It’s difficult to believe that we are still talking about walls!
When I commented several weeks ago about U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer’s opposition to the wall on the southern border, I fully expected the issue to be resolved within a few weeks.
But alas, it is not resolved! We are still talking about walls as though we were discussing an issue comparable in magnitude to nuclear proliferation. Whereas Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing” was comical, I find Pelosi’s “Much Ado About Walls” ineptly farcical. She was obviously pained during the SOTU address because the President’s comments about the realities on the border did not fit her narrative about walls. If I could address Speaker Pelosi personally, I would simply say to her: “Nancy, it’s just a wall! It’s not a nuclear missile aimed at Mexico City!”
Apparently even some Democrats have begun to sense that building a wall is not really an apocalyptic event, and so now they have added a new dimension to their rhetoric: morality. The wall is immoral. Or as Pelosi most recently proclaimed: “The wall is an immorality. I’m not sure what the shift from an adjective (immoral) to a noun (immorality) is intended to convey. Perhaps Pelosi is simply trying to distinguish herself as Speaker of the House or maybe she just confused the words. In any case, I give the Democrats credit for originality. Who would have thought that a wall could be immoral? Perhaps one could make the case that anyone who builds a wall is immoral, but I don’t think that the wall itself can be immoral. So the phrase “immoral wall” turns out to be as nonsensical as the phrase “married bachelor”. But of course, that’s the whole point of the phrase. Were Pelosi to lay out a clear case against the wall, we could debate the issue, but it is not possible to debate a nonsensical phrase.
My critics will say that I have misinterpreted the phrase. Pelosi doesn’t mean that the wall itself is immoral, but rather that the people who build walls are immoral. But who would these people be? The President, the construction crews, the millions of Americans who voted for Trump? Clearly Pelosi doesn’t want to make Hillary’s mistake; so she is careful not to say that half of the voters in the country are immoral. She simply claims that the wall is immoral. The phrase is nonsensical, but at least it doesn’t offend half of the 2020 voters. Furthermore it gives expression to Pelosi’s dubious moral indignation.
I think that it has surprised many of us that the Democrats have decided to be our moral compass. Apparently their newfound morality stems from their conviction that President Trump is “shredding the invisible moral fabric” of our country (Joe Biden). Based on my understanding of ethics, I would have said that ordering the assassination of an American citizen is immoral (Barack Obama) or that cheating in a presidential primary is immoral (Hillary Clinton) or that concocting a fraudulent debate scheme and then lying repeatedly to the press about it is immoral (Donna Brazile) or that supporting late-term abortions is immoral (Ralph Northam) or that spreading malicious propaganda is immoral (Maxine Waters) or that trying to destroy a judge’s reputation and family is immoral (Diane Feinstein). But present-day Democrats see the matter differently. For them, morality has nothing to do with destroying their opponents through any possible means. Morality for them is – well, honestly I don’t know what morality is for them. I simply know that they have decided to call a wall immoral. Apparently they have discovered some esoteric categorical imperative that they consider far superior to that of Immanuel Kant. If so, I beg them to share it with us. Maybe all of us can benefit from their new insight.
Meanwhile it would be refreshing if we could just protect our porous borders like any other normal country. The Swiss protect their borders very carefully, and nobody accuses them of being immoral. The Israelis protect their borders with walls, and this doesn’t seem to ruffle Pelosi’s moral sensitivities. The Italians protect their borders on the Mediterranean. Of course, we know quite well why Pelosi is prolonging this discussion about walls. The logic is really very simple. Her primary control in the House lies in her ability to raise money from corporate backers, i.e. from entities that have benefited enormously from the broken immigration “system”. Then add to the equation the fact that the mainstream media are owned by corporations and the conclusion is inescapable. As long as Nancy Pelosi is faithful to her corporate backers, the corporately owned media will support whatever nonsense she utters. So we find ourselves living in a media bubble where malicious people are innocent, but walls are immoral.
Villager Jack E. Brush is a frequent contributor to Villages-News.com
