If the new security fencing is locked from our side, I might be on board. But I don't think that's the intention here.

As acting Chief Yogananda Pittman puts it:

"In light of recent events, I can unequivocally say that vast improvements to the physical security infrastructure must be made to include permanent fencing, and the availability of ready, back-up forces in close proximity to the Capitol."

Of course you do.

The Capitol Police have been agitating for perimeter fencing for some time. They are charged with protecting the Capitol, so they are always going to want whatever it takes to accomplish that narrow mission.

That's why you don't put "experts" in charge. If the Capitol Police were the ones with final decision-making authority, they'd have fences, moats, guard towers, and roving slaughterbots.

It's the same reason why we really shouldn't just do whatever the epidemiologists say regarding Covid without balancing it against other factors. Remember this from Fauci last spring?

I don't think we should ever shake hands again to be honest with you.

When all you think about for 40 years is epidemiology, you're going to think that's something a normal person would say.

Need to seek out treatment for neck pain? The surgeon is going to want to cut you open, the chiropractor is going to want to align your spine, the urgent care GP is going to want to give you pain killers, and the conspiracy theorist is going to tell you that the nanobots from your Covid vaccine are networking with the CIA radio transmitters implanted in your dental work and you need to stick a fork in an electrical outlet and please make those voices in my head stop!...

That is why you don't let experts make decisions. Policymakers make policy. They weigh competing interests.

Would the Capitol be more secure with permanent perimeter fencing? Sure. It would also be safer in an underground bunker complex buried in a Colorado mountainside. But that hardly serves the country's interests.

That's our building, those are our representatives, and while I don't want to see a repeat of what happened January 6, other more creative accommodations should be made for security.

If we fence off the Capitol, make permanent the armed encampment it has turned into, we might actually be making another January 6 more likely, not less.