"These are busy times for the Border Patrol, the customs agents, immigration folks; but if we are going to send these agencies to fight a war on drugs, to fight a war against illegal behavior, we have to send them the proper tools"
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“Busy times” is the soft opener that lets the hard pitch slide in: militarize the mundane. Filner frames the Border Patrol and customs agents as overworked public servants, then pivots to the language of war, where urgency can dissolve nuance. Calling drug enforcement and immigration a “war against illegal behavior” bundles distinct issues into a single moralized battlefield. Drugs, borders, and “illegal behavior” become interchangeable threats, which is rhetorically efficient if your goal is to expand budgets, authority, or hardware without litigating the tradeoffs.
The key move is “proper tools,” a phrase that sounds managerial and practical but carries a loaded ambiguity. Tools can mean radios, training, staffing, or courts. In the post-9/11 era and the long escalation of border securitization, “tools” often functioned as a polite stand-in for surveillance tech, barriers, and expanded enforcement powers. By keeping it vague, Filner invites broad agreement: who wants to deny agents what they need? The subtext is that hesitation equals negligence, and skepticism becomes an abstract luxury people can’t afford in “busy times.”
Politically, this line sits in the long American tradition of the “war” metaphor as a budgetary and legal accelerant. Wars justify exceptional measures; they reward speed over deliberation. Filner’s intent reads less like ideological poetry than coalition-building: reassure law-and-order voters, honor frontline workers, and normalize an enforcement-first posture while sidestepping the question of whether the war framework itself is producing the crisis he claims it answers.
The key move is “proper tools,” a phrase that sounds managerial and practical but carries a loaded ambiguity. Tools can mean radios, training, staffing, or courts. In the post-9/11 era and the long escalation of border securitization, “tools” often functioned as a polite stand-in for surveillance tech, barriers, and expanded enforcement powers. By keeping it vague, Filner invites broad agreement: who wants to deny agents what they need? The subtext is that hesitation equals negligence, and skepticism becomes an abstract luxury people can’t afford in “busy times.”
Politically, this line sits in the long American tradition of the “war” metaphor as a budgetary and legal accelerant. Wars justify exceptional measures; they reward speed over deliberation. Filner’s intent reads less like ideological poetry than coalition-building: reassure law-and-order voters, honor frontline workers, and normalize an enforcement-first posture while sidestepping the question of whether the war framework itself is producing the crisis he claims it answers.
Quote Details
| Topic | Justice |
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