Hatrack River Forum: Some things never change...

This is topic Some things never change... in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.

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Posted by johnsonweed (Member # 8114) on :

Pakistan wants a to build a protective wall.
link

Chinese Emporers, Hadrian, Russians, Israel, California...Is a wall really the best solution? [Dont Know]

Posted by Raia (Member # 4700) on :

*sigh*

Posted by Tigger (Member # 8171) on :

No - but it sure makes for a lasting monument.

Of course, Frost did expound on the virtues of fences between neighbors, so perhaps these walls can be looked at as extended fences?

Edit to add: [Roll Eyes]

[ September 14, 2005, 12:14 AM: Message edited by: Tigger ]

Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :

What's the problem? Every country in the world protects its borders from smugglers and the like.

Posted by Tigger (Member # 8171) on :

Yeah - but the civilized, democratic ones do it with guns and border guards, silly - not monumental walls. [Razz]

Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :

Tigger, you've clearly never studied Frost in a literature class...

AJ

Posted by Tigger (Member # 8171) on :

Oh, I dunno, AJ - does Honors English in the 80's count?

I neglected to insert the "sarcastic" and eyes rolling smilie, since I thought it rather obvious. I'll go and put that in, shall I?

Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :

that would have helped....considering we get some young things in here that say stuff like that quite seriously.
[Wink]

Posted by Tigger (Member # 8171) on :

I just wish I were that young again.

*mock shudder*

What am I saying? High school was awful and junior high was worse.

Of course, I did have a classmate in high school that wrote his paper on the merits of fences, and that Frost was a blithering idiot for suggesting otherwise.

He also wrote awful stories of mayhem and general mass destruction, including short stories on torturing the teacher which she rewarded with A's . . . ah no - I would not like to revisit those years.

I'll pay more attention to appropriate smilie use, AJ, from here on out. *grin*

Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :

quote:

Yeah - but the civilized, democratic ones do it with guns and border guards, silly - not monumental walls. [Razz]

Well, the article says it's a barbed wire fence, which is pretty much what we have on our border with Mexico and Canada. I grant you that the article doesn't say that there will be armed patrols, etc., but I'm assuming that there will be since spending the time and money to put up a barbed wire fence without any other kind of measures would be pretty stupid.

I'm also guessing that Pakistan's interest in this is not just academic, since they have their own terrorists that slip into the country, blow things up, assassinate people and what not, then slip back across the border into the wilds of Afghanistan. This also doesn't count the drug smugglers that I'm guessing are not well loved by many sectors of Islamic Pakistan.

But you could be right. Maybe they're just going to build a fence and walk away.

Posted by Tante Shvester (Member # 8202) on :

You know who is behind all this wall building, don't you?

The wallpaper lobby.

It's a conspiracy, I tell you.

Posted by KarlEd (Member # 571) on :

Well, they could take the N. Korea/S. Korea route and install a 2K wide zone filled with land mines with huge barb-wire-topped fences on either side.

Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :

Or, they could work with their neighbors.

Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to derail the thread.

[Wall Bash]

Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :

A few years back I read that the DMZ between the two Koreas had become an incredibly rich strip of land, from a biological perspective. Sewing the ground with landmines has, oddly enough, created a very effective nature preserve. Some larger animals are killed by the mines, but not as many as would be killed by hunters and loss of habitat.

Wish I had the article to link to, but I think it was in a paper publication, and I'm feeling too lazy to google for something similar.

Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :

Save the planet--mine the world.

Posted by Corwin (Member # 5705) on :

Actually destroing all human life might just save the planet... Not that I advertize this... o_O

Posted by Small Green Martian (Member # 8597) on :

Actually destroing all human life might just save the planet...

Save it how? Save all life? Humans are very very unlikely to wipe out all life on the planet, it's practically impossible, even if we tried our hardest.
Save certain species of large animals/plants? Nope, they're most likely going to perish some time anyway, that's how nature works.

So by save, you really mean extend the living-period of certain species by a certain amount of time. Which isn't really worth Sapien-cide if you ask me.

AW