Sunny Buns wrote:Sorry to hear about the crime in Albuquerque. I guess it's politically incorrect to solve some problems - maybe new national leadership will help. I've heard similar horror stories about southern Arizona. It is a shame that our inept, immoral, criminal politicians have allowed it to happen and refuse to do ANYTHING about it - then the states try to solve the problem and the Feds sue them!! You can't make this stuff up!!
Have you actually come to southern Arizona and spent time at or near the border, or have you just "heard"?
I'm sure there are parts of Eugene that you wouldn't go to any time of the day. Same with the border. Stay away from Nogales and Sasabe, and San Luis (south of Yuma). Sections in Cochise County aren't so great. But the rest is fine. You can drive, hike, camp, sing and dance all you like. I've spent much time in the various areas with not an ounce of trouble. The Goldwater Range, Organ Pipe Monument, the Patagonias, the Mules, the Sierritas, the Huachucas in AZ, and the Sierra Juarez in SoCal. You do your homework in advance and you know where to go and where not to go. I know full well what might happen, but I use the same level of awareness when I need (occasionally) to go to downtown Phoenix.
Do people have any idea how big the border really is, and the cost to fence it? That it is not all flat, but cut by mountains (thus, creating difficulty for any such fence)? Do people know that the flow of people grew in Sothern AZ only after the flow was staunched in SoCal? That there is a Mexican National highway (Rte 2) that runs almost 200 miles right along the US-MEX border between Organ Pipe and San Luis? How about the fact that the Tohono O'odham Nation, which spans about 80 miles of the border, is patrolled by the BIA, not by AZ state patrol or the county? Have you ever heard of the Tohono O'odham Nation?
I know of people here in Phoenix who won't go near the border, not even within 30 miles of it, thinking they're going to be shot at or car-jacked.
Their perception has gone completely awry. This is a classic case of letting fear, myth and stupidity run away like a train without brakes.
Any politician who says they have a solution is full of crap. We grow pretty tired of listening to people from the northwest, northeast, north-wherever saying they have it all figured out. Our own band of buffoons can't think of anything better than SB-1070, or one great idea which would give state (public) money to arm private militia groups with no oversight as to how they train or skill level. In other words, business as usual. Thus, when things cool down, I'll head back to the border for some hikes still on my to-do list. Pinta is a definite, so is Baboquivari and Huachuca Peak. Statistically, I have a better chance of meeting grief spending a night hanging around 16th Street and Broadway here in Phoenix.
Please people, quit "hearing" things. Get off your behinds and do your own research.