Terrible Symbolism
I know that many of my readers have more skepticism than I about open immigration. We will leave that for another day. But I am not sure how any American who prides themselves on American exceptionalism and our leading role in the world promoting freedom wouldn't cringe at seeing these pictures. What a terrible image they will make running for thousands of unbroken miles.
I am not sure why we are going through all this engineering effort when we could just be borrowing from the experts:
Postscript: Congrats to our local entrants from the Phoenix area firm that submitted by far t
he ugliest design.
Update: Just to confirm, based on the comments: Yes, I do not see an ethical difference between stopping people from coming in and stopping them from going out. Others of you do see a difference, and we will have to disagree. I don't think the Berlin Wall would have shifted from evil to OK had it been built by the West Germans instead to keep communists bottled up on their side. I know folks love to use the home analogy, that it is OK to fence folks out of your home but a federal crime to fence them in. But I have always thought equating a whole country to private property is a bad analogy. Basically, such an assumption rests on socialist community property ownership assumptions. A Mexican man wants to drive a car he owns, using gas he buys along the highway, along a road paid for with the gas taxes he just paid, to take a job at my company I freely offer him and rent an apartment I freely lease to him. Voting, government benefits, holding office -- we don't necessarily have an obligation to offer any of those things, at least initially. But I don't think it is ethical to erect this wall in his path to exercising free exchange.
False analogy. Our wall is to defend our country. The Berlin Wall (which I went through in 1966) was to hold people in).
As for "skepticism" about open borders, all I can say is: it's not skepticism. It's an understanding that open borders are utterly incompatible with the concept of nations, and are a classic example of why libertarianism is a suicide cult. How many Hispanic immigrants are libertarians? Or even conservatives? The answer is: damned few.
The stance also suggests that the author believes that a nation is nothing more than a place on a map, along with some documents that new immigrants are not required to respect.
In reality, the success of the US - and other countries in or formed by Northern Europeans - is primarily due to a combination of a particular culture and actual respect for a particular set of ideas. Open borders simply dilutes both of those, replacing it with people from countries which clearly have less effective cultures and ideas, or they wouldn't be leaving there to come here!
A willingness to work does not show that the person will be a good citizen, that the person will respect the ideas and culture which created the most successful nation on earth.
You are an idiot. Why the hell should we care what every other country does? Most of them have limited free speech and gun control, do you want that? If they implement a 10% tariff on imported goods, that cost, like all costs, gets passed on to the consumer. German citizens are then paying 110% the price on goods we export while we pay only 100% on tariff free goods. If we react and decide "let's put a 10% tariff to match the German tariff," then we are paying 110%. The tariff money goes to their government; do you really want our government getting a 10% cut on all of our foreign purchases?
It's a matter of response time to detected breach. You'll have to detect the actual intrusions (it takes years for tunnels to be discovered), and then you'll need to have agents ready to respond in reach. The latter is where we're already falling short.
We have satellites with fine enough resolution to detect anyone crossing any of the US borders in orbit already, with some run of the mill image reco we are capable of detecting everyone crossing the border already. If we cannot dispatch actual agents to stop them now, what makes you think a wall would help?
All this is is a huge cost sink and boondoggle for whichever firms get to build them, it'll do absolutely nothing to stem illegal immigration.
Actually, the walls around Eastern Germany were build with the explicit stated* purpose of keeping the Westerners out. The term used was "Antifaschistischer Schutzwall", literally translating to "guard wall to protect against fascists".
footnote: *) and yes, the stated purpose by the agents of the state is not always the actual purpose, although this one is a more blatant example than, say, typical US bill names
That's a pretty pathetic attempt to support the symbolism. I am of the same opinion as many have -- "A nation without borders is not a nation."
It doesn't follow that a 10 percent import tax leads to gun control and authoritarian regimes.
You can't be sure if the cost is passed to the consumer either. There is no cost if the product is produced locally and it is also possible the 10 percent import tax offsets other taxes.
Please think your argument through before calling others idiots.
Satellite data is delayed so not effective unless it takes illegals hours to walk in over an open border. Tunnels are actually easily detectable - but we don't want to pay for the technology. Note too these new walls are suppose to be partially underground making tunnel digging more difficult.
It's the Great Wall of China, not the Berlin Wall.
Your first point is valid. Your second one is invalid.
All costs are passed on to the consumer-always. There are no exceptions to this rule. The costs are passed on in the price of the good in the form of an import tax assessed at the border or through higher costs by using less optimal sources, products, or alternatives.
Also-there absolutely are tariffs on importing most items into the US. The items I deal with have a tariff from 3-5% on top of brokerage charges and all the rest.
Exactly. We as individuals have a right to own property. What is a country but collective property ownership coming together to decide who can and cannot have access to our property?
