Illegal immigration: Is it time to build a moat?
posted at 11:23 am on April 17, 2007 by Allahpundit
Like the man says, it doesn’t have to be water. Could be raw sewage, could be oil, it could even be lava. I believe the Tancredo plan calls for lava.
If the housing downturn persists, we might not even need it.
Blowback
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??? And yet Imus gets canned?
dalewalt on April 17, 2007 at 11:29 AM
Even though I am a conservative, I think liberalism is a mental disorder, and I want to build the moat filled with dragon fire…I think that’s the funniest thing I’ve seen in years. Great satire.
Jaibones on April 17, 2007 at 11:36 AM
Exit question: Where does the workforce come from to build said moat, especially considering the housing downturn?
Personally, I am always pro-diseased meat launched via catapult, though I prefer the trebuchet for the job. Better range, you know.
Wineaholic on April 17, 2007 at 11:37 AM
Finally, someone with a sense of humor who reads our site. Praise the lord.
Allahpundit on April 17, 2007 at 11:39 AM
What I don’t have a sense of humor?
Theworldisnotenough on April 17, 2007 at 11:43 AM
AP? Praising the lord? Now *there’s* something funny :-)
dalewalt on April 17, 2007 at 11:45 AM
Hey, I saw that mythbusters. The catapult thing didn’t work. Buster parts were all over the place!
- The Cat
MirCat on April 17, 2007 at 11:46 AM
Working for 87 cents an hour in a hot field picking strawberries is worth a few less body parts, isn’t it?
lorien1973 on April 17, 2007 at 11:48 AM
Diseased cows we can throw back into Mexico–Here comes Bessie!! Hope they like beef! What a stench!
Classic Stronghold!
Vanquisher on April 17, 2007 at 11:49 AM
I suggested we build a canal. It would be one heckuva project and would probably take 20 years and a 2 trillion dollars to build but civilizations need great projects.
This would put the Panama Canal out of business and would also serve a military benefit of being able to move our navy from Atlantic to Pacific ( or vice versa ) during wartime.
Perchant on April 17, 2007 at 11:53 AM
Is this the first generation of illegals that won’t be doing as well as their illegal parents?
lorien1973 on April 17, 2007 at 11:54 AM
Now, there’s an idea.
Kid from Brooklyn on April 17, 2007 at 11:55 AM
Now THAT was funny.
(still feeling the sting of ‘dear sister’, eh Allah?)
Tru2my2 on April 17, 2007 at 11:59 AM
We don’t need to more stinking laws, or moats.
We just need to enforce existing immigration and border security laws.
Lawrence on April 17, 2007 at 11:59 AM
Two points to make about this tidbit about one of the out of work “Illegal Aliens”.
1. I think there are a lot of legal US residents that would be willing to work for $25/hour. That is 50k a year without any overtime. Well above the national salary average.
2. He got a mortgage here in the USA and bought a house. Something that is not legal for a non-Mexican to do in Mexico. And he bought land and built a house in Mexico that tends to make me believe that he has no intention of assimilating or staying in this country. He is only here to pillage the resources and make his retirement comfortable in the old country.
brtex on April 17, 2007 at 12:04 PM
That was NOT funny! Why would you think this is funny, AP?! You have the worst sense of humor ever! You should be strung up at dawn as punishment for posting this!
(Just kidding. A little satire of my own, there. It was funny, AP. Lava moat. Heh.)
aero on April 17, 2007 at 12:04 PM
this is weird.
i never thought of indian culture as being particularly prudish. and if you check out some of shilpa shetty’s videos, well… but no kissing i guess.
jummy on April 17, 2007 at 12:04 PM
…I love the God Hates Fags reference at the beginning.
JaHerer22 on April 17, 2007 at 12:05 PM
You’ll notice that in THIS story … it’s not mentioned that the murderer is an illegal alien until the very last paragraph.
Gregor on April 17, 2007 at 12:06 PM
Only American alligators should be used in the moat.
Florida seems to have plenty, thanks to the housing boom, in the land of citrus and Mickey, displacing their habitat.
Ship them to the Southwest, and let them patrol the fluid border.
(And try suing one of them for harassing the paddling infiltrators.)
profitsbeard on April 17, 2007 at 12:14 PM
Now that was funny! If we can’t lampoon ourselves, we are in trouble.
And I want everyone to know that I personally have done my part to fill up the Rio Grande with sewage.
It was just a small donation, but every bit helps.
