We Need a Bridge, Not a Wall

Recently, the United States government came to a standstill for 35 days over an unrealistic campaign promise made by the man who holds the highest position of power. He tried to strong arm Congress into passing a budget that would include roughly five billion dollars to build a wall on the southern border of our nation.

This was something he pledged to do throughout his campaign, although he also asserted that Mexico would pay for the wall. After two years of doing nothing more than continuing to spew the rhetoric of fear regarding our kin to the south, ignoring the fact that illegal border crossings are at a 30 year low and disregarding the truth that most undocumented citizens came here legally but overstayed their visas--those details don’t paint as dramatic a picture as the idea of a wall—he decided it was time to take a stand.

It was a ridiculous campaign promise to make, and impossible to keep. Yet for 35 days, federal workers suffered the consequences of being furloughed without pay or, as in the case of “essential personnel” such as TSA workers or Air Traffic Controllers, being forced to work without pay.

Ironically, federal workers are forbidden to go on strike and the one time when Air Traffic Controllers did so, in 1981, President Reagan fired 11,000 of them within days and issued a lifetime ban on them ever being able to work for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) again. What a travesty of justice that our government can not pay these dedicated workers who still have to punch the clock every day.

Over a wall. A wall that would not keep our borders safe and would only serve to shore up racist, uninformed beliefs and fears.

As a Unitarian Universalist, I believe first and foremost in the inherent worth and dignity of every human; no human is illegal. In every major world religion hospitality and compassion for the stranger and refugee are major tenets.

That any person of faith should support a wall of division is untenable. We should be building bridges of compassion. Unfortunately, it seems we’ve become a nation of hoarders: folks who hoard money, folks who hoard the promise of a better life, folks who hoard privilege. This is dysfunctional at best and dishonors our faith traditions’ most sacred teachings.

But frankly, it doesn’t matter what the faith traditions say. As a Unitarian Universalist I am bound to a higher law: the first of our seven guiding principles that says every human has inherent worth and dignity.

I am bound by the founding documents of this nation that says we are a nation of the people, by the people, and for the people; that holds that all humans are created equal and are endowed with certain inalienable rights such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The government has re-opened for now. We have three weeks to figure out how to stop using our federal workers as pawns in an overblown, ego-induced chess game; we have three weeks to determine to see the humanity of our kin from the south; we have three weeks to make America great again, in the truest sense of the phrase which means inclusion not exclusion, love not hate, compassion not criminalizing those in need.