Macswain

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Bizarre Nutter Idea of the Day: Build the Israeli Wall on the Mexican Border

This post has been cross posted at the much better site - Comments From Left Field - where I participate in a group blog. If you like anything on this site, I would encourage you to check out CFLF for more content with greater analysis. Thanks for stopping by.

Rightwing immigration nutter extraordinaire - Ace of Spades - has come up with the nuttiest idea of the day.

He wants to build a wall that would stretch the entire 2,000 mile border between Mexico and the U.S. that would be in the nature of the biggest portions of the wall Israel is building on its border with Palestine.

Here are the details of what the wall would include:

a layer of razor wire, a trench to stop cars, the actual wall (including electronic sensors, radar, etc. so that the army could tell when it was breached), a dirt road that would evidence footprints of would-be crossers, an asphalt road for quick deployment to areas where crossing had been detected, and another layer of barbed wire


Because the Israel Defense Ministry claims it only costs $2 million per kilometer, the nutters estimate that our wall will only cost $6,280,0000,0000. Pocket change to nutters who believing in wasting $100 billion a year on a vanity war.

To bolster his argument, Ace (an unsightly man with an odd attraction to mocking others' looks) posts a graph showing an increase in successful interception of attacks that coincides with "IDF Presence in PA, Fence Construction Begins."

So I decided to engage the nutters and posted this comment:

There are so many twists of logic here it's hard to know where to begin --- Do you really believe American contractors can do this work for that price - presumably without immigrant labor?

Do we really want such a structure with the very few checkpoints Israel allows - it has put a huge constraint on legitimate Palestinian business with Israel? Do we really want a similar constraint on legitimate Mexican business?

But I like the graph. It shows you don't really have to spend all that money as the decrease in attacks coincides with "beginning construction." Thus, I propose an unfunded mandate on all the border States to "begin construction" on a wall.

Oh, what a silly little man.


Let's see how this goes.

UPDATE: I didn't expect the link at Crooks & Liars to this post (thanks, C Dog!). In any event, anyone interested in more detail about how nutty the wall idea is should read this report from the Houston Press. Building a wall isn't just a matter of the cost of construction. As the report makes clear there are tons of other costs - condemnation, accomodations for irrigation from the Rio Grande and the destruction of wildlife habitat, just to name a few. Of course, the nutters have completely failed to account for these costs which makes it as viable as the equally nutty idea of installing a 2,000 mile bug zapper for humans or a Star Wars missile defense shield.

9 Comments:

  • Hey man, I'll shoot you an email later tonight that's more detailed I suppose. But since you don't check your email often, just wanted to let you know, you did good today.

    Thank you very much.

    By Blogger Kyle E. Moore, at 5:44 PM  

  • Why not just a massive impenetrable electric fence. No dogs, people, horses, cattle, or snakes. Make it the biggest and longest electrified fence the world has ever known. Kind of like a bug zapper.
    A 2000 mile wall? Jesus...Let's just build a wall around the border of the entire US... (some out lying states will be omitted and sold to the highest bidder). Then, we can build a Super-Dooper Dome over the whole kit and kaboodle and all get high on the fumes.

    By Blogger Mark Prime (tpm/Confession Zero), at 9:16 AM  

  • That's a great idea. I'd put my tax dollars to work for that. Bug Zapper sounds even more effective. Bet you guys just love fellow liberals who are on the other side of this debate.

    By Blogger eddiberto, at 9:47 AM  

  • eddiberto,

    I'm not sure what you mean by liberals on the other side of this issue.

    Are there liberals who support the insane idea of a 2,000 mile Israeli style security wall? I doubt it. So I assume you are talking about other issues regarding the immigration debate.

    Don't be a shrinking violet, you can throw out your ideas for resolving immigration issues here.

    By Blogger Macswain, at 10:49 AM  

  • Here in Oklahoma, we want to build a fence around Arkansas and make it our new wildlife refuge and state park.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 2:56 PM  

  • Thanks for the invite to add my 2 cents: I don't think a wall in general is a bad idea, be it virtual, or physical. I suppose initially I was put off by the title, I mean you can't have the Israeli wall here with the US/Mexico border, because the dynamic is quite different. People aren't strapping bombs to their backs and walking into America and then exploding.

    Many of my left-leaning friends who I normally agree with on many political issues differ sharply with me on this particular issue.

    In regards to solutions, I'm no expert to be sure: I think that the very first solution would be to revise the process of letting immigrants apply to enter the country. The process now is so slow that it's easier just to hire a coyote-it must be streamlined.

    Unfortunately, that just isn't going to happen anytime soon, especially if todays vote was any example. With the flow of people coming in you need a short term solution which is stopping or slowing the flow of illegal immigrants, drugs, and weapons into this country. A fence certainly would assist, along with more agents. In the military we are big on security, I look at it as nothing more than a perimeter that must be secured.

    By Blogger eddiberto, at 5:02 PM  

  • eddiberto,

    Thanks for the thoughtful comment.

    I don't disagree with you that there needs to be border security. But it all needs to be subject to a reasonable cost benefit analysis.

    I also agree that the first solution needs to be revising the process for immigration. I favor a broad guest worker program with a real path to citizenship ... 5 years with a good residence record? Can this be passed separate from resolving issues as to what to do about the 12 million here? Maybe, but it would be difficult. I don't think it was just "amnesty" the rightwing nutters were fighting.

    What we'll get is the horrible status quo to continue for a couple more years before this issue can come up again.

    By Blogger Macswain, at 11:01 PM  

  • No wall needed, Macstupid: Just a few 180 grain bullets. Give the "illegals" fair warning: We are going to shoot you on sight, if found crossing. There will be no need for a multi-trillion dollar wall, no lengthy court proceedings: Just a couple boxes of Remington 30-06 shells will do the job.

    Rolly, Big toe

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 8:20 AM  

  • Sorry, Rolly, you got trumped for the title of dumbest comment ever. Head on over to comments and observe how a true master of stupid does it.

    http://www.haloscan.com/comments/goose3five/780819163441262846/?src=hsr#232334

    By Blogger Kyle E. Moore, at 12:04 PM  

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