Back in the Cold War(1) days , a friend of mine in the Navy related a story to me about one of those “this never happened” encounters between American vessels and Soviet ones. The “enemy” vessel was being annoying at the American one, knowing that no one would actually shoot, right? So the skipper of the American ship cranked up the PA to max (which on one of those ships is rather loud… dig?) and started playing Neil Diamond’s They’re Coming to America.
I think we can conclude who “won” that encounter, yes?
But that was a different time. Now we are building a wall across the border with one of our only two direct neighbors.(2)
Statue of Liberty, Land of the Free, Wall across the border. One of these things is not like the other; one of these things doesn’t belong…
The wall reminds me of that old (1992, not that old) movie with Christopher Lambert, Fortress where people trying to smuggle themselves out of the USA (which, in the movie, had become a totalitarian fascist state) get caught and sent to prison, blah blah blah [fairly predictable but had a cool ending]. Every time I think of that Wall, I think of that movie, well… a couple scenes from it.
I put forward that we can not do both: build a wall across our border to keep people out and maintain the Statue of Liberty.
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Just doesn’t go with a wall along a border, does it? One or the other has to go.
If your argument is “well, they can come in the front door, can’t they?” then you haven’t looked at the condition of the “front door” recently. Even folks this country “needs” [politically loaded phrase, just roll with it] are being turned away. Students coming here to do post-grad research, for instance, are being denied entry.
It’s like trying to adopt a child… ask your self why so many couples now go to China and “buy” (that is, pay a large fee for adoption of) a child to bring home. It’s nearly (not quite) impossible to adopt locally any more. Likewise, nearly impossible to gain legal entry. It’s tough. That creates alternate solutions, such as when Prohibition in America created more alcoholics than had even been known in this land before then — a situation still causing grave problems, 80 and a 100 years later.
Most people who come to America are willing to work, certainly at least as hard as our own children are these days (more so, truthfully), so really: what’s the problem? Take away what ever emotion is all wrapped up in that subject, take away the prejudgments, and just look at the people:
Far
We’ve been traveling far
Without a home
But not without a star
Free
Only want to be free
We huddle close
Hang on to a dream
On the boats and on the planes
They’re coming to America
Never looking back again
They’re coming to America
Home, don’t it seem so far away
Oh, we’re traveling light today
In the eye of the storm
In the eye of the storm
Home, to a new and a shiny place
Make our bed, and we’ll say our grace
Freedom’s light burning warm
Freedom’s light burning warm
Everywhere around the world
They’re coming to America
Every time that flag’s unfurled
They’re coming to America
Got a dream to take them there
They’re coming to America
Got a dream they’ve…
— “America”, by Neil Diamond
But that’s me, and acting with my own peculiar, limited data set. Perhaps you have other data? Form your own opinion, but make sure it’s an opinion of your own! Not what So-and-So on Such-and-Such on TV said, or (more likely) bombasted in your direction. Or not because it was bombasted in your direction. 🙂 Let it be your own opinion because your own conclusions and your own heart lead you there. Or because they don’t.
Freedom’s light burning warm
Just my thoughts…
(1) Cold War: You know, Us vs Them? The Enemy? Never mentioned explicitly by name on TV of the 50’s and 60’s, always just “them” or “the enemy” but that was the USSR, which technically doesn’t exist today… though it actually does and commands more power, perhaps, than ever before. But that’s another discussion…
(2) A very silly wall, if you want to get picky about it. Any wall can be gone over, or (easier yet) under, or (very simple) around. Take a boat out and land on some of those nearly unpopulated stretches of either shore. With recent cut-backs in the Coast Guard that’ll be as easy as anything else. Might work, might fail; but it’s the new option “the wall” presents. That wall will (probably already has) simply create a new black market for use of tunnels dug in under the wall, popping up who knows where, miles already inside the US, right? Any such law or barrier (prohibition, for instance) only creates a very profitable business, in the end.