I visited the copper statue in New York harbor yesterday. Nearly six years after New York was attacked, security is very high. Prior to boarding the ferry for Liberty Island, one must undergo a metal detector procedure. Once on board one is told to report anything suspicious. On route, one is escorted by a Coast Guard boat with two mounted machine guns. Liberty Island is a misnomer. To see the Statue, one must wait in yet another security line and get sniffed by smell detectors from GE. No cameras or cell phones are permitted to be used in the security area. After a two hour security wait one can witness that she has walled out tourists with bulletproof glass. No tourist can climb higher than her feet. Like the green coat of corrosion on the Statue, Liberty Island and its gateways have acquired security tents antithetical to the freed woman with broken shackles at her feet.

Her inscription is also an anachronism. We are stuck in an anti-immigrant rut as we were in World War II when citizens and resident aliens were detained on nearby Ellis Island, former gateway to 12 million Americans.

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

No. The torch is extinguished. The golden door is shut. Keep your tired, poor, wretched, homeless and tempest-tost. We are a new self-important Land of storied pomp that has forgotten its genesis.

I deem her the Statue of Security.