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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please. In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. | ||
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Thieving Magpie
United States6752 Posts
On January 14 2017 04:10 ShoCkeyy wrote: The wall isn't going to be built anyways, idk why we're discussing it. We're discussing it because oBlade believes it works and we are trying to see how that can be so. | ||
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LegalLord
United Kingdom13775 Posts
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Acrofales
Spain18050 Posts
On January 14 2017 04:13 Thieving Magpie wrote: Not trying to race bait. But your sensors/monitors sees non-descript people climbing the wall. You don't see face, skin, etc... How do you catch them? This is 2000 miles of wall we are talking about, and Acrofales already calculated it would take 400,000 guards shooting everything that moves to man said wall--by your argument is that having cameras will be good enough. I am asking--what would cameras do? What if they break? What if they get broken? What if some get compromised? Do we have people checking cameras for 2000 miles at a time? Do we have people sitting in desks staring at 2000+ miles of camera footage? And after all that, the camera sees a non-descript human shaped being cross the wall--how does the US respond? Correction, you need 100,000 not 400,000. Unless you want a wall to block off Canada as well, of course. Other than that, carry on. Note that I think border patrol can really work (if you are serious about hiring 4x the current employees, that is). But the wall is completely irrelevant. | ||
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Thieving Magpie
United States6752 Posts
On January 14 2017 04:19 Acrofales wrote: Correction, you need 100,000 not 400,000. Unless you want a wall to block off Canada as well, of course. Other than that, carry on. Note that I think border patrol can really work. But the wall is completely irrelevant. Thank you for clarification--misread your 4x line. But yes, I also agree that armed guards are much more effective than a wall. But I also believe that the reason conservatives always talk about a wall is because they imagine a wall to be a one time cost and hence not a budget strain. | ||
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Karis Vas Ryaar
United States4396 Posts
On January 14 2017 04:17 LegalLord wrote: There's a whole lot of mountain and not very passable terrain by the border. I'm sure some parts of it could use improvements but it's generally doing its job. interestingly I read an article saying one of the biggest problems is the sheer number of people walking up to the border, requesting asylum and refusing to leave. a walls not going to fix that. | ||
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Acrofales
Spain18050 Posts
On January 14 2017 04:17 LegalLord wrote: There's a whole lot of mountain and not very passable terrain by the border. I'm sure some parts of it could use improvements but it's generally doing its job. That's not what Trump is peddling. He claims the current solution is not working, because millions of illegal immigrants. His solution: 1. Build wall. 2. Make Mexico pay for it. 3. ????? 4. Profit! | ||
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oBlade
United States5672 Posts
On January 14 2017 04:13 Thieving Magpie wrote: Not trying to race bait. But your sensors/monitors sees non-descript people climbing the wall. You don't see face, skin, etc... How do you catch them? This is 2000 miles of wall we are talking about, and Acrofales already calculated it would take 400,000 guards shooting everything that moves to man said wall--by your argument is that having cameras will be good enough. I am asking--what would cameras do? What if they break? What if they get broken? What if some get compromised? Do we have people checking cameras for 2000 miles at a time? Do we have people sitting in desks staring at 2000+ miles of camera footage? And after all that, the camera sees a non-descript human shaped being cross the wall--how does the US respond? Someone presses a button on their BP radio and notifies units...? People do not cross the border in a uniform way so you're already outside of reality. What you're essentially asking me is, what if it's not possible to perfectly stop 100% of people who attempt to cross the border, so then why bother at all, and I submit that you've missed the issue. BP gets something like half of the crossings already. | ||
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Trainrunnef
United States599 Posts
On January 14 2017 04:32 oBlade wrote: Someone presses a button on their BP radio and notifies units...? People do not cross the border in a uniform way so you're already outside of reality. What you're essentially asking me is, what if it's not possible to perfectly stop 100% of people who attempt to cross the border, so then why bother at all, and I submit that you've missed the issue. BP gets something like half of the crossings already. The question isn't why bother at all, it's why bother with a wall at all. if you admit that the wall isn't going to be able to stop someone, but merely notify that a breech is occuring (and thats if you go through the expense of installing the cameras and maintaining them, which lord knows if its even included in any of the 20B budget pricing for the wall). Why wouldn't you take those 20B give more people jobs and call it a day? Instead of 20B + 1B/yr salaries for 25k BP officers + X wall maintenance + BP equipment maintenance. You can have have 3B/yr salareis for 75k BP officers + some increase from current maintenance costs. and throwing in interest if you funded the whole project in one shot and kept the money in some sort of indexed investment account you could fund 10 years of solid operation with the same dollars. | ||
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Incognoto
France10239 Posts
