Thank You Rick Perry
Todd ·
September 6, 2011 at 12:42am
Here is Rick Perry on the idea of a border fence.
"No, I don't support a fence on the border. The fact is, it's 1,200 miles from Brownsville to El Paso. Two things: How long you think it would take to build that? And then if you build a 30-foot wall from El Paso to Brownsville, the 35-foot ladder business gets real good."
I love this quote for two reasons. One, he's right, the border fence idea makes no sense. And two, it shows he is not a panderer.
He's growing on me.
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Comments:
May '10
Re: Thank You Rick Perry
Anybody who has ever driven west out of Del Rio on US 90 knows how pointless a border fence, dividing emptiness from nothingness, would be.
Feb '11
Re: Thank You Rick Perry
This made me think less of him. A little.
One of the canards that peeves me greatly is this idea about ladders.
If this country had the political will to build a border fence it also would have the political will to do a lot more about illegal immigration.
So when politicians use that particular formulation about a fence- that is, a wall x feet high will be easily surmounted by easily available ladders x +5 feet high- I think that yes, they are pandering.
Not to people who want a sealed border, obviously- but to people who don't.
Basically, no one who wants border security wants to merely build a fence and then walk away. We want to build a fence, guard it, actively prevent ladders from being used to surmount it, and follow up by preventing illegal aliens from profiting from their trespass.
That's quite a bit more than just building a fence.
May '10
Re: Thank You Rick Perry
The problem, Xennady, is that the fence would become a replacement for border security. I've lived in south Texas for over thirty years, and I've seen the Border Patrol vastly enlarged and improved. In some places, where both sides of the border are easily accessible and urbanized, fences are either already in place, or could be built with minimal fuss. In others, like the trans-Pecos, it would be a total waste, accomplishing nothing.
The fence, in short, is a symbolic totem by which people think they can divine which politicians are "serious" about border security. I think serious people can oppose the symbolic fence while allowing the Border Patrol to build fences where they think they would do some good.
Feb '11
Re: Thank You Rick Perry
mesquito,
I respectfully disagree, somewhat.
In a sense you're spot on to call a border fence a symbolic totem, although it is of course also a significant element of border security. That's why I expressed my annoyance at people who can't even go along with that as a symbol of their commitment to a secure border.
I will of course yield to the superior knowledge of people who say from experience that in certain areas a border fence is worthless.
But as you admit in certain areas that a fence would in fact be useful it hasn't been built, despite the minimal fuss that would entail.
That's a problem, and a symptom that the political class simply does not want a secure border. I recall a story I saw about how a fence was built along a certain stretch of the border- but with easily to cross culverts at each end.
So in my view Perry could have dodged this minor controversy if he had said something like "yes, I favor a border fence in areas where it will be useful".
But he didn't, and I dislike that.
Edited on September 6, 2011 at 12:59amMay '10
Re: Thank You Rick Perry
Oh, I agree completely that a large part of the political class despises border security and believes American citizenship is on its face an invidious idea or a barrier to a happier bottom line. Perry, however, is not a member of that part of the political class.
Fences are of very limited use. My experience with border security is that it is a stand-off affair. I routinely drive through checkpoints which are from 10 to 100 miles back from the Rio Grande, and thru which all traffic must pass. They used to be wide places in the road which would shut down when poor conditions endagered the lives, from traffic, of the officers manning them. Now they are vast, covered, lighted structures with dogs, offices, etc.
Oct '10
Re: Thank You Rick Perry
Who really cares about a silly fence. I want a government that is about border integrity. I do not care if it is a mote, a fence, machine gun towers or simply a line on a map that is respected. The issue is those who live on this side of that border having so low a regard for the integrity of our country that they accept outsiders, uninvited, into their country, their culture, and their nation.
Perry, and too many other Republicans, and from what I can discern, almost all Democrats, care so little about this idea called America to be willing to guard it from pollution.
Why would an American vote for a person who does not value the very basis of our identity. Screw Rick Perry, George Bush and all the rest of these phony Americans. Let them join the one world government and the claque that will destroy us all.
Vote RINO!! Forget America.
Apr '11
Re: Thank You Rick Perry
I'm a 50 y.o. college freshman. (yeah, weird) I'm in Arizona. One of my profs said the other day that he'd like to get into the 55-ft. ladder business. It was amazing to me that only one student took him on (with my support).
I've lived here only since 1978, and I'm pro legal immigration, but I'm just baffled by the rejection of national borders. I mean, isn't that the definition of a country, that it has borders?
Dec '10
Re: Thank You Rick Perry
When I hear "fence", I think "symbolic term representing some physical attempt to control ingress and egress across our border." I do not care if its chain-link, steel plate, concrete or plasma forcefields. Motes and alligators would be OK with me if they worked. Land mines have become too politically incorrect but I could support their use too. We need to control this by whatever means necessary. Warning and then shooting on site a few offenders would start to stem the tide. I am for robust legal immigration and by not providing this, we allow the "coyotes" to own these poor economic refugees and add to our drug problem and overtax our generous social safety net.
Regarding Perry, his statement does not disqualify him IMHO.
May '10
Re: Thank You Rick Perry
The fact is that the word that we had gotten SERIOUS, and were beginning to deport illegals, would be enough to dissuade new infiltration and lead to a flow back to the other side of those who know the jig is up. For now, we have shown our government doesn't take the border seriously...so the "undocumenteds" don't either...
