Donald Trump wants to build a wall. I’d like to get rid of some rats.
What we want has something in common, but one is much easier to condemn than the other.
To most people, rats are disgusting and unwanted; they are disease carriers.
The illegal immigrants that Trump wants to keep out are human beings.
All of us – whatever our race or nationality or age – run the risk of being as unwelcome as rats. We hate to admit it. Not everybody wants us.
We welcome some critters and not others. We each have our own preferences.
I live a 10-minute bus ride from downtown Portland, Ore. in a neighborhood that represents the Pacific Northwest. Forest, ravines, hills, trails, traffic. Birds and wildlife.
Just this week, I looked out my living room window and saw a small deer nibbling on an azalea bush and drinking from a large, clay container I keep filled with water for whomever stops by. The four-legged visitors are usually squirrels (mostly red and one gray) and chipmunks. Not far away I used to keep a feeder with birdseed.
When we had a few hot days in April, I caught a Steller’s jay grooming himself in water, shaking his stately black crest.
I also noticed something in the ivy that darted as a quickly as a chipmunk, but when it poked out its snout, it was something else. It skittered over to the water and took a long drink. A rat.
Where there’s one rat, there is likely another.
The Oregon Dept. of Fish and Wildlife advises against feeding birds and wildlife. That would seem to be an easy solution to the rat problem: Stop putting out water and bird feed, and the rats will leave.
But birds already have a hard enough life what with cats and pesticides. It’s a simple joy to watch them and hear their birdsong. If you want to encourage them to come around, you offer them something. How do you entice one critter without inviting one you don’t want?
My neighborhood hardware store sells traps labeled “rat/chipmunk” that will break their necks. But I don’t want to kill chipmunks. They’re funny little creatures with stripes.
The hardware store also sells poison – a slow, painful way to die. Even a rat seems worthy of a humane death. Poison is also indiscriminate and can kill the wrong animals.
A well-aimed gun can kill quickly and efficiently (provided it’s not in the hands of an inebriated police chief, but let’s leave Portland Police Chief Larry O’Dea out of it).
“A squirrel is just a cute rat,” a salesman in a gun store told me.
He seemed to think I should get some d-CON and be done with all of them, particularly since it’s illegal to fire a gun in the city limits.
Even kind, generous people can be cold-hearted when it comes to certain species.
When I discussed my rat situation with a friend (who makes no secret of her hatred for Donald Trump and his proposed wall) she wanted a breakdown on exactly what kind of squirrels I had in my yard. She hates gray squirrels because they are not native. They were introduced from outside Oregon and are now considered invasive. They are no better than rats in her view.
She hates gray squirrels so much she puts cayenne pepper in her birdseed. Birds aren’t bothered by it, but squirrels hate it. She reported gleefully how she watched a gray squirrel visit her bird feeder and then immediately rush to wipe his muzzle on a tree.
I was pleased to tell her most of my squirrels were red. Later I discovered that not all red squirrels are regarded as equal. According to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife website, my squirrels are probably Eastern fox squirrels, not American red squirrels.
“Like the Eastern gray squirrel, it (the Eastern fox squirrel) was intentionally introduced to urban areas in the early 1920s as pets and watchable wildlife. The fox squirrel has become the most common backyard squirrel in the Portland Metro area and is believed to have contributed to the decline of native squirrel species. Fox squirrels are notorious for breeding ‘out of season,’ meaning they breed nearly year round… .”
Who does that sound like?
I won’t go there, since humans are so special.
Back to the rat problem – I put away the birdseed but left the water. The result was less life in my yard. No mourning doves, no painted finches, no chipmunks. A few black-capped chickadees and Steller’s jays looking around. A few hopeful squirrels scrounging for leftover birdseed. But no rats.
I didn’t have to put up a wall. I made my place less appealing. I don’t like it, but if I had reacted to the rats the way some Americans want to handle illegal immigrants – let them in, the more the merrier! – eventually I wouldn’t have any other critters in my yard except rats.
We do not want to see a human correlation.
Humans are superior animals. We are capable of reason and can design laws to obtain a desired result – if we insist those laws be respected.
Rats don’t abide by our laws.
Last month a student at Forest Grove High School was forced to apologize for hanging a banner at school that said, “Build a Wall.” The student said he didn’t actually believe in building a wall along our border.
“I wanted to do something provocative to protest what I see as restrictions on freedom of speech. I was feeling like people weren’t open to discuss sensitive issues, because no matter what is said, no matter what words I used, someone says, ‘That’s offensive!’”
It’s hard to know what that student really believed since his family was threatened with violence. He can’t say what he really thinks.
“Just because it’s legal to do something doesn’t mean that it’s the right thing to do,” he wrote, referring to freedom of speech.
Left unsaid – but implied – was that just because something is illegal (entering a foreign country without permission) doesn’t mean it’s the wrong thing to do.
Should Trump get elected, he is not going to build a wall. It’s not practical or doable. It’s a political promise equivalent to Bernie Sanders’ pledge to make college free.
Many of the illegal immigrants coming here are not “the worst” their countries have to offer. If anything, they are the hardiest. They want some semblance of a peaceful, ordinary life, which is impossible in countries that are overrun with undesirables.
Neither the boy at Forest Grove High nor Donald Trump is wrong in defending his country. It’s self-preservation. So is wanting to flee a violent country with no chance for anything better.
The New York Times recently offered a rundown on the gains being made by right-wing parties in European countries because of the migrant crisis, weak economy and disillusionment with the European Union.
Why is this considered only a right-wing cause? There is nothing inherently racist about a country strengthening its borders if it has something worth protecting.
Politicians and political activists may think they will have the last word in November. They won’t. Nature will continue unfolding like it always has.
– Pamela Fitzsimmons
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A brave piece of writing. The “Portland values” crowd won’t agree, I’m sure.
My Portland values have been warped from interacting with provincial Portlanders, who believe everyone in this city must share the same progressive values.
I used to live down in SoCal near where you used to be. I’m surprised you didn’t have rats down there. My mom had problems with rats and I shot them with my dad’s 22. If its against the law, your neighbors and the cops won’t care. Nobody likes rats! I know people Portland don’t like guns. They hate rats more!! Portland has more rats than people know.
My wife likes the squirrels in Portland same as you. To me they’re rats with bushy tails.They’re starting to grow on me.
The man at the gun store told me people would be surprised at how many rats are in Portland. He said one of his customers, a woman on Southeast Johnson Creek, “is absolutely on a warpath” shooting rats.
But, no, oddly enough I never had to personally deal with rats when I lived in Southern California. The night crew in the newsroom where I worked had encounters with a large rat that made regular appearances.