Fences

With palms together,
Good Morning All,

Ever since I was a little kid I wondered how borders existed. I often looked at maps of the world, scouring the continents looking at the lines separating one country from another and wondering what they looked like on the ground. As a kid I thought maybe there were actual lines and that it must be some body's job to go around painting them, like they do on roads. As an adult I still wonder about these lines dividing us as a species. I wonder about how these divisions divide us rather than bring us together. I wonder about the fear that is created through groupings, the discrimination that develops, and often think about the world as a place without boundary as a place without limits.

When we drop our boundaries, in one sense, we create possibilities for expansion. Companies know this. International corporations see boundaries as impediments and actively work within them to make them non-existent. Would it not be wise to eventually find a way to live on this planet as if we are all part of the same family of man?

Creating fences, putting armed soldiers along our borders, seems unwise to me. It creates a police state of sorts, and further divides us. True security, it seems to me, comes with friendship and intermarriage, where all people see themselves as family.

Threats to the family will always exist, well at least as long as there are both vast differences between haves and have-nots and as long as groups of people suffer and die while others live and thrive.Increasing the height of the fence will not stop that.

Be well.
3,394 views 28 replies
Reply #1 Top
Do you have a front door? Do you ever lock it? Why?
Reply #2 Top
Do you have a front door? Do you ever lock it? Why?


Hello Tova7, Yes, I have a front door. I lock it sometimes, though not always. I also live in a community, there are no fences around my community. I live in a city, there are no fences around my city. I live in a state, there are no fences around my state, save the Mexican border. Most people who are coming across the border are here to work. Thievs and robbers and terrorists and all the other boggymen we use to feel fear and justify our isolationism and fences and armed guards will exist with or without border guards, fences, or troops, just as robbers break into my house regardless of whether the door on my house it locked or not.

Be well.
Reply #3 Top
strong fences make good neighbors, I live in a gated community, with real honest security guards, why you might ask, because it's a mean world out there and I want colleen to be able to go for a walk at 2 am without me feeling like I need to get up get dressed and arm myself.
Reply #4 Top
MM,
No one will bother a werewolf at night .

Sadaiho, I understand you sense of one world ideology but the fact as long as greed and jealousy breed hate the open door world cannot exist. It just opens the door for oppression. Your perfect world will only exist in a dream as long as greed and jealousy remain on earth. This is why I beleive socialism will not work.

Fences guard the delicacy's of life. As humans we need a secure place in order to put 'our' guards down.
Reply #5 Top
strong fences make good neighbors, I live in a gated community, with real honest security guards, why you might ask, because it's a mean world out there and I want colleen to be able to go for a walk at 2 am without me feeling like I need to get up get dressed and arm myself.


Hello MM, Your comment is most welcome and points to the fears we live with daily. Fears driven by the ratings needs of the news services and our human condition. There are questions however that should be asked and answered by each of us. How accurate are our fears? What is the efficacy of our safety measures? Do the measures themselves create more problems than solutions? Etc.

You say that strong fences make good neighbors. I sincerely doubt this assertion. I believe that strong fences make suspicious neighbors and can create envy in others. There is a reason behind the story of Pandora's Box, my friend.

Your fence will not prevent an assault, just as locks will not prevent robberies. Assaults occur with or without fences, security guards, police, soldiers, and video cameras. They do not prevent crime and are often there to create the illusion of safety, lower our fears, and line the pockets of those who sell them. Guns create more problems than they solve. We have far more homicides in the US than anywhere else in the world and we have more guns. Could there just possibly be a relationship? These measures are rather on the same level of the soma in Brave New World, or the Glass Teat of television, illusions and distractions on the one hand and a great internal threat on the other hand.


If you really believe troops along our border will secure our borders I have a bridge to sell you in New York City.

As I understand it, a little under half of those illegal aliens everyone seems sooooo worried about did not cross the border illegally anyway. They came into the US legally and overstayed their visas. The majority of these people, legal, quasi-legal or illegal, work, pay taxes, and provide for our economy. There are criminals everywhere and in every social and economic class.

Maybe I have a misplaced faith in people, but I believe with all my heart that given the opportunity, most of us will do good.

Be well.
Reply #6 Top
You misunderstand my front door question.

