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posted by mrpg on Saturday December 15 2018, @05:05PM   Printer-friendly
from the Buy-a-Brick,-Build-a-Wall-Act dept.

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984

As President Donald Trump threatened to allow a government shutdown if Congress did not provide funding for his proposed wall along the Mexican border, a Republican congressman from Ohio offered up alternative routes to getting the wall built: through Internet crowdfunding or through an initial coin offering.

During an interview with NPR's Morning Edition on December 12, Rep. Warren Davidson said that he had offered what he referred to as a "modest proposal" in the form of his "Buy a Brick, Build a Wall Act." The bill, which he submitted on November 30, would authorize the Secretary of the Treasury to accept monetary gifts from anyone "on the condition that it be used to plan, design, construct, or maintain a barrier along the international border between the United States and Mexico." The funds would go into an account called the "Border Wall Trust Fund," and a public website would be set up to process donations electronically.

Rep. Davidson told NPR's Steve Inskeep that the donations could come from anyone and be gathered in a number of ways."You could do it with this sort of, like, crowdfunding site," Davidson explained. "Or you could do it with blockchain—you could have Wall Coins."

Source: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/12/ohio-congressman-we-can-fund-border-wall-with-wallcoin/


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  • (Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday December 16 2018, @12:38AM (12 children)

    by sjames (2882) on Sunday December 16 2018, @12:38AM (#774985) Journal

    If you want something directly equivalent, we'll go with China.

    There is a significant difference between locking your doors and threatening to barricade the neighborhood until your neighbors pay for enough bricks and rolls of barbed wire to wall off your yard.

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  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday December 16 2018, @12:53AM (11 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday December 16 2018, @12:53AM (#774993) Journal

    Go with China? That's almost funny. Our leftists want a Socialist America, don't they?

    Maybe it is necessary to continue allowing illegal aliens to erode our over burdened court systems and welfare systems, to spark the revolt that will create Red America?

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by sjames on Sunday December 16 2018, @01:45AM (10 children)

      by sjames (2882) on Sunday December 16 2018, @01:45AM (#775008) Journal

      Well, China undeniably built a wall to keep people out. How'd that work out for them?

      As I said, if you want the illegal immigrants to go somewhere else, crack down on those upstanding all American employers who clearly prefer to pay illegals under the table rather than employ Americans.

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Sunday December 16 2018, @02:55AM (9 children)

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday December 16 2018, @02:55AM (#775021) Journal

        Actually, the Great Wall served it's intended purpose, for quite a long while.

        Cracking down on employers? I'm all for that.

        I've told this story here before, maybe you read it, maybe not. I was a new foreman for a construction company. Sent to a town to build a sawmill, drying kilns, a boiler, couple warehouses, a hog for the sawdust powered boiler, drainage and area paving. I contacted the employment office, as well as some private agencies, put ads in the local papers trying to find people who wanted to work. No takers, for days. I'm a foreman without a crew, and I'm getting desparate. Then, an old Mexican guy walks up, and asks me how many people I need, and how many of each craft. I told him what I needed, and next morning I had a crew on the job site. Filled out all the paperwork, made copies of documents, and sent it all to the main office. Everything was good for four or five days. The boss arrived on site, looked around, then asked me what I was paying the Mexicans. Told him I was paying them the same wages I was paying the white boys.

        That was our first disagreement. The boss thought I should have paid the Mexicans about 2/3 what I was paying the whites. He stopped bitching when I asked if he wanted only 2/3 the effort that the white boys made.

        When I hired a Mexican, as near as I could determine, they were legal. We didn't have E-verify then, all I could go by were driver's licenses and social security cards. If a Mexican showed me the same paperwork that a white boy showed me, I had to presume that he was legal.

        Given the tools to verify his right to work, I would have checked on that. I had no such tools, so I hired whoever had legal looking paperwork.

        • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 16 2018, @04:12AM (8 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 16 2018, @04:12AM (#775043)

          The Great Wall of China was built to slow down invading armies and give them time to mobilize their defenses. It did nothing for small groups or individuals who could sneak over.

          As people have stated many times, many illegals arrive by plane with a proper visa. A lot of others get smuggled inside vans or trucks, some use tunnels, some use boats. A wall on our Mexican border will do very little, BUT it will make Trump's cronies a LOT of money.

          • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Sunday December 16 2018, @07:00AM (7 children)

            by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday December 16 2018, @07:00AM (#775074) Journal

            The major flow of illegals into this country is foot traffic across the border. The coroner in Tuscon says that he gets an average of 5 bodies PER WEEK. In the winter months, that drops a little lower, in the summer months it goes up, but he says the average is 5 per week. Roughly 250 people die each year, right there in that one short stretch of the border. No one knows how many live to tell their stories of crossing the desert, just to cross the border.

            • (Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday December 16 2018, @08:35PM (6 children)

              by sjames (2882) on Sunday December 16 2018, @08:35PM (#775164) Journal

              It sounds like there is already a significant barrier to illegal immigration in place.

              • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday December 16 2018, @09:22PM (5 children)

                by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday December 16 2018, @09:22PM (#775182) Journal

                I thought you were interested in a more humane solution to illegal immigration, than a scorching hot desert where the weak dehydrate and die. I'm willing to just shoot them, which is much more humane than dying of thirst.

                • (Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday December 16 2018, @10:26PM (4 children)

                  by sjames (2882) on Sunday December 16 2018, @10:26PM (#775205) Journal

                  Step one, don't go to great expense to make it even worse than it already is.

                  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday December 17 2018, @06:28AM (3 children)

                    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday December 17 2018, @06:28AM (#775307) Journal

                    Scenario one: The individual who wants to come to the US is told he'll suffer horribly from heat and thirst before he gets to the US, but he has 85% chance of success. He decides to take the risk.

                    Scenario two: Same individual reads that there is a wall in the way, patrolled by alt-right grannies with PMS and AIDS, which he will have to face AFTER suffering horrible from heat and thirst for a week or more. He decides the alt-righters are too horrible to risk. Soon, there are no more people dying at the border.

                    • (Score: 2) by sjames on Monday December 17 2018, @06:35AM (2 children)

                      by sjames (2882) on Monday December 17 2018, @06:35AM (#775311) Journal

                      No, they suffer and die on the Mexican side trying to dig under the wall or scale it, or they end up in the hands of the drug smugglers and other low lives already known to smuggle people in through the entry points for a terrible price.

                      • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday December 17 2018, @12:38PM (1 child)

                        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday December 17 2018, @12:38PM (#775363) Journal

                        Well, your opinion is noted. I happen to think Mexicans are a lot smarter than that. "Dude, we can show you how to get to the US, but, only 5% of the people who try it live through it!" Are YOU going to take those odds? What makes you think Mexicans are stupid? Are you some kind of RACIST?????

                        • (Score: 2) by sjames on Monday December 17 2018, @05:45PM

                          by sjames (2882) on Monday December 17 2018, @05:45PM (#775465) Journal

                          Now you're playing Trump's ugly game, say any damned thing to get what you want. "But we need this new super machine gun. It's the only way to humanely mow down thousands of unarmed people trapped in a field! You don't want all those people to suffer whjjen we gut them one by one with this rusty butterknife, do you?"

                          I think they take the risks they do because they see no better option. If we cut that option off, they'll end up with an even worse option being the best they have remaining, and you know it.