# How we build the wall and get Mexico to pay for it **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 24, 2017, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-we-build-the-wall-and-get-mexico-to-pay-for-it/794582 "2017-08-24T19:10:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2017, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-we-build-the-wall-and-get-mexico-to-pay-for-it/794582/201 "2017-08-29T17:55:13Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Plus, no slavery! No, that’s my plan for dealing with Pence. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2017, 8:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-we-build-the-wall-and-get-mexico-to-pay-for-it/794582/202 "2017-08-30T08:59:14Z")
> [@Muffin](#): > > Alzarian, do you own a shovel? > > If you do, then the solution to your question is in your own hands. > > Go to your southern border, and start digging. Oh he’s been digging a hole since the OP and hasn’t stopped since. If he’d done this along the border we’d have a deep trench by now and wouldn’t need the wall. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2017, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-we-build-the-wall-and-get-mexico-to-pay-for-it/794582/203 "2017-08-30T10:43:03Z")
I’ve been thinking about “Melinda Mae,” a Shel Silverstein poem about a little girl who vows to eat a whale. Everyone says she can’t, but she starts right in at the tail. The last page of the poem shows a picture of her as a wizened old lady in front of a gargantuan whale skeleton, with the lines, > [@](#): > > …And in eighty-nine years she ate that whale > > Because she said she would! Like a lot of great literature, the poem lends itself to multiple interpretations. It’s silly and fun, of course. Deeper than that, however, is the lesson for kids that if you set your mind to it, you can do anything. But it’s a third interpretation that’s relevant here. **Keeping that promise ruined her fucking life.** By the third day or so of this project, she was eating rotting whale flesh. Her digestion was surely wrecked. Surely the stench meant her friends deserted her. The promise loomed so large over her life that she had no time to pursue other dreams. Now, this thread may be useful. It’s not proof positive, but it’s a decent indication that the best and most elegant way for Trump to fulfill his promise is to bring back widespread slavery and flagrant violations of human rights on a scale not seen in a democracy in over a century, and very likely initiating a second civil war. That’s the best-case outcome if the promise is kept, according to the OP. Melinda Mae, step away from the fucking whale. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2017, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-we-build-the-wall-and-get-mexico-to-pay-for-it/794582/204 "2017-08-30T11:45:09Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > I’ve been thinking about “Melinda Mae,” a Shel Silverstein poem about a little girl who vows to eat a whale. Everyone says she can’t, but she starts right in at the tail. The last page of the poem shows a picture of her as a wizened old lady in front of a gargantuan whale skeleton, with the lines, > > Like a lot of great literature, the poem lends itself to multiple interpretations. It’s silly and fun, of course. Deeper than that, however, is the lesson for kids that if you set your mind to it, you can do anything. > > But it’s a third interpretation that’s relevant here. **Keeping that promise ruined her fucking life.** By the third day or so of this project, she was eating rotting whale flesh. Her digestion was surely wrecked. Surely the stench meant her friends deserted her. The promise loomed so large over her life that she had no time to pursue other dreams. **LHoD** , I’m sorry to do this to you, but this is the Straight Dope, and… [_deep breath_] …actually, a whale carcass about the size of that depicted in the illustration would probably be under 3000 pounds total. If we assume conservatively that as much as 2500 pounds of the carcass was edible, and estimate that Melinda Mae was consuming a very manageable one-quarter pound or four ounces of whale meat per day (presupposing some magical children’s-poem mechanism that preserves the edible parts indefinitely, etc.), then we easily determine that even allowing for occasional holidays and sick days the carcase will have been consumed in well under thirty years. If she took a full eighty years or so to finish the job, she was probably just having a small stick or so of whale jerky every other day. Really nowhere near such an all-absorbing or life-ruining commitment as you suggest. Hell, the notorious late [Monsieur Mangetout](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Lotito), beloved of these boards, took only two years to eat a freaking **Cessna 150 airplane**. Just sayin’. Okay, I’m going away now. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2017, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-we-build-the-wall-and-get-mexico-to-pay-for-it/794582/205 "2017-08-30T12:38:23Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > (presupposing some magical children’s-poem mechanism that preserves the edible parts indefinitely, etc.) Oh, hell no. If we’re presupposing that, we can presuppose that Mexico wants to build the wall. Let’s be realistic here! ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2017, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-we-build-the-wall-and-get-mexico-to-pay-for-it/794582/206 "2017-08-30T13:48:42Z")
There are not enough whales to build a wall, Alzarian. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2017, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-we-build-the-wall-and-get-mexico-to-pay-for-it/794582/207 "2017-08-30T15:35:41Z")
