Opuscula Blind in one eye, Can't see with other

 

A wall to separate U.S. & Mexico

MEXICANS ARE JUMPING on the "I hate Trump" bandwagon for Trump's daring to state he'd put up a wall between Mexico and the U.S.

Surprise, Mexico. The U.S. ALREADY has a fence - albeit a largely ineffective one - on the border.

A wall is not Trump's idea.

The US and Mexico share a common border of about 2,000-miles (3,200-km). As of February 10, 2012, the Department of Homeland Security had completed 651 miles of fencing out of nearly 652 miles mandated by Congress, including 299 miles of vehicle barriers and 352 miles of pedestrian fence.

The Secure Fence act of 2006 A/K/A Public Law 109-367, was, as the title states, passed in 2006, when Geo. W. was president. In the House of Representatives, the Fence Act passed 283 -138 on September 14, 2006. On September 29, 2006 – the Fence Act passed in the Senate 80 -19.

Ancient wall at Rhodes

Lest anyone think a barrier fence is a new idea, a little history lesson is in order.

The most famous - at least in modern times- barrier is the Great Wall of China . It took the Chinese longer to build the wall than it takes Congress to make a decision; construction started between 770 and 476 BCE, and lasted until the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644 CE). The wall's purpose, according to the Travel China Guide, was to protect people and territory from invasion.

Jerusalem's walls date back to the Patriarchs period; a city named Jebos was built in the location of today’s Jerusalem, which was relatively small (50,000 square meters) but was fortified. Remains from this wall are located above Hezekiah’s Tunnel. The most eminent of early biblical archaeologists was William F. Albright, who believed that he had identified the Patriarchal age in the period 2100–1800 BCE, the Intermediate Bronze Age, the interval between two periods of highly developed urban culture in ancient Canaan

Rome got into the wall-building business fairly early on. The Servian Wall around Rome was an ambitious project of the early 4th century BCE. The Romans were so enamored with walls that they surrounded captured cities in Spain (Córdoba, 2nd century BCE), and England (Chester -earth and wood in the 70s AD, stone from c. 100, and York, from 70s CE.)

Wikipedia provides a formidable list of cities with ancient surrounding walls. The same site also lists modern walls and walls in use today.

Walls were built throughout the centuries mostly to keep people OUT, but a few, notably the Berlin Wall, were built to keep people IN.

BOTTOM LINE: Trump's proposal to finish the barrier between the US and Mexico is nothing new - not the reasoning nor the wall itself.

BUT, Trump bashing is the mode of the day and "facts be damned." Besides, with his hair, he's an easy caricature.

Internment camps: the American way

The Left is aghast that anyone, even The Donald, could suggest placing Muslims, be they citizens or not, into internment camps.

But it's the American way, if only Americans knew their history.

How about confining the American Indians to reservations, and killing them if they left without permission. (Shades of a nazi or Soviet ghetto.) Think about the Cherokee Trail of Tears when Federal troops forced the young and the elderly and all ages in between to walk from their homes in the East to a reservation in the West. (The Cherokee had to be relocated; gold was found on their land in Georgia.)

An estimated 4,000 died from hunger, exposure and disease. The journey became a cultural memory as the "trail where they cried" for the Cherokees and other removed tribes.

In case you equate Indians with savages out to murder whites, the Cherokees were highly civilized and better educated than many, perhaps most, of the whites who coveted their land.

Then there was - is - segregation, if not now legal, still de facto. Push the blacks into one area of town where they can be controlled; if they leave their area at night, the penalty was death.

And then there are the Japanese.

FDR ordered them herded into "internment" camps because they looked different. That HAD to be the reason because he allowed the Germans, including nazi sympathizers such as Jos. Kennedy, to remain free. In 1938, Joe - the father of Joe Jr., John F., Robert, and Ted - had a plan for "Hitler's Jews," a solution to “the Jewish problem.” The New York Times reported that he had worked out with prime minister Chamberlain a plan to ship all German Jews to Africa and other places in the Western Hemisphere under the joint administration of Britain and the United States. In effect, corralling the Jews into a huge internment camp.

Finally, although it wasn't called "internment," we had something called "quarantine." If a person was sick with a communicable disease - even something as simple as chickenpox - a huge QUARANTINE sign was placed on the door of the house or apartment where the sick person resided.