Mending Wall
by Robert Frost
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the
frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper
boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even
two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is
another thing:
I have come after them
and made repair
Where they have left
not one stone on a stone,
But they would have
the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping
dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them
made or heard them made,
But at spring
mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know
beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet
to walk the line
And set the wall
between us once again.
We keep the wall
between us as we go.
To each the boulders
that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves
and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell
to make them balance:
"Stay where you
are until our backs are turned!"
We wear our fingers
rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind
of out-door game,
One on a side. It
comes to little more:
There where it is we
do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I
am apple orchard.
My apple trees will
never get across
And eat the cones
under his pines, I tell him.
He only says,
"Good fences make good neighbors."
Spring is the mischief
in me, and I wonder
If I could put a
notion in his head:
"Why do
they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall
I'd ask to know
What I was walling in
or walling out,
And to whom I was like
to give offence.
Something there is
that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it
down." I could say "Elves" to him,
But it's not elves
exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for
himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone
grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an
old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness
as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and
the shade of trees.
He will not go behind
his father's saying,
And he likes having
thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/44266
Tonight on “Hannity” (Fox News), Donald Trump reiterated
his intention to build a wall to stop people from crossing the border from
Mexico and from illegally entering the United States. It would make it more difficult for people to
come across the border illegally, but I do not think a wall alone will stop the
illegal migration of people from many countries via Mexico, which is only part
of the “illegal immigration” problem.
People would continue to come from Mexico by boat, by
air, and in the false bottoms of trucks.
They will tunnel under it, and climb over it. There is no end to human ingenuity when the
reward is big enough. It is, therefore, to what reinforces the behavior that we
need to look. The conventional wisdom is
that the Democrats want a flood of new voters, and Republicans want a flood
of cheep labor. Therefore, nothing gets
done about “illegal immigration.” People
enter the country illegally because the behavior is reinforced by those in
power, for various reasons … and by ordinary citizens, as well.
As for the “illegal immigrants," most come because
they can have a better life here. Some
come because there is money to be made from criminal activity. Some come to wage holy war. I am sure that an extensive list is possible,
but the point is that they come because the behavior is reinforced.
The whole thing was easy to overlook when it was not so
large. A few thousand field hands here
or there didn’t cause much of a problem.
However, the most common estimate is that there are now about 11 million
people living in the United States illegally.
I submit to you that if the Chinese landed 11 million troops in
California, there would be an immediate and violent reaction from the American
people. The invasion of our country by
11 million illegal migrants has happened so gradually that we are only now
beginning to realize that we are losing our country. The former President of Mexico, Vincente Fox,
has called it the "reconquista” … and so it is.
Now we have all the politicians and news people
telling us what should be done. One
bunch wants to round them up and deport them.
Deportation doesn’t work now, but hey, maybe it will work if we do it
all at once. Never mind that it would be
virtually impossible to accomplish that.
The other side wants to give them all a “path to citizenship.” Never mind what that does to the wage scale, the unemployed American worker, the
rule of law, or to the American way of life.
As long as it suits their political and economic purposes, the more the
merrier.
Someone once said that if everything else fails, the
simplest solution is the best. B.F.
Skinner’s work proved that behavior that is not reinforced will extinguish. If we make it impossible for illegal migrants
to work, find housing, get medical care, and educate their children, the ones
who are here will go home, and the ones who want to come here will rethink
it. It is easier and less expensive to close
the business that employs illegal migrants, to seize the property of the
landlord who rents to illegal migrants, to withdraw funding from the school that admits illegal migrant children, or revoke the licenses of medical
providers who treat illegal migrants than it is to try to plug the leaks along
the border.
But, that’s not humane, you say. How can you call yourself a Christian? Well, is to more humane to do what we are
doing now? People are being led into the
desert and abandoned to die of hunger and thirst. Women and boys are being victimized by human traffickers,
and sold for sex. Illegal migrants are
being forced to mule drugs into the country to enslave our people to
addiction. People are being exploited
for cheep labor, and Americans without jobs can’t find work. And yes, Americans will do the work for a living wage.
We can take away the incentive to live in the United
States, and force illegal migrants to go home, without abandoning them while
they are on their way. We can help them
resettle once they get to their country of origin. We can bring political and economic pressure
on their home countries to do their part to help those returning home. We can reform our immigration system so that
we encourage immigrants who are motivated to adapt to our way of life, and who
have the job skills we need. We can make
legal immigration less bureaucratic and more efficient. We can have a guest worker program.
Regardless, we have a right to protect our own country! We are inhumane to our own citizens when we
don’t.
Go ahead and build the wall. Yeah baby, that’ll fix ‘em! Historically, walls have not worked. Did the Great Wall in China work? Did Hadrian’s wall in England work? Did the Iron Curtain work? Okay, the wall in Israel has worked to some
extent because they are a tiny little nation, but that is the only one I know
of. We have thousands of miles of border
and coastline to protect, and the only way we can do it is by using some common
sense … and by setting aside our self-interest for the good of America.
