Border wall: Letters to the editor, Jan. 28, 2019

History proves walls don’t work

I am glad I never had Salivio Laccetti as professor in any of my history classes. In his article in the Jan. 7th Bee, he stated, “History shows that walls work to protect a nation.” Actually, history proves that walls are an ineffective protection for cities or countries.

In approximately 1300 BC, the Spartans were able to bypass the walls of Troy to burn, sack and loot the city.

In Rome’s Third Servile War,(73 -71 BC) the Roman army had Spartacus’ forces bottled up on the tip of Italy, so they built a wall to contain the rebels. Spartacus not only escaped, but took his army with him and fought additional battles with the Romans.

Masada was a walled fortress on the top of a mountain. In 66 AD Jewish rebels took the fortress away for the Romans and in 73 AD the Romans breached the wall and re-took the fortress. All of the Jews committed suicide rather than be captured by the Romans.

According to historians, Hadrian’s Wall in Britain was never built to prevent invasion or immigration, but to demonstrate the power of Rome.

The Great Wall of Cina, built in stages between 7 BC and 1644 AD,was built to protect China from the invaders from the north. It did not stop Kublai Kahn from conquering China in 1271 AD and establishing the Yuan Dynasty that ruled China until 1368 AD.

Jerusalem in probably an excellent example that walls don’t work. It was invaded by the Arabs in 68 AD, the Turks in 1073 AD, the Crusaders in 1099 AD, Saladin’s Muslim army in 1187 AD. It was sacked by the Tartars in 1244 AD and the Ottoman Turks captured it in 1512 AD.

Now there was the Berlin Wall. It was pretty effective because there were soldiers on the wall that shot anyone trying to cross it. If we establish a border wall, how many soldiers will we have on it and how many people will they have to shoot?

It would be better to take the $5 billion proposed for the wall and invest it in Central America to improve conditions so the natives of those countries would not have to flee to the U.S. for sanctuary and a better way of life. Putting up a wall won’t do it.

Let’s boost community colleges

With a new governor and super-majorities in both houses of the Legislature, Sacramento can do things that meaningfully benefit the people of California.

For starters, it is time California provided free (tuition, fees, expenses, and books) community college education to all students, subject to reasonable standards for admission to the program, such as a minimum high school GPA, and time standards for graduation.

Second, our community colleges should be required to provide courses of training commensurate with demand for needed jobs, such as nursing and information technology. Community colleges have few classes and long waiting lists for these and other high-demand courses because they are labor intensive to teach. So colleges offer classes that can be taught in a large lecture hall by a part-time teacher and skimp on labor-intensive courses.

Educating Californians for good-paying jobs that California needs to fill benefits everybody and makes good sense financially.

Call for Democrats to be patient

I’m a Democrat. Do I want to impeach Mr. Trump? Yes, I believe he is a crook and worse.

But there is no point in bringing impeachment against the president until there is enough evidence to convict in the Senate. If impeachment is brought prematurely, it will give him a talking point and probably give him re-election. We cannot afford four more years of this treacherous and increasingly autocratic administration. It is simply too dangerous to our country and our democracy.

Fellow Democrats, be patient. The time will come when it will be proper to impeach. Then we can act.