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Originally Posted by supa
Just skimming this thread I have a few points about the wall. Firstly trump very clearly said mexico would pay for it. I'm not sure I consider that a lie as much as overly optimistic but I think we'll find over the coming months that he'll be found to have been over optimistic on many issues that will have major impacts on america.
I'm really not trying to be condescending here. I just sort of have a *gut feel* about what I think the average age around here is, and I'm wondering if that colors some of the opinions here. So I'll ask..... is this the first time you've been "old enough" to really pay attention to an election where a new president was elected?
Trump is nowhere near the first candidate to adjust his plans as he changes gears from campaigning, to governing. Obama told us "If you like your plan, you can keep it". Bush Sr promised "Read my lips, no new taxes". And I think a good portion of America was let down when exactly zero of Clinton's State of the Union addresses included a saxophone solo.
Campaigning and Governing are wildly different things, and it's totally unrealistic to hold every candidate to every letter of every promise he makes. In Trump's case, that really should have been obvious from the get go. It's unfair to accuse Trump supporters of defending his "flip flops" by ignoring facts (scroll up to the top of this page to see what i mean).
Trumps statements during the campaign were openings for negotiations, nothing more. The same can be made for ANY campaign "promise" made by any candidate, ever. Intelligent people know this. They know not to take everything Trump says literally.
Compare the strategy of bold, easy-to-grasp, campaign promises to the more conservative, less-committal approach used by Mitt Romney. Mitt vowed to eliminate some tax deductions, rather than raise taxes. He never named those deductions. So there was a vacuum, and the media rushed to fill it. I vividly remember a 60 minutes interview where they asked Mitt which deductions he would be cutting, and Mitt couldn't say. So instead, they just put the camera on the interviewer who rattled off the most popular deductions "Are you cutting the mortgage interest deduction? Child Care? dependents?".
The real answer, is that Mitt had no idea. His plan was to LEAD. His plan was to reach out to congress, present the problem, get their input, trade ideas, and eventually write a bill that helps America. How could he answer the question when the answer still requires input from 435 congressman and 100 senators?? That's democracy folks....and believing in it cost Mitt Romney the election.
Originally Posted by supa
My real opinion is that the walk will never be built. He's already back tracked by saying some of it could be fencing and added to what already exists. Mainly I expect a small portion of wall to be built as a photo opportunity and all his supporters will be delighted.
But really what good do we think the wall will do? People have been coming over that border for a long time and gotten increasingly better at it. Living and working in the construction industry in southern California I know first hand how well a Mexican can dig. This is not me being stereotypical, these guys take pride in how well they do their jobs. Look at the tunnels used for drug trafficking. These people will find a way.
Agree and disagree with this. I know that if I were living in poverty in Mexico, struggling to provide for my family, and held down by a corrupt government, I would find a way into America. If you told me that all I had to do was cross a river and I could have a job, a place to live, and make enough money support my family easily.....well then Sir, you simply cannot build a wall big enough to intimidate me. I'll get over by catapult if I have to.
Now, that all sounds fine and noble. But odds are pretty good I will get caught. There a lot of miles of border to cover, and it takes a lot of manpower to do it. If you replace some of that manpower with 25 feet of reinforced concrete and barbed wire, then you can divert resources to other things, like seeking out tunnels and disarming catapults.
If someone gets caught running across the desert, they can just try again tomorrow. If their tunnel gets filled in....they have to start a whole new tunnel. You can't just buy catapults at the corner store.
Originally Posted by supa
More so what purpose does halting illegal immigration serve us? Farms in California are already seeing an up to 20% production loss due to not having enough workers. Does it make sense to have loss of production and profit simply to keep out the people willing to do the work?
Yes, the farm industry will probably be the most affected by halting illegal immigration, but your argument there is really really glib. Halting immigration doesn't necessarily have to debilitate the agricultural industry. Obviously, if the government isn't spending money on education, healthcare, and other services for illegals, then it should be pretty easy to come up with some money for subsidies and grants that will help keep farms profitable. Also, we could easily enhance or expand our seasonal work visa programs to minimize any "loss of production". I could go on, but the point is, you can't hold the farms hostage.
Please please please, be careful not use "halt illegal immigration" and "secure the border" interchangeable. The former is merely one of many consequences of the latter action. And securing the border most definitely "serves us". Regardless of their intentions, or how much money they make for farmers, every illegal immigrant is consuming American resources, while making much less, if any, contribution back to society. Many don't pay taxes, and much of their income leaves the country. That's a cancer on our economy, which is already losing ground among others in the world. Halting that, most definitely serves a purpose.
Not to mention....if a simple farm worker can get across the border, so can a terrorist. Security is kinda important.
Originally Posted by supa
Lastly, and sorry if this got ranty, why do we put so much blame on the immigrants? In the 80s Reagan opened the floodgates by decriminalizing the hiring of undocumented workers. Now everyone is pissed that so many came in an effort make a better lives for themselves and their families. It's like be took a sledgehammer to our water faucet at then got mad at the water for flooding the living room. Where we need to look if we're concerned about immigration is to those who are illegally hiring, tax evading and lowering wages across the board. You gotta fix the source of the leak before you can dry the carpet.
So, Reagan's intent was to also "secure the border" simultaneously along with the amnesty. The promise that he made to the American people is that after we decriminalize these folks...there won't be any more. He promised it was a 'one time thing'. It's hard to say exactly what happened between then and now. But the border was not secured.
Today the biggest obstacle to securing the border, that I see, is the sentiment among the left that any kind of border enforcement is racist. There are folks who think the term "illegal immigration" is a pejorative on par with the "n" word. It's really tough to pin that on Reagan.
I think Trump's goal in this negotiation is to fulfill what Reagan promised. I think he wants to secure the border. If he can tell America "Yes there are 12 million illegal immigrants in this country, but I can assure you that number will never get any bigger", that would be an incredible victory.
After that, there will probably be deportations. Folks with significant criminal histories are going to be given a bus ticket home. And that's probably gonna cause some tears. You're gonna see folks saying "Don't send Jose away from his family" while other folks say "If Jose cared about his family, he wouldn't be in a gang". And that little mini-tragedy will play out on every local news outlet, in every city, for a few months. Cable news pundits will love it because they have something to talk about, and after a few months, we can move on.
At that point, I think you'll see the country coalesce around a humanitarian sentiment that says "Ok, no new people are coming in, all the bad people have been sent home, let's just end this. The 8 million or however many people that are left, can stay. Let's get them on the books, integrated, and move on from this whole mess".
^If that happened, would you consider Trump a failure because he promised to deport everybody, and only fulfilled a fraction of his promise?
Or could you zoom out, look at the entire picture, the entire process, the overall success and say "Damn...that Trump is a really fucking good negotiator".
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