Soapbox

A few years ago, during the height of the Iraq war, I wrote a song that said:
          How can you just stand there?
          Don't you feel ashamed?

   I keep thinking of those words now because I am feeling the same head-banging, gut-tightening frustration, anger and shame I felt then about people cheering for torture and death. This week the source is the reaction of so much of America to the idea of the U.S. accepting 10,000 Syrian refugees- – a reaction encouraged on by the fear-mongering of the GOP presidential candidates.

    Governor John Kasich, who just recently said that he would welcome the refugees, now says no. No to a few dozen Syrians, mostly widows with children and orphans screened for months by the State department, because they're a danger to Ohio.
    Widows.  And orphans.  To Kasich, simply being born in a part of the world where terrorists are– even though they hate the terrorists more than we do!-  makes them all too dangerous to be allowed into America, the home of the brave.
    Please. Ohioans are in more danger from the guns people bring to Walmart and drop on the floor or leave in the public bathroom!
    And oh by the way, he also wants, as president, to create a new government department of Judeo-Christian values, to spread our superior morality to the world. I assume those values he brags about include sending widows and orphans back to refugee camps in a war zone?

                                                    dangerous refugees! 

    Former governor and candidate Mike Huckabee, after working himself in a tizzy about the danger that the America-hater Obama is putting us in by bringing over his 'Muslim friends', tried to bury the racism of his remarks by pointing out in fake concern that those middle eastern people have different customs and habits, and how could they ever feel comfortable and  blend in?
     "People who come from a desert environment" would have their lives disrupted if they were sent to some place like Minnesota!
    Because coats are not a thing for immigrants. And because fleeing from a bombed-out country while being chased by madmen with guns is far less disruptive than trying to find your way around in a new country.

                                       Why don't they just stay in their own country?

    Marco Rubio compared not saying the magical words "Radical Islam" to not calling Nazi's Nazis. And of course "Just say NO to Syrians" is his advice too.

    Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush think we should be only allowing Christian refugees in… because only Muslims cause problems. No seriously- Cruz says to keep the Muslims away but claims there is 'no significant danger' from letting Christian refugees in. Well, perhaps the death and destruction caused here by Christian shooters and bombers is somehow kinder and gentler than the Muslim variety.
    And it's not as if the Constitution has anything to say about discriminating based on religion anyway. So please- continue your bid for the presidency under a constitution you obviously don't believe in.

    Chris Christie of New Jersey says his state will not even take orphans under the age of 5 because "nits grow up and become lice". Well ok- actually that is what the US military said of native American children when ordering soldiers to kill the babies too, but the sentiment is apparently still alive and well in New Jersey.

    Donald Trump not only doesn't want those terrorist refugees in here, he thinks we need to close mosques in America, because 'so much strong hatred is coming from there'. Really? The strong hatred I see seems to be coming from the Republican party. Oh say, now that only the "good", Trump-approved houses of worship get to stay open in America, can we close down the Unitarians too? They show up at an awful lot of peace rallys. And those Episcopalians keep ordaining gays and making Jesus cry.

    Not to be outdone in the competition to see who can slam the door the loudest, a lawmaker in the Tennessee GOP has come forward and said that not only will Tennessee  mobilize the National Guard to keep out any new refugees (er, actually, states legally cannot do this) but he wants them to round up any who have already settled there, throw them on a bus and take them back to immigration.
   Because we learned absolutely fucking nothing from the Japanese-America internment shame of WW2, when so many hard-working citizens were dragged away from their homes and locked up like criminals- for the crime of having a particular ancestry.

    And because that whole "melting pot" thing doesn't apply any more. The only good Muslim/Syrian/dark skinned person is one that isn't here.
    Time to take the big green statue down and ship her back to France because we don't want her kind of liberal, America-hating tripe polluting our country.

    I am horrified and ashamed that so many people are so afraid of difference that they would send refugees back to face death… and then bitch because a clerk at a store said "Happy Holiday" instead of Merry Christmas to them.
    Because Jesus is Soooooo important to them that they're ready to abandon not only the constitution but everything Jesus actually said about refugees and welcoming strangers  in order to make sure that only people who look and think and pray like them are allowed in Jesus's country of America.

    I know that the brave lawmakers who are willing to defy the President, the constitution and basic human decency to protect the Mighty U.S.of A. from some refugees imagine themselves to be Gandalf, heroically standing up to the Balrog at the Bridge of Khazad dum, howling~ 
                              "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!!!!"

    But really, they are just George Wallace at the schoohouse door, facing down a couple of kids who wanted to go to school and vowing "SEGREGATION FOREVER!!"