Hi again aiki,
Just to give some examples:
In your own nation there are what are referred to as 'hot potato' issues. One of them is actually immigration. From the Chronicle Herald we read:
So if somebody actually was calling out for an anti-immigration hero — which they aren’t, but if they were — Bernier would be their white knight. He’ll say what the big-C Conservatives won’t: there are too many foreigners coming across the border and it’s time to stop them.
Apparently there is a bit of a battle going on in Canada where there are conservatives who don't want immigration but aren't willing to say so. But a small band of folks who follow Maxime Bernier, who also probably have lots of friends, want something done about it. It obviously hasn't gotten to be as hot an issue as it is here in the U.S., but it may. There are folks on both sides of the issue and those on both sides tend to have 'friends' who support their position.
Here's actually an article in a Canadian resource that is offering up points on how best politicians might handle polarizing 'hot potato' issues:
http://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/october-2017/handling-public-policy-hot-potatoes/
So, understand that in Canada there are the same political problems with everyone not being in agreement on how to handle important issues and, trust me or not, those on each side have 'friends' who agree with them. But 'friends' that agree with someone doesn't a majority make. Nor does 'friends' that agree with someone necessarily make a particular position right or the 'more better' way to handle things. As I stated in my previous post, I'm absolutely certain that if you walk into a KKK meeting and ask who all is in agreement with raping and murdering black people and those of other races to rid the earth of their scourge, that you'll have hands flying up all over the room and you'll hear shouts that that's what they'd want to do and all their 'friends' also. Is that then what we should do because they and their friends want to do that?
Let's look at Great Britain. A big issue over there that has caused a great furor is Brexit. Whether or not Great Britain should create some sort of economic divide between its citizens and governance from the larger group of the EU? There are people on both sides of the issue and, trust me or not, they all have 'friends' that agree with them.
For me, I'm more interested in trying to find out the 'facts' concerning what makes one position better than the other. Not how many 'friends' are in agreement with someone's position. For me, the first fact that attracts my attention is that the construction of this wall, which did begin as some huge concrete blunderbuss of a wall, will cost billions upon billions of dollars. Next is the fact that such a wall will definitely have some consequences regarding the natural ecosystem. That it will have a deleterious effect on many of the animals that call that area home. The fact that if we later decide that it wasn't such a good idea, tearing it back out will be much more expensive than just removing some sort of fencing. Next is the fact that seems to be borne out by those who study such things that quite a lot of our illegal immigration problem is not from people just running across the vast empty stretch of land that comprises most of that border. As we see with the caravan, we don't have thousands upon thousands of people just running across our border. We have thousands upon thousands of people waiting to be processed through a legal checkpoint. No wall is going to stop that. Changes in how we legally accept and allow people to come into our country would be the way to stop that. Such changes as that can be handled with the swipe of a pen, IF, the body of people that make our laws determines that it really is a yuge problem.
Here's a real live video of the San Ysidro border checkpoint. It is the busiest checkpoint in the world and, as the report alleges, immigrants here are allowed into the country without running through tall weeds or grass out in the desert. Illegal narcotics come through practically by the train car load. Amazingly, as the report points out, all of these checkpoints are surrounded by nearly impenetrable barriers. For me, that's a fact that has a lot of bearing on whether or not this yuge expensive concrete wall is really going to be particularly effective at what President Trump is promising us it will do.
I also believe that if we really want to stop border jumping by walking across the border in some remote area, that we can affect that kind of change through technology that is much less intrusive and expensive and get pretty much the same bang for our buck. Drone technology and motion sensor technology with human interdiction called for on demand as these technologies pinpoint people actually crossing the border, I believe, would be much more effective. I am sorry to say that I really haven't polled any of my friends to see if they agree with me, so I'm not sure that I can attest that I have friends that agree with me. However, I believe these are facts that need to be considered in our glee to create yuge barriers that may not be the most effective way to deal with the problem.
God bless,
In Christ, ted
