also the American founding https://mises.org/library/founding-fathers-smugglers-tax-evaders-and-traitors
Trump now claims he never meant Mexico would pay directly for the wall: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...rade-deal-a8721341.html?utm_source=reddit.com His own website is fake news and contradicts this claim: https://assets.donaldjtrump.com/Pay_for_the_Wall.pdf Also, Donald Trump contradicts his claim: He thinks his supporters are complete idiots, and they’re continuing to prove him right.
1) Your “90%” fact only applies to one place, Israel, and applies to the reduced number of suicide bombers after a wall was built. However, it’s not completely clear as to whether the walls were the only reason, or whether other measures, such as underground tunneling radar, more cameras, and increased security on both sides, were also just as, if not more so, effective 2) Walls aren’t prevalent “everywhere.” In fact, there aren’t many that exist along borders relative to the amount of borders there are in the world. We don’t have, or seem to want, a wall along the Canadian border. 3) Physical barriers are the 1st part of any security design, for good reason. Usually, they are the most cost effective and tend to be the most preventative. Physical barriers also can come in many forms that aren’t limited to a wall. I’m not saying a wall can’t be effective, it can if used correctly, but I’d like to see some data that will show the potential effectiveness of it in relation to the money we’re about to spend. I’d also like to see some transparency or some details in regards to what it is we plan on doing in conjunction with the wall. Going back to Israel, they didn’t see success just by erecting the wall, but by also implementing other aspects as well. Are we willing to pay to do the same?
You anticipated my next post on the enormity of the proposed cost. For the entire wall, estimates vary a lot. Using the $24 million/mile for this ask, the entire border would be in the neighborhood of $50 billion. That's supposed to stop all (or 90%) the border jumpers, but how many jumpers are there? This article does not have an estimate of the number of border jumpers. People having no sense of the size of the problem is in itself a problem and that we don't have an estimate of border jumpers isn't helping. We mostly track the people who get caught and don't know how many people who don't. So, here's my stab at it from this article. Given the total growth from 1990 to 2016 of about 7.2 million in net population, plus another 6.3 million in deportations (from googling around), that's 13.5 million illegal immigrants over 26 years. I haven't considered self-deportations, so call it maybe 18 million. Maybe very roughly half of those are visa overstayers. That makes about 350,000 successful border jumpers per year. Again, very back of the envelope math to get in the ballpark and I'm not sure if that's too high or too low or how close I might be. This wall needs regular maintenance capex, but it probably is long-lived. I'd give it the longest depreciation schedule I've heard of, 50 years (which is generous since some future Administration will probably take it down or let it fall into neglect). So, we essentially pay $1 billion per year in depreciation expense for the initial construction. Add to that another $1.7 billion per year for maintenance (using the figures from the Cato article I linked earlier). So, $2.7 billion per year. Putting these two together, we'd spend $7,700 per border jumper additional to whatever we're currently paying. And that's assuming historic averages. If rates are down -- and it looks like from apprehension data that the problem is a quarter of what it once was -- the cost per goes up. Is it worth $50 billion to stop 350,000 people per year? As Trump has told me, the border jumpers will just move to where the wall is not, which is why he wants it built from sea to shining sea. According to his logic, we won't really get the immigration benefits until the entire thing is built. And, he has not backed off of walling the entire border. This $5.7 billion is just a first installment. If he gets it, he will assuredly come back and ask for another allowance later.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...stop-publicly-opposing-border-wall/535924001/ "If you are going to say that Mexico is not going to pay for the wall, then I do not want to meet with you guys anymore because I cannot live with that," Trump said in a January call, according to the Washington Post. Peña Nieto retorted that Mexico would not pay for the wall: "My position has been and will continue to be very firm saying that Mexico cannot pay for that wall." "But you cannot say that to the press," Trump replied. "The press is going to go with that and I cannot live with that. You cannot say that to the press because I cannot negotiate under those circumstances."
As a malignant narcissist, other human beings have never been anything more than props for Trump anyway
Next, trump will extol the value and effective of alligator filled moats, vats of boiling oil, and catapults with burning boulders...
How did my goalpost move? Please do elaborate. I'm sure you're equally incensed about all the lies the Dems are saying...and how THEY have completely moved THEIR goalposts on this. No, actually I'm not....
A good article about the rhetoric Trump has taken on immigration... https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/10/us/politics/steve-king-trump-immigration-wall.html
I think you're falling back on arguing walls in the abstract because arguing in favor of this wall specifically is too hard.
Woodie Guthrie wrote a song about trump's dad... Woody Guthrie Wrote of His Contempt for His Landlord, Donald Trump’s Father https://www.nytimes.com/politics/fi...ntempt-for-his-landlord-donald-trumps-father/