This is going to drive up the price of meth.
I favor a deep pit full of flaming brimstone.
While I appreciate Coyote's point, I am not sure how one could make a pretty wall that would work. If we look at historical walls, Hadrian's wall worked for a long time, mainly to keep armies out (it had gates for trade). The Great Wall likewise worked pretty well for centuries, again aimed at keeping invading armies out.
If you don't think other countries secure their borders, try getting a job in Japan without a visa (which they give very reluctantly). If caught you are out of there.
Not a single infiltration from the Sinai Peninsula into Israel was recorded over the past 12 months, the Population and Immigration Authority said on Sunday.
Officials credit this surprising statistic to the fence Israel built along its border with Egypt several years ago.
http://www.israelhayom.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/1505716919a_mo1.jpg
The Mongolians had no problem getting through China's wall.
This wall reminds me of Hadrian's Wall, the Maginot Line, and the Great Wall of China. We may become a full-on dictatorship, with the walls keeping us in, but that's dependent on our government, not the wall. A wall in a prison keeps you in. A wall in your home keeps weather and prowlers out.
There are some 50+ countries around the world that have border walls/fences including: Israel, Hungary and Spain
"Fake trade"? Do you know of a trade where no goods or services changed hands? Or where no money was exchanged for goods or services? "Fake trade" sounds like an oxymoron to me.
Trump's plan is hardly "freer". It's just "fairer" -- in his opinion. But free trade doesn't have to be "fair" to be good for a country.
Reciprocity isn't what makes free trade. What makes free trade
is lack of government impediments - tariffs, duties, export
quotas/bans, and the like. Free trade can be unilateral - some countries
practicing it while others don't.
As a matter of history, Great Britain had unilateral free trade from 1850 until around WW I. Per Wikipedia, "After 1840 [Britain] abandoned mercantilism and practised "free trade," with no
tariffs or quotas or restrictions." (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_the_United_Kingdom.)
The Constitution gives the US government the power to levy import duties to finance itself. But the Commerce clause was designed to prevent the state governments from levying tariffs on foreign trade and on each other -- just to prevent the kind of thing Trump wants to do. How about a trade war between Iowa and Texas? I'll bet we can find some Iowans who think Texas is being "unfair" - and vice-versa.
Barring cases of war, what reason does any government have to
restrict trade? Why turn business decisions into political decisions?
Or, worse, into diplomatic questions.
And as a practical matter who suffers when governments impede trade? Primarily the consumers. How did we end up with high-fructose corn syrup instead of sugar in soft drinks? Sugar tariffs (and corn price supports) due to political decisions.
"In the U.S., sugar tariffs and quotas keep imported sugar at up to twice the global price since 1797,[28] while subsidies to corn growers cheapen the primary ingredient in HFCS, corn.
Industrial users looking for cheaper replacements rapidly adopted HFCS
in the 1970s." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-fructose_corn_syrup)
How did we end up with corn ethanol mandates? More politics.
If US residents can't buy Chinese phones because the Chinese aren't being "fair" (whatever that might mean to whoever's making the decision) then US consumers pay more than is necessary or get worse phones for the same money.
Likewise, if the Chinese government won't allow anyone to buy Caterpillar's excellent heavy equipment, then Chinese construction businesses pay more and/or get inferior equipment.
Recall that it was the 'Berlin Wall', not the 'East German Wall'. They used a different set-up at the inner-German border, where you had much more room to build a wider array of more effective traps, but that used fences and not a wall. Which is also cheaper. So don't waste money on walls and do look at how East Germany used to and how North Korea currently handle things. That's were the expertise is. Maybe we could contract with NK? Walls are for urban borders only.
About 3000 people a year are killed by illegal aliens. Untold thousands more are injured and thousands of children are molested. If we cannot stop illegal immigration without the wall then why not the wall???
Well, it would work if we shoot the people who try to climb over it.
Not necessarily endorsing that, but it's rare to find a solution without looking outside the box.
A lot of people have "always thought" things that were wrong. We have a legitimate process for legal entry to our country, and a moral and legal prerogative to prevent people from circumventing it.
If the process needs reform, let's reform it -- but there is neither a sound philosophical basis, nor a political constituency, for the status quo.
The wall in Israel works great. Terror-events by Palestinians have dropped way more than 90% since the Israelis built their wall.
Walls to keep people out also keep people in. I wouldn't be so sanguine about "the freest nation on Earth" stuff when you look at what makes a police state, no matter what the rest of the frogs say I think the water in here's definitely been getting warmer.
Coyote, are now equating the Mexican government to the East German communist government? Wow!
I think more highly of the Mexican government and norms in Mexico than that! Your equation is especially suspect because East Germany was essentially run by an occupying power.
