... but, say you're the US government and the Mexican government is a cesspool of corruption as you say, who do you hand the $2 billion a year that would effectively go to build a Mexico that Mexicans didn't want to leave?  There's still the collateral business of Mexico's neighbors who would still try to make it to the US.  If building a new and better Mexico were possible, wouldn't the newcomers want to hang around and cash in on the prosperity?

Of course, this is all a moot issue as the money's already been spent to build the fence so that's $1.2 billion.  I doubt that there's going to be much political support for letting the fence system rot while we channel $2 billion a year into Mexico's coffers.

Illegitimi non carborundum.

Whether the fence is completed and used for its intended purpose of keeping illegal immigrants out of the US or not, it is already too expensive to let it go to waste.  Other uses for an enormous (if incomplete) fence would include, convert it into a giant trellis to support grape vines, creating a new wine industry on the US-Mexico border; attach a lot of blinking lights that can be used to guide UFOs in for a landing; use it to film movies about people trying to escape from prison (using dramatic scenes of people climbing fences); invent a new fence-climbing sport; name the fence "the Far Western Wall" and advertise it as a good place to attach written prayers to the deity of your choice.  Note that the fence has been specially blessed by the Flying Spaghetti Monster itself!  Or so I claim.  Go ahead and prove me wrong, I dare you.  We might also want to artistically drape strands of sacred spaghetti along the fence.  There are endless possibilities.

Well sure. The whole conversation is just a red herring from the fact that the fence won't even do what's supposed to in the first place and that it's probably not even intended to accomplish its stated goals...just line the pockets of the builders.

It is easy to buy small plaster models of what you think life is like.

Enforce universal commerce standards through NAFTA.

Why do you progressives always want to stifle innovation and healthy competition?

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

We're all for innovative and competitive governance ;-)

It is easy to buy small plaster models of what you think life is like.

What confuses me is that if we accept that the US has a 40 foot wide swath of border, wouldn't this also be true for Mexico.  And if that is true, doesn't that bring us right back to the beginning?  

Stand back, Mexican!  We're putting up a wall on our swath of territory.

No Gringo!  You are on OUR swath of territory.

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

In fairness to gerrymander, my understanding of what he's saying is that the US should have the right to declare that 40 yard (or whatever) from the international border towards the rest of the US could be declared as "border area".  So we're not talking about the US saying anything at all about Mexico's side of the border.  By that reasoning, if Mexico made the same claim you would have an 80 yard (40 yards on each side) "border area" between the two countries, rather than two overlapping claims.  The problem is, anyone that owns property along the border will suddenly lose a 40 yard strip of it to this magical "border area" that never existed before - but gerrymander seems to be claiming that that's perfectly okay and within Congress's powers and not subject to eminent domain laws in any way shape or form .  That, to me, seems rather problematic.

o you're saying there can be no judicial oversight of this?  That there should be no fair compensation?

Not at all, in either case. Judicial oversight exists over any law that Congress passes, and the government must make fair compensation for any land it takes.

That said, sovereignty is a Constitution-level power granted to the US government. In a border fence eminent domain case, the best a person can hope for from the courts is "the US government must pay a fair price for land taken for a border fence," not "the US cannot take land to put up a fence." Likewise for environmental legislation -- Congressional authority over commerce, naturalization and defense are Constitutionally-enumerated powers; environmental protection, not so much.

Whatever happened to the idea of limiting the power of the government?

I doubt you'll find any American conservatives who think "small government" precludes articles of the Constitution.

In a border fence eminent domain case, the best a person can hope for from the courts is "the US government must pay a fair price for land taken for a border fence," not "the US cannot take land to put up a fence."

Gotcha - I misunderstood your point.  I generally agree with you, although I do think that the courts would still require that the declaration of eminent domain be realistic.  In other words, they would want the government to show that it had a "good reason" (and the courts usually have a very loose standard here - I'm not saying they would try to exert strong oversight, but they'd want some kind of reason).  So, the courts would probably find it reasonable for the gov't to take that 40 yard strip, or maybe even a 100 yard strip, but if the government decided to create a 100 mile "exclusion zone" between the US and Mexico, let's say, I think the courts might find a way to frown on that (at least, I would hope they would).  Unless it was being done for economic redevelopment, of course.  Then it would be perfectly OK.

but if the government decided to create a 100 mile "exclusion zone" between the US and Mexico, let's say, I think the courts might find a way to frown on that

Oh, yeah, I think that's right. And again, likewise with environmental issues. I doubt the courts would care much about the plight of coyote hunting territories being bisected by a fence, but they'd probably have a few choice words to express over any plan which involved a border wall made of mercury-filled asbestos bricks.

border wall made of mercury-filled asbestos brick

Unless they were manufactured by Haliburton.

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

Nope. That would be wrong. They could easily patrol and detain illegals without resorting to mowing people down.

Spoilsport

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

What did you mean when you wrote,

....why not simply deploy the National Guard to help secure the area...why not have some of those stateside training sessions be patrolling the border? Learn navigation, weapons training, whatever

Well lets see. They would be stationed in a remote desert. Obviously they could put a range together and practice on that while they are not looking for illegals. If the National Guard unit in my city has to travel to East Jabip to find a range then going out to the desert would sort of be a bonus.

So how much time do you envison them training as opposed to looking for illegal migrants? I mean, they only have 36 training days per year as it is; how many of those training days do you want to take away? How far would you have to transport the troops in order for them to be close enough to the border?

I'll leave that to the generals. But I imagine a fair number of the National Guardspeople would rather be protecting the border from illegals than screwing around in Iraq.

I imagine a fair number of the National Guardspeople would rather be protecting the border from illegals than screwing around in Iraq