Thanks for your patience. I will try to be concise.
I have a hard time believing that Israeli troops generally aren't being used to address issues related to illegal immigration, given that it's a near-existential threat for them. Just because they aren't stationed on the border doesn't mean that they aren't functioning in anything related to immigration or anti-terrorism, which are inherently linked in their case. I agree, America having more soldiers wouldn't put most of them on the border. That's part of the difference between Israel and America in this regard.
And I am having a hard time believing that the vast majority of Israeli troops are involved with illegal immigration. Because that is what you would have to be asserting for your point on forced conscription and higher military to civilian ratio to be relevant. Otherwise, it wouldn't matter that they have more troops available if not a vastly higher number of them are related to illegal immigration than the US can afford to equally provide for its border defense. And the numbers I have found online simply aren't leading me to that conclusion.
I believe that I was quite generous in the troops per mile calculation because in my calculation I pretended that all of the border guard were put on the 150 mile stretch in question to come up with 40 troops per mile. Obviously not all of them are there, and it was my intention to ignore that to allow for a decent margin of error.
Now, the border guard is diverse in application, including special riot teams and other such divisions, so I don't know why a potentially large number of military troops would be involved in illegal immigration and not be a part of the border guard.
We can easily afford the liberal estimate of 40 troops per mile based solely on military reserves, and I would urge you to provide a source backing the claim that their border patrol numbers are too high for us to match to reach similar levels of illegal immigration curtailment.
We're not just talking about desert ecosystems, hence I'm talking about floodplains and river banks (though to be clear, we do prize some desert ecosystems, hence Death Valley, Joshua Tree, the Mojave National Preserve, Red Rock Canyon and others). They do have much broader effects. We could cover those, though I do think it's somewhat tangential to dig into those too deeply.
Suffice to say that this is also something that would need to be made on a case-by-case basis similar to the commercial market concerns expressed earlier. I will take your word that there will be some cases in which the wall will become more expensive in order to maintain these ecosystems. Either that, or there could just be increased troops presence in these areas as the lack of wall will attract illegal immigrants to these areas.
I guess my perspective is that this "full steam ahead" approach to the wall is inherently damaging if it brushes over considerations of commerce and ecosystems. I agree, the Trump administration is likely a lot more focused on getting it built than on the logistics regarding passage through it. That's generally what I find so problematic in this regard. I understand that they don't feel that another administration would take building the wall seriously (they're probably right), but I don't think these are issues that we can realistically paper over. From my perspective, if Republicans want to show that the wall is a necessity for future administrations to continue building and maintaining, then they should be focused on ensuring that it doesn't cause undue harms that their opponents can continually cite against it. Preparing for these problems makes their positions far less assailable, though I guess that's not the point.
I couldn't agree more. I am not entirely pleased with what I have seen with their approach. Unfortunately, this isn't a perfect world in which we have time and partisan politics makes this impossible. The current Administration has had to go through so many hoops just to simply get funding for the wall, that it is a primary concern that planning has unfortunately not been possible when funds are an uncertainty.
Now, while the Trump Administration has had a perverse incentive to build the wall by all means necessary, it could also be said that the Democrats have a perverse incentive to block the wall, even if they believed it was a good idea. Trump was elected on building the wall, and it would be a lot easier to get reelected building an imperfect wall that is more "assailable" than it could be than to defend the position of "I know you elected me to build the wall and I tried to, but I have nothing to show for four years". The Democrats know this and it is a political game. If they actually cared, they would be the ones arguing for a wall that takes every little detail into consideration. But you have Nancy Pelosi saying that simply "a wall is n immorality". It isn't, and she knows it, but they will attack it to destroy his campaign promise.
So overall, the options are: have a "full steam ahead approach" or have no wall at all. I would prefer the "full steam ahead approach" reluctantly because the issues of stopping drugs and illegal immigrants are such vital issues to solve right now.
That being said, in a situation where everyone's terrified, it's all the more important for our leaders to present information clearly and correctly. Trump did say that the FDA had approved the use of chloroquine to treat patients infected with COVID-19, which is blatantly false. That sends the message that this is a safe and effective treatment for this infection, which it is not. This treatment has only been tested in vitro, which is insufficient evidence to show that patients should be taking this medication. Trump's statement in no way reflected this, and he can at least partly be blamed for shortages of these drugs across the country, though admittedly, many of these people may have decided to buy these meds based solely on the preliminary scientific evidence. Even if I assume that's entirely the result of people making dumb decisions, though, Trump shouldn't be feeding into those mentalities by bolstering a false narrative about this medication. That in and of itself is dangerous.
I have found out that the woman likely killed her husband *conspiracy theory perhaps, so no need to argue about it, but just food for thought because it is interesting* Also, the Blaze reported on it, so expect bias. So, the woman had been arrested for domestic abuse against her husband and had expressed desire for a divorce. She had been diagnosed with PTSD, had anxiety, and had a long history of voting for Democrats. So, I doubt a big time Democrat would take the president at his word, but maybe. If you want to see the whole story, take a gander here.
https://www.theblaze.com/news/woman-who-blamed-trump-for-her-husbands-chloroquine-death-is-dem-donor-who-was-once-charged-with-domestic-abuse-in-divorce-argument
Trump has not only said that quote that you put above for GrayParrot, but he has also said things like:
“so we know if things don't go as planned, it’s not going to kill anybody.”
“I think it could be a game-changer, and maybe not,”
So he by no means was saying this was some miracle drug. Most of his optimistic statements were followed by statements about how it might not actually work. So, while this could influence some individuals to try to obtain the drug, you also have to contrast that with the other option of being pessimistic and offering no potential solutions, which would have led to more panic. You have to be an optimistic leader during troubling times. Imagine if FDR said something like "we may get out of this depression some day, but I have no clue when that will be. I don't even know how we will get there". You have to be confident and try to create that light at the end of the tunnel for people.