No nation can afford a welfare state without borders.
False equivalence: it's not at all clear if a wall would do anything to stop illegal immigration or would at all be cost effective.
If we really wanted to fight the major causes of death, it's time to start fighting falls and making motor vehicles safer.
Download latency is typically around 700ms. Responding with dynamically dispatched border patrol agents based on image analysis would be the absolute best strategy to keep our borders secure, whereas a wall just doesn't work on this scale and is just a waste of taxes.
To pick a different angle and align with Warren's reference to the Berlin Wall: that wall had armed soldiers with orders to shoot and a mine belt - and a lot of folks still made it from the East to the West on a weekly basis.
Unproven (require proof of legal immigration status for any benefits?), but in this case the debate is about building an insanely expensive boondoggle that'll be inefficient at its stated purpose.
I can't find it but I have a picture of my car driving through a service entry in the wall in southern Texas.that was left.open.
Ugg, I always used to say that all you had to know about communists was that they built a wall around a city and shot people trying to get out. That's enough to know they were evil. (Usually in response to a liberal equating the Soviets with us) It's hard to believe anyone can't see the difference between that and enforcing your borders. And we won't shoot people trying to get in. What a horrible and insulting analogy.
Really! Fight falls and allow the 3000 deaths casued by illegal immigrants. That's your solution?
Build the wall. Actively and aggressively look for and deport illegal aliens. Change the law to make it a felony to be in this country illegally. Arrest and punish employers who hire illegal aliens.
Right, but just because we don't enforce our border doesn't mean Mexico or Canada wants your illegal (by their laws) ass, and won't punish you. Please, go ahead and walk across a stretch of unguarded border and try to get a job or sign up for benefits. Please.
Eventually.
Death caused by falls annually in the US exceed 500,000. So, in terms of prioritizing spending, yes, that's what we should focus on if we were concerned with deaths.
The wall is a waste of money because it'll do little to prevent illegal immigration at a tremendous cost. Go look elsewhere in the comment section for my preference for containing illegal immigration: locate border crossing immigrants using sattelite imagery (no additional investment needed) and dynamically dispatch border guard to intercept.
Anyone who can't grasp the difference between the East Germans trying to leave communist tyranny and ILLEGAL INVADERS trying to cross our borders to steal, commit violent crime and parasite off of our productiveness has serious problems with grasping reality. As for 'the wall' Trump wants. I don't object to it on moral grounds. I object to it because a wall won't work. NO physical barrier will prevent criminals from committing the crime of invading the US. The ONLY way to control our borders is to make the risk of coming here too great to attempt. To do that you only need two chain link fences. One AT the border and another 100 yards in from the border. ANYONE caught between the fences DIES. Define the border, patrol the border and ENFORCE THE BORDER with deadly force and the problem of alien invaders goes away almost overnight.
Libertarian arguments are fatuous and naive, and not only with immigration. Deny health care and benefits? In what civilized nation do authorities take a man with a broken back, or a woman in the process of delivering a baby, then dump these folks on the border. Let me guess, Coyote enterprises provides no health care, or benefits of any kind, to their freely contracted illegal immigrants. That's someone else's problem, i.e., the tax payers. Our civilized nation is not going to endure corpses on the sides of highways. We lose tens of thousands to drug overdoses every year. Free exchange of narcotics isn't working so well.
About half the people in California speak a language other than English at home. Half of these were born in the US. Doesn't appear assimilation is working very well.
Have you ever met a libertarian who served in the military? I can't recall one. Just maybe the nation is more than a collection of economic units.
Our cheap labor entrepreneurs like to lecture on open borders and open drug use. Libertarian ideals appeal to naive college students. How does an intelligent person reach the age of say 25 and still believe these empty arguments?
"A Mexican man wants to drive a car he owns, using gas he buys along the highway, along a road paid for with the gas taxes he just paid, to take a job at my company I freely offer him and rent an apartment I freely lease to him. Voting, government benefits, holding office -- we don't necessarily have an obligation to offer any of those things,"
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But we do offer up a lot of those things right now. The Mexican man's kids can go to public school and his extended family (including new ones that will automatically be born as US citizens) can effectively receive any number of public benefits and services.
This is also a simple numbers/math issue. Does anyone doubt that if the US goes full, open borders for long enough it won't attract *hundreds of millions* of new immigrants? The George Soros and Obama foundations will be chartering Airbus A380s for that very purpose just to spite us and/or because they think they're doing God's Work. This level of (Third-World heavy) immigration, in the modern era, is going to lead to another, romantic, Ellis Island-type saga of 20th century style growth and prosperity? I doubt it. If mass, Mid-East/African immigration had worked out better for Europe you might have a case but the cost/benefit there looks pretty top heavy.
