Posted on 08/19/2005 12:09:29 AM PDT by Southack
DOUGLAS, Ariz., Aug. 18 - Spent shells litter the ground at what is left of the firing range, and camouflage outfits still hang in a storeroom. Just a few months ago, this ranch was known as Camp Thunderbird, the headquarters of a paramilitary group that promised to use force to keep illegal immigrants from sneaking across the border with Mexico.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Joanie, this is one of the most awesome posts I have ever read. Thank you!
I have one addition-
The building of the wall, and the guards that would be required to act as sentries would also provide temporary jobs for those who build the wall, and permanent ones for the 42,000 who work as guards. That's another positive to your plan.
ED was pretty upset.
And which little guy. The one in the water, or the yellow one?
susie
the yellow one :)
Somehow I knew you would be weighing in on this despicable ruling.
Joanie, your knowledge of our history and your talent for connecting the dots between then and now is second to none.
You have Email.
Using that figure, the construction of a similar wall along our entire southern land border, would cost $1.6 million/mile x 5,000 miles = $8 billion.
Unless I've missed something, our Southern border with Mexico is roughly 2,000 miles long. Your figures work if you're talking about our entire land border area which would include Canada. So conceivably you could reduce your estimates by more than half if in fact you are just discussing the Southern border.
Another item you didn't discuss(for purposes of brevity?) was the potential for "boat people". If we seal our land borders, the potential could be significant I suspect. Now, surveillance over open water may in fact be a cake walk compared to surveillance over land, but it's something on which I'm not knowledgable enough to really say one way or the other. In any case, it's likely the coyotes will work any new border control to find weaknesses. We would need to be one step ahead, no?
One of my favorites from Sam Adams:
The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors: they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men.
Eloquent thoughts and words from one of our best and brightest. You've asked the question, and I can only speak for myself, but I've had enough. I'm ready, if not as able as I once was, to rein in the noveau tyrant wannabes. The breaking/tipping point may come when we least expect it. A single spark from an isolated event might be what sets the Patriots off. We should all be considering the Boy Scouts motto shouldn't we?
And may God help us.
FGS
I did think about illegals taking alternate water routes, but didn't want to address that in this post. It was long enough as it was. :) We would have to devise a strategy for dealing with that (definite) eventuality, but I believe that sealing off the land routes is considerably more important.
Your Adams quote (especially the last fifteen words) is precious. He is among our most priceless national treasures.
I'm ready, if not as able as I once was, to rein in the noveau tyrant wannabes. The breaking/tipping point may come when we least expect it. A single spark from an isolated event might be what sets the Patriots off. We should all be considering the Boy Scouts motto shouldn't we? ... And may God help us.
There's not a word with which I disagree.
Stay well, and vigilant ...
~ joanie
I agree, the former owners were stupid. It's now time to make the present "owners" assume the "former" position. We can KNOW their names, court records will show that. We KNOW they're illegal - so where is the ICE detention? or have people been too "upset" to think rationally and seek the illegals' removal?
Your hypotheticals are quite good, but I might add we would also recoup some of the expenditure because undocumented pharmaceuticals distributors would have a harder time sending their goods into the US, therefore helping cut the effort required for DEA, allowing their focus elsewhere.
Also, with a secure linear structure, once a deported illegal alien is drop-shipped on the southern side of the wall, it'd be a while instead of a few days before they make it back into the States. Therefore repeat deportations would diminish, and in essence cost less per case.
One point though, 5000 miles? I think the southern border is closer to half that - BUT I could be mistaken...
I don't agree. I think your ideas are realistic, as are your numbers; and any "fine tuning" that would have to be done would certainly still have the results fall within the amount we spend on illegals every year.
Adams and Hamilton and the others you quoted were geniuses. They saw everything that we are dealing with coming more than 200 years ago.
Thanks for the excellent post! ForGod'sSake is right, you are one of the best and brightest.
This is how wars start.
(Would you believe I have a B.S. in mathematics? But let's not blame this stupidity on our system of higher education. Let's instead blame it on the late hour, okay? Works for me. :)
What irks me most about the error is that it diluted my original argument rather than enhancing it. :)
Werksferme too ;^) I saw what you had done to arrive at your miscalculation, but figgered what with you being a very bright lady and all, you'd catch it sooner or later. Still in all a well done piece. Maybe you would consider redoing your numbers and reposting it as a thread of its own so it would get more exposure. Can't hurt the cause any to apply some dollars and cents to the discussion.
An investment less than the annual cost of the problem which would alleviate the problem makes good sense. Even though I get images of the Berlin Wall, we do need to do something, and in contrast to that series of structures, this is not to keep people in, but to keep them out.
If enogh Mexicans (and others) were to be forced to remain in Mexico (and elsewhere), perhaps they would change the government which oppresses them, instead of coming here illegally and subverting ours.
Unfortunately, as those of us who work in the oil industry get our first real raises in a decade, people wail and gnash their teeth over the cost of fuel.
