[RESPONDING TO “(WORD)HOLE REDUX” from Jacksonville, Florida]

Shortly after news of his foul comments surfaced, Trump tweeted, “It is my duty to protect the lives and safety of all Americans. We must build a Great Wall, think Merit and end Lottery & Chain. USA!” Now, I have no problem with a president finding it his duty to protect us – of course it’s his duty, he’s the top cop, and the enforcement of the law is a tough job, one that requires a firm hand. I do not agree with the idea of a physical wall though. I realize that Israel has a wall, but so did East Germany and China. Those walls have been destroyed or compromised, and they cannot function to keep people from crossing. They represent old technology and in this world, they cannot be as effective as an electronic one. Trump is good at building walls, both physical and financial ones, but his walls are only as good as the technology that monitors them. Better mice defeat once-better mousetraps though, and as technology improves, the physical obstruction of a wall across our southern border becomes less and less useful until it becomes useless altogether as all the prepositions are applied to make it so. Drugs and illegal aliens will still come into the country, but by other means.

“Think Merit,” he says. If “merit” is a term only applied to foreigners, then I agree. They should be properly examined, and they should be willing to become good, productive, law-abiding citizens of our country, and they should do so in the right way, with all the documentation in order, and all the pertinent research on their personal history complete. But what if we turn the merit-seeking microscope around and examine Donald Trump. The rest of America and the world know his (every) thoughts – even the crude and thoughtless thoughts.  He puts (them) all out there on Twitter without shame. Every so often, I see the worth of what he says, but I rarely see the value in the way he says it. One of my favorite quotes from the Proverbs of Solomon is, “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.” If Trump acknowledged this concept, I might call him a statesman. If he honored the Creator’s determination of nations, or God’s love for each human being, I would consider him worthy of leading our meritocratic government. I see little merit in him, and his willingness to use profanity to describe global political and social situations in which the rest of mankind exists, repulses me. His careless and childish practice of name-calling not only dishonors the despised places and their leaders, and humiliates the millions of unfortunate people living in them, but the mud slung splashes back on Donald, his office, and his own people!

Okay – I believe I know what I’ve led you to think. You have me down as a bleeding heart who wants everyone to trample our borders. No, I don’t. It is not lost on me that God has created our nation as well as those which have been spat upon by the bully who has become president. He claims that we must “end Lottery & Chain.” I understand the problem. I don’t think we should simply end it, just modify it in a sensible and responsible fashion. We should have handled the repeal of Obamacare more intelligently as well. Sometimes it seems like he needs to smash things just so he can erect a new tower in the history books with his name on it. Never mind that – I know I can be too down on Trump sometimes. The point is, he needs to be more thoughtful about what he says. He needs to be way more careful about how he says it. A thug threatening you with a knife will not get the respect he craves, only fear. Respect has to be earned, and, as I see it, all he has earned is money. The fear he has generated, and the foolishness with which he presents himself, and us by proxy, has turned a global community with problems into a pending disaster. Believe it or not, I can cope with that because I expect that all of this is setting the stage for the end of the age. I’m gonna’ get un-engaged from this outrage.

Sorry – didn’t mean to rap. I don’t even like rap. I consider it to be rather … end-times stuff. It’s a destructive force that tends to tear society into subcultures and fragment any remaining sense of community that we might still have as a nation. Yes, I believe in a rapture of the saints and a seven-year tribulation period when the Antichrist arises to global power and wherein the nations of the world are judged. So the Donald is age-appropriate, after all.