Posted on 08/23/2005 6:29:05 AM PDT by Happy2BMe
DES MOINES United States Congressman Steve King says the U.S. should build a wall betweeen itself and Mexico, topped with razor wire.King spoke to a group at the downtown Marriot on Monday about toughening immigration laws and the strict enforcement of laws already on the books.
King says building a two thousand-mile-long fence would cost about 680 (m) million dollars, and it would slow border crossings. King says he wants candidates running for president to have clear and aggressive plans for dealing with immigration.
So you're okay with bloating the deficit by tens of billions of additional dollars, and I'm being disingenuous?
I thought conservatives didn't believe in runaway spending. I thought we didn't believe in passing our bills down to our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Just because we have other boondoggles, we should add more boondoggles?
I'm sorry, but that just doesn't make any sense.
a poem by Robert Frost entitled "Mending Wall"
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come on them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them mae or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says "Good fences make good neighbors."
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
"Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I'd build a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says it again, "Good fences make good neighbors."
"I thought conservatives didn't believe in runaway spending."
They also believe in the security of this country.These are unsettled and dangerous times we live in that call for sacrifice and diligence.
Use concrete, congressman, and you got yerself a deal.
I think 680 meg is kind of low balling it. But relatively speaking, what's 2 or 3 bill if it comes to that?
W's political cash will soon be blown. He's already hated by the left, now he's losing his support on the right faster than a stone in a pond. He'll get nothing done the rest of his term. Any border proposal he puts up pushing amnesty and kissing up to Fox will be dead on arrival. He can't antagonize both sides and expect anyone to listen to him.
Nice pic of the Great Wall of China. Everytime someone tries to say how it's not possible to build a wall along our border, show 'em this!
This whole invasion mess reminds me of the Great Depression. Damn thing went on and on and on and nobody did a damn thing about it. All you got was naysayers and purveyors of doom and gloom saying there's nothing you can do about it, just relax, lie back, and enjoy it.
It doesn't hurt him though. He's already been re-elected.
It hurts all citizens because vital work doesn't get done.
And it will hurt conservatives at the next election.
"As far as I am concerned $8 billion is chicken feed at the federal level."
Hell, the border states could do it themselves, 2 billion perstate....California I believe is already done with their section.
Nice pic of the Great Wall of China. Everytime someone tries to say how it's not possible to build a wall along our border, show 'em this!
Why? The Great Wall didn't keep any invaders out of China.
"Why? the Great Wall didn't keep any invaders out of China."
The Chinese didn't have guns did they?
Make it a 12 foot high cement wall with razor wire on top. I don't care what it costs it will be cheaper in the long run compared to what illegals cost us today.
In Bosnia, my base camp used walls very similar to what your "Wall Under Construction" pic shows. Very effective, very easy to build.
Another technique is to use hesco bastions - they're basically wire baskets filled with dirt. So, you dig a trench, and use the dirt to fill hesco bastions, thus effectively doubling the height of the wall. Top it off with some concertina wire and you're in business.
We're already paying a couple of thousand of people to patrol the border. Seems to me that the wall would make the job a lot easier and less expensive to patrol the border. Assign one person per ten miles for each of three shifts, and that's only 600 border guards per day. That would allow each guard to make two to to three passes an hour or more over the ten mile stretch, and while breaches will happen, busting through, under, or over the wall is something the border guards ought to be able to discover and plug pretty quickly.
I'm not arguing that we shouldn't build a wall. I'm only saying that building a wall means little if we don't address the reasons that people want to come here.
No more anchor babies, all caught illegals barred from ever visiting the US or becoming citizens, and stiff fines for all buisinesses that knowingly hire illegals. The *plus* amped up border patrol and wall is the only thing that'll really stem this tide.
The government's first obligation is to protect its citizens and our land. If we can spend 15 billion to try to help Africans reduce their AIDS problem, we can afford to do what it takes to keep out illegal aliens.
"Why? The Great Wall didn't keep any invaders out of China."
You tell me. How many illegal Mexicans are in China?
I understand: We need to take away both the means and the ends. I would go one step further and impose stiff fines and perhaps even a prison sentence upon anyone who hires an illegal alien, without regard to actual knowledge. Strict liability, just like statutory rape where "she told me she was 18" is not a defense.
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