December 11th provided a keen view of the white
house and its occupant attempting to govern a nation of laws and principle by
temper tantrum accompanied by serious misdirection. Quite a spectacle it was.
There are those who think this face-to-face contretemps is
good politics and great ideology. They are misled in this conclusion. High level
gaming is just that – gaming. It is not serious governance. By any stretch of
the imagination. It is a subversion of the serious.
The president claims to want a wall. It is a symbol for him
of barring the door to immigration from people to our south. He has claimed
throughout his political demagoguery that Mexicans and South American peoples
are rapists, criminals and terrorists trying to break down our doors to
citizenship and chaos. The wall seems to be a natural barrier to stop such
immigration. So he preaches the wall at any cost.
That’s rubbish, of course. The wall is ineffectual. In
theory or practice, the wall is only effective in the one place where someone
wants to cross the border. In truth, thousands of miles of border exists over
which anyone can pass. Detected or undetected, no wall will stop the trespasser
where no wall exists, and ocean fronts (thousands upon thousands of miles of
shoreline) don’t have walls possible.
Border Security is the issue. Not the wall. There are many
means to secure our borders. Much of that work is already being done. It is not
perfect. Never has been perfect. But the nation continues to rebuff unwanted
immigrants while welcoming others. All the time. For generations this has been
going on.
Want to do this better? Then sit down with the people in the know to conceive and implement such border security methods. Building
a wall is symbolic only, costly, and very ineffective. That is the fact of the
matter. It is also inescapable logic.
Throwing a temper tantrum on TV with your political foes is
also symbolic. And childish. Equally ineffective, except for the power it gives
to the political foes.
No wall is wanted or needed. Good minds meeting to solve
worthy problems is wanted and needed. Grandstanding only wastes time and
financial resources. All the while the real problem goes unaddressed.
Tantrum as governance? Ridiculous. Give the baby his
pacifier while the adults in the room get back to work.
December 13, 2018
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