Actually the use of moats as a security feature has gained a lot of support in the last few years. It is the only barrier that is effective against jihadists who try and ram and explosive laden vehicle into an area, sometimes in pairs so that the first one takes out the barrier or security and the second one breaches the area. Moats eliminate that need but then you have to have a drawbridge. A dragon also helps but they are in short supply ever since Christain Bale killed the last male one.

LM, as I understand it, the majority of illegal immigrants cross into the US on foot. Even a simple rowboat is pretty heavy. How far is one Mexican, or even a group of Mexicans, going to carry a boat?
Ok, Coyotes could bring their own boats and charge people to cross. But even if we did nothing more enforcement wise, that would still limit the inflow somewhat, because not everyone would be able or willing to pay the Coyotes' fees. Why do you think so many cross on foot now?
Not to mention the simple fact that if you make it harder to cross there, they will go to where it's easier to cross. They've had a lot of crime in that area, and at the bare minimum they'd be influencing a certain number of criminals to seek an easier place to cross.
But we could do something enforcement wise, such as have a helicopter flying up and down the moat. How many Coyotes are going to be willing to pay all that money for a boat only to risk having it drilled with holes? Again, people will simply look for an easier place to cross.

LM, I agree with you regarding the competence of government agencies. Witness the complete failure that is the virtual fence they put up. It was mismanaged from the get go. I'm just saying that the concept itself has promise. Personally I wouldn't trust a government committee to figure out how to put a round peg in a round hole.

Here's an idea: have a double fence, 8' high, with razorwire at the top, and machine guns placed every 100 yards. Come on, we're at war with islamic terrorists, and they cross our southern border with ease. Have a human approve the firing of the machine gun if you want. Or heck, we have sound guns that force people to flee the area. Noone would get hurt, and noone would cross. What's so hard to figure out?

How are you figuring your cost estimates? For instance, given the yardage you give for the border, and, to make up a number, assuming $1,000 per yard of fence, I still only come up with $3,465,440,000 for fence costs. And assuming a ludicrously high $50,000 per machine gun and automation equipment, that would only be $1,732,700,000 for the machine guns. That still only comes to $5,198,140,000. That's still a huge sum, but nowhere near hundreds of billions.
Granted, my numbers are just guesses. But I tried to guess way on the high side.
Now, fences and automated machine gun nests are not my specialty, so it's entirely possible that I'm missing something crucial here.

Automation?  cool!  $50k/gun is waaaay too low.

I completely pulled the numbers out of the air, and I'm no expert either, but I figure they're not to unrealistic, here's a partial list of things that would go into such a plan:

Emminent domain proceedings and costs of private land, along with all the suing and getting sued that goes along with it.

Everything you must do before setting shovel to dirt, like environmental impact statements (including lawsuits), planning and rezoning (including lawsuits), etc.

Construction of the infrastructure you'd need to support the gun emplacements (service roads, construction roads, living accomodations for the construction crews)

Labor costs (again, including all the union suing and getting sued)

After all that is done, you can finally start building the fence and gun emplacements.  I thought you were thinking manned crews.  I'm no expert either, but I work in a high-tech industry, and I can be pretty sure that $50K/gun is maybe one tenth of what a fully automated system would cost.

Then we factor in spare parts, patrols, maintenance, and repairing damage done when the bad guys fight back.  The cartels have all sorts of ways to strike back against this millitarily. And you can be quite sure that they would, since this would represent a direct attack on their way of life.

LM

-- Edited by LoudmouthMormon at 10:19, 2008-03-15