> [@Muffin](#): > > There are not enough whales to build a wall, Alzarian. Surely that would depend on how high we stack them? ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2017, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-we-build-the-wall-and-get-mexico-to-pay-for-it/794582/208 "2017-08-30T16:29:26Z")
The problem is that as quick as you pile them up, they either [eviscerate](https://youtu.be/7X0hq0ug9q4?t=12s) or are [blown up](https://youtu.be/xBgThvB_IDQ?t=1m65s) by right-wing terrorists, so it is not just a matter finding enough whale volunteers to make a wall, but to then constantly have to find replacements. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2017, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-we-build-the-wall-and-get-mexico-to-pay-for-it/794582/209 "2017-08-30T16:33:41Z")
Save the whales! ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2017, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-we-build-the-wall-and-get-mexico-to-pay-for-it/794582/210 "2017-08-30T17:03:48Z")
Yup. That is why Canada has put in tighter speed limits for freighters in our Gulf of St. Lawrence. The single greatest harm that the proposed wall would cause would be to permanently bisect ecosystems. Tragically, Trump, his cronies and his supporters only think of themselves. They don’t recognize human caused climate change, they actively remove flood limiting land use regulations (e.g. Houston), and they don’t give a second’s thought to how their decisions will harm life on earth, including ourselves either directly or indirectly. [So yes, save the whales.](https://youtu.be/h02a2HSB58M) ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2017, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-we-build-the-wall-and-get-mexico-to-pay-for-it/794582/211 "2017-08-30T17:17:39Z")
So if I’m following the argument correctly, we’re going to build a wall along our border and make Wales pay for it. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2017, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-we-build-the-wall-and-get-mexico-to-pay-for-it/794582/212 "2017-08-30T17:21:56Z")
LOL! ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2017, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-we-build-the-wall-and-get-mexico-to-pay-for-it/794582/213 "2017-08-30T17:22:07Z")
> [@Muffin](#): > > Tragically, Trump, his cronies and his supporters only think of themselves. They don’t recognize human caused climate change, they actively remove flood limiting land use regulations (e.g. Houston), and they don’t give a second’s thought to how their decisions will harm life on earth, including ourselves either directly or indirectly. Trump has also issued an Executive Order opening up National Monuments to development. [http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/330976-what-to-know-about-trumps-national-monuments-executive-order](http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/330976-what-to-know-about-trumps-national-monuments-executive-order) ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2017, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-we-build-the-wall-and-get-mexico-to-pay-for-it/794582/214 "2017-08-30T17:22:15Z")
> [@Muffin](#): > > Yup. That is why Canada has put in tighter speed limits for freighters in our Gulf of St. Lawrence. > > The single greatest harm that the proposed wall would cause would be to permanently bisect ecosystems. > > Tragically, Trump, his cronies and his supporters only think of themselves. They don’t recognize human caused climate change, **they actively remove flood limiting land use regulations (e.g. Houston)**, and they don’t give a second’s thought to how their decisions will harm life on earth, including ourselves either directly or indirectly. > > [So yes, save the whales.](https://youtu.be/h02a2HSB58M) Actually, Houston set the table for this [many years ago.](https://qz.com/1064364/hurricane-harvey-houstons-flooding-made-worse-by-unchecked-urban-development-and-wetland-destruction/) > [@](#): > > Even after it became a widely accepted scientific fact that wetlands can soak up large amounts of flood water, the city continued to pave over them. The watershed of the White Oak Bayou river, which includes much of northwest Houston, is a case in point. From 1992 to 2010, this area lost more than 70% of its wetlands, according to research by Texas A&M University. > > The Harvey-wrought devastation is just the latest example of the consequences of Houston’s gung-ho approach to development. The city, the largest in the US with no zoning laws, is a case study in limiting government regulations and favoring growth—often at the expense of the environment. As water swamps many of its neighborhoods, it’s now also a cautionary tale of sidelining science and plain common sense. Given the Trump administration’s assault on environmental protections, it’s one that Americans elsewhere should pay attention to. > > **A distaste for regulation** > And that’s before Trump came into office and started removing layers of regulation. Just 10 days before Harvey struck, the president signed an executive order that rescinded federal flood protection standards put in place by his predecessor, Barack Obama. FEMA and the US Housing and Urban Development Department, the two federal agencies that will handle most of the huge pile of cash expected for the rebuilding of Houston, would have been forced to require any rebuilding to confirm to new, safer codes. Now, they won’t. > > Not that Houston has ever been a stickler for federal rules. To get a permit under the Clean Water Act, developers who build in protected wetland areas must submit paperwork showing they’ve completed mitigation measures. In 2015, Texas A&M and non-profit research group HARC analyzed a sample of permits issued from 1990 to 2012 in the greater Houston area. They found that in fewer than half of the cases had the developers submitted complete paperwork, and in two thirds of the cases, there was no documentation that any type of mitigation had happened. Another study (pdf) by the same two groups looked at a dozen projects that had obtained permits, and found that only two of them had successfully offset wetland destruction, seven were partially successful, and three were complete failures. ---
