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The thing I find funny about some of the media narrative on this topic is the claim that ports of entry are the only places significant drug trafficking is occu

The thing I find funny about some of the media narrative on this topic is the claim that ports of entry are the only places significant drug trafficking is occurring, it’s almost 2000 miles of wilderness... you know what’s going on at entry ports because it’s being monitored, you can’t quantify what’s going through in places you’re not looking, more probably flows through hidden tunnels that are discovered all the time there’s no hyperbole in saying it’s a threat and an emergency, seeing the effects of the drugs and crime, people getting raped/killed, human trafficking... it was an emergency decades ago when they could have done something to prevent it from getting to this point

amluto 8y ago
“Emergency” comes from “emerge”. Think “emergent threat”. There is nothing emergent about this situation. Sure, drugs and our nation’s handling of them is a serious problem, but “problem” is not at all the same thing as “emergency”. As a secondary consideration, I find it hard to believe that a fence or wall is going to help much. Some kind of DARPA-like competition-based inexpensive, well-considered electronic border monitoring might be helpful, but there are plenty of examples of people trivially bypassing fences and overpriced virtual walls. (My personal favorite example of a virtual wall completely failing was at JFK Airport: https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Security-Breach-JFK-Jetski-Jamaica-Bay-Airline-165959376.html https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Security-Breach-JFK-Je...)
- reallydude 8y ago
  > There is nothing emergent about this situation. That's a matter of perspective. If one party unilaterally decides to block the budgeting crisis, on a philosophical and political premise (albeit, the R's creating the situation to illustrate it), you end up with a situation where you cannot address an issue through political means, at any cost. This is a terrible precedent, but it's also logical for the tool at hand. People have shotguns, which can blow through a window. I still lock my doors and close my windows. Walls work to a degree, for most situations intended to block access.
  - amluto 8y ago
    One party? Trump couldn’t get his wall funded even when the Republicans controlled both houses.
    - reallydude 8y ago
      Control is a misleading term. There is some control, but not enough for all actions and no solidarity (except among the opposition). Again, it's a matter of perspective, which seems lost on even those with all the information available.
- luxuryballs 8y ago
  you’re right about it not being emergent, it’s been an emergency for a very long time, as evident by loss of life and crime that could have been prevented had they acted decades sooner if you want to nitpick on word etymology we could say that if 2000 people cross the border illegally each day then it’s a new emergency every morning... every time an American or victim of trafficking and abuse gets killed or harmed due to this Wild West of a border is the result of an emergency that was not properly addressed
  - uniacid 8y ago
    What Wild west? stop kidding yourself... https://www.cato.org/blog/there-no-national-emergency-border-mr-president https://www.cato.org/blog/there-no-national-emergency-border...
    - luxuryballs 8y ago
      there's a bit of a misconception here, the President's concern lies with the border due to sphere of responsibility, comparing it to non-border counties is silly for that reason and the obvious reason that people don't just stop and settle down in the first county they come across... worst of all though is this idea that comparing the crime rates and abuse perpetrated by illegal border crossers to crime in other areas as somehow relevant, it's almost like saying your car doesn't need gas because it's smaller than cars with a lower average MPG taking action to protect the nation foreign invaders is literally in the President's job description, not being the local Sheriff there's literally people getting killed, and many very recently, and people make reports like this, it's actually pretty fucked up and I can only imagine what it would be like to be one of the victims standing there waving your arms while being told you don't exist and that your loss wasn't real and could not have been prevented, sorry about your bad luck basically, this is not a numbers game, there's no way you can argue that people in immediate risk of getting kidnapped, raped, or killed is not an emergency simply by counting them... oh sorry! my mistake, I just realized the duty of the President to protect all citizens doesn't apply until we've reach some arbitrary milestone for the number of people in danger... that's not how it works! the people who died represent a failure of government to do a most fundamental duty, something we pay them to do, protect us
uniacid 8y ago
You really think all those drugs are coming by the vast border? A lot of it is already secured with fencing and barriers to funnel people to the Ports of entry essentially, also have some common sense, is it easier to A) traffic mass loads through carriers at legal entries who can directly bypass any detection just because of the mere basic fact that there is too much to check and examine (CBP can't check every truck/car/container/train etc) or B) use "Human smugglers" to traffic in their goods, knowing they will most likely be picked up by CBP along the way once they reach the border... https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/02/15/trump-claims-that-you-cant-smuggle-drugs-ports-entry-which-would-likely-surprise-border-patrol/?utm_term=.ca1362b8b336 https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/02/15/trump-cla...

