INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW

Do you know when you're income tax refund will arrive?  Inquiring minds want to know.  I pose that question because nobody will receive income tax refunds as long as President Trump continues the current government shut-down.

Don't make any plans.  The President has stated he'll keep the government closed for years if he doesn't get his way on border wall funding.  So much for a government of the people, by the people and for the people.  President Trump has made it clear that, in his mind, the sole reason for the federal government is to do his bidding.  And if he doesn't get his way, he'll make sure the rest of us will suffer.  It would be apt to say that Trump is acting like a four-year old; but more of the four-year old children I know are much better behaved.

WHO AMONG US IS NOT AN IMMIGRANT?

According to the 11^th Edition of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate ® Dictionary, a synonym is “one of two or more words or expressions of the same language that have the same or nearly the same meaning in some or all senses.”

That same dictionary defines immigrant as, “one that immigrates: such as (a) a person who comes to a country to take up permanent residence, or (b) a plant or animal that becomes established in an area where it was previously unknown.”

The following are synonyms of the word immigrant: newcomer, stranger, outsider, settler, nonnative, foreigner, alien. 

Who among us is not an immigrant?  Who has never been a newcomer or a stranger?  Who has never experienced a moment as an outsider, or a time of having to settle in new or unfamiliar surroundings?  The fact is, all of us have walked in those shoes; some more than others, and those who deny doing so are only fooling themselves. 

Life is full of immigrant moments – your first day of school; the first day at a new job; a first time walking into a new church; meeting other kids on the playground; passing strangers in the supermarket; interacting with unknown store clerks; being introduced to unfamiliar guests at a party, meeting newcomers at a club; and being the newest recruit on a sports team.  There are countless other examples, synonymous circumstances with those of an immigrant.

Before mistreating or ridiculing immigrants, ask yourself:  Is this how I want to be treated when I’m the newcomer, an outsider or a stranger? 

We have more in common with immigrants than many of us care to admit.  It’s time we act like it!

DEAL WITH IT!

A week or two after President Trump’s inauguration in early 2017, I confided in a friend that I was becoming more and more anxious every day over the prospect of having to live under an administration I viewed as not just morally corrupt, but downright evil.  It bothered me that America was being led by a man hell-bent on destroying everything good and noble about the country I love.  I shared my concern that Donald Trump was a wannabe dictator wrapped in sheep’s clothing, who would dupe a large segment of our population into pursuing the creation of a fascist society with “The Donald” as its deified ruler.  And then I confessed that the notion of having a sexual predator who boasted of his conquests leading the United States disturbed me greatly.

My friend responded, “Deal with it!”

There’s something about those three words that cuts my heart like a knife, and if there are three other words that can end a friendship faster, I haven’t found them yet.

“Deal with it” is a heartless retort under the best of circumstances, and it’s even crueler after the individual on the receiving end has acknowledged a vulnerability or difficulty being experienced in his or her life.

It does raise an interesting question though.  How is one to deal with the likes of Donald Trump?  Go mad?  Play dead?  Pretend he doesn’t exist, or delude one’s self into thinking the President has no power over ordinary lives?  None of those options sound healthy, or even effective for that matter.

A better answer is to find your voice.  Fight back!  Give witness to Trump’s lies and refuse to fall silent to the evil he peddles on a daily basis.  That’s how I will deal with it.  In the coming months you can count on me being heard, even if the number of my listeners can be counted on a few hands.   

A WIDESPREAD DISEASE CALLED CRUELTY

Several months ago prosecutors in Cocoa, Florida declined to press charges against a group of heartless young men who stood idly by a pond’s edge and watched a disabled man drown.  As the drowning man floundered in the water in a desperate attempt to reach safety, the young men videotaped his last terrifying moments on earth without offering assistance.  Instead, they laughed at the dying man and joked about his misfortune.  Charges were not filed in Florida because cruelty is not illegal in the Sunshine State.  It’s not illegal in most other places either, which is probably why so many people give so little thought to the cruelty their actions and policies wreak.

Cruelty is primarily born of ignorance, so it’s worth noting that according to Webster’s Dictionary, cruelty is defined as “a desire to cause others to suffer, the quality or state of being cruel, and actions that cause suffering.”  It is also worth noting that people aren’t born cruel.  Cruelty is a learned behavior, and children can learn to be cruel just as easily as they can learn to be kind.  That’s why it’s important for children to be taught early in life to recognize cruelty in all its forms and take steps to avoid it.

