Actually I was just curious if there was a near modern example of a wall having a real effect in today’s day and age. Was asking because I haven’t done any research on it myself so if you had I’d be very interested in the numbers. That’s why I said remotely similar and start from there.
An unpopular idea l have floated is that there will only be enough jobs for 1ish per household. Liberated women of today dont like this (sorry Puff). l dont imply that women havent been in outside workplace for a couple of centuries, or that they are perhaps - more diligent as employees.
But the natural facts are motherhood and nurturing versus men’s biological predisposition toward ‘competing’ in the workplace. Let me go out on a limb and state that many husbands are happy to have their wives work so they can sluff off in the workplace competition and to fund their own materialistic consumption. Moreso than wanting to see their wife have a ‘fulfilling’ career.
We have bantered this issue of goods vs services produced several times in PWl, but neither side comes to the other one’s, after the shooting.
My last statement will concern the easiest of logic and math l can conjure. “Consumption” economy is a dead end philosophy compared to “Production” economy.
If treco produces widgits / services that it sells for a profit overseas, then treco and the US will one day have a larger pie.
If American 1 sells accounting service to retired American 2, and both buy Chinese trinkets, Korean electronics, and Japanese cars - they are slowly transferring their and the US’ pie to Asia, crumbs at a time.
Not the same. But gated communities work at reducing crime from outsiders, but increase “intimate partner violence”. Not sure how that works, but hey science said so. Also gated communities are funny since they have unmanned gates where everyone (pizza guy) knows the code.
Also current walls along contested borders:
Israel/West Bank (with tunnel finding radar)
Morocco/Algeria: 1,700 miles
Cyprus: built by the UN
India/Pakistan: no wars since 1999 at least
Turkey/Syria: they had minefields and walls, but stopped using them. Then problems started again.
Saudi Arabia/Yemen
India/Bangladesh
Greece/Turkey
Hungary
The 38th Parallel b/t North and South Korea is VERY effective. Almost nobody can defect, despite really wanting to.
‘Not politically correct’ is the new right-wing verbiage for ‘punching down on marginalized groups.’
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One thing that I’ve always found kinda funny is how much manufacturing jobs are romanticized but they are atrocious jobs to work in reality.
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Yes that period. When gay people were demonized/closeted, when black people were red-lined out of neighborhoods, when Jim Crow was the law of the land in much of the country. That period.
As pointed out above, it doesn’t have to be an exact comparison. Tell you what–let’s go with a border-wall that’s only HALF as long as our southern border, and is only HALF as mountainous. That’s fair, yes?
Yeah, that’s not an apt comparison, for multiple reasons.
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So your assertion is that oppression of minorities caused the unparalleled prosperity? Or that by attempting to recapture prosperity we must re-oppress minorities. What’s your point?
We can have prosperity and an inclusive society.
Also Jim Crow and red lining were democrat policies.
I don’t deny the black mistreatment but could you name a place in the world with a sizable black population where blacks were treated better than in America?
@zeb1 @pfury
As noted in my post above the Morocco/Algeria wall is 1,700 miles long. It has landmines and such on parts of it. So that’s a no go in the 1st world. But regardless it can be built.
ED, you are a bright fellow. We have opposing views on this based upon our backgrounds AND how we make our money. But honestly I would never vote for a racist. And we both know based upon our ages that the bar of “racism” has been lowered repeatedly through the years. What some on the left would call a racist statement today would not even get an eye blink 20 years ago. In fact, that is one reason I am very happy that Trump is President. If he can roll back political correctness even 30% over the next 4 years we will all be happier and might be able to unclench our butt cheeks. As a side note read what comedian Jerry Sienfeld a democrat thinks of the PC culture. It just needs to die!
Trump is absolutely not a racist. He’s crude, rude, I will even give you lewd (and not just because it rhymes). But racist? I respectfully disagree.
There will never be an a good comparison to please you. That’s why I’m not going to spend the next 10 minutes googlling “walls that protect countries”. Internet debates (eye roll…and no I don’t need eye drops). This is going no where.
Ha…as I have said there are many countries that use walls for protection. No they are not fool proof. But, they do help. And in addition to that allowing the Border patrol to actually step up and do their jobs…no more catch and release…will most assuredly help.
Drop the left wing narrative ED you are to smart to follow in lock step with the whacky far left.