The nitpick that Iraq was invaded, but not annexed, is very important. It's not even a nitpick, annexing territory is a very big deal and none of the big countries should be doing that today. The Cold War is over. I nonetheless entirely agree that the Iraq invasion was illegal, criminal and absolutely unnecessary (PS, France didn't go there). If you look at 2016+, then the USA is not annexing countries. No European country is annexing territory which doesn't belong to it. The big superpowers which are doing that are Russia and China. Also I will use the term fascists and communists (former for Russia, latter for China) as many basic human rights are readily infringed in those countries, unlike the USA and Europe (freedom of press, movement, political differences, democracy, etc.). I'm not saying that the USA and European countries are the best in the world (omgg totally democraSEA) but they are at least set in a minimal, acceptable standard. That is why it should be the goal of the USA and Europe to make sure that fellow superpowers don't start annexing territory of other nations, like Russia did with Crimea and what China is trying to do with islands in the South China Sea. The bothersome thing is that if Russia and China start small, then where do they stop? Are we OK with China getting their islands? If they can do that, the next island will be Taiwan. Are we OK with that? I'm not so sure. | ||
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Sermokala
United States13990 Posts
On January 14 2017 05:10 Incognoto wrote: Vietnam was during the Cold War, it was an American defeat but the circumstances around it are very different than those of today. If Russia had annexed Crimea during the Cold War then that would have been that. Today things are different. The nitpick that Iraq was invaded, but not annexed, is very important. It's not even a nitpick, annexing territory is a very big deal and none of the big countries should be doing that today. The Cold War is over. I nonetheless entirely agree that the Iraq invasion was illegal, criminal and absolutely unnecessary (PS, France didn't go there). If you look at 2016+, then the USA is not annexing countries. No European country is annexing territory which doesn't belong to it. The big superpowers which are doing that are Russia and China. Also I will use the term fascists and communists (former for Russia, latter for China) as many basic human rights are readily infringed in those countries, unlike the USA and Europe (freedom of press, movement, political differences, democracy, etc.). I'm not saying that the USA and European countries are the best in the world (omgg totally democraSEA) but they are at least set in a minimal, acceptable standard. That is why it should be the goal of the USA and Europe to make sure that fellow superpowers don't start annexing territory of other nations, like Russia did with Crimea and what China is trying to do with islands in the South China Sea. The bothersome thing is that if Russia and China start small, then where do they stop? Are we OK with China getting their islands? If they can do that, the next island will be Taiwan. Are we OK with that? I'm not so sure. There are a lot of things I could shit on this post with but you don't think that the USA (including top hat canada buz brodown) and Europe represent the best countries in the world at the moment? Do you think the invasion of Afghanistan was bad? Would you support an invasion of North Korea if China wasn't involved? You can shit on the big dogs actions all you want but its a bit hypocritical to call the iraq invasion all that and discount the african adventures of the french during Obama's term as being anything different. | ||
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Acrofales
Spain18050 Posts
On January 14 2017 05:10 Incognoto wrote: Vietnam was during the Cold War, it was an American defeat but the circumstances around it are very different than those of today. If Russia had annexed Crimea during the Cold War then that would have been that. Today things are different. The nitpick that Iraq was invaded, but not annexed, is very important. It's not even a nitpick, annexing territory is a very big deal and none of the big countries should be doing that today. The Cold War is over. I nonetheless entirely agree that the Iraq invasion was illegal, criminal and absolutely unnecessary (PS, France didn't go there). If you look at 2016+, then the USA is not annexing countries. No European country is annexing territory which doesn't belong to it. The big superpowers which are doing that are Russia and China. Also I will use the term fascists and communists (former for Russia, latter for China) as many basic human rights are readily infringed in those countries, unlike the USA and Europe (freedom of press, movement, political differences, democracy, etc.). I'm not saying that the USA and European countries are the best in the world (omgg totally democraSEA) but they are at least set in a minimal, acceptable standard. That is why it should be the goal of the USA and Europe to make sure that fellow superpowers don't start annexing territory of other nations, like Russia did with Crimea and what China is trying to do with islands in the South China Sea. The bothersome thing is that if Russia and China start small, then where do they stop? Are we OK with China getting their islands? If they can do that, the next island will be Taiwan. Are we OK with that? I'm not so sure. I hear you brother. I assume you're first in line to fly to the Spratly Islands, rifle in hand, and valiantly defend them from the evil Chinese conquistadors? Or at the very least, give up your job in solidarity with the people losing theirs in the economic fallout of "showing the Chinese what we think of their adventures". | ||
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LegalLord
United Kingdom13775 Posts
The "fascists and communists" bit... I certainly hope you're not serious. | ||
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kwizach
3658 Posts