People say the world is a cruel place, as if that’s the natural state of our existence, but that viewpoint ignores the reality that life is largely what we make of it, and most if not all of the cruelty we experience is caused by human beings. 

Why does cruelty matter?  It matters because cruelty is a festering cancer that eats away at a person’s sense of compassion and their ability to empathize with fellow human beings.  Left unchecked, cruelty destroys a person’s humanity, and when it metastasizes beyond the individual and starts infecting large segments of society, that society’s health and well-being are gravely endangered.

Desiring others to suffer is the easiest form of cruelty to recognize, especially when the person or group or government that harbors that desire carries out a grandiose display of violence that reaches out and grabs our attention.  It would be a mistake, however, to think that cruelty is limited to the dictators and despots and terrorists of the world.  We all have our moments when we’d like to see others suffer, especially in situations where the target of our ire has wronged us, committed a horrible atrocity or harmed children.  Plus, it’s easy to confuse cruelty with punishment.  There’s a difference between the two.

Webster’s second definition of cruelty - the quality or state of being cruel – sounds like a no-brainer to recognize, but people often lose sight of their own cruelty when they believe actions  justify it.  To this point James William Fulbright, noted U.S. Senator and humanitarian once observed, “In the name of noble purposes men have committed unspeakable acts of cruelty against one another.”  Fulbright was right.  In World War II, the Nazis claimed national interests justified their murdering six million Jews.  Today, ISIS, al Qaeda and the Taliban routinely justify their cruel displays of murder and mayhem as acts in service to God.  Nor is America immune from cruelty.  In the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks, American agents routinely tortured prisoners of war and justified the cruelty with claims that it saved millions of lives.  Cruelty prevails because it’s easily rationalized. 

The third form of cruelty – actions that cause others to suffer – is the most prevalent, but also the most ignored.  That’s because people minimize their own role in causing others to suffer.  Rationalization helps, too.

Now that we know what cruelty is, it’s time to recognize the vast amount of cruelty that surrounds us and own up to the role we play in allowing cruelty to propagate.  It’s cruel to rip children from the arms of their parents and lock them in cages (12,800 as of this past August) for following a mom or dad across a line in the sand.  It’s cruel to mock the disabled for the crosses they bear in life.  It’s cruel to denigrate the sacrifices of soldiers, just as it is to devalue the humanity of one’s adversaries.  It’s cruel to take food from the mouths of the hungry.  It’s cruel to prevent the sick from access to medical care.  It’s cruel to deprive the elderly of their dignity in the waning years of their lives.  It’s cruel to sexually molest children, just as it is to tolerate or sweep it under the rug.  It’s cruel to leave a child suffocating in a car on a hot summer day with the windows closed, and it’s equally cruel to suffocate future generations with an atmosphere too heated and polluted to breathe.  It’s cruel to poison a person’s food or drink, and it’s just as cruel to do so on a global scale.

We see, hear, and read about cruelty on a daily basis, and maybe the constant bombardment has desensitized us to the pain and anguish cruelty creates, but being oblivious to cruelty is not an acceptable excuse when it comes to the suffering of fellow human beings.  Like it or not, we are our brother’s keeper.

A WALL FOR PRESIDENT TRUMP

It is not very often that President Trump’s wishes align with the wishes of liberal-minded people like me, but when they do it bears noting and taking time to consider the possibilities generated by that alignment.  President Trump wishes to live behind a 30-foot high wall and he wants people other than himself (preferably Mexican citizens) to pay for it.  Occasionally, the President has even suggested that the wall be topped with barbed wire (to prevent would-be rapists and criminals from crossing it) and again, his wishes align with the wishes of liberal-minded people like me.  That might seem a bit unusual, even foolhardy to suggest, but really, it’s not!  According to a survey of Americans conducted across the political spectrum in late 2016, almost sixty-six million Americans agreed with the need for President Trump to get a wall, and many were liberal Democrats like me who thought that America needed all the protection it could get.  Yeah, that’s YUGE!

