That's a good one, Denny!

Quoth Fat Denny Tuesday:

WASHINGTON -- House Speaker Dennis Hastert voiced confidence Tuesday that the United States can block illegal immigrants from crossing the nation's borders even though he estimates there are up to 15 million living here already.

"What we need to do is seal our border," he said during a phone interview with "The Don and Roma Morning Show" on Chicago's WLS radio station. "If someone is bleeding to death, first of all, you stop the bleeding. We need to stop the bleeding. We can seal the border."

[edit]

"I always say if we can protect Iraq's borders against Syria and, you know, Jordan, and everyplace else, Iran, we can protect our own borders," he said.

The Illinois Republican has been emphasizing the immigration issue in making the case to voters that they should keep Congress in GOP hands.

Sorry, Denny, but the immigration issue is just one of many reasons why Congress (and every other organ of state power) should be kept as far away from the GOP's hands as possible. Why? Because if your proposal is any indication (and it seems to be a good one), you people haven't got the first fucking clue what you're talking about--and that should, in any rational society, be more than enough reason to vote your sorry arses out of office.

Let's take a look at this proposal, shall we? I'm going to start with your lugubriously ludicrous assertion that "we can protect Iraq's borders" against anything more dangerous than a newborn infant in a wet diaper. If Iraq's borders are so fucking secure, how is it that the insurgents (or whatever Darth Cheney is calling them this week) seem to have no problems getting arms, explosives, ammunition, and people into Iraq from Syria, Iran, and probably Jordan, too? If Iraq is such a sterling example of a nation secure within its borders, perhaps you'd care to explain why Iraqi oil production is in such a shambles, three years after we "liberated" the country from Saddam, why electricity production, sewage treatment, and potable water supplies still aren't back to their fairly sub-par pre-war levels yet, and why something on the order of a hundred-plus Iraqi civilians died violently each and every day last month.

But your idea about sealing our nation's borders is only slightly less ridiculous than your contention that Iraq is a good example of anything except how not to run a war or plan for an occupation. Do you even have the first goddamn clue about how long our borders are? Sure, the House just approved $1.9 billion (money we don't have, largely thanks to Georgie's Big Iraqi Adventure and your patent enthusiasm for cutting your wealthy benefactors' taxes) to build 40 miles of fencing along the Mexican border. But in case you hadn't noticed, that only leaves you with 1,912 unprotected miles of border (not including coastal boundaries), according to the International Boundary and Water Commission.

But that's a trifle in comparison to the problem you're going to face up north. According to the International Boundary Commission, the border between the United States and Canada encompasses 5,525 miles (including about 1,500 miles shared with Alaska). And while the U.S.'s border with Mexico has been beefed up in the last couple of decades, security-wise, the 48th parallel is, for all intents and purposes, free and clear. Quite a bit of our northern border isn't even on land: it runs through places like the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, more than a million acres of nothing but trees and critters and open water.

And I'm just dying to hear how you're planning to secure the approximately 12,000 statute miles of coastline. And the nearly 15,000 airports. To say nothing of several million cubic miles of airspace.

Really, Denny, you should think before opening your yap like this. You're old enough to remember the Berlin Wall, from the day it was constructed to the day it was destroyed. How effective was that at keeping the West out, or at keeping citizens of the East in? If you want a present-day example of just what an asinine idea this is, call up your buddy Ehud Olmert and ask him how Israel's wall around the occupied West Bank is working.

But there might still be a way of salvaging your proposal. You go ahead and build your wall along the Mexican border: as long as you leave just one gateway through it--and then you promise to quit your day job and go stand in that gate personally. Just the sight of all that blubber sweating in the hot sun should be enough to scare away anybody who doesn't have any business crossing that border.

If you want to read a position on immigration that makes sense, I encourage you to check out John Laesch, the Democratic candidate who is trying to unseat Fat Denny Hastert. And if you've got some spare change or some spare time, I'm sure John and his people would be most grateful. (Truth in advertising: I am not affiliated with the Laesch campaign, though I sure as hell support it.)

Comments

[Bryan]

Having lived near Lake Ontario in New York, San Diego in California, and currently on the Gulf Coast of Florida, I would wonder what world he lives in.

When you needed to fly overseas in San Diego, you drove out to Otay Mesa, parked your car, and stepped across the strand of barbed wire to get to the Tijuana airport in Mexico. It was much cheaper that flying from San Diego.

I understand that they have finally fenced that particular embarrassment by installing another border crossing, but someone should take Denny on an aerial survey of the Mexico-California border to show him why you can't build a fence.

The area around me has been a center for smuggling since white people showed up here. Booze, drugs, you name it, it has landed by boat in this area forever. We had German spies captured down here during WWII.

During his short-lived TV show, Michael Moore had a segment on US and Canadian farmers trying to locate the border between North Dakota and Canada. Apparently a fair number of the border markers have been plowed under by tractors.

These people live in Fantasyland.

[Michael]

Bryan: These people live in Fantasyland.

Indeed they do, and unfortunately for those of us that don't, (a) their fantasies are something right out of an acid trip experienced by the love child of Wes Craven and Stephen King, and (b) they're currently in a position to inflict those fantasies on the rest of us in the guise of national policy.

Sycamore, where I live now, was a fairly big stop on the Underground Railroad, back in the day. Galesburg, where I went to college, even more so--and both the city and my alma mater were founded by dyed-in-the-wool abolitionists. They counted on a porous border with Canada. It's probably a little firmer now than it was 150 years ago, but not by much.