**Author:** ![Fiddle\_Peghead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddle_peghead/32/3506_2.png) [@Fiddle\_Peghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiddle_Peghead)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2017, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-we-build-the-wall-and-get-mexico-to-pay-for-it/794582/215 "2017-08-31T03:23:35Z")
> [@Alzarian](#): > > The solution to the ongoing struggle to not only build a wall along our Southern border, but to also get Mexico to pay for it seems to be very elusive… but a possible solution has come to me, and it seems elegant in that it will also help to address the problem of illegal immigration. > > Quite simply, as illegal immigrants are taken into custody - rather than just returning them across the border, why don’t we put them to work… on building the wall! In a sense, we’d be getting Mexicans to ‘pay’ for the wall through their labor. > > In this way, by utilizing their service, they pay back the United States as atonement for violating immigration laws. They could even be granted US citizenship upon completion of the wall. This uses both the ‘stick’ of punishing the lawless action and the ‘carrot’ of rewarding them with legal citizenship by working in an honest way to build this project. > > So, yes, Mexico would pay for the wall. > > Problem solved, no? And not only that, as they die from the heat during their labor, we can feed their dead carcasses to the remaining workers, thereby saving on food AND funeral costs at the same time. Brilliant idea, no? ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2017, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-we-build-the-wall-and-get-mexico-to-pay-for-it/794582/216 "2017-08-31T23:00:48Z")
Well, it looks like the OP might have given Trump some ideas: [GOP eyeing nearly $1 billion cut to Harvey disaster funds to help finance Trump’s border wall](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/30/gop-eyeing-1-billion-disaster-funds-cut-to-help-wall.html) Granted, this would be coming from OUR end, but it’s not that far away. And it would cut the cost down by half! Isn’t that grand? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2017, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-we-build-the-wall-and-get-mexico-to-pay-for-it/794582/217 "2017-09-01T01:18:27Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > And it would cut the cost down by half! Isn’t that grand? Way, way more than a grand. ---
**Author:** ![Go\_Arachnid\_Laser\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b2d939/32.png) [@Go\_Arachnid\_Laser\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Go_Arachnid_Laser_1)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2017, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-we-build-the-wall-and-get-mexico-to-pay-for-it/794582/218 "2017-09-01T03:36:12Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Well, it looks like the OP might have given Trump some ideas: [GOP eyeing nearly $1 billion cut to Harvey disaster funds to help finance Trump’s border wall](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/30/gop-eyeing-1-billion-disaster-funds-cut-to-help-wall.html) > > Granted, this would be coming from OUR end, but it’s not that far away. And it would cut the cost down by half! Isn’t that grand? Well, I mean, Texas used to be part of Mexico- it kinda counts. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2017, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-we-build-the-wall-and-get-mexico-to-pay-for-it/794582/219 "2017-09-01T04:21:42Z")
The wall is an incredibly stupid idea, but assuming that stupid people want to build it, it won’t be built with a whole lot of manual labor - it will be built with heavy construction equipment - backhoes, cranes, bulldozers, skid steers, dump trucks, cement mixers, etc. Having a bunch of un- and semi-skilled Mexicans pressed into service isn’t going to get you very far. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2017, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-we-build-the-wall-and-get-mexico-to-pay-for-it/794582/220 "2017-09-01T13:30:25Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Well, it looks like the OP might have given Trump some ideas: [GOP eyeing nearly $1 billion cut to Harvey disaster funds to help finance Trump’s border wall](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/30/gop-eyeing-1-billion-disaster-funds-cut-to-help-wall.html) > > Granted, this would be coming from OUR end, but it’s not that far away. And it would cut the cost down by half! Isn’t that grand? From the link - > [@](#): > > •The $876 million cut would cover roughly half the cost of Trump’s down payment on a U.S.-Mexico border wall Yep, one billion would be a drop in the bucket. WTF is the ‘down payment’? They, once again are just trying to fool Trump supporters into thinking it’s easy/not a lot of money. The only thing that is easy, is fooling Trump supporters. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-we-build-the-wall-and-get-mexico-to-pay-for-it/794582.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-we-build-the-wall-and-get-mexico-to-pay-for-it/794582.md?page=12)