Other Columns by Doug Patton
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Nearly four years ago, I wrote a column called "Where No One Locks the Door," wherein I attempted to bring the war on terror down to a very personal level. In rereading it, I realized how timely it was in analyzing the current debate over illegal immigration (particularly border security) so here is an update of that original piece:

Imagine you are a child living with your family in a small town. You have always felt safe there. The crimes of big cities seem distant from your serene world, where no one ever locks the door.

Then one night, your next-door neighbors are murdered in their home, which is burned to the ground. Your whole town is terrified. Your parents gather the family together for a reassuring pep talk.

"The men who did this will be brought to justice," your parents tell you. "And until they are caught, we will protect you."

You believe them, but the next day you discover that your doors not only remain unlocked; they are standing wide open. You are astonished. Your parents tell you that locking the doors would not be neighborly.

Miraculously, nothing happens for five nights. On the sixth night, you hear a noise downstairs. You wake your parents and follow your father down to the kitchen, where you discover a man rummaging through your trash.

Your father opens the refrigerator and tells the man to take what he wants and turn the lights out when he is finished. Amazed, you ask why he doesn't call the police or at least throw this man out and lock the doors. He tells this man meant no harm, and besides, locked doors are not the way in your town.

"After all," he says, "we don't want people to hate us."

Angry and confused, you go back to bed and listen to the sounds of the man in your family's kitchen.

Over the next fourteen nights, six men wander into the house and take what they want. One night, you open your eyes to find one of them standing over your bed. In answer to your screams, your father puts his arm around the man and escorts him downstairs to the refrigerator. The next morning your family discovers their home theater system is missing. Your mother sighs and shakes her head, while your father simply shrugs.

On the second night of the third week, just before sleep comes, you smell something that sends chills over every inch of your body. Gasoline!

This time, you don't wake your father. You reach for the phone and call the sheriff, who arrives just before one of the three men in your living room lights the match. The men are arrested and taken to the county jail, but later you hear that they have been released.

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