One of the biggest issues in the news today is whether we should help Syrians by allowing them entry into the United States of America. I am going to be really frank and say that I have no idea what the best solution is, but I trust my government and my representatives who are fully informed to make the best decision they can in this situation. The thing is though we caused these unsafe conditions for the Syrians by meddling in their countries situation and now they are suffering because of it.

I know that this country would not be where it is today without assistance from other countries, but when we Confederates seceded from the union and the Civil War started, what country came in and essentially took over and told us what to do? England provided resources, but never sent in their army to support the side they deemed right.

I believe that we need to start focusing on this country instead of consistently interfering/assisting other countries with their issues. The situation reminds me of the scripture that discusses the mote in our neighbor's eye and the beam in our eye. We are so focused on fixing the other countries problems that may be small or large and are ignoring the big issues that are going on in our country. I find that it's easier oftentimes to point out what is going wrong with other people's lives and fix them than work on becoming a perfect person myself. Which is what I feel like our country is doing because we have so many people struggling in our country, but instead of going out of our way to support them we donate all this money and resources to foreign countries.

Also, the involvement we provide may have detrimental effects to those living in other countries. A woman in Africa shared her struggles by discussing that she used to be a clothesmaker for her village, but then the country started to send over clothes from the USA. Soon the people in her village were wearing name brand clothes so her basic clothing was no longer any good, and they were receiving it for free! How could she begin to compete for free, so now she has no job and is struggling to take care of herself.

Another example of this occurs in Haiti. Haiti had a disastrous earthquake seven years ago and countries around the world pulled together to provide assistance for them. One of the biggest donations was rice to feed the struggling country. Now I'm sure at this point you think that we have stopped, but WE HAVEN'T. We are still sending tons of rice to Haiti and now there are few farmers left because they can't sell rice to others when we are handing rice out for free. So, what will happen when we stop providing rice to Haiti, will the farmers rise back up or will the country go hungry and the blame be on us for destroying their economy?

It's time to unite this country and make it a country others envy instead of hate. I believe by focusing on domestic issues instead of foreign issues we can strengthen this country into one the founding fathers would be proud of!