A border fence is useless

Wow! You are one technical person! So be it. I can respect that. Now, the problem with debate over a few days, as this is, is that you read what you have written, and you just think that it was incredibly stupid to say what you said. I'll be the first to admit that I mess up frequently on many things. The focus of this argument would have been much better served if it was, "There are alternatives to a border fence which would be much more cost effective as well as effective in general." I messed up. I'm human, my brain is full of kluges that make me say and do stupid things like that ("Kluge" by Gary Marcus). Luckily, you seem to be a very intelligent person, so you refuted my "unstable" points quite well. I will refute your arguments in chronological order. 1) Yes, it is suspicious when ladders are lying around in the middle of the desert. I won't argue that. My idea of 5, 10 foot ladders was not a good one. My brain was experiencing a kluge. More precisely a kluge about a kluge (Kluge: a system and especially a computer system made up of poorly matched components. I thought it might be a good idea to define one of my more frequently used words. The brain kluge references come from one of my favorite books). The main idea about the 51 foot ladder was never really meant to be literal, per se, although it could have been interpreted as such, and be both seemed to take that route. The point I was trying to make by that was that people will find a way over. But to get back to the ladders, even if they did find the ladder, the border state with the smallest population still has almost 2 million people, and that state (New Mexico) also has the least land directly contacting Mexico. It would be very hard to find the person, even if there were good forensic investigators, as the perpetrator doesn't legally "exist" within the United States. Maybe fences do cost less than fixing Mexico. Once again, I won't argue that. However, you can't look at cost, you have to look at cost per person averted. If you don't like that, than you can consider this: We are fixing Iraq because it is a mess, mostly due to us. We should be fixing Mexico, because it is a mess, and it is directly affecting us. We need to take initiative. The equivalent to a "border fence" with Iraq is shutting all communication with them and leaving them for dead. Now, I understand that Mexico has slightly different circumstances, as we didn't create the mess in Iraq, but the idea is that we're shutting out the mess that is inconvenient to us in Mexico, but we couldn't leave Iraq without fixing it. 2) I'm sorry that you weren't a fan of my focus statement, but I clearly said that I would cover that in my opening statement, so I still believe that I have the advantage on that one. 3) I didn't ever mean that people were standing in line for 14 years. That is ludicrous. What I meant figuratively was that they could allow twice as many people in at once. We pride our nation (no comment on my city) for being the most diverse nation on earth. It wasn't so diverse before the late 19th century to the early 20th. Granted, it is easier to immigrate now, but the point is, we are not an exclusive country. It is unacceptable that it should take 14 years just to move here. Absolutely unacceptable. I would like to thank you for a very exciting and challenging debate, and I would just like to end by saying that you make strong points, but you spent too much time on the logistics instead of the topic at hand. It could help you or hurt you, only time will tell. I am excited to see what will come out of your final argument, and may the best man win.