A nice idea, but I suspect the execution would be pretty difficult. Hollywood special effects are a lot better now than in 1938, but there are many more science-educated people who would be a lot harder to fool too. All it would take is one slip-up, caught and pointed out by some bright teenager, and the jig would be up.
I thought several of the Republican candidates were already very concerned about illegal aliens…. They want to build the Berlin Wall^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H a fence across the borders, after all…
That’s one way to spend government funds to save the economy, the fence runs about 49 Billion, and that’s not the “electrified” version favored by some. Not to mention a couple of billion for incarcerating and deporting 12 million illegal immigrants in order to complete the job. Though I suspect this isn’t exactly the most stimulating way for the government to create demand-pull, though if it got done, it would make fence companies a worthy investment. 😉
Luckily, no matter who wins the nomination amongst the two current front runners, Gingrich and Romney, both of them don’t support this, though it’s kind of hard to tell just what Romney supports, that seems to change every few months. (Though in the case of Gingrich he’s more consistent, consistently wrong. Though I kind of like what he said about the Palestinians being a fictional people, as a bad a statement as that was, I’m used to people picking a bit more on the Israelis than the other side of the equation. Of course, in the long run, a Bush-like policy or even further to the right towards Israel and the Middle East is more dangerous, not less, to Middle East security in general probably….
Of course, I’m a bit of a mavrick on this issue, I still dream of a single multi-ethnic state in Israel rather than the split between disenfranchised Arabs in the occupied territories and enfranchised Jews and Arabs in the 67 borders and Jerusalem proper, even though it would “affect the character of the Jewish state” (i.e. the racism) for the Arabs in the West Bank to participate in the elections the rest of the country participates in. Of course, nobody, neither Jew nor Arab, want this, instead they want to have a ’67 borders state – with a narrow 15 mile wide stretch down the middle, coupled with a Palestinian state that would inevitably economically collapse without investment and migrant labor into Israel and Jewish settlements, and with PLO mismanagement of funds. It’s no wonder negotiations for a 2 state solution are frozen, because really, it’d be a disaster for both parties if it went through instead of remaining the status quo at least. Take a look at the Gaza disengagement for what the West Bank might look like if Israel were to pull out of there too and build a fence along the new country’s border. It’s all a big mess, and all because the two parties can’t share a country together.)
The whole “wall” idea is sheer idiocy. Just a way for Republicans to give money to their donors and friends, as far as I can tell. You heard what happened in Alabama, I assume?
Potsville Iowa’s economy has fallen apart after a big anti-illegal-immigrant raid there, a large percentage of their legal population has moved out as a result. I hadn’t heard about Alabama, but it doesn’t surprise me.
Surprise, surprise, Tea Party Conservatives: the Law of Unintended Consequences is alive and well, and will gleefully bite you in the ass every time you try something short-sighted and dogmatic like that.
Try to see beyond your own prejudices for once in your lives, and think through the consequences of your actions before you take them sometime, will you? The rest of us are tired of cleaning up after your stupidity.
Well, Gingrich appeals to the tea-party conservatives and on this issue he’s reasonable. He’s a bit more mainstream than most of the rest of them, but I remember when he was on the far right of the Republican party back when he was speaker during the Clinton era. How times have changed, politics is like a weird sit-com now even more than it was then.
Forgive me for waxing nostalgic, but the Clinton era was the “good ol’ days” for a lot of people I think… Balanced budgets and a booming economy, with only folks like Gingrich around to make noise. 😉
Gingrich is an ass, and has been since I first heard of him twenty years ago (and from reports, a lot longer than that). And yes, politics has gotten a lot nastier even since then, and I didn’t think that would be possible. 🙁