And here are yet more responses of mine to the comments on the WaPo's border fence article:

ehkzu wrote:

gkam excuses using inflammatory rhetoric because of the rants of the other side.

Well, partisans of both sides rant. We are, after all, 98% genetically identical to a chimp--and we prove it every day.

I do realize that it's almost overwhelmingly hard to stay calm when you're wiping spittle off your face. As a centrist I get it from both sides so I'm doubly aware of this problem. So to speak.

gkam asks what magical remedy I'd propose to solve our illegal immigration problem.

I'd start by admitting that not all problems have solutions of any sort, much less magical ones.

The perfect is the enemy of the good, right?

Let me also add a personal disclaimer: my ox isn't gored by illegal immigration, even though I live in its epicenter--California. I make my living in high tech, so I don't face job competition. I speak Spanish, have lived in Mexico, and am familiar with Mexican folkways, and love hot spicy Mexican food. So no xenophobic problems.

And I'm old, so I'll be dead before Calfornia becomes America's Quebec.

So I'm only arguing against illegal immigration out of the goodness of my heart.

Getting back to solutions...

We have to admit that every choice we make--including doing nothing and thus voting for the status quo--is going to hurt innocent people. The only choice is which innocent people get hurt, and how much.

I also admit that illegal immigrants shouldn't be the focus of our wrath, even though I do advocate getting them out of the country. The true focus of our wrath should be the greedy rich people of both America and Mexico who primarily profit from the status quo, along with the primitive religion whose Mexican members put a lot more in the collection plate and toe the Vatican line a lot more faithfully than most American Catholics do.

And even there I give the Catholic Church credit for good intentions--however hellish the results of those good intentions are.

But all that said, I propose that we have to gain control of our borders, stop illegals' working here, and get most of those living here to self deport, while offering Mexico and parts south help in reforming their economies--as long as our help actually helps.

I'd also revise the 14th amendment to exclude anchor babies, patrol our southern border with the National Guard deployed there to guard our nation, and institute a biometric national ID, with SSA/INS/ICE cross-checking. And declare English our national language and require prospective citizens to be able to understand ballot materials in English.

I realize these sound harsh. I just urge readers to consider the plight not of themselves of but American blue-collar workers. They're the ones getting shafted,
not us educated types. They're the ones whose schools are getting resource-drained trying to accommodate kids who don't even read/write Spanish well, much less English.

They're the ones who can't get seen in an ER due to Mexicans using it as their primary care facility.

They're the ones whose multicultural American neighborhoods in the Southwest are getting replaced by monocultural Mexican ones.

Not us. I realize it's hard to empathize with these people. I grew up in blue collar neighborhoods, and I was the smart kid they picked on constantly.

I had to overcome my own remembered hurts to advocate for the joe lunchbuckets of America. But it's the right thing to do.

And yes, a fence is needed. Big and elaborate near the cities, less out in the open, and in some areas maybe towers and UAVs will suffice--along with the aforementioned National Guard. But we have to do it if we want our country to remain our country.