Two Way Walls

Walls are curious things. They serve to keep things out and to keep things in. They protect your home from various invaders and the elements while holding up the roof. They draw lines, delineating one's personal property from that of another. They serve to protect ones property and family or to imprison. Walls, I think are things which should not be taken lightly and yet the powers that be have taken the decision to build an American Great Wall along our southern border to keep out the new Yellow Peril.

People forget, I think that walls are a two way proposition. That which serves to keep one group out also serves to keep another in. Given the current regimes penchant for violating Constitutional rights, endorsing torture, suspension of habeas corpus and the litany of other "crimes" for which they and their cohorts will never be prosecuted, it is surprising that so very few people have voiced significant opposition to the construction of a border wall. Perhaps they only see a single direction where the wall is concerned.

Perhaps they've never seen cinema classics such as "The Handmaid's Tale"? Or even "Escape From New York"? If the arts aren't enough to make one suspicious of any walls which governments decide to build then a look at the country formerly known as the Deutsch Democratic Republic and their famed Wall and border control system. East German citizens believed that their border walls were to keep out corrupting foreigners and terrorists, too and gladly gave up their freedom for the safety of government protection.

Today any wall the government proposes is to keep people out but, what person places their faith in the hope that government will remain beneficent given the history of governments and politicians? There was once a time when our government did not blithely speak of torture, surveillance of the citizenry or "sacrificing" universal rights for the so-called common good. Piece by piece over the decades the powers that be have chipped away at our unalienable rights and now those pieces will be used to craft a wall. A wall which is today for excluding people from our supposedly free country and that tomorrow could very well be used to keep us in. Our freedom to travel, internally and externally has already been restricted is it too hard for people to imagine that a wall will not place a further restriction on it? Or even forbid it, if or when someone wishes to leave "the land of the free"?

Walls are curious things. So, too are those who support the building of some kinds of walls, as well as those who ignore it.

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Libertarian, Politics, Immigration, Border Wall, Bush