To the editor:
I am responding to the ‘Your Views’ submission by Mr. James Brown of Morgantown I read in the March 11 edition of the Daily Journal ("Fences make good neighbors still true today.")
The simplicity of Mr. Brown’s point is such that any fifth grader could grasp its meaning immediately. Therein the problem.
Like many such analogies I have heard expressed in the past couple of years, it lacks the true reality of the situation, not to mention a whole lot of sensitivity. Since Mr. Brown used several references to God, I’m assuming he considers himself a man of righteous religious practice.
To use Mr. Brown’s analogy, let’s say that the cows on one side of the fence were trying to escape hunger, political malice, beatings, murder and rape from their owner. On the other side of the fence were the cows that lived in peace and were well fed and were not the victims of anything except their own selfishness. They just wanted life to continue like they have always known it. After all, it costs a lot of money to help those other cows!
Which brings us to the religious part. Several years ago a fad was launched ‘what would Jesus do?’ Remember-kids wore wrist bands? Would Jesus turn his back on refugees, women and children that are being barrel bombed and starved by a tyrannical dictator because, even after months of vetting by our immigration system there ‘might’ be a terrorist in a given group of refugees? Would he turn his back on people running from hunger, rape, murder and a future of hopelessness by building a huge fence reinforced by an army of armed security to keep them apart from the others? I think not.
We are all cows from the same Maker.
Let’s do what Jesus would do.
David Heidenreich
Greenwood
