Tuesday, April 2, 2019

walls

 It is a topic I touch upon every now and again. I call it polite company but it could just as easily be a wall. Metaphorically speaking that is what the rules of polite company are, a wall, or a barrier. From my point of view that wall has pretty much been torn down in recent years and we are seeing the result of that. The general attitude today is one of aggression, anger, and frustration. That's the result of having no boundaries.
 What is the purpose of a wall? Simply put, it is to divide. It's purpose is to delineate a specific area. When man started forming villages and towns we often put a wall around them. The wall wasn't to keep people in but control who entered. It was a practical common sense thing to do. When threatened the gate could be closed and a defensible position created. That's the basic purpose for a wall. Doesn't matter if that wall is for a town or for your bathroom, the intent is to control entry. The reason for controlling entry should be obvious enough for anyone to understand.
 Now we are having a national debate over a wall. Somehow there are those believing a wall is somehow inherently immoral. Somehow we have many people advocating for open borders, just come on in! I don't believe any of those folks have the same policy for their homes though. An open door policy? So I struggle with the ethics of that thinking. From my viewpoint it is nothing more than an ethical surrender. We can't stop it, so therefore we should allow it! That's the logic behind that thinking. Same logic as legalizing drug usage and abortion. They are going to do it anyway, right? It is made easier when that surrender doesn't involve your personal property. Ethics are difficult things.
 It is true that we have gone many years as a nation without a wall. It is true that there have always been those that entered our country illegally. What is also true is that this is the first instance our country has of invasion! Given the numbers entering I don't see how you could label it anything else. Literally thousands of people entering our nation. Now you may be a benevolent person and have an open door. You take in one or two unfortunates, feed, clothe and give them medical care. Very commendable. But now there are a hundred at your door, or a thousand, what do you do? I'd suggest you close the door! Close that door and pray they don't decide to knock it down. It should be no different with a nation!
 In the past whether it was a town or a country when they felt threatened what was the reaction? They closed the gates. If attacked they defended that town, village, city or indeed nation. But they didn't just stay inside their walls forever. That is not a practical thing to do, you will run out of provisions for your people! So what do you do? You take the fight to them. Armies came out of the gate and attacked the enemy.The object then being, destroy the enemy and take his town or whatever to neutralize the threat. Now, we certainly can't do that in this situation can we? Would anyone advocate for that action? No, of course they won't. The best thing we can do at this point is to close the gate! But before that even happens we are hearing what? Trade may be impacted, commerce impaired, we can't have that. Why? Because we will eventually run out of supplies for our own people. Really not that difficult to understand.
 I get it. There are those saying this isn't an invasion, they are asylum seekers. Well the label matters little, it is the action that counts. The reason they are coming really doesn't change our capacity to absorb them. That's the real issue. If you have a soup kitchen capable of feeding 50 and 5000 show up what do you do? Feed the fifty and close the door, that's what you do. There has always been a limit on immigration. Always! The reason is obvious enough, you do need to control who and how many come through the gate! Now, it's true there is no limit on asylum seekers. How could you establish an ethical method of doing that? What was never anticipated was practically entire nations of people claiming to be asylum seekers! These people have no interest in defending their town,village or country. They are just running away! Why? Because they have surrendered. It isn't asylum they seek, it's shelter. And the word is out, go north to the United States, they will feed, clothe, provide medical care and education to all! The gate is wide open, heck, they don't even have a wall! 
 We need to build a wall and control entry. It's as simple as that. I don't need to run down the list of reasons for doing so, everyone is well aware. The wall is not to keep people in but to control who enters. There has to be limits. The only other choice would be what? For our army to go and take their town,city, village or country! If we did that, they could all just stay home couldn't they? No need to flee, to seek asylum or refuge. Who is volunteering to do that? Is that what our government response should be?
 There are all kinds of walls. Social walls, political walls, physical and mental walls. Walls are a necessary thing. Walls delineate a boundary. Walls are not inherently immoral or moral. It is the people inside those walls that define that. Walls have been erected to protect the moral from the immoral, and the immoral from the moral. There are walls that have stood for centuries and walls that collapsed in a week. All those walls serve the same purpose however. Ethics and morality are decided at the gate, and that's the bottom line. Morality and ethics are not established by those seeking entry.  What is in the best interest of everyone inside the wall? A moral and ethical society places that as its' first concern. That's why walls were built in the first place.
     

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