Even in a dangerous, frightening world, Americans should not come to behave like the nations we disdain for good reasons.
Our highest ideals symbolized by the Statue of Liberty should lead us far above erecting inappropriate walls of either steel, technology – or wrongheaded executive orders.
History should warn us away from such short-sighted, doomed-to-fail endeavors. China’s ancient Great Wall is today an historical oddity tramped along by tourists. A generation ago, President Ronald Reagan urged the USSR’s leader to “tear down” the wall dividing Berlin. That barrier to liberty soon came down.
The same should happen to the Trump Administration’s terribly planned, haphazardly executed use of executive orders to deter many immigrants and refugees from entering the United States.
First of all, the orders wrongly single out some nations while omitting others, such as Saudi Arabia, where the terrorists of Sept. 11 came from.
Americans – a people of immigrants – should know the wrongness of these actions more profoundly than any other country. The Statue of Liberty’s inscription, the words of our own Constitution and longstanding practices from our best hours as a bulwark of freedom should remind us why.
Yes, this nation has an absolute obligation and right to act assertively to ensure the safety of those within our borders. A large part of that is guarding as well as humanly possible against admitting those bent on doing harm.
This protective duty is a huge, and at times unavoidably bloody, task in this dangerous age, we realize. That is why we wrote in 2011 that it was altogether appropriate for U.S. Navy Seals to kill Osama bin Laden. He was a clear danger to America.
The U.S. must certainly be watchful, diligent and thorough in examining those we admit to our shores. There’s ample evidence that existing systems in place for vetting Syrian refugees, for example, have done just that.
And America at its sterling best has been an open, welcoming place. We have benefited as a result, while closed-bordered and closed-minded countries stagnated and declined.
President Reagan eloquently spoke of America at its exceptional finest in his 1989 farewell speech. The Great Communicator set up a tale of “a small story about a big ship, and a refugee, and a sailor. It was back in the early ’80s, at the height of the boat people. And the sailor was hard at work on the carrier Midway, which was patrolling the South China Sea. The sailor, like most American servicemen, was young, smart, and fiercely observant. The crew spied on the horizon a leaky little boat. And crammed inside were refugees from Indochina hoping to get to America. The Midway sent a small launch to bring them to the ship and safety. As the refugees made their way through the choppy seas, one spied the sailor on deck, and stood up, and called out to him. He yelled, “Hello, American sailor. Hello, freedom man.”
Reagan and Lady Liberty had it right. America, when in its stride, should be open to those who mean us well and seek liberty, freedom and the chance to do for self in this great land that’s still fertile with opportunity and potential.
That is the polar opposite of the sand of snap-decision executive orders carelessly tossed into the gears of international travel and diplomacy by President Donald Trump. His surprise actions flummoxed the federal agencies charged with safeguarding the nation’s ports of human entry. The orders caused chaos, confusion and human strife of a kind that should be anathema to a nation that seeks to be a well-ordered example of liberty.
Shaky rationales around “security” do not justify marooning without advance notice travelers of all ages who bore documentation that they had every reason to believe would grant them entry into the U.S.
Worse yet, the Trump administration’s singling out of seven Muslim-majority countries rightly arouses suspicions and assertions that this jerry-rigged change amounts to religious discrimination that should be repulsive to a nation still bitterly arguing over so-called “religious liberty.”
Unlike other countries, there is no state-sanctioned religion in America. And there never should be. People should be free to worship their creator – or not – by whatever creed or manner they wish, so long as their actions don’t harm others.
Above all these things, America and its government should be about using order, precision and deliberation in protecting our legitimate interests. That is the price of entry for maintaining a dominant place in the world – a standing we still seem drawn toward, present circumstances notwithstanding.
Chaos and discord emanating from the most powerful elected office in the world makes a mockery of America’s ideals in exchange for cravenly seeking political “gotchas” around a bitterly contested election that is now over.
Effective leaders know to set aside the campaigning after being sworn into office. To do otherwise is to not govern. Worse yet, it is to govern poorly, if not destructively.
America on this troubled page of our history requires a commander-in-chief and team of advisers who know how to do that. We need reliable leaders who say what they mean, then do what they say — with no jitterbugging back and forth, or petty backstabbing.
That requires sound, well-communicated policy born of thoughtful deliberation and delivered with precise, clearly telegraphed execution. Narcissistic, nanny-nanny-boo-boo Tweets make a mockery of this.
Americans should continue to demand better of this new administration.
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