feel warm and fuzzy too:

A legislative framework unveiled last spring by Schumer, Reid, and other Democratic leaders called for increased border security, an overhaul of the visa system, a biometric database that would allow employees to ensure they hire legal workers…

One last thing: Technically the Senate has just approved this; it’s not yet a done deal. But I believe Obama supports this. So if the Democrats are behind it, I will be pleasantly shocked if the Republicans oppose it.