I am no defeatist, but the outcry over the increase in cost of goods and services in the niches filled by illegals would probably be greater than the outcry over the the current illegal immigrant problem.
By and large, Americans have become a self-centered and short-sighted lot.
Sadly, there are few of Sam Adams' fervor present in our modern society; people are too caught up in the acquisition of immaterial material wealth to pay attention to their own families, much less the dangers to our Liberty.
I would wager that even many of the members of Congress, themselves, in some way benefit, whether it be the gardener, housekeeper, or the guy who cleans the pool, directly or indirectly, by the presence of illegal immigrants in the labor force.
That is bad enough, but the theft of Nethercott's Ranch is being done, not just as a "damage" award to the "victims", but a way of definitively punishing someone who has been an outspoken thorn in the side of official agencies on this issue for some time. If Nethercott's ranch forfieture is intended as an 'object lesson' to those who would "take the law into their own hands", I fear that turf battle has only just begun.
Sadly, the man has been roundly demonized in the media, deservedly or not, and will garner little sympathy from those who refuse to see the greater issue at hand. DOubtless, that is no accident.
For starters, we need protection against the award of damages to someone who is injured in the commission of a criminal act by someone seeking to halt or hinder that act, not just to protect landowners in the border areas, but any and every citizen who choses to defend themselves, their property, or their family against criminals.
The ramifications of this would be broad indeed, as it would ensure that the average citizen can uphold the law using reasonable (including lethal) force without fear of civil recrimination by those allegedly injured doing their particular criminal act.
(In this instance, the lesson is that Nethercott would have been better off taking his chances and burying these people, rather than giving them water and a blanket.)
I can not understand why such liability protection is so freely tendered to those who act in an official capacity, but generally withheld from the average person. There is no 'equal protection' under these laws eliminating liability for officials only, which may be a Constitutional issue in and of itself.
As for securing the border, this is one of the Constitutional empowerments of the Federal Government, unfortunately abdicated by the Congress in the aim of securing votes from the numerically increasing and increasingly anti-American groups which espouse thwarting that objective.
Even in the face of the threat (and in some instances, the reality--MS 13 comes to mind) of terrorists infiltrating our nation through the highly permeable arrangement on our borders, these legislators lack the intestinal fortitude to uphold this mandate from the very document they are sworn to protect and defend, the very essence of our government.
For now, the battle is primarily within the system. There are credible attempts to sieze the property of judges who voted for Kelo, which I hope succeed, or at least come close enough to cause the Court to reconsider and overturn the decision. There is an outcry over the City of New London attempting to charge back rent to those whose property they have siezed, a real abombination, and again, a punitive measure, undertaken through the courts, with no doubt the objective of establishing precedent which is intended to intimidate any who would resist such property siezures.
These acts are not only in violation of the spirit of the Constitution, they are arguably criminal racketeering.
I cannot be convinced that those who have pushed these actions to sieze property and redistribute it to other private entities "for the purpose of increasing tax revenues" do not stand to receive some personal gain, whether through increasing the funding for their tenure in their present position through "contributions" or more directly.
Were this 1773, they would likely be tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail.
The cost recovery alone in the first 5 years, due to the decreased burden on the State/Fed tax system by SEVERELY curtailing, if not outright eliminating the Illegal Infiltrator problem MORE than offeset the start-up costs,and as the wall will not need 8 Billion/Year EVERY year, as it will then be a fixed cost...I rough estimate with your provided figures that within 3.5 to 4 years, The wall, security, and all associated costs will be paid in full by the savings from reduced/eliminated burden!
Then, we can wall off Canada...after offering the Westen Provinces the opportunity to join the US first!
My next suggestion is doing what was done in "Escape From New York"...turn Manhattan into a LIEberal enclave(hell, it already IS), wall it up and mine/cut the bridges and tunnels, and just toss the bastards in as they surface in the rest of America, to fend for themselves and not screw it up for the REAL America anymore! You want to live in a Marxist Utopia...here's your entry pass...good luck!
I can see Krintong and Shrillary as the "Duke and Dutchess of NY...they're A #1!"...I know...a fantasy, but I can dream, can't I?
Back to reality...your final thought is correct, but not far enough along... I predict that we are 12/18 MONTHS from B.I.T.S. ... and that timeframe is shrinking exponentially with EVERY Kelo/AZ decision that comes along, as our "Leaders" dither and show just how meaningless and out-of-touch they are!
I predict that we should invest in comanies that produce things like rope...ammo/arms...feathers...tar....because the past will happen again, and sooner than the Perfumed Princes of Power think.
.
Sadly - no.
The trick is to scare, harrass, demand, and force by grassroots action (minutemen) the existing crop and upcomers into rediscovering their base, their supposed duties, and the constitution that made it all possible.
Trying to start over would leave a vacuum for far too many years and probably result in a doomed lesser partner within a virtual one party system governed by the likes of the clintons, kennedys, and the multicultural/group rights facists.
Thank you.
I don't really think you can lump joanie in with the
"open borders crowd".
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