Matticus Finch on April 17, 2007 at 12:15 PM
Why, when hard-worling Mexican alligators are happy to do it for half the price?
Matticus Finch on April 17, 2007 at 12:17 PM
We have a moat — it’s called teh Rio Grande. Not working so much. So maybe coupled with a secondary moat filled with diseased cows or dragonfire….
jdpaz on April 17, 2007 at 12:18 PM
It is more than the housing downturn. The subprime mortgages are hitting their increases, and the illegal alien boarding houses and homes bought buy illegals are going to clear out. Foreclosures are up in San Diego. I plan on getting at least 3 rental properties in the next couple of years. Just wait until the 2005 and 2006 loans adjust up.
Theworldisnotenough on April 17, 2007 at 12:22 PM
This is hilarious.
Have we spent enough anti drug/border security money to justify a replacement for the Panama canal along our southern border yet?
That would really tick off China, they’re counting on Veracruz.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=16407
Speakup on April 17, 2007 at 12:24 PM
Show me a fifty foot moat and I’ll show you a fifty-one foot fierljepper
jdpaz on April 17, 2007 at 12:30 PM
Good point. I read an article in the Reader about an illegal from Guatemala that is doing the same thing. Buying up property back home. The arguement that the illegals just want the American dream (via flag waving) is fallacious. The naturalization rate for the last amnesty was almost non-existent. They did not want to become Americans then but they want to become Americans now?
Theworldisnotenough on April 17, 2007 at 12:31 PM
And point some of the cameras at the sky. I had no idea the Onion did video.
Tanya on April 17, 2007 at 12:38 PM
$25 an hour! For “doing jobs Americans won’t do?!?!?”
I’m college-educated (technical degree) and an American citizen by birth, and I was recently laid-off from a job installing and servicing computer equipment for $15 an hour.
So–let me get this right–if I’m an illegal alien, I can make
the samebetter money with NO experience or expertise or skills than an AMERICAN CITIZEN with A COLLEGE DEGREE?Consequently, I’d be happy to sweep floors for $15/hour now, but the only jobs I can find are retail sales for $7/hour.
What’s wrong with this picture???? Maybe I need to learn Spanish, grow a mustache and move to California!
mojojojo on April 17, 2007 at 12:39 PM
I was cleaning out my sock drawer and found it in front, under a pair of silk Grateful Dead boxer shorts that had a hole in them. It’s always the last place you’d look.
It’s been so long since I used it, I wasn’t sure it still worked…
Jaibones on April 17, 2007 at 12:39 PM
And speaking of sense of humor, I went to vote this morning with my thoughts overwhelmed by the images of 32 dead college kids and the face of this Korean POS murderer, and I pulled into my polling place and started laughing:
The Korean United Methodist Church in south suburban Chicago. Korean writing on the doors, the walls, the ballot. What a kick in the nuts. It will be a good place to go pray later; I imagine that the members there are having a particularly difficult day.
Jaibones on April 17, 2007 at 12:43 PM
You should sell it on ebay.
Tanya on April 17, 2007 at 12:49 PM
Mexicans are well known for their catapult technology. That’s rad.
Enrique on April 17, 2007 at 12:55 PM
That was really good satire. It’s rare these days.
Dragon fire…priceless.
unamused on April 17, 2007 at 12:57 PM
Not only that, but he’s most likely not paying income tax–or at least not all of it (employers might be withholding on his behalf, or they might be paying him off the books with cash). If you were earning the same $25/hr, you’d have to give the government a huge chunk of it that he doesn’t have to. And he’s probably getting free health care, too. At least since he bought a house he’s probably paying property tax and therefore contributing to the cost of educating illegals’ children. But by and large, you can bet he’s taking home a whole lot more of his income than you are.
aero on April 17, 2007 at 1:17 PM
I would prefer a castle wall similar to the one used in Monty Python Holy Grail and manned by angry French speaking persons.
Kini on April 17, 2007 at 1:25 PM
It would cost an estimated $3 billion to build the fence, probably more like $10 billion with all the cost overruns. Here’s a cheaper alternative: bribe the Mexican government to keep their people home, by stepping up their Ferderales patrols, or releasing funds from their oil wells, or allowing foreign businesses to operate there.
Those bribes would probably only cost about $1 billion. Any comments?
stonemeister on April 17, 2007 at 1:32 PM
You know using Lava would help Hawaii and their lava surplus crisis. And its an all natural product. Sounds win-win to me.