I lock my front door, not so much to keep my stuff safe, though that is part of it. I do it to protect my family.

If someone comes up to a locked door they know right away they are only permitted inside by invitation. If someone walks up to an open door, that can be seen by many as an open invitation to come on in. Yes, if they want in bad enough a locked door may not stop them...but then again it might...where an open door never would.

You can want to believe most people in the world are good and will do what is right. But it only takes one who is not to kill, rape, maim, torture, or otherwise harm the ones you love.

I think your way off in how you see fences. Perhaps we shouldn't have fences around prisons either. After all, what is the point, we are all one human race right?

You are also wrong about security, fences and the like. I worked for the police dept in Texas and many of the guys busted for breaking and entering often cited unlocked doors, open windows, and obvious lack of security concerns around the home as being the reason they CHOSE that home to rob. And some killed as they robbed.
Reply #7 Top
Even animals in the wild have borders and boundaries. So do plants when you think about it- just look at the tree line of a mountain for one example. The reality of fences are a fact of life.
Reply #8 Top
Good comments all.

Thank you.

Little Whip, let me ask you something. You say a world without borders, a "single" government, would be nightmarish in its implications. How so? I see the possibility as fundamentally no different from our individual states coming together to form a union or the countries in Europe forming a union. At some point, regardless of how we individually feel about it, we will understand the world already exists without borders of any real signficance. The telecommunications industry coupled with multinationals make this a reality to the extent that governments are often more an impediment than a solution.

I did not say there was no point in trying to protect ourselves, only that we should examine the efficacy of those protective systems. We are all familiar by now with the definition of insanity as doing the same thing over and over hoping for a different outcome? I will add, that doing more of the same yields no different result. At the very least, we could take the funding that will be spent on the National Guard troops and shift it to the Border Patrol. Frankly I would rather see an opening of the borders and a good guest worker program that recognizes the need for imported labor, than to insist upon programs and money being thrown at an ill thought out solution that is politically motivated.

Be well.
Reply #9 Top
Reply By: ShovelheatPosted: Tuesday, May 16, 2006Even animals in the wild have borders and boundaries. So do plants when you think about it- just look at the tree line of a mountain for one example. The reality of fences are a fact of life.


if only it was easy as pizzin to mark what is your space and the other animals knew to leave your space alone.
Reply #10 Top
Reply By: SodaihoPosted: Tuesday, May 16, 2006strong fences make good neighbors, I live in a gated community, with real honest security guards, why you might ask, because it's a mean world out there and I want colleen to be able to go for a walk at 2 am without me feeling like I need to get up get dressed and arm myself.Hello MM, Your comment is most welcome and points to the fears we live with daily. Fears driven by the ratings needs of the news services and our human condition. There are questions however that should be asked and answered by each of us. How accurate are our fears? What is the efficacy of our safety measures? Do the measures themselves create more problems than solutions? Etc.You say that strong fences make good neighbors. I sincerely doubt this assertion. I believe that strong fences make suspicious neighbors and can create envy in others. There is a reason behind the story of Pandora's Box, my friend.Your fence will not prevent an assault, just as locks will not prevent robberies. Assaults occur with or without fences, security guards, police, soldiers, and video cameras. They do not prevent crime and are often there to create the illusion of safety, lower our fears, and line the pockets of those who sell them. Guns create more problems than they solve. We have far more homicides in the US than anywhere else in the world and we have more guns. Could there just possibly be a relationship? These measures are rather on the same level of the soma in Brave New World, or the Glass Teat of television, illusions and distractions on the one hand and a great internal threat on the other hand. If you really believe troops along our border will secure our borders I have a bridge to sell you in New York City.As I understand it, a little under half of those illegal aliens everyone seems sooooo worried about did not cross the border illegally anyway. They came into the US legally and overstayed their visas. The majority of these people, legal, quasi-legal or illegal, work, pay taxes, and provide for our economy. There are criminals everywhere and in every social and economic class. Maybe I have a misplaced faith in people, but I believe with all my heart that given the opportunity, most of us will do good. Be well.


I see by what you write you are a good man, {a bit innocent} but a good man none the less

The truth is I live where I live not to protect me and mine form bad people, but to protect the wanna be bad azzes from me>.
Reply #13 Top
Ugh. No, it wouldn't be a better place with no boundaries. I appreciate the Buddhist view of world brotherhood as much as I like the idea of Christian heaven with everyone eternally happy and singing psalms... and that's my religion.

