Today's piece is brought to you by "eternal questions"
Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
What is the meaning of life?
Is there life after death?
Does God really exist?
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And a new entry in our sweepstakes, a query queried more and more often with each passing day.
Do I have to draw you a picture?
Earlier this week, while reading through the discussion thread between a Facebook friend of mine and a friend of his, I did something I rarely do. I added my own comment to the discussion. As a rule, I don't chime in unless invited to chime, first, because, despite the current prevailing climate of it being permissible, even admirable, to talk over each other, I'm an old fashioned guy...and it's rude.
Second, because, next to pretty much everything that comes out of D.C. these days, the thing that most chaps my cheeks is "helpers". Defined here as those folks who read whatever gets posted and have already started typing in their two cents before they've even finished reading the post they're going to make better with their wit and wisdom.
But, third, and mostly, because we're at a point in the "national debate" in which, first, even the term "national debate" has become an oxymoron on a par with jumbo shrimp, business ethics...and Microsoft Works and very few, if any, of us are wasting any of our precious moments of life actually listening to each other right now.
Every once in a while, though, the temptation to try and sprinkle a little perspective into the soup still bitch slaps my better judgement and I give in to the little voice in my head suddenly singing hits from Hamilton.
I am not gonna miss / my shot.
Their conversation was focused on, wait for it.....okay, there's no suspense left these days....the wall.
My friend Tom and his friend Matt were batting the barrier birdie as follows:
Matt: We need a deterrent to prevent people from coming into the United States the wrong way. Walls are great deterrents in that they funnel people to the proper entry points. Don't you want order at the border?
Tom: I don't support a border wall. I support enhanced border security.
Matt: And what is enhanced border security? You can't have enhanced security if large parts of the border are unsecured. Come on.
Tom: Enhanced border security could mean boots on the ground, computers, electronics or some combination thereof. I went through this in the late 80's. You can't do more with less, you can only do less with less.There has to be something better than just putting up a wall.
Matt: You don't see all of that as a waste of money if vast parts of the border are either poorly secured or there is nothing their at all?
At this point, my impression was that Matt is from the cheering section that advocates nothing, literally nothing, but the wall, the whole wall and nothing but the wall.
And while Tom and I have had previous chats which found us sharing some similar points of view, we have also always been ready, able and willing to come at it from opposite sides as circumstances dictated. Given this chat was already apparently in hamster wheel mode, I thought an assist might be useful.
Forgetting, of course, the other very important rules of fight club. One, as I mentioned earlier, nobody really appreciates a "helper".
And...no good deed goes....well, you know.
I did a little crowbar-ing into the conversation.
Tom, If I may offer two cents... The notion that a 15th century solution will solve a 21st century problem is the real obstacle... Especially when that solution is nothing more than an increasingly more panicked attempt to keep a foolish campaign promise..."the wall" is nothing more than a new deadbolt on the front door... Any protection or prevention it provides is illusory.... I agree with you... The answers lie elsewhere...
A couple of hours later, Matt responded.
And what is the answer Scott?
One serious deficiency in the whole social media construct is the inability we all have to always either convey, or interpret, tone, attitude or mood when it comes to the typed word back and forths. Blunt, profane, even obscene snark is pretty easy to spot and understand. Otherwise, it's always a dice roll to figure out what goes in the implied parenthesis. Because pretty much every statement made in any serious conversation online has an implied parenthesis at the end.
For example, not knowing Matt at all, I had no way of know whether he was asking me....
"...and what is the answer, Scott (I hear what you're saying, but I'd appreciate your elaborating more specifically about alternative solutions)?"
or...
"...and what is the answer, Scott (because obviously you're one of those libtard snoflakes who cant get his bleeding heart head around the fact that our President is the only hope we have of surviving the onslaught of invaders about to over run and plunder our great nation.)?"
Hey, you lays down your bet and you take that shot I mentioned a minute ago.
I opted for the more rhetorical response.