Become a Truman or JFK democrat they actually made sense. What the hell happened to the democrat party? WOW…
Yeah…none of those places will please the left. Know why?
Donald Trump IS A RAICIST
And a big meany…
I guess my thought is that the walls that exist today (in some form or another) are/have been built almost exclusively as military deterrents. When the problem is quite literally a WAR, the sky is the limit as far as the cost/benefit goes.
When the problem is stopping illegal immigration, I don’t put the same cost/benefit numbers as I would if we were worried about the Mexican army marching north and turning small towns in Texas into parking lots.
If the cost was 1bil for the wall, I’d be 100% on board on principle because that’s (to me) a justifiable cost for the purpose of border security. When you factor in EVERYTHING (maint, real cost inevitably being SO much higher than what Trump proposes, infrastructure, etc).
I’m in no way doubting that walls work. Fundamentally if you build something in someone’s path, it makes it harder to be on that path (duh). My doubt is that the cost will come anywhere near a low enough number to justify the benefit.
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The point is, when people such as @therajraj cite the mid-20th century as a Golden era in American history, they tend to gloss over some very important ways in which it was not so golden.
I’m going to assume that’s a joke along the lines of Richard Pryor’s “Thank god for slavery!” quip, and not a serious question.
The issue is not whether a wall can be built, but rather should (from a broadly-defined cost/benefit perspective) a wall be built.
I don’t claim to know what’s in Trump’s heart vis a vis his views concerning race. Certainly, he hasn’t done or said anything to make me think he a virulent racist. As for whether, like many 70 y.o. white guys (including those in my family), he harbors some mild racist notions, I wouldn’t be surprised. But again, I do not presume to know for certain.
But all this is besides the point, because the issue I have been arguing has never been that Trump is a racist. Rather, I have argued that he ran a campaign that relied heavily upon demonization and vilification of marginalized/unpopular groups as a way to gin up and galvanize support for his candidacy. Does that mean I’m suggesting all Trump supporters are bigots? NO. But it is fair to say that bigots felt very comfortable with Trump’s candidacy.
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Back in the early 90’s before the democrat party lost their minds and hearts to the whacky left wing extremists Bill Clinton (and others) thought a wall was a pretty good idea.
The group of thugs called Black Lives Matter supported Hillary. So what?
I know you are not trying to tell me that a Presidential candidate can control who supports him. No, I’m sure you are not saying that.
As for Trump attacking “marginalized/unpopular groups” who might you be referring to? The millions of illegal aliens coming across the Mexican border? Um…I’m glad he attacked those groups. They are breaking federal law. They are all FELONS. Obama didn’t care, Trump does. Good for Trump and shame on Obama for not supporting Federal Laws.
Come on ED…stop it…you are better than this.
When leftist belittles Americas history by citing racist laws, remind them Americans were(are) also world leaders in treatment of racial minorities
Argues that ED makes broad generalizations about Trumpers that don’t really apply while in the first sentence making broad generalizations about BLM members.
Does. Not. Compute.
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Ok, I see that several types of walls/physical obstacles on countries borders have been randomly thrown in.
I’ll just comment on those that I’m personally acquainted with:
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Morocco/Algeria - pretty much just a giant sand wall in the desert with a minefield up front. Direct consequence of the fact that the Moroccan army was (is) spectacularly incompetent and couldn’t deal with the Polisario rebels in open battle on the Algerian side and therefore retreated behind the wall.
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Saudi Arabia/Yemen - same as above. Saudi army is laughably incompetent, cannot deal with barefoot Houthis in Northern Yemen and cowers behind a fence/wall.
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Cyprus - follows the Greek/Turkish frontline post armistice so it was more of an attempt to visually delineate the opposing sides.
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Hungary fence - literally in my backyard - current length is about 200 miles, mostly coils of concertina wire. Easily breached by cheap wire cutters. What no one will tell you about it’s much vaunted “effectiveness” is that it is primarily based on Hungarian border guards and policemen beating the shit with lead filled truncheons of every migrant that tries to cross it and physically dumping them back into Serbia.
The latter “effectiveness” was later quietly applied by neighboring countries (lead filled truncheons and occasionally dogs) without a fence/wall and they have almost completely closed the southern migrant route. So it’s about the physical barrier per se, but about the determination of the people behind the fence and how ruthless they are.
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