You'd think the adherant of an eastern religion would understanding that the world works based upon opposing forces. You want to escape it, rine, escape it, but trying to make it into something else goes against its nature. We have fences because we don't want the neighbors to take our stuff from us. We take them down in a show of good faith, and they take more.

You want to give your stuff to them, fine. You don't have the right to speak for me, though. You don't have the right to turn my cheek and give them my kid's coat, also. It is all well and good to think of personal charity, but when people are protecting their families it becomes more complicated. Charity isn't so easy when it is your kid, and not you skipping meals.

To live means to suffer, right? I wasn't aware that the path led to a Disney world, rather I thought the path led out of it. Those kind souls who have a problem with fences have eternity (or non-eternity) to look forward to having them. This brief glimmer in time is ours, and fences rule, frankly.
Reply #14 Top
You'd think the adherant of an eastern religion would understanding that the world works based upon opposing forces. You want to escape it, rine, escape it, but trying to make it into something else goes against its nature. We have fences because we don't want the neighbors to take our stuff from us. We take them down in a show of good faith, and they take more.


Hello BakerStreet,

Interesting point of view, but so common. Opposing forces is a Daoist notion, the yin and yang of it all,and within the relative world makes a lot of operational sense. I do not at all wish to escape this world. I think we should live within it, nurture it and take good care of it, including all of its inhabitants. When people take things they often need them. We should be willing to offer what it needed without worrying so much about running out. I think your Jesus had this in mind in his sermons, as well as Lord Buddha in his.

You want to give your stuff to them, fine. You don't have the right to speak for me, though. You don't have the right to turn my cheek and give them my kid's coat, also. It is all well and good to think of personal charity, but when people are protecting their families it becomes more complicated. Charity isn't so easy when it is your kid, and not you skipping meals.


So true. So true. I give what I can. And I have no right to give yours away. You do not address the question as to the efficacy of these measures. Locks and doors do not stop crime. Never have and never will.

The truth is that there is an enormous amount of food available for the world to eat. No one should ever go hungry. It is our need to consider the merit of those who receive food that creates the disproportionate balances of hunger inthis world. Did this person "earn" their bread, and so on. My point of view is that such questions get in the way of our enlightenment. They are hindrances to good society.

To live means to suffer, right? I wasn't aware that the path led to a Disney world, rather I thought the path led out of it. Those kind souls who have a problem with fences have eternity (or non-eternity) to look forward to having them. This brief glimmer in time is ours, and fences rule, frankly.


To live means to suffer. But we are still here to repair the world (a Jewish notion), act as bodhisattvas (a Buddhist notion), or offer Christian charity. These are the true challenges in our world today, threatened as they are by greed, fear, and a deluded notion that we can somehow protect ourselves from every threat by putting up a wall or buying a gun.

Fences only rule when we believe in them. And that belief is faulty.

Better, it seems to me, is that we put our money where our spiritual health is, in our behavior toward others, and not just our friends, but strangers and enemies, as well.

Only with a vision of a loving world, willing to accomodate all, will the possibility of a heaven on earth be possible. Why keep one eye perpetually closed?

Be well.
Reply #15 Top
I see by what you write you are a good man, {a bit innocent} but a good man none the less


Thank you MM. Although I must chuckle a little at the innocence comment. I have faith in people and in the universe. Perhaps that faith has washed away some of my sins, of which there are many. Be well.
Reply #16 Top
I also live in a community, there are no fences around my community.


Forget the city, county and state. That says it all. It is well you live there, and I wish we all did. We do not.

let me give you my tired, yet true analogy. We are a life boat. The life boat only holds so many. We cannot hold the whole ships compliment. if we try, the life boat flounders and sinks. And no one is saved.

Save a few, or save none. That is the issue. Are you going to decide the few? If you do not decide, you save none. WHat is worse?
Reply #17 Top
let me give you my tired, yet true analogy. We are a life boat. The life boat only holds so many. We cannot hold the whole ships compliment. if we try, the life boat flounders and sinks. And no one is saved.


