A shockingly massive gunfight erupted Thursday between drug cartel forces and the Mexican military in the Pacific coastal state of Sinaloa. The battle broke out when Mexican authorities attempted to arrest the son of the infamous drug lord known as El Chapo. It spilled into the streets of the city of Culiacán. The video footage is a terrifying and sober reminder of what is happening just south of our border.

#Más: El enfrentamiento inició en el Sector Tres Ríos, pero se ha extendido a otros puntos de #Culiacán.

Vean el tipo de armas que se están usando. pic.twitter.com/sLXtMeUTHk

— Carlos Zúñiga Pérez (@Carloszup) October 17, 2019

The time for petty politics has long since passed. We need that wall.

Mexicans are not “straight, white males” and for that reason and none other we are having this insane argument about whether or not America has the right to protect her borders. In reality, race/ethnicity is completely irrelevant to this conversation. We are talking about the most powerful, prosperous and freest nation on earth living right next door to a war zone. Of course there are good people who want to get the hell out of there as fast as possible. Wouldn’t you? There are also very bad people who have already expanded their war zones into the United States, literally using the private lands of unprotected American ranchers as their battlefields.

Our government is not responsible for the good people of Mexico. You can make yourself responsible for those good people  if that’s what you so choose. In fact, that’s really how it should work. You should not depend on a faceless government to do good things for people. You should be doing good things for people out of your own volition and pocket. My church travels across the border frequently to build orphanages, churches, community facilities and support local charity leaders working in their own communities. We cannot bring every single person back with us. Nearly every other nation in the world is a sucky place to live. We don’t have the ability to house every oppressed person or even most of them. The world is a terrible and cruel place. This is why we should be so very grateful to live in America.

If we want to see the lives of others improve, we should be working with them to improve their own communities and their nations. It’s lazy – both physically and intellectually – to tell everyone to just come here and let the American taxpayer support them. Few Americans are willing to leave the comforts of their own lives to go improve the lives of those in other countries. Are we just supposed to empty out Mexico and Somalia and Guatemala and *insert 3rd world country here* and relocate every single person to America? It makes no sense, particularly morally because what we are saying when we support that idea is that those cultures are not good enough to deserve preservation in their own land.

We need that wall. A border wall is neither controversial nor a new idea and I have always found the arguments against it perplexing.

“A wall is cruel and racist”…well, it will have several doors and anyone who wants to can knock on them. Am I to believe that unless my door to my home is wide open 24/7 that I’m a hateful bigot?

“It costs too much”…since when did people on the Left start worrying about what anything costs? Since when did people on the Right start worrying about what a robust national defense costs?

“It won’t work”…can’t we even try it just in case it does work? My walls at home work pretty well. It seems like what works on a small scale is acceptable to at least attempt on a wider scale.

“People can climb it…see this video of a child easily scaling Trump’s stupid design”…great, shouldn’t that make you happy then? If you’re opposed to a wall, and we’re getting a wall anyway this seems like the type of design you should support.

“This is not who we are”…what in the hell does that even mean? If the wall has a door then this is exactly who we are – a sovereign nation that is extraordinarily hospitable if you simply ring the doorbell first.

Watching the bizarre political flip-flops on the Syria situation I can only surmise that the outraged opposition to a border wall is only about Trump and nothing else. To support one seems like support for the President and there are too many weak-minded and weak-willed people out there who don’t know how to separate themselves from the judgement of people they don’t even know.

We needed a wall before Trump and at this rate it looks like we’re still going to need one after him. This isn’t about Trump and this isn’t about race. This is about a literal war zone mere miles from the border of the most powerful nation on earth. A nation – by the way – that is constantly and endlessly asked (begged) to intervene in international conflicts in order to protect innocents. How can we be expected to do that when we are not even allowed to protect our own border from invading forces?

This is all utterly ridiculous and childish. Build the damn wall and let’s move on from this. If you’re feeling morally conflicted, go help your neighbors south of the border. It’s free to cross and they need you. Don’t be lazy.