In an interview on NPR, noted conservative scholar Dinesh D’Souza discussed his documentary, 2016: Obama’s America, which is playing in over 1,500 theaters around the country. D’Souza argues that Obama is intentionally implementing policies that will weaken America as he pursues the anti-colonialist dream of his Kenyan father. In the interview, D’Souza said that, in his autobiography Obama explicitly laid out his view that the key to a more equitable post-colonial world lies in diminishing the domination of the West and expanding the opportunities of the developing nations. D’Souza seems bent on recasting “birtherism” in intellectual dress – unlike the less subtle bumper sticker I recently saw: “Don’t Blame Me, I Voted for the American.” But inadvertently or not, he raises important questions: How will we integrate a planet of 7+ billion people who are in constant and deadly conflict over limited resources? How will we close the global gap between rich and poor?

The current model is based on continual economic growth and resource extraction in the belief that “a rising tide lifts all boats.” It is also based on fear, symbolized by our obsession with fences, walls and gates – with us on the inside trying desperately to keep them on the outside. Those two components contradict each other. Yet as the doctrine of unending growth appears to have run its course, those who have benefited most from it build higher fences, thicker walls and more heavily guarded gates.

We need to make more universal Ronald Reagan’s demand that we “tear down that wall.”