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this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2023
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You know what the Rio Grande is made of?
Mostly razor wire?
It's a dry river. But this is just a normal fence that cattlemen all over the state use to keep people out/off their ranches.
Really? I live in Texas and have never once seen a booby trapped cow farm.
Right, because a booby trap is illegal so you won't see that anywhere, but barb-wire like this, is 100% legal and used all over the state.
"Booby trap" is a description of its concealedness. These are concealed, on purpose. That's the issue.
Moreover, they're not barbed wire, they're razor wire. There's a massive difference between barbed wire and razor wire.
There is no legal distinction. Anywhere you are allowed to use barbwire you are allowed to use Razorwire (TM) and both are used all over the world as passive barriers and no where are barbwire or "razorwire" considered a "booby trap."
Using legality as a gauge for morality is not always the best thing to do, especially when these are law enforcement agencies operating entirely within the law.
So you're being wilfully obtuse. Nowhere was anyone implying the use of barbed wire is what makes it a booby trap. Every single time it was mentioned, it was clear: it is a booby trap because it is a purposefully hidden device meant to cause harm to those who stumble upon it by accident.
It also does matter the distinction between razor wire and barbed wire. Barbed wire you can hold in your hand. You can grip it, move your hand along it, and indeed are unlikely to be very harmed by encountering it; it is designed as an unpleasant deterrant, not a dangerous one. Razorwire, on the other hand, is designed to cause harm: every part of it is dangerous, and an encounter with it would result in deep lacerations.
But again, it could be barbed wire and my point would stand: the concealment of it is what makes it a booby trap, and what makes it a problem.
If you want to talk about morality, then you don't need to even mention legal terms like booby-trap. They are irrelevant. I like Jezebel and I am a militant leftist. I am also for unrestricted immigration while still making crossing at non-official border points illegal. But non of these things matter in my initial argument.
If you think borders/countries should exist, like everyone except for born-too-soon anarchists, then there is no problem here. Jezebel aren't anarchists though. If pressed they will say the disagree with the current US policy on immigration. Not that they all borders should be open at every geographic point of entry.
So they are bringing in legal terms like "booby-trap" to try to muddy the waters instead of saying what their criticism is. Their criticism is that current border-patrol policy's are too harsh (I agree), but securing a border can't be a clean thing. Either a border exists as a State enforced entity or it doesn't. If they want to say that the US should open it's borders, I'm on board, that doesn't mean free crossing into the US at every geographic spot. So in order to discourage crossing at non-official crossings, the only answer is passive barriers. If you are against passive barriers then you have to make that clear in the text, but Jezebel didn't do that.
Completely visible barriers would do the trick.
You've somehow, again, managed to miss the point: the purpose was not just deterrence, the purpose was to hide them and cause unexpected harm. I'm not using booby trap to evoke any legality relating to the word; I'm using the word to evoke the horrendously inhumane use of hidden weapons meant to cause harm to those who accidentally stumble upon them.
You're defending a horrific practice in the guise of it being a necessary evil, when in all actuality, it's just one horrific out of many not-horrific implementations of something that you're overtly in favor of.
Ah, already to the "intent" argument. The intent is 100% to stop migrants. That is the intent of literally every single border. If you are jumping into that trap and saying that the problem here is the specific method used to stop migrants, you are playing their game and are basically just a liberal.
No.
The intent is to maim a human being.
What you are talking about is just a bonus...
Don't be a coward. The intent is to cause harm, otherwise it wouldn't be hidden. Build up the courage to admit that at least, rather than just saying "you're a liberal..." So weak, dude.
Except the Rio Grande, I suppose.