I was a citizen of the United States of America … fondly known as the “land of the free, home of the brave.” I loved my country and was happy and proud to think of the people who came here searching for a future with the assurance of liberty and happiness.
“Who wouldn’t want to live in the good old USA,” I innocently thought to myself. Now I realize that my confidence in the rest of the country’s population having similar feelings was … a joke. And not just on me. It’s a joke on every one who believed in the generous spirit of equality and welcome once thought to be integral to our nation.
The wall idea that Trump campaigned for, including his “promise” that Mexico would pay for it, can’t be considered a promise fulfilled until when? The wall is built by whoever has to pay for it? Or the actual promise that Mexico would pony up the money. Blaming the Democrats for the inhumane, ugly, abhorrent, and abusive executive order just to get them to OK the funds is another joke. Maybe this is one of those campaign promises that come at too great a cost, for our nation’s psyche and for Trump’s supporters. I wish it were too great a cost for his soul, but … I can’t get a handle on that either.
I believe the citizens of the U.S. are too smart for this to continue. We are practiced in nonviolent protest and many consider our country a world leader of nonviolent protest methods. Henry David Thoreau, Mahatma Ghandi, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. have been our inspirations in past actions promoting equality and freedom for all. Are those lessons lost? We could not believe the eye witness reports of the annihilation of Jewish people at the hands of the Nazis until our own soldiers saw for themselves the carnage they embraced. We can not use blindness as an excuse … it’s there on TV, on the internet, on the actual border of the United States of America … right now.
Please people, dig deep into that spirit of our country and ask: Is a wall more important than one human life, not to mentions thousands?
Janet Henderson
New Salem