Build the wall! Maybe that’s the only way a few stubborn folks will see the futility of the idea, see the waste of money, and see the conflict between walls and American ideals. Perhaps some good will come of it over the long run.
Any sensible observer knows the wall will not work. And it will be paid for by taxpayers, not by Mexico, despite misleading comments by the president. However, it will certainly be built by Mexican laborers and other immigrant workers — thousands of them.
Wall builders will not come from Norway. They’ll come mostly from points south. These days, immigrants are the folks who do the hard work in our country. Look at any construction project in your own town. Listen to the workers’ voices.
Build the wall. And 20 years from now we will likely have a political controversy about what to do with the children of laborers who came to the United States with their parents during the five- or 10-year period it will take to build such a meaningless barrier.
Of course, history will judge us harshly, especially our elected representatives who do not have the common sense to reject such a counter-productive structure. Historians will write about the stupidity of a generation that learned nothing from past wall building exercises — the Great Wall of China, walls around medieval cities, fortress walls around early western settlements, the Berlin Wall and so on. History proves that walls don’t keep people out or in.
But build the wall. More than a century ago, our leaders wisely decided to build a railroad across the nation — certainly the most ambitious project in our history up until that time. Unlike the wall, it was a great idea, a nation-changing idea.
But great projects need more than ideas; they need workers, thousands of workers. During construction of the intercontinental railroad, construction companies could not find enough domestic workers willing to do the difficult and often dangerous work required. The companies brought in boatloads of hard-working laborers from China and Ireland. Those folks made vital contributions to our economic growth, not only while completing the transcontinental railroad but also after the job was finished. They were supposed to return to their home countries, but thank goodness many did not go home. They remained in America to help make America a better and more diverse nation.
Build the wall. Like the railroad (and, later, the Interstate highway system), it will be a multi-billion dollar project. And like the railroad builders, wall builders will help strengthen American diversity.
Today, the United States already reaps countless benefits from immigrants who came here from south of the border to harvest our crops, process our food and build our structures. They set examples of hard work few of our own youngsters seem willing to emulate. And today’s immigrants are already becoming the entrepreneurs who create the next wave of American free enterprise establishments. Look around!
So by all means, let’s build the stupid wall. The exercise will once again prove the value of those who are willing to work hard for the American dream, whether they come from Mexico, Norway, Africa, or any other place on earth.
Don Gale.
Don Gale learned about the benefits of the railroad from ancestors who were there. He believes future generations will experience one or two unplanned positives from the ludicrous wall.