Hello Dr.Guy, A good analogy, but so limiting. The world is our lifeboat, yet there is alsao a universe to explore, and it is capable of supporting everyone if treated properly and with respect. To save a few or save none assumes the planet cannot sustain the world's population. I wonder seriously about this. My sense it that we can do a whole lot if we must our minds and hearts to it. We proved this decades ago when without benefit of most of our current technology we were able to put human beings on the moon. We lack only the vision, the faith, and the will. Fences support none of these qualities.

Be well.
Reply #18 Top
Of course locks and doors stop crime. It's silly to say it doesn't. There will never be a crime free society, but to say that inviting crime stops it you are nuts. Or you could be irrational like others who want to just redefine acts as not being crime and claim to have put an end to crime.

Are you sure you are Buddhist? I keep seeing you say things like "I don't want to escape this world" and it makes me wonder. You intend, then, to be reborn over and over to a nicer and nicer world? What is the end result of your aspiration? The basis of Buddhism IS the wrongness of existence, isn't it? This kind of fixation on comfort and safety and all this Disney stuff is more often the problem in Buddhism, not the solution.

Again, I ask how you can be a Buddhist and embrace striving to do anything? "My" Jesus wasn't a family man, and addressed personal moral responsibility. Yet when I have the choice of giving my child's food to the poor and starving my child, charity becomes more complicated. You can say take down the fences and open all the doors, but when our families suffer you are the cause.

So, who do we owe the most charity to? How are you balancing responsiblity to our families with your assertion that we should open our doors and end crime by not attempting to stop it? Are you willing to turn my cheek? Obviously. That isn't what Jesus was saying, not at all. You don't cause your neighbor to suffer to prevent a third party from suffering. If you do, then admit you are causing suffering, not easing it.
Reply #19 Top
To save a few or save none assumes the planet cannot sustain the world's population


No, see that is your achilees heel. No one is talking about the world. We are talking about one country. And no, it cannot support the world population. Sink the life boat and lose all. So again, I ask you. You are the captain of the life boat.

Do you try to save all, and swamp it? Or do you save the ones in the life boat? So they may perhaps one day prevent the sinking of the ship.

One country, not the planet. We do not rule one planet. Yet we do more good for the rest of the planet than all others combined. Are you going to sink it in your attempt to save all.

it does not fit your philosophy, but it is very germaine to the question.
Reply #20 Top
What I see here is what I see from many die-hard Christians who dabble in politics. You can't deal with the nation or the community in the same way you deal with your personal morality. Leaders have the responsibility to see to the welfare of their citizens. When someone wrongs them personally, of course they can turn the other cheek.

When a leader uses "turn the other cheek" in their leadership position, though, they are gambling the welfare of the people they were entrusted to watch over. Your no doors and locks policy is great, and you just take yours off the hinges. Then when you are killed in your sleep you have no one to answer to but yourself.

In dealing with governmental 'fences', though, you have to answer for the harm done to your neighbors. You as a religious person esponse a "charitable" stance that leads to the suffering of others, then you are the one that has caused the suffering of others, period. Fences may not be a perfect solution, but to do anything other than everything you can do to prevent suffering is to function in a state of malfeasance.
Reply #21 Top
Fences may not be a perfect solution, but to do anything other than everything you can do to prevent suffering is to function in a state of malfeasance.


Baker you rule. Have a cookie!
Reply #22 Top
We are talking about one country


Yes! Good point.
Reply #23 Top
Of course locks and doors stop crime. It's silly to say it doesn't. There will never be a crime free society, but to say that inviting crime stops it you are nuts. Or you could be irrational like others who want to just redefine acts as not being crime and claim to have put an end to crime.


Hello BakerStreet,

We agree that there will never be a crime free society. I never said doors and locks did not reduce crime, but they don't stop it either, nor did I encourage anyone to open their doors and invite in criminals. As all analogies, there are clear limits. The point I am making is that we must begin to think and behave ourselves out of this awful box we are in. Closing borders with troops is nonsense and a total waste of money. It will not be, and can never be effective.

Are you sure you are Buddhist? I keep seeing you say things like "I don't want to escape this world" and it makes me wonder. You intend, then, to be reborn over and over to a nicer and nicer world? What is the end result of your aspiration? The basis of Buddhism IS the wrongness of existence, isn't it? This kind of fixation on comfort and safety and all this Disney stuff is more often the problem in Buddhism, not the solution.