amluto 8y ago

“Emergency” comes from “emerge”. Think “emergent threat”. There is nothing emergent about this situation. Sure, drugs and our nation’s handling of them is a serious problem, but “problem” is not at all the same thing as “emergency”. As a secondary consideration, I find it hard to believe that a fence or wall is going to help much. Some kind of DARPA-like competition-based inexpensive, well-considered electronic border monitoring might be helpful, but there are plenty of examples of people trivially bypassing fences and overpriced virtual walls. (My personal favorite example of a virtual wall completely failing was at JFK Airport: https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Security-Breach-JFK-Jetski-Jamaica-Bay-Airline-165959376.html https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Security-Breach-JFK-Je...)

reallydude 8y ago
> There is nothing emergent about this situation. That's a matter of perspective. If one party unilaterally decides to block the budgeting crisis, on a philosophical and political premise (albeit, the R's creating the situation to illustrate it), you end up with a situation where you cannot address an issue through political means, at any cost. This is a terrible precedent, but it's also logical for the tool at hand. People have shotguns, which can blow through a window. I still lock my doors and close my windows. Walls work to a degree, for most situations intended to block access.
- amluto 8y ago
  One party? Trump couldn’t get his wall funded even when the Republicans controlled both houses.
  - reallydude 8y ago
    Control is a misleading term. There is some control, but not enough for all actions and no solidarity (except among the opposition). Again, it's a matter of perspective, which seems lost on even those with all the information available.
luxuryballs 8y ago
you’re right about it not being emergent, it’s been an emergency for a very long time, as evident by loss of life and crime that could have been prevented had they acted decades sooner if you want to nitpick on word etymology we could say that if 2000 people cross the border illegally each day then it’s a new emergency every morning... every time an American or victim of trafficking and abuse gets killed or harmed due to this Wild West of a border is the result of an emergency that was not properly addressed
- uniacid 8y ago
  What Wild west? stop kidding yourself... https://www.cato.org/blog/there-no-national-emergency-border-mr-president https://www.cato.org/blog/there-no-national-emergency-border...
  - luxuryballs 8y ago
    there's a bit of a misconception here, the President's concern lies with the border due to sphere of responsibility, comparing it to non-border counties is silly for that reason and the obvious reason that people don't just stop and settle down in the first county they come across... worst of all though is this idea that comparing the crime rates and abuse perpetrated by illegal border crossers to crime in other areas as somehow relevant, it's almost like saying your car doesn't need gas because it's smaller than cars with a lower average MPG taking action to protect the nation foreign invaders is literally in the President's job description, not being the local Sheriff there's literally people getting killed, and many very recently, and people make reports like this, it's actually pretty fucked up and I can only imagine what it would be like to be one of the victims standing there waving your arms while being told you don't exist and that your loss wasn't real and could not have been prevented, sorry about your bad luck basically, this is not a numbers game, there's no way you can argue that people in immediate risk of getting kidnapped, raped, or killed is not an emergency simply by counting them... oh sorry! my mistake, I just realized the duty of the President to protect all citizens doesn't apply until we've reach some arbitrary milestone for the number of people in danger... that's not how it works! the people who died represent a failure of government to do a most fundamental duty, something we pay them to do, protect us

uniacid 8y ago

You really think all those drugs are coming by the vast border? A lot of it is already secured with fencing and barriers to funnel people to the Ports of entry essentially, also have some common sense, is it easier to A) traffic mass loads through carriers at legal entries who can directly bypass any detection just because of the mere basic fact that there is too much to check and examine (CBP can't check every truck/car/container/train etc) or B) use "Human smugglers" to traffic in their goods, knowing they will most likely be picked up by CBP along the way once they reach the border... https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/02/15/trump-claims-that-you-cant-smuggle-drugs-ports-entry-which-would-likely-surprise-border-patrol/?utm_term=.ca1362b8b336 https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/02/15/trump-cla...