Extended post incoming, I hope its received as a gesture of good faith discussion. I do look forward to replies of "melt," those questioning my manhood, "cool story baw" etc. I've seen enough of it over the years to not be fazed. Have at it. I'm a long time reader, first time poster, SEC-E team fan. I wanted to give something to the Trump supporters, something I've seen posited quite a few times. The question (amidst its variants):

Have liberals explained why they oppose The Wall?

Now - full disclosure - I have never described myself as a liberal before. I have never been registered as a Democrat (nor a Republican, more on that later). If you were to blindly line up my political stances on a piece of paper, you would likely conclude "classical liberal" or "libertarian." But, I believe, after years of reading this site ... that I would be classified as a liberal here. Perhaps a "Never Trumper," although I think I'm excluded by virtue of not being a Republican and as never having self-identified as one. As I've aged, I've grown to see increased, overt manipulation of the populace. I believe the wall is an especially egregious example of this. More on this matter / deep state later.

Here are my top 3 reasons for opposing The Wall.

1. It Is Unnecessary
What? Unnecessary? You don't support a secure border?!

I do. Very much so. A secure border is a critical piece of our national infrastructure. It cannot be ignored. But a wall is an extraordinarily bad solution to this problem in 2019; perhaps the laziest, most expensive and least future-proof approach one could conjure.

Illegal border crossings are not new, as we all know. In fact, they have been trending downward for years now. So why is this suddenly a "crisis?" The word crisis is in air quotes for a reason hinted at above. I don't subscribe to Q or the fantastical, cariacature version of Deep State that's taken hold. But power needs to sustain power. Politics is a lucractive business. Anytime I hear something like "we're more divided than ever" I say "prove it." Because I don't see it. Our differences in 2019 are actually incredibly small, and subject to strawman arguments for support. If pressed, both sides would support the vague "federal government should spend less." If pressed, both sides would support "we need a secure border." Etc. So it was with great curiosity that I watched this subject turn into a critical part of the campaign.

Here's my take: power needs to manufacture division. Because division does two things: 1) Brings in more money, 2) Allows power to continue to direct the populace. In this case, power told you that the wall was critically important because we have a "crisis." This is not supported by facts. Facts say illegal immigration is trending downward. Facts say that at our level of employment, illegal immigration is a reality of the workforce. Facts say we have more than enough time to stop, think logically, and do something smarter and more efficient about border control.

Walls are permeable. It doesn't matter how deep or how tall, people can get under, over and around. When people say "it worked for China," what they mean is it worked to stop *invading armies*. People crossed the Great Wall all the time.

Folks, we have military grade drones that routinely kill people autonomously or semi-autonomously. We have the greatest, deepest military on earth. You want to secure the border? We have those tools. We have the tools that would do this job so well your head would spin. A wall is slow, expensive and ultimately ineffective.

2. It Is Expensive
If not for #1, #2 would be irrelevant. If this were the best way to solve this problem, cost should not be an issue. But it's among the *worst* ways to solve the problem, which makes the cost even more apparent. I've seen $5B bandied about here lately and wonder who's directing this ... no proposal has come in under $20B. Now again, as someone who shares more with libertarians than either party, I believe that we should never describe federal funding as a "drop in the bucket." Nor should we say "we're already spending $xB on project Y, so ..." in an effort to whatabout the discussion. I believe that government spending should be limited and subject to constant audit and scrutiny.

Were I managing this project, I'd hit the brakes so fast. It's simplistic and myopic.

As for the price tag, I find it amazing that we've gone from "Mexico will pay for it" to "Mexico IS paying for it (through some unquantifiable metric)." Even if you believe that, that's not what Trump told us. It's not what he campaigned on. That said, you shouldn't believe that we're getting some "payment" via whatever convoluted metric is being thrown out now. Check the receipts. Ain't happening.

3. It Is A Tool of Manipulation
This goes back to power manifacturing division. This is a symbol, something that matters less in practice than as an icon of Trump v world. I see a lot of these things lately - snippets, slogans, icons that end up being meaningless in reality but serve to direct supporters. I don't necessarily believe that Russia did anything they don't do every election cycle. But I do believe that Trump surrounded himself with people who are very good at this, many of which have since been fired, quit or indicted. If you look at the people who Trump has hired and have the ability to still complain about "The Swamp," I don't know what to tell you. This stuff has been textbook. It tells liberals X is bad and Trump supporters that Y is good. No, I don't believe this was Russia's work, they just benefited from the legwork. We're all being played.

In short, a partisan populace is one that's easily controlled. We're seeing it in real-time. There's a reason why we're growing close to 50/50 in a bi-partisan system. That's how you exert maximum control. That's how the politicians tell people what to believe instead of the people telling the politicians what to do. Keep your eyes open. Your fellow American is not the enemy.

My prediction about the crowdsourced wall fund: it will likely top out around 50-60M dollars. An incredible figure, one that reflects how passionate Trump supporters are. But ... we all know what that amount of money means. Very little wall. And I worry that in facct someone is bilking those people in the end.

And on that note ... I think that history will be very unfavorable to Donald Trump. In the end, his support will dwindle as he continues to not deliver on his promises. We see it in spurts here and there now. When it's all said and done, the greatest bilk Trump will ever pull will be on conservatives. That will be his downfall. Not Russia, not liberal opposition, but his inability to do the meager things he told his supporters he would.

My hope is we start to wake up as Americans. Realize that we are being manipulated by people with power, told what to believe and who to vote for. We're all people, we're not as different as we're being told. Again, keep your eyes open. Be critical, be cynical.

With that I wish you all a Merry Christmas. I say that today as I have every year in my life, even through the years where we couldn't say it.

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