There are two main Buddhist traditions: hinayana and mahayana. I am of the latter which includes Zen and Tibetan Buddhism. Mahayana Buddhism calls for the development of the Bodhisattva Ideal. That is the vow to remain in this existence until every sentient being from now throughout eternity is "saved" and by this we mean liberated from all suffering.I di, indeed, intend to refuse Nirvana (in simple terms) and be reborn over and over again throughout time. It is my solomn vow.

What you say of Buddhism is incorrect and a wrong idea. The basis of Buddhism is not the wrongness of existence at all, but our delusion within existance. We can end this delusion through the practice of the Eightfold Noble path.

Again, I ask how you can be a Buddhist and embrace striving to do anything? "My" Jesus wasn't a family man, and addressed personal moral responsibility. Yet when I have the choice of giving my child's food to the poor and starving my child, charity becomes more complicated. You can say take down the fences and open all the doors, but when our families suffer you are the cause.


Dear BakerStreet, how can any human being exist without striving to make the world a better place? Charity is, indeed, complicated children or no. Afterall, we are stewards of the world, not just of our own personal families. I doubt that your child is starving and if he or she is, I would hope there would be others more fortunate willing to share with you. Perhaps sharing some of your child's food with others may not be a bad idea. There are huge lessons in sharing.

The fences I advocate taking down are in fact non-existent in the first place. Moreover, the food that you eat is more often than not harvested by those hands that have illegally slipped across the border. This world profits from open markets and open interaction. Why not discover ways to maximize this human resource rather than limit it?


So, who do we owe the most charity to? How are you balancing responsiblity to our families with your assertion that we should open our doors and end crime by not attempting to stop it? Are you willing to turn my cheek? Obviously. That isn't what Jesus was saying, not at all. You don't cause your neighbor to suffer to prevent a third party from suffering. If you do, then admit you are causing suffering, not easing it.


We owe charity to all and in that charity we give to ourselves.

Again, I never said we should not attempt to end crime, quite the contrary, I am suggesting that our ways are not helpful and they do not they work. They are at best temporary solutions, bandaids, if you will, to the problem. A society, BakerSteet, is responsible for its entire self, not just a chosen few, those who are able, of priviledge, or whatever. A society includes all beings, the good and the bad, the welcome and the unwelcome. If we put our considerable minds and hearts to the task of taking care of ourselves and all beings, we could in fact do it. I believe your Jesus meant what he said. It was not a good example or an allagory or a metaphor. He taught by example and my understanding is Christians are enjoined to live by that example. I am not turning your cheek, BakerStreet, I am asking you to turn your cheek. Only you can choose to be charitable.

Leaders have the responsibility to see to the welfare of their citizens. When someone wrongs them personally, of course they can turn the other cheek.


We agree. We could look at ways of making this happen where the core concept is justice as fairness.



When a leader uses "turn the other cheek" in their leadership position, though, they are gambling the welfare of the people they were entrusted to watch over. Your no doors and locks policy is great, and you just take yours off the hinges. Then when you are killed in your sleep you have no one to answer to but yourself.


Again, I never suggested this, this is your hyperbole. If by doors you are referring to our nation's borders I do not believe they should be completely open, but I do not believe, as well that preventing people from coming and going is a solution either. Borders are artifical constructs. Doors or no doors, BakerStreet, I could be killed in my sleep.
In dealing with governmental 'fences', though, you have to answer for the harm done to your neighbors. You as a religious person esponse a "charitable" stance that leads to the suffering of others, then you are the one that has caused the suffering of others, period. Fences may not be a perfect solution, but to do anything other than everything you can do to prevent suffering is to function in a state of malfeasance.


Interesting twist. And true if the fences were of use in the first place. But they are an illusion, whether they exist as electrified, twenty feet tall, made of concrete or steel, just as the Berlin Wall. People will find a way across to the other side. What is wrong with looking at an alternative solution?
Reply #24 Top
What is wrong with looking at an alternative solution?


Like what?
Reply #25 Top
#25 by Tova7
Tuesday, May 16, 2006


What is wrong with looking at an alternative solution?


Like what?


yeh what she said! not some idealistic thing, something that would work to keep the wolves at bay.