".....there was no answer to polio till somebody found it...there was no answer to how to send rovers to Mars till somebody found it.....at a time in history when a bright neighborhood kid can, if so motivated, marshal the savvy to bounce a laser beam off the moon, it staggers the brain (let alone insults the intelligence) that the infinite pool of talent, education, ability (read: best and brightest) is not being called upon to use 21st technology to find the solution(s) to border security and immigration issues...and traffic gridlock, while we're at it..(and let's put an end to this ridiculous "new Oreo flavor every week" nonsense)...that caliber of "call to arms" or "ask not...", as it were, though, requires that men and women of vision and intelligence and integrity do the leading....not demagogues pandering to primal fears and prejudices......"the wall" is snake oil....it has the townsfolk all charged up about gittin' better.....but it won't cure a thing.....if only because it's hardwired in all of us to find a way to get past obstacles put in front of us...whether we go over, under, around and/or through them...
the answer....is vision....and intelligence....and integrity.....and the good sense to know that the truly effective leader's first and foremost skill is tapping into all the amazing talent/ability/vision available in others......a skill that narcissists and sociopaths...and demagogues... simply don't possess......"
Took about an hour to get the response.
I give up. I was hoping to hear what the left's alternative was to this issue. Have a good day guys.
Clearly, Matt was looking for something less conceptual and more concrete.
Like a wall. The whole wall. And nothing but the wall.
Ironically, it may have turned out that Matt and I ended up having more in common than he might have thought from the exchange, because I'm pretty sure he did a measurable amount of head shaking and eye rolling while reading my response.
Ditto, buddy.
And from my side, here's why.
The illusion that there's a simple solution to the problem of people going where others of us don't want people to go is...well...an illusion.
That's really the unvarnished bottom line of what I said in my response.
But, the larger point is the smaller mindset on display with this almost glassy eyed fixation on "build that wall" that resonates from so many of Trump's fan club, almost as if you could hear them doing a cracker jack job as extras in the first Brendan Fraser "Mummy" movie.
"Imhotep....Imhotep.....Imhowall...Build That Wall...Build That Wall...."
That kind of inability, failure or even refusal to see the bigger picture is, at the very least, another obstacle in the path of getting the problem solved.
Tunnel vision. Pun probably subconsciously intended.
And when I use the term "smaller mindset", I'm not thinly veiling a Donald-esque cheap shot, small mind, pea brain, you know how it goes and grows from there.
What I'm talking about is, as I mentioned more than once in my response, vision. Some of that oldie but goodie Bobby Kennedy stuff about seeing things that never were...and saying why not.
The Imhotep-sters....gotta tell ya, baby, whole lotta mummy myopia goin' on.
Clearly, in his original question to me, Matt wasn't looking for any round table discussion.
He wanted his answer high, wide and set in stone.
And I took his closing "I give up" as a sign that, because nowhere in my reply did he read the three word phrase that pays ('''build...that...wall...........build....that....wall....), he was through talking, and thinking, about it.
Again, clearly, he sees my inability to see the wall in front of my face as the problem.
Here's my problem with that.
It took me less than five minutes, a few mouse clicks and some keystrokes here and there to come up with the following, again, quick, just spit ballin', suggestions of ways America could deal with this issue without wasting time, money and resources on nothing more than a colossal monument to settling for finding a way.....when just five minutes, a few mouse clicks and some keystrokes here and there can find a better way....and better ways to accomplish so much more than keeping a foolish campaign promise.
- Bio-metric entry-exit systems (it's detailed, but useful, look it up)
- Cameras (laser, infra-red, et al)
- Aerial and underground sensors (the cartels already use advanced technology from the dark side of this concept)
- Fixed towers utilizing laser technology
- The next, more radical extrapolation of that technology, laser weaponry.
Force field.
Roll your eyes till they pop out yo' head, the technology exists.
And, if you simply can't get jiggy with the 21st Century, one bio-designer came up with a pretty cool plan for a very formidable wall....made out of cactus.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Helper, I know you could chainsaw your way through the cactus wall.
Again, you've got concrete on the brain and it's blocking you from seeing the big picture.
It's not that you disagree with any or all of the suggestions I Googled up in less than five minutes.
It's that your problem solving capacitors are stuck in Imhotep mode.
This barn burner of a one size fits all campaign promise that the Jethro Bodines of America would proudly hail as the "CEE-ment fence" is a five billion dollar joke with no punchline.
And not at all funny, really, because there are, literally dozens, if not hundreds, of other more efficient, more effective, more advanced solutions to the important issue of dealing with border security.
Those that have already been conceptualized, theorized, even prototyped.
And those that, thus far, have never been. Yet.
So, two questions come immediately to mind.
Why not.
And....
...do I have to draw you a picture?
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