Thoughts on Wall Building

It wasn’t too long ago that President Reagan in a speech in Berlin exhorted the leader of the Soviet Union to “tear down this Wall!”  Now we are talking about building one of our own along the entire Mexican border.

I must admit early on that I am not much of a fancier for walls resolving anything. If they are built permanently and “real big,” then they might someday become a tourist attraction — like the Great Wall of China. But, even in its day, the Great Wall didn’t help much to stop the eventual destruction of the Ming Dynasty. It wasn’t the threat of Mongol hordes overrunning China as much as the internal rot of the entrenched dynasties themselves that precipitated their failure.

If anything, walls give you a false sense of security. Fences may keep the “riff-raff” out of your backyard for a while, but eventually, without neighborliness prevailing, the neighborhood will fall apart. Fencing someone out means that you are also fencing yourself in.

Fencing someone out means that you are also fencing yourself in.

For centuries, hard borders around the nations of Europe kept national identities homogeneous; but they also guaranteed a lot of wars. People were never satisfied as to where the fences should be and so the solution was to go to war in order to expand your backyard. Frankly, I have been heartened by the development of the European Common Market, the Euro and the establishment of a European federal union of sorts. It hasn’t been perfect, but it has expanded the concept of what is the “common good” in an area of the world which has had a long history of war.

Another experience of my own makes me suspicious of walls. I am a veteran of the Vietnam War and at the end of that whole sad episode, people found a way to escape — primarily by small boats. If we totally blocked land access from Canada and Mexico with border walls, wouldn’t it be reasonable to expect that our shores could then become subject to “boat people” arriving to become U.S. citizens? Then would we have to build fences all along our coasts in order to keep ourselves safe? Border walls in front of beach condos? I don’t think so, but where would it stop?

At the end of the day, philosophically, I just don’t like fences or walls. They may be needed to contain livestock or even pets and required to imprison convicted felons. But, for human beings in general, I think they are a surrender to fear and insecurity. If people enter our country illegally, they should be prosecuted or dealt with under the law. But walls every place? Not for me. In America, it is the very idea of our being a free and law-abiding people which should be our best defense. I have heard enough of walls.


Rolland Kidder 

This article first appeared in The Post-Journal on Jan 20, 2019

How Do We Save Rural America?

There was a recent article in the New York Times by Eduardo Porter addressing the “hard truths” of what is happening in rural America. It was compelling in the sense that it brought home the story of what I see happening here in Chautauqua County.

Some of the facts it stated were worrisome:

• Rural America is getting old. The median age is 43, seven years older than city dwellers.

• Since the 2008 recession, counties with less than 100,000 people lost 17,500 businesses whereas Counties with more that 1 million gained 99,000 new firms. 

• Manufacturing remains the strongest sector in rural America, but today there are fewer than “13 million workers in manufacturing across the entire economy.”

• In the “Eastern Heartland,” that area “roughly between the Mississippi River and the Atlantic coast, rural communities are doing particularly poorly.”

• We are experiencing “agglomeration” throughout the economy: “Innovative companies choose to locate where other successful, innovative companies are. That’s where they can find lots of highly skilled workers. The more densely packed these pools of talent are, the more workers can learn from each other and the more productive they become.”

A light went off when I thought about “agglomeration.” Why would Amazon choose two new headquarters right in the heart of New York City and in the Washington, D.C. metro area? These places are already over-populated with jammed highways and high costs of living. Answer: agglomeration! They want high-powered, concentrated pooled talent in one place. Rural America was never a consideration in Amazon’s decision. Even medium sized cities like Columbus, Ohio had no chance in this competition. Now, Google has announced that they are also ramping up employment in these same areas, and Apple is opening another headquarters in Austin, Texas which is already a tech center.

So, in light of these economic facts, what do we do in rural America? Is there a way for us to get some of our young people to return home? Is there a plan to rejuvenate rural America? As the article warns: “What if nothing really works?… Do we “return depopulated parts of rural America to the bison?”

The article concluded with these words: “The distress of 50 million Americans should concern everyone. Powerful economic forces are arrayed against rural America and, so far, efforts to turn it around have failed. Not every small town can be a tech hub, nor should it be. But, that can’t be the only answer.”

Rolland Kidder 

This article first appeared in The Post-Journal on Jan 6, 2019

specphotops