Friday, October 06, 2006

The border wall is a pain in my side


Normally I talk about nothing but real estate and marketing. It’s kind of a passion and hobby for me. However every once in a while get moved to focus on more political issues. The issue that is getting my attention right now is the border issue and the bait and switch that is going on in our government. I wrote a couple of weeks ago about the two border patrol agents that are facing 20 years in prison for trying to arrest a drug smuggler with 740 pounds of marijuana. If you recall, they were convicted because the US attorney general gave the smuggler amnesty to come to America and testify against the two agents. Anyway, that sort of ignited my indignance toward the security policy of our country. It also increased my fears that terrorists may someday slip across the border and cause another umpteen-thousand deaths in the name of their religious convictions.

Needless to say I have been following the news about the border since learning about the plight of those two agents. I was fascinated to hear that last week congress authorized a 700 mile long fence to be constructed along the US/Mexican border to support an increased level of security. Now I personally never believed that congress would actually take steps to secure the border and my beliefs were validated this afternoon when I learned that the move to approve the fence was primarily just a PR move. According to this most recent article on MSNBC:
In border fence’s path, legislative roadblocks
Loopholes mean fence may never be built, at least not as advertised

The actual construction of the fence may never happen. The money will be allocated to infrastructure projects as well as some pilot programs. Legislators can happily now tout the new legislation during this election year as a PR move to prove that they support border security. They can also sleep with the cozy assurance that the fence will likely never be built…. at least until some terrorist-derived travesty happens on American soil. So it is business as usual on Capitol Hill. Politicians continue to say one thing and do the other, but those that support the mire can rest assured that they have lost my vote.

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