Nov '10
Re: Thank You Rick Perry
We have a real problem with the Southern border and I go back and forth about what to do about it. One of my Ft. Benning instructors emphasized that a barrier that is not "covered by fire" will be ineffectual, the people with the 35 foot ladders will get across.
I am strongly for secure borders and am opposed to seeing Congress tackle "comprehensive immigration reform", that is, amnesty, unless and until the borders are sealed (and I include the borders at the airports). BUT, how to do that?
I doubt that the American people, even Ricochevians, are willing to see a strip of ploughed ground between us and Mexico secured by a line of guard posts manned by sharpshooters, mines, and barbed wire: in other words, a barrier like the East Germans built across their border with West Germany.
I am, frankly, at a loss for a solution. Maybe the only way is to eliminate the rewards of crossing the border: no jobs, no social services, including medical care, including education, no citizenship by birth, and no "sanctuary". But that puts our government in a position to exercise almost totalitarian interest in the lives of its citizens and inhabitants.
May '10
Re: Thank You Rick Perry
I echo raycon's response.
Nov '10
Re: Thank You Rick Perry
I have no reason to doubt Ricochet's John Grant when he says "A big chunk of the booming population growth in Texas has been illegal immigration. Perry has done everything he can to promote this."
Perry has done everything he can to promote illegal immigration. That's a disgrace.
Further:
"Look at the Dem nominees from 1972 on--McGovern, Carter, Mondale, Dukakis. It took Perry 16 years to figure out the Democratic Party had rejected limited government altogether?"
I'd urge that people (re)acquaint themselves with John Grant's further discussion, "Rick Perry's Principles."
Oct '10
Re: Thank You Rick Perry
As the EU member states are now living with the real the failures of no border policies, the government here sadly follows that model.
Doubt there will any changes, period.
Nov '10
Re: Thank You Rick Perry
More from Grant - he speaks my mind:
"Perry decried stimulus money while taking a huge chunk of it. He has employed the same shady budget practices that have made the federal budget such a mess (i.e. moving a debt to the next fiscal year to look good now).
On immigration--surely you know that Perry sponsored a state DREAM Act in 2001? You probably also know that he proposed integrating insurance plans for Texas and northern Mexico. He opposed using E-Verify to check and see if state employees were legal residents!
I keep waiting for someone to tell me what Perry has done besides talk a good game."
May '11
Re: Thank You Rick Perry
Just as cutting funding to NPR is a symbolic token of fiscal restraint, building a border fence is a symbolic token of real border security. In each case, it isn't nearly enough. It isn't even a beginning, really. But what makes them both symbolic is that the lefties have seizures at the very thought of them. If nothing else, demanding a fence is a way to drag the lefties' agenda out in the open, where it can lie there like a dead skunk for all to see and smell.
Jun '10
Re: Thank You Rick Perry
You don't have to be a Marine to perform a beach landing. You travel on a larger boat, get close enough to a California beach at night, and just paddle your rubber raft right into the promised land. No 35-ft ladder required.
Jul '10
Re: Thank You Rick Perry
As Dictator of The Republic of Texas, My immigration policy:
1) any illegal alien captured will have a Lone Star branded on their forehead then sent back to their native country.
2) any illegal alien Here with a Lone Star forehead brand, Texans are allowed to shoot said Star.
3) If more than five are captured in a calender year, then We'll consider it an invasion, then declare war on host country (this even includes oklahoma).
Feb '11
Re: Thank You Rick Perry
Robert Lux:
I keep waiting for someone to tell me what Perry has done besides talk a good game.
Rick Perry's most transcendent accomplishment is that he isn't Mitt Romney.
As an added bonus he hasn't misgoverned Texas into the ground and seems able to learn from his mistakes and win elections.
I'm sure we'll hear plenty more about Perry and his globalist, open-borders, pro-illegal immigration past- and don't think I'm saying we shouldn't.
But the most likely alternative candidate to Perry is Mitt Freakin' Romney.
Every bad thing Perry has done or attempted I can all too easily see Romney doing the exact same, only more so, and then insulting me for disagreeing with him. Since Perry seems to have immediately become the GOP frontrunner- despite his flaws- I suspect that other GOP voters have about the same opinion of Romney that I do.
On the illegal immigration issue I still recall that Romney made the rounds on Capital Hill in early 2009 in an attempt to get the GOP to cut an immigration deal with Obama.
Amnesty, that would have been. At least Perry hasn't done that.
Jun '10
Re: Thank You Rick Perry
I imagine that if Perry didn't straddle that border fence--policy-wise--we wouldn't even know his name now, because he wouldn't be Governor of Texas. The line you have to walk is, support lots of border enforcement aimed at arresting Mexicans crossing, but be somewhat sad that you had to do it. You have to do it without any enthusiasm.
Oct '10
Re: Thank You Rick Perry
The fence isn't the issue. America has 5,500 miles of border with Canada, 2,000 miles with Mexico, and over 10,000 miles of coastline. What I'm saying of course is that you can't stop people from coming in. What you can do is not give them a free ride once they're here on the taxpayer's dime, and work hard to send them back if they aren't here legally.
Immigrating legally is a long, drawn-out, expensive, annoying hassle of a process. But I did it so they should too. Letting someone break all the rules, cheat the system, AND reap all the rewards is a slap in my law-abiding face.
Edited on September 6, 2011 at 3:03am