There has been much discussion over the past two years regarding the kind of wall that would satisfy the President’s demands.  In fact, eight prototypes have already been erected near the Otay Mesa port of entry in San Diego, California, just across the border from Tijuana, Mexico.  If you Google “wall prototype images” you can take a look at them yourself.  If you ask me, those prototypes are aesthetically bland and fall short of the standards befitting a President like Trump.  First of all, none of them are gilded in gold, so that’s disappointing.  Next, the all-cement versions look like an open invitation to graffiti artists on both sides of the border, and the last thing we need are graffiti artists messing with the border’s natural beauty.  The vertical slat prototypes are similarly underwhelming.  They remind me of the cheap vertical blinds that beach-front condo owners regularly install.  Blinds like that have a habit of breaking whenever something bumps against them.  I worry that a similar kind of wall at the border would allow drug cartels to slip their products through the slats with ease, and emaciated children from Central America could slip through, too.  Both would provide bad optics for the President.

And it’s not like there aren’t better wall options available.  Officials in Florence, Colorado have already built a prototype wall that fits all the elements demanded by President Trump.  It’s big and it’s beautiful, and while it meets the height and protection requirements that Trump envisions, including barbed wire, its biggest selling point is that a person can actually look through the wall and gaze upon the majestic snow-covered peaks of the Rocky Mountains.  It’s the kind of view folks kill for. 

Many of my liberal brethren were initially skeptical of Trump’s campaign promise that Mexicans would pay for a wall, especially when the Mexican President at the time said, “That ain’t happening!” (only in Spanish)  Even today, many liberals question why President Trump had to shut down the US government over a demand for a $5 billion dollar wall down-payment from Congress, when the money was supposed to come from Mexico.  Shouldn’t Trump be shutting down Mexico’s government instead?  I admit there’s a certain logic to that way of thinking, but many of my liberal brethren simply do not get the fact that President Trump doesn’t need logic or critical analysis to justify his decisions.  His gut suits him just fine!

FOX news has reported that a GoFundMe campaign for the President’s wall has already raised $17 million dollars, which might sound like a lot of money, but that’s just a drop-in-a-bucket given the $18 billion dollar price tag that President Trump’s wall carries.  That amount also pales in comparison to what we liberals would raise to make the President’s wish to live behind a wall come true, if only he would log off Twitter long enough to act presidential and recognize that he’s got more in common with Big Mack-eating liberals than he realizes. 

President Trump has also been critical of Democratic opposition in Congress to a wall being built, but I think the President is overlooking the forest for the trees.  Millions of liberal Democrats like me support a wall for Trump.  I have personally spoken to eleven of my like-minded peers and we are of the unanimous conviction that President Trump should get the wall he deserves.  In fact, all of us would volunteer to start digging the foundation if Congress would finally get off its butt and make it happen!  

IMPRISONED BY THE WALL

Tomorrow, we Americans will build a wall.  The day after tomorrow, we will send our soldiers to guard the wall.  The day after that, our soldiers guarding the wall will start shooting anyone who tries to cross the wall.  The day after that, we will celebrate the wall's efficacy, and the day after that, our President will proclaim that Americans are finally free to live as our forefathers intended us to live - safely behind a wall guarded by soldiers who shoot anyone trying to cross it.

Many years ago, people built a wall between east and west in a place called Berlin.  The next day, soldiers appeared to guard the wall.  The day after that, soldiers guarding the wall started shooting anyone who tried to cross it.  The day after that, the wall builders celebrated their wall's efficacy and their leaders announced that those living behind the wall were finally free to live safely as their forefathers intended.

Many years later, an American President named Reagan scolded a Russian President named Gorbachev and demanded, "Tear down that wall!"  And when the wall in Berlin was torn down, the people living behind the wall were filled with elation over their newfound freedom.  They celebrated with singing and dancing in the streets, and when the last bit of the wall's concrete crumbled, they wept for joy till dawn.

For centuries, men have built walls to keep people out, only to discover that walls function best to keep people inside them.  And those inside are not free, for they are trapped behind walls of their own creation and imprisoned in a fortress with precious little room to breathe.

Americans have spent centuries expanding their horizons, and when they reached their physical limits, they began to spread their message of liberty across the globe.  They even reached out to touch the stars, but that was yesterday.

Today, we Americans are a fearful lot; a people seeking the false promise of protection from a wall that will imprison us.  Hopefully, years from now, a Russian President will scold an American President and demand, "Tear down that wall!"  And when the wall is torn down, our children and our grandchildren living behind the wall will be filled with elation over their newfound freedom.  They will celebrate with singing and dancing in the streets, and when the last bit of the wall's concrete crumbles, they will weep for joy till dawn.

CHILDREN, GUNS AND LEADERS

Great leaders will sacrifice guns to save children.  Poor ones will sacrifice children to save guns.