Friday, June 15, 2007
Fence foolishness:Charles Krauthammer, doing work for the plutocrats, wants to focus your attention on a fence as a solution to the immigration situation: Fences work. That's why people have them around their houses -- not because homeowners are unwelcoming but because they insist that those who wish to come into their domain knock at the front door. Wait a minute. What's this about knocking on the door? Isn't the fence supposed to keep people out? Oh, the fence doesn't actually do that, or at least not very well. So what keeps people off of the homeowner's front lawn? That would be enforcement of some sort (like calling the police). And the analogue for immigrants would be workplace enforcement. But Krauthammer doesn't want to talk about that. Better to fool the rubes with big talk about fences, which give the impression of keeping illegal immigrants out of the work force, without actually doing much. Bravo, Charles!
posted by Quiddity at 6/15/2007 12:01:00 AM
7 comments
Most of the time, the purpose of the fence is to keep the homeowner's dog in the yard. One can come up with suitable immigration analogies.
If we go to a national ID card, that'd be like running an invisible fence, and giving everyone shock collars.
My father, a retired TV-news watcher, is convinced immigration is the biggest problem we have today. It's also the easiest one to demagogue, which is why it's now a "priority".
What would cost more, an Israeli-style ghetto fence or a national ID card?
Totally off-topic, but this Halloween I want a Charles Krauthammer mask.
EXACTLY. These guys are playing games because the game is to get cheap labor. If they were seriosu they would crack down on the companies thaat hire illegals.
Leo Braudy cuts off questions and tells a man to sit down for simply mentioning the motive of US support of Israel. See the video of Leo Braudy in doing this for yourself See how Terry McDermmot just sits there.
Last months "Mother Jones" magazine had an article on the current great extinction of species taking place on the planet. One of the points made in the article was the need for animal populations to cover wide expanses and interact with their own kind and other species in order to survive. Building a wall and associated highway would be another attack on biodiversity. Never heard this discussed before.
A fence creates a psychological barrier. If you have a problem with people cutting across your lawn, and you put up a fence, even a one foot high fence, people will stop walking across your lawn.
Right now, people are simply walking into the desert and crossing the border. Although they are committing a criminal act, it doesn't feel like a criminal act because they are simply walking across open land, something that honest, law abiding people do every day.
Once the fence is there, they will have to stop and physically break through the fence with bolt cutters or bring a ladder to scale the fence. This will make entering the United States illegally the psychological equivalent of breaking and entering. It will serve as a strong deterrent, because it will force the illegal alien to perform an overt criminal act to break into the country.
This will reduce the number of people who do it, and stigmatize those who do break into and enter the country illegally.
|
