"Honest" error

As the cynical saying goes, "It's better to apologize later than ask permission first."  Mainly because most of us know when the answer is going to be "no", so if we want to do what we want to anyway, we must pretend that we thought it was okay, and be prepared to say "sorry" when we're inevitably scolded.

Cute, I suppose, when we are kids and it's a matter of taking a cookie because "Well, mom didn't say we couldn't take a cookie from Aunt Thelma's cookie jar right before dinner, just the cookie jar at our home!"  Not so cute when you realize that a large percent of our nation's government, business and churches are run - or run into the ground - on this same cynical principle.

I'll be taking three examples, one for when some in government pull this, and also for when some in business or churches do.  Some may dislike this or that example, but the examples are just examples, it's not about whether you are in favor of any of them or not in favor of any of them.  What's being put across here is the cynical principle of "Since I can't get my own way legitimately, I'll pretend that I think something is okay when I know it is not, and by the time I'm caught - if I'm ever caught - I'll have already ate the cookie!".

"Blah, blah, blah, your favorite cause, blah, blah, blah."

The "No Flag Burning" laws of the eighties and nineties.  Remember before gay marriage when flag burning was the "big" issue to distract the masses?  And in each case, the legislators would pass all these feel good laws banning "flag desecration" even though any village idiot with a Constitution in one hand and the Dictionary in the other could have said that such was a right?

The game then was to play that the men who had trained in the law for seven years and built a career on knowing the Constitution of the United States of America were too stupid to know that flag burning is a form of expression.  That a Constitution that was only to delegate some powers, and that made no mention of flag burning, and that further in the 1st and 10th amendment acknowledged such expression as a right, some how permitted this new law.

And so it was perfectly okay to pass a law against flag burning, because they "honestly" thought that it was okay.

Result?  If any disagreed, they had to burn the flag with ill thoughts (because burning it for a respectful destruction of it was not only legal but hilariously mandatory!), then be arrested, then sit in jail and let the case wind all the way up to the Supreme Court at tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees and years in waiting.  Before the Supreme Court finally said the obvious that I as a child of 15 had said at the start - that yeah, the Government has no right to keep you from burning your own property and that burning it for political motives is by definition an act of expression.

Oops.  Congress's bad.  Not that they apologized.  They just promptly tried it again, and had that one struck down also.  At other people's time and trouble and expense.

Or how about businesses?  With an army of lawyers and PR agents and lobbyists they will "honestly" believe they are in compliance with environmental regulations even while pouring sewage and poison into a river feeding into a reservoir for a entire town.  Or towns.

When approached by a citizen's group with damnably obvious proof in the form of brown water and dead kids, or even then approached by investigative journalists with brown water and dead kids, or even then confronted by some EPA agent with the same brown water and the same dead kids (just more dead kids by that point), they will deny, deny, and for variety, deny, while continuing to pour the poisons in to the river while saying that "more study" is needed.

They will put everyone to the trouble of a lawsuit that will drag on for millions of dollars and a decade or more, before finally, it will be ruled that yeah, pouring poison and sewage into a river that feeds into a reservoir really is a violation of the Clean Water Act, and that the brown water really is brown and that the dead kids are, in fact, dead kids.  At which point - and only after all the appeals have run their course - will they stop doing that.

And start doing it under another re-incorporation one river over.  And not realize or understand - "honestly" - that doing the same thing to this new river counts as the same kind of bad.  At least not without more studies.  And more dead kids.

Or how about churches?  Too many in the hierarchy of too many churches will claim to - "honestly" - believe that there is no real prohibition against homosexuality, it's all just translation errors and differing cultures and past bigotries!  Any parishioner over the age of seven will readily see that for better or worse that the Bible in both the Old and the New Testament very clearly prohibits homosexuality, but it'll be insisted with a straight face that an openly lesbian bishop is perfectly