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![Quote](images/misc/quote_icon.png) Originally Posted by TheSpoonald
The Government Accountability Office publishes an annual report showing that fraud, waste, and abuse in the government is enough to pay for many many many walls.
The Green New Deal costs enough to pay for 1000 walls.
If those things are wrong and need to be dealt with, then that's a wholly different discussion. It has absolutely nothing to do with my questions.
Unless your position is that those things you mention are "supposed" to do the work of a wall, but they're really bad at accomplishing what a wall will accomplish more efficiently, in which case, please elaborate and draw that line more clearly than the spaghetti squiggles you throw out as though they're linear thought.
![Quote](images/misc/quote_icon.png) Originally Posted by TheSpoonald
It doesn't matter how else the money might be spent. Even if you could make an argument that there are more effective measures of border control....none of them are permanent. That's a unique feature of a wall, and it's kind of a dealbreaker. Voters have been misled on immigration too many times, going back to Reagan. If you pass a bill that puts sensors, patrols, and drones on the border....how am I to know that the next president won't just cut the funding for those things and leave the border unsecure again?
You can't un-build a wall.
lolwat? You just said what? FYI: check out the word "demolition." Fascinating concept. Goes back centuries.
Did you know that if you hit things with other things... the things break?
Get this... if you leave a wall alone for 200 years... it crumbles all on its own. I know... 2nd law of Thermo has some pretty wild applications, right?
Also, a wall without sensors, patrols, and drones = no difference if it's 5 feet tall or 50. If no one's watching, it will be breached, tunneled, laddered, whatever. That will take time, but how much time? IDK, but I think we can both agree there's nothing permanent about it once the manpower goes away.
![Quote](images/misc/quote_icon.png) Originally Posted by TheSpoonald
And frankly, effectiveness and cost SHOULD NOT MATTER AT ALL. These are bogus, feckless, diversionary arguments.
Agreed. Now that you've discredited the positions that only you have brought up, can you get to the question?
(I bet you feel pretty burned by yourself, while also swimming in the pride of a sick burn. You're a complicated man.)
![Quote](images/misc/quote_icon.png) Originally Posted by TheSpoonald
The election of 2016 was largely a referendum on Immigration. The winning candidate had a wall as the top plank in his platform. America voted for a wall. All the counter arguments about costs, necessity, effectiveness, and other measures were aired. The debate already happened. All opinions were heard, and a vote was taken. America voted for a wall. Democracy has spoken. The POTUS has a mandate to build the fucking thing.
Anyone who thinks that they have an argument stronger than that is just a desperate narcissist.
Wait... you said he was elected 'cause populism sticks it to the man.
You also said it was because Clinton was widely perceived to be a criminal (though that was a long time ago).
Which is it?
Maybe some of each?
Maybe not an actual majority on any of them, then? Maybe, but not necessarily, a majority consensus I mean.
Maybe some supported Trump to stick it to the man, others to build a wall, others 'cause Clinton is more criminal than Trump. Some a combination. Some non of the above.
The actual "mandate" thing you're talking about is making a pretty big assumption about why each voter supported Trump and how much overlap they had on specific issues.
At any rate... now that you've criticized the non-sequitur nonsense that you invented in response to nothing I actually asked,
can you answer the questions?
How else might the money be spent to address the same concerns?
Is a wall our best option?
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I tend to agree that Trumps election was largely predicated on people who really liked shouting "build that wall." Personally, I think it'd be an expensive and epic failure to accomplish its stated goals, but I'm excited to run the experiment. If 'Murica wants a wall, then 'Murica should build an epic fuckin wall worthy of our name. If that's not the most cost-efficient solution, then so what. Is it awesome?!
I think a wall is a bad symbol. I think there are better ways to solve problems than by clawing onto an us/them mentality. However, sometimes it really is us/them. That's the brutal reality of the world and of humans. Maybe a wall is the best move. Maybe it's really us vs. them. I just really doubt it is in this case.
Walls around prisons? Yes.
Walls around nations? No.
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