Iblis on April 17, 2007 at 1:50 PM
I support that idea if we can use the Army Corps of Engineers to do it – we need to get them out of New Orleans.
But will they fart in Mexico’s general direction? JaHerer22, have you seen godhatesfigs.com?
Laura on April 17, 2007 at 2:10 PM
That’s because it’s too shallow to take advantage of the Mexican lack of buoyancy.
But I have another problem with this idea. Do we have enough domestic dragons to produce the fire for this moat? Or are we going to get caught in the trap of being dependent on yet another resource from politically unstable regions of the world who happen to have more dragons?!
eeyore on April 17, 2007 at 2:29 PM
If we built a moat, and they swam across and were soaking wet…what would we call them?
I think if every border town flushed at the same time, we could fill the moat.
right2bright on April 17, 2007 at 2:34 PM
Yeah, we could help out Hawaii with “lava offsets”.
That would also keep us from dealing with the problem eeyore brought up above.
brtex on April 17, 2007 at 2:35 PM
The Onion is using improvisers. I recognize the bald guy from IO in Chicago. He also is in the Sonic and Apple ads. What they are doing is called hightening. Taking an idea and gradually making it more absurd. The key is that everyone agree that whatever is said by the another is perfectly reasonable, use what others have said and make it slight more preposterous, and have an emotional reaction that is opposite of the suggestion; i.e., strange ideas are taken seriously, normal ideas are scoffed at.
We could do the same in the other direction. “Illegals should be accepted, they should be protected, they should be given special rights, they should be given property, every American citizen should switch places with Mexican citizens and we should have to cross the border to find jobs, we should offer our children as sacrifices to our Mexican neighbors/gods. Wouldn’t it be reasonable to require workers to show ID. YOU ARE WORSE THAN HITLER!. Are you a boy who was born in Brazil. Test his DNA for Germanic tendencies.”
Comedy isn’t hard. Just make sure you use professionals, that is one of my criticisms of the THHNH. They use actors and they don’t have the chops.
P.S. And I am still available for hire.
Bill C on April 17, 2007 at 2:43 PM
The Onion has a television show?
I hate living in Germany!!! Curse you, American Forces Network!
AAAAAArrrrrGGGGhhhh!
Black Adam on April 17, 2007 at 2:56 PM
I feel like we’ve really broken new ground, here. The green-friendly lava moat is truly win-win, and I suspect we could lure Sheryl Crow away from the Global Warming Hysteria concert series if we put together the right package.
And there might be a common ground compromise to be made with the Tancredo people on the lava moat, if we offer the fierljepper option (i.e., you clear the moat, we make you a citizen).
Jaibones on April 17, 2007 at 3:02 PM
No, they just started offering little clips like this on their website. You can access them anywhere in the world.
JaHerer22 on April 17, 2007 at 3:54 PM
Fill that moat with hydrofluoric acid.
tommy1 on April 17, 2007 at 4:14 PM
What’s the matter with the pc NYT? The ‘housing downturn’ article AP linked to, above, this, and this.
Plus numerous other articles containing the un-pc term, lately. What’s up their sleeves?
Entelechy on April 17, 2007 at 4:20 PM
Sorry, gave you the same link, twice. Here the intended one…
Entelechy on April 17, 2007 at 4:23 PM
Its called “having a family”; one sends money back to improve their family’s (parents and grandparents mostly) quality of life. The small, little things like roofs, running water, clean running water, and the occasional solid concrete foundation. Maybe even a separate room for the toilet.
blogRot on April 17, 2007 at 5:04 PM
I would speculate that you do not live in a border state and have spent little if any time in Mexico. I have worked with and lived around Mexican Nationals, legal and illegal, all of my life. I can assure you when they talk about buying land and building a house in Mexico, it is not for madre y padre. They may be able to live with him when he moves back, which is quite common, but he is not building a house for their exclusive use in most cases. And even making $50k a year he is not going to be able to provide cleanrunning water because for the most part it does not exist in Mexico by US standards.
brtex on April 17, 2007 at 5:27 PM
Dude, he was talking about a house in Mexico…
Jaibones on April 17, 2007 at 8:15 PM
Now you’re talking!! Building on the gator idea–all those gators endangered in the Everglades: redeployment! If we can get them to swallow clocks like that croc in Peter Pan, even better. Mexicans are terrifies of ticking. And tocking.
honora on April 18, 2007 at 10:13 AM