In any case, most Americans simply don't want their country put on the path toward the population density of India with all the likely (and unknown) problems and complications such a thing would entail - PERIOD. Hard for me to morally shame those Americans.
If America is so still so attractive to so many people in the world (supposedly UN-POSSIBLE in the Trump era), other countries/societies should make more of an effort to adopt those elements from us which can provide the necessary conditions for greater economic prosperity back home. It's been done before, it works and that is ultimately how you will vastly improve the quality of life for the greatest number of people in the world.
Immigration has a cost as well as a benefit. If the cost is greater than the benefit, then that is a loss.
When considering immigration, the cost as well as upon whom it is incident must be considered, not just the benefits.
Immigrants cluster and usually in poorer areas and this increases competition for resources which then has a cost for everyone in that area... increased cost of accommodation for example.
If costs are largely incident on those who do not receive the benefits as is often the case with immigration, then those who do benefit do so at the expense of others.
Those who speak in favour of immigration are nearly always those who will not be in an area where immigrants will congregate so will bear no or little cost, but they do perceive they will benefit either financially in some way or by feeling morally superior.
Citizens of East Germany, as with all Communist Countries, were not allowed to leave without permission anyway. East Berliners could not freely get on a plane to London, wall or no wall; New Yorkers can, wall or no wall.
The comparison with the Berlin Wall is fatuous.
Well if you are opposed to illegall immigration you must love my other suggestions: "Actively and aggressively look for and deport illegal aliens. Change
the law to make it a felony to be in this country illegally. Arrest and
punish employers who hire illegal aliens."
those things are already illegal, but not enforced rigidly if at all...
and don't forget the solar panels and wind turbines to power it all.
My point exactly. The wall is a huge misinvestment. Costs a lot, does very little.
The right investments here (of you care about reducing the net number of illegals in the US) is upping the investment in enforcement and/or a cost effective border security measure (satellite dispatched border guards)
My feelings toward the Wall have been ambivalent at best. But the outrageous comparisons by Coyote have prompted me to have a lot more sympathy toward the Wall now.
I'm not so sure. If done correctly it can be not just a blockade for all but the most persistent but also a major deterrent.
This would allow a far smaller number of border patrol to control the border, give them more time to respond.
We have to think about a layered defense of the border, not a single feature that will be the end all of border security.
Fences/walls to slow them down, maybe ditches with steep sides to slow them down further.
Networked sensors and cameras to give warning of and track people moving through the exclusion zone.
Roving patrols everywhere.
Guard posts at regular intervals, manned 24/7 and ready to dispatch more patrols if a border violation is detected.
Enforcement beyond the border is of course needed as well, but the first step should be enforcing the border itself.
Remember that the vast majority of illegals do not seek employment, they disappear into the (often violent) criminal underworld, running drugs, burglaries, armed robberies, murder.
Of course effort needs to be put in there as well, including eviction from the country of illegals caught (which often doesn't happen for 'humanitarian reasons'), but it can't be the only thing done as we only catch them when they've already done serious damage.
And we should put a complete stop to legalising the status of illegal migrants the moment they get a child born in the US. No more 'anchor babies' and 'dreamers'.
Borders should be completely open to all. However, you should have to speak the language (no government money spent on second language materials since language is a binding force for a cohesive society) and NO welfare benefits at all. None. Zero.
But this would presuppose that the rest of the world would be just as open to Americans coming and making a living in THEIR countries. Which is simply laughable. Speaking as a full time traveler (I live on the road, literally... I don't even have a home in the US and haven't for 3+ years), that is simply NOT the case. And immigration rules are strictly enforced in most other places, other than the US. We have to continually move to another country due to visa requirements. It's ridiculous.
[The Berlin Wall was to keep people in. That is all.]
No, that is NOT all. The Berlin wall was to keep people from moving (relatively) freely. And in that sense the author's analogous use applies.
Analogies are what they are - that is, they are analogies, and not 100% equalities - which means they are NOT identical and therefore there are and will be differences.
You have simply identified a convenient difference and essentially nit-picked on that.
I find such an approach dishonest.
[Really! Fight falls and allow the 3000 deaths casued by illegal immigrants. That's your solution?]
Fight those who kill even more - the EXISTING citizens. Maybe you are one of those killers?
PS. Your deliberate out-of-context use of a specific datapoint suggests you are not interested in the truthful picture, but instead want to stroke your prejudice.
[The purpose of Berlin Wall was to create a prison to keep people in.]
That is some part of it, but not the complete truth that someone honestly in search of truth would pursue.
Hhmm, call yourself "TruthisaPeskyThing" I see. Talk about the irony.