Friends and countrymen (and women), I’m looking for 8 volunteers for a demonstration of border security.

Here’s what we’ll do. Find a high school football field and put up an 8-foot chicken wire fence on one sideline and both end zones.  Then we’ll turn loose 3000 chickens (White Leghorn pullets) on the grass field. We’ll add a dozen Rhode Island Reds and a dozen Bantams. All these chickens will be content, at least for a while, pecking and scratching the sod.

But one sideline, 100 yards long, is open. No fence to contain the fowl. How do we keep them from escaping? Well, that sideline will be patrolled by my 8 volunteers, plus Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. We’ll let the two Congressional leaders add some technology, maybe a couple of drones, to help corral the chickens. I’ll give each volunteer a small lasso, but be careful not to wring their necks. Let’s not upset PETA.

Our challenge is to keep chickens from crossing that boundary. Do you think 10 people can do it? Maybe. Those chicks will be happily eating bugs, ants and earthworms.

Oh, I forgot two little details. The two dozen Rhode Island Reds and Bantams are the most critical ones to keep from crossing. Under no circumstances are any of those 24 allowed to cross the sideline. Second, we’ll have 11 football players on the field trying to “drive” the chickens toward the open side.

Can you see that field? Chickens running about, wings flapping, and 11 athletes, arms flailing, trying to herd them across the sideline that’s protected by 10 people frantically twirling little lassos, guarding their ten yards of the boundary.

To be fair, we’ll only run this little experiment for 8 hours, a normal work shift. Do our volunteers have any chance of succeeding? Not a chance. Not a chance. Even if all 8 were professional soccer goalies, hundreds will cross the boundary. Even if they concentrated on stopping the two dozen “undesirables” they would surely miss a couple of them.

Now, change the scene. Add a fence on that sideline with a gate at one corner. The gate could easily be guarded by two ordinary people, even Schumer and Pelosi. One person could patrol the fence to capture any chicken that dug under or flew over it. That means chickens are prevented from crossing that border, and the other 7 folks can be reassigned to other locations where a fence is not feasible, or to airports and seaports where 40 percent of unwanted “chickens” are entering.

Whether this little experiment will change any Democrats minds about a border fence, I’ve got my doubts. In their definition of border security, there is no place for any kind of physical barrier.

Every farmer and rancher knows fences are not perfect and they don’t last forever. But ask one with a thousand cattle (or 3000 free range chickens) how many cowboys would be needed if there was no fence around the pasture.

This partial government shutdown is getting serious since it went on beyond the holidays. Employees missed their first paycheck on Friday, and many seem to be flat broke. I found a helpful article with suggestions on how much savings a person should have for emergencies such as this one. It was published by FEMA, and ironically, probably written by employees who are currently furloughed.

Historic quotes by Will Rogers:

“You may ask: Isn’t the Presidency higher than Senator? Well, no! The Senate can make a sucker out of any President, and generally does.” Republican Convention article, June 8, 1920

“Washington, D.C. papers say: ‘Congress is deadlocked and can’t act!’ I think that is the greatest blessing that could befall this country.” WA #59, January 27, 1924

“Say, did you read the latest census figures? Talk about putting a quota on immigration. Why, the Yankees are swarming into the South like locusts… They ought to be met at the Mason-Dixon Line and deloused.” DT #1201, June 1, 1930