I was walking my dog this morning near Battery Park. As I admired the sun reflecting on the Hudson River and the Statue of Liberty I looked over at a row of flowers my dog was sniffing. The flowers surrounded a large slab of concrete that I had never noticed before. The slab of concrete was donated to Battery Park in the late 1980's. It was a piece of the Berlin Wall, gray and lifeless. I stood there thinking of what that wall and the statue of liberty stood for. The wall was built to keep its citizens from fleeing a communist government. The slab of concrete stood for a government that needed to wall in its citizens so as to prevent them from learning what was going on in the world. A government whose economic policies failed after draining every bit of life out of its citizens.

The Statue of Liberty welcomed people who wanted to work and be free from oppressive governments. It stands in the middle of a river, a river of life. A river that brings ships containing cargo, and brought millions of immigrants via cruise ships. A statue that welcomed millions of people fleeing tyrannical governments. A statue that brought hope. A statue that represented liberty from those governments.

Now we have a government that wants to convert our Country into the countries that millions fled. Into a country with the same economic systems that failed and drained the life out of its citizens. Into a country just like the one that needed a tall gray slab of cement surrounding it to control its citizens.