Maybe I was just naïve, or perhaps, without social media and 24 hour cable news in the past, I just had no idea how negative and angry people were.
But what is happening with the Syrian refugees, people who gave up everything they had ever owned and known to escape ISIS, seems to have brought out the meanness in what some like to say is a “Christian” nation, you know a nation based on the guy who said, “suffer the little children to come unto me.”
Remember the story from Mark 10: 13-15
“And they were bringing children to Him so that He might touch them; but the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw this, He was indignant and said to them, Permit the children to come to Me; do not hinder them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all.”…?
Of course, the consistent point was that His disciples objected, not those others.
In the summer of 2014. when the children were fleeing Central America, there were protests anywhere it was rumored these kids might end up, and the justifications for wanting them turned away were that ISIS was sneaking in among them; as young as they were they would vote for Obama; they were going to take our jobs; and, in spite of the lack of vaccinations by U.S. citizens that caused a measles outbreak, they were going to bring disease in spite of part of their processing being a medical evaluation and vaccinations against diseases where necessary.
220,000 people have been killed in Syria, with half the population being displaced.
And, there are approximately 4 million refugees.
Many of the 2016 presidential candidates had been saying that the U.S. should take in Syrian refugees fleeing from ISIS.
And then Paris happened with the perpetrators being native born Europeans, not Syrian refugees, after President Obama planned to settle 10,000 refugees in America over the next year.
Now it’s time for our lesser selves to run amuck.
At least 30 state governors have announced that they refuse to allow any refugees into their states with the most egregious refusal being that of Chris Christie who said he wouldn’t even let in 5 year old orphans because of the chance, I guess, members of ISIS will hide among them.
Mike Huckabee, a Baptist minister who seems to selectively forget, or crassly ignores, that the majority of acts of terror perpetrated on U.S. soil after 9/11 were done by White Christians, and claims when speaking of ISIS, “I don’t know of any other group of people uniquely that are targeting innocent civilians and committing these acts of mayhem”, says Speaker Paul Ryan “needs to make it clear that if the President won’t stand to protect America from wholesale open borders, then Republicans will. If Ryan will not lead and reject the importation of those fleeing the Middle East without assurances that we can separate refugees from terrorists, then Speaker Ryan needs to step down today and let someone else lead.”
Ben Carson wants GOP leaders in Congress to move legislation that would block federal funding for the plan to resettle refugees here because the U.S. has no responsibility to accept these refugees, refugees who are suffering because of the instability in the Middle East we are responsible for which resulted in the rise of ISIS.
He had previously held, “We should do everything in our power to help these men, women and children who have been forced to flee their country, but until we can sort out the bad guys, we must not be foolish.”
Ted Cruz , the anointed of God according to his father and himself, said, “President Obama and Hillary Clinton’s proposal to bring tens of thousands of Syrian Muslim refugees to America I think is absolute lunacy. Who in their right mind would want to bring over tens of thousands of Syrian refugees when we cannot determine, the administration cannot determine who is, and who isn’t a terrorist?”
Of course, and he is not alone in this, Cruz wants to favor Christian refugees:
“We need to be working to provide a safe haven for those Christians who are being persecuted and facing genocide, and at the same time we shouldn’t be letting terrorists into America,” he said.
Donald Trump said he would deport Syrian migrants who are allowed into the U.S. like an ISIS “Trojan Horse”. He even said that the United States should consider shutting down mosques in the wake of the Paris attacks. He previously said the U.S. should “possibly” take in refugees.
“I would hate it do it, but it’s something that you’re going to have to strongly consider because some of the ideas and some of the hatred, the absolute hatred, is coming from these areas and you know, in New York City as an example.”
It is telling that the Donald has referred to the refugees as “migrants” as if they are merely wandering to another place looking for work.
Marco Rubio, totally uninformed of the vetting process which refugees go through, displayed his ignorance when he stated that we should not accept refugees because “I’m increasingly convinced because you cannot accurately do a background check on even 10,000 people.”
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Before this he was “open” to accepting refugees if there was a way to ensure they were not being infiltrated by terrorists.
But then on Wednesday, yesterday, Rubio was on his way to California to raise funds, and missed a closed-door briefing entitled “The Aftermath of Paris: America’s Role”.
Jeb Bush wants safe havens for refugees in Syria rather than bringing them to the United States with emphasis on the “special important need” to protect Christians in Syria.
John Kasich wrote a letter to President Obama saying that the U.S. should not accept any Syrian refugees until the background check process has been strengthened, and that the federal government “take no further action in resettling Syrian refugees in Ohio.”
Carly Fiorina is as uninformed on the vetting process as Rubio. She stands with state governors who say they will not accept refugees into their states.
Rand Paul intends to introduce a bill to call for an immediate moratorium on visas for refugees, and suspend all types of visas for countries that have “significant jihadist movements.” This would include immigrants.
Of course he had said back in September, “We are a welcoming nation, and we have accepted a lot of refugees, and I think we will continue to do so. But we also can’t accept the whole world, so there are some limits.”
Among all the chatter on the internet from people who previously saw Obama coming for their guns, conservatives being rounded up into FEMA camps, and Jade Helm being the excuse for martial law, there is the suggestion that the people in various states vote on whether or not their state should accept refugees.
I guess that way we will have an accurate measure of how low the people of the United States have sunk.
The mayor of Roanoke, Virginia, Mayor David Bowers wants local and non-governmental agencies to “suspend and delay” assistance to Syrian refugees because he is “convinced that it is presently imprudent to assist in the relocation of Syrian refugees to our part of Virginia”, and because President Franklin D. Roosevelt once “felt compelled to sequester Japanese foreign nationals after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.”
He seems to be a little confused with the fact that that the Japanese that were interned were American citizens, not refugees, and that that whole matter is one of the country biggest embarrassments.
Not to be out done, Tennessee state Rep. Glen Casada called on Tennessee to not only use its National Guard to block Syrian refugees from entering the state, but to “gather up” any of them already in Tennessee and force them to leave.
In 1938, a poll was taken in the states which showed that Americans in general weren’t interested in the plight of the Jews under the Third Reich. Americans weren’t concerned at all with the Jewish refugee problem and opposed allowing refuge to those fleeing from Germany, Austria and Hungary.
Only 4.9% of Americans felt enough empathy to support granting them safe-haven.
When Hitler invaded Poland a year later there was a great number of Jewish refugee children, but still 60% of Americans were unwilling to take in a child refugee.
But in time, America ultimately took in nearly 100,000 Jewish refugees.
It was a little too late as the Holocaust had begun, and 200,000 more Jews could have been saved from it, the 200,000 whom America had turned away.
But America didn’t like Jews back then.
Ironically, our good friend and darling of the right, Bibi Netanyahu, is now also refusing refugees.
But from GOP sentiments about the Syrian refugees and the trolls on the internet, America is either developing, or has always had a dark soul.
We are giving into our lesser selves.