Monday, January 15, 2018
A wall is forever
This article in the Washington Post, and it's headline "Take a deal for the dreamers. Build the wall." urging Democrats to accept the building of a wall (and spending $18 billion just for starters) in return for a DACA bill got me thinking about China.
Here’s the thing. The Great Wall of China was built primarily between 1368–1644 (some of it dates from even earlier). That is to say, walls last a long time. Compromise on this issue isn’t something like Obamacare that can be undone by the next Administration, or the one after that, or 100 Administrations after that. Once it’s built it will stay built.
So no compromise is possible. Opponents of the wall should say simply “We’ll accept a wall once we have the money in the Treasury given to us by Mexico to pay for it, as promised.” This is, of course, entirely rhetorical; I oppose the wall even if it’s free, just like I oppose U.S. wars of intervention even if they cost nothing. But in this case, it does make for a nice rhetorical flourish, akin to “when hell freezes over”.
