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Poet Robert Frost often misquoted, but he knew about fences
By Gary | September 29, 2008
There's a famous line in Robert Frost's poem "Mending Wall" that just about everyone who's a native English speaker in America has probably heard even if they haven't read the poem. That line is about fences: "Good fences make good neighbors."
Sadly, those who know the line rarely understand the point of the poem or the quote itself. Further down in the poem is what Frost really wants us to understand about fences and walls:
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Frost wasn't pushing the importance or popularity of fences. The fun of the poem is all about fence installation and fence repair with his neighbor each year. And the point of the poem is in the quote above: We really need to know and be very careful about the reason for our "fences" before we build them.
Today saw the largest single trading day point drop in the Dow Jones in the history of the U.S. Stock Market -- 777.68. It doesn't take a genius to understand why this radical sell-off took place. It happened because the U.S. House of Representatives is filled with too many little people in a day when our economy, and the economy of the world, demands big people -- demands statesmen -- at the helm. Instead, the majority (a nice mix of Democrats and Republicans, though more Republicans than Democrats) were afraid they might lose reelection. It seems the average, dumb American voter is so stuck on building walls and fences they cannot see the bigger picture. And the average Congressman/Congresswoman is so fearful about reelection that he/she won't stand up and say, "Sure, this economic bailout plan is a horrible thing and a miserable choice. But it's a choice we MUST make to salvage the economy for all of us.
But, rather than giving the nation an economic bailout, American "leadership" decided to huddle down behind the wall and keep those fences in place.
Ah, well. So what if we loose more billions throwing up patches to the wall/fence than we would if we'd just knocked it down and started over?
Topics: National News, Political News |