Olin wrote:
>>
>>> Obviously, there are other rivers and other cattle regions, but I
>>> frankly just fail to see the logic in destroying Americans to protect
>>> Americans.
>>
>> Just more collateral damage--or to make Kent happy, 'unintended
>> consequences'--of the War on Terror. A small price to pay for our
>> freedom....
>>
>
> See, that's precisely where I have the problem with this issue. The
> cavalier attitude people who've likely NEVER been to the border areas
> have for the people who live there.
>
> It is THEY who'll make the sacrifice that Chertoff has railroaded
> through... not some dweeb in Jersey, or Alabama, or Tennessee or any
> number of places a thousand miles away from the borders or more.
>
> It really is as if that Mexican border is the ONLY point of entry to
> this land for nefarious bastards. There apparently is no gun running, no
> drug trafficking, no international terrorists crossing from Canada, or
> any number of ports that Uncle Sugar can't even BEGIN to protect, so
> here's what we will do. Run off all the Mexicans... yeah, that'll make
> the old trailer park safer and so what if a few of 'em actually belonged
> here. That's their problem. So what if somebody loses their back yard or
> their frigging house to a fence. That's their problem and anyway, nobody
> lives on the border anyway.
>
> It's as if all the Southrons just took yankee carpetbagger lessons and
> are filled with the juices of what passes for rational thought and power.
>
> I AM a southerner... Texan by birth, Tennesseean by heritage and choice,
> and I am flat out sick to my stomach at the idiots who'll salivate over
> a few thousand Mexicans while virtually nothing that enters a US coastal
> port can be adequately inspected and think nothing of trying to protect
> assets with $12 an hour wannabe cops who'll screw the pooch royally at
> the very first opportunity.
>
> Every time an excess takes place like the Honolulu airport issue,
> there's always somebody quick to jump up and whine that "mistakes
> happen." At what point do we decide enough mistakes are quite enough
> mistakes, especially when we were TOLD by opponents that these mistakes
> were likely to happen if we enacted these policies.
>
> They've done precious little to protect anybody, and now they've killed
> at least one US citizen.
>
> At what point do you finally call stupid, stupid?
This point, perhaps...well, not really stupid, per se; but an
explanation of sorts. Seems like there is a great deal more than
'security' involved in deciding who actually gets their property
condemned to build the fence.
<
http://www.alternet.org/stories/77320/?page=entire>
"Homeland Security Won't Explain Why the Mexican Border Wall Bypasses
the Rich and Connected
By Melissa del Bosque , Texas Observer. Posted February 19, 2008.
Most border residents couldn't believe the fence would ever be built
through their homes and communities. They expected it to run along the
banks of the Rio Grande, not north of the flood levees -- in some cases
like Tamez's, as far as a mile north of the river. So it came as a shock
last summer when residents were approached by uniformed Border Patrol
agents. They asked people to sign waivers allowing Homeland Security to
survey their properties for construction of the wall. When they
declined, Homeland Security filed condemnation suits.
In time, local landowners realized that the fence's location had
everything to do with politics and private profit, and nothing to do
with stopping illegal immigration."
Good article....
jak
