A City and A State of Walls

Do walls truly make good neighbors or not? Since I moved here some twenty plus years ago I have watched our city grow and over the past ten years I have seen walls go up in wealthy neighborhoods. At first you would think that a wall would be a great idea because it would keep out criminals and make for a safer neighborhood but criminals know how to get around such simple defenses. Walls cut people off from the outside world, hide crimes in progress and divide neighbors. Walls make it harder for neighbors to develop relationships either good or bad. Walls cut people off from each other and end communication.

In the southern part of our state along the border this country is building a fence to keep people from Mexico out. Just a few short years ago our country was screaming “tear down that wall” about a fence that divided a country and families. The fence on the southern border is now dividing families and friends as well as making it easier to keep out illegal immigrates. Farmers are finding that those individuals were also the ones who picked their fields and that without them some of their crops are not getting harvested on time.

Back east people are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in lawsuits to keep their neighbors from building walls because of the effect it has on community and the environment. Will we be forced to spend that kind of money in the future to keep our neighbors from building walls? Will the American people be screaming “tear down that wall” at us on our southern border in the future to reunite families, friends and to repair the environment? What happened to the cattle range mentality of open land for all? Looks like that in our future the only people to benefit or profit from walls will be the lawyers and maybe the city if they require permits to build walls.