On January 14 2017 05:19 Sermokala wrote: You can shit on the big dogs actions all you want but its a bit hypocritical to call the iraq invasion all that and discount the african adventures of the french during Obama's term as being anything different. France's interventions in Mali and CAR were both very different from the U.S.' intervention in Iraq. Both interventions were requested by the national authorities of Mali and CAR. The deployment of the French military in CAR was even expressly authorized by UNSC Resolution 2127 (2013). You'd be on more solid footing comparing Iraq with the intervention in Libya, but even there the situations were still substantially different. | ||
mustaju
Estonia4504 Posts
On January 14 2017 05:42 LegalLord wrote: Europeans annexed and conquered all the way until they no longer had the ability to do so. Well into the 20th century for that matter, far past WWII, until the major European powers got bitch-slapped out of all the fruits of their consquests. It's hypocritical, to say the least. The "fascists and communists" bit... I certainly hope you're not serious. He's half right. Countries are held together in part by ideologies as well as social norms. Russia and China definitely have fascist and communist parts in their current ideological set. As far as "hypocrisy" is concerned, this is a really flimsy excuse to deflect criticism. There has to be some point in time where aggression like this is curtailed or it's doomsday for all of us. This generation of Europeans has not fought wars for territorial gain, and a lot of them define themselves as pacifists. Dismissing all morality while not acknowledging progress means that less progress will take place. | ||
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Thieving Magpie
United States6752 Posts
However, just like with Iraq, there was no actual mission in Vietnam. There was no target to kill, objective to retrieve. It was just 500,000 troops sitting on an arbitrary border getting killed in the jungle for years and years at a time. The VC wasn't "stopping" American forces as much as American forces were told not to progress too far. This was part because of the cold war and part because the US were technically sending "advisors" and not "soldiers." And just like Iraq, when you're in a war without goals you suddenly realize that all you have is a meat grinder designed to torture and destroy men and women on both sides of the conflict. Just a hot and humid prison of humiliation, hate, and horror. When the US decided to leave that's when the slaughter began, but not because the US was chased out of the Vietnam. It was a shit show, just as bad and possibly worse than the Iraq war. The clearer the intent and mission of a war, the more direct and transparent the goals--the sooner it can end. What was the end point being imagined for Iraq and Vietnam? What achievement could have been done there to allow the US to say "we won!" The answer is nothing--because we weren't after anything. It was just a deluge of death with no easy to point to exit point. That lack of an exit point is why the US is having perceived as the losers of both wars. | ||
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LegalLord
United Kingdom13775 Posts
On January 14 2017 05:57 mustaju wrote: He's half right. Countries are held together in part by ideologies as well as social norms. Russia and China definitely have fascist and communist parts in their current ideological set. As far as "hypocrisy" is concerned, this is a really flimsy excuse to deflect criticism. There has to be some point in time where aggression like this is curtailed or it's doomsday for all of us. This generation of Europeans has not fought wars for territorial gain, and a lot of them define themselves as pacifists. Dismissing all morality while not acknowledging progress means that less progress will take place. Before we head any further, we should come up with a definition for "fascism" and "communism" that are used to make these assertions. In my eyes, the first people who should be called out on fascism are those who consider Nazi collaborators to be heroes of their countries. There are a lot of those out there. As for "we're pacifists now" you might want to look at recent (within the past decade) military involvement of European nations. Europe became weaker, not more moral. | ||
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Thieving Magpie
United States6752 Posts
On January 14 2017 06:03 LegalLord wrote: Before we head any further, we should come up with a definition for "fascism" and "communism" that are used to make these assertions. In my eyes, the first people who should be called out on fascism are those who consider Nazi collaborators to be heroes of their countries. There are a lot of those out there. Isn't there already strict definitions to what those two words mean--or are we trying to pin down what the accusation of those words mean? Like, fascism is not an abstract concept--but the strict guidelines of when people use the term fascist as a pejorative is fairly gray. Which definition are we trying to narrow down? | ||
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Acrofales
Spain18050 Posts
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LegalLord
United Kingdom13775 Posts
On January 14 2017 06:06 Thieving Magpie wrote: Isn't there already strict definitions to what those two words mean--or are we trying to pin down what the accusation of those words mean? The latter. It's really a buzzword accusation more than anything else. | ||
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Danglars
United States12133 Posts
On January 14 2017 04:10 ShoCkeyy wrote: The wall isn't going to be built anyways, idk why we're discussing it. That's one cynical view, though you don't say why you believe it. It's worth discussing just on prima fascie evidence: the major party candidate that assumes office next week made it a major part of his campaign platform from the start, and his party controls both houses of the legislature. | ||
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