I was browsing the Net the other day and I came across this delightful meme. It pictures prone men with rifles pointing south for as far as the eye can see. The assumption is that they are ready to blast away at those pesky migrants should any appear. To blow the guts out of tomato-pickers and fentanyl dealers alike; to bullet those anchor babies right out of their mother’s arms.
You can’t argue with the deterrence value of a plan like this, so let’s figure out the cost. Our border with Mexico is 1,950 miles long, more or less, depending on the tides in California and Texas. That’s ten million, two-hundred-ninety-six thousand feet. To put an armed man every five feet along it, as the meme suggests, would require approximately two million men. Assuming eight-hour shifts of belly crawling and rifle pointing every day, we’re looking at six million guys with guns.
“Guys?” you say. “That’s sexist. Women could do that job, too.” Of course they could. It’s just that the number of women who would like to spend eight hours a day lying on their stomachs, pointing a gun at the horizon and eager for the chance to fill some Venezuelan toddler full of hot lead is far less than the number of guys who want to prevent a political refugee from Honduras from driving a taxi in Sacramento by sending him to the Big Asylum-Seeker Camp in the Sky. Just a guess on my part—I admit that.
But six million men would hardly be sufficient in the long run. Inevitably there would be casualties. Rattlesnakes, scorpions and fire ants would take their toll on our brave soldiers. Border defenders could be rendered unfit for duty by a sunburnt belly. Disability pensions would have to be awarded. PTSD would run rampant, as the psychological toll of lying in the desert dust every day, thinking about their wives back home screwing the HVAC guy, would torment the minds of our sharpshooters.
I couldn’t imagine a much shittier job. The pay would have to be low, the working conditions near-intolerable, and the career path forward murky. It’s tough to see many Americans abandoning their current job prospects to join the border sniper force.
So, there is really only one answer, the same answer the corporate minds of this country come up with anytime there’s anything that needs to be picked, canned, de-boned, or roofed over—LET THE IMMIGRANTS DO IT!!
See? Fixed your meme for you.
You can’t argue with the deterrence value of a plan like this, so let’s figure out the cost. Our border with Mexico is 1,950 miles long, more or less, depending on the tides in California and Texas. That’s ten million, two-hundred-ninety-six thousand feet. To put an armed man every five feet along it, as the meme suggests, would require approximately two million men. Assuming eight-hour shifts of belly crawling and rifle pointing every day, we’re looking at six million guys with guns.
“Guys?” you say. “That’s sexist. Women could do that job, too.” Of course they could. It’s just that the number of women who would like to spend eight hours a day lying on their stomachs, pointing a gun at the horizon and eager for the chance to fill some Venezuelan toddler full of hot lead is far less than the number of guys who want to prevent a political refugee from Honduras from driving a taxi in Sacramento by sending him to the Big Asylum-Seeker Camp in the Sky. Just a guess on my part—I admit that.
But six million men would hardly be sufficient in the long run. Inevitably there would be casualties. Rattlesnakes, scorpions and fire ants would take their toll on our brave soldiers. Border defenders could be rendered unfit for duty by a sunburnt belly. Disability pensions would have to be awarded. PTSD would run rampant, as the psychological toll of lying in the desert dust every day, thinking about their wives back home screwing the HVAC guy, would torment the minds of our sharpshooters.
I couldn’t imagine a much shittier job. The pay would have to be low, the working conditions near-intolerable, and the career path forward murky. It’s tough to see many Americans abandoning their current job prospects to join the border sniper force.
So, there is really only one answer, the same answer the corporate minds of this country come up with anytime there’s anything that needs to be picked, canned, de-boned, or roofed over—LET THE IMMIGRANTS DO IT!!
See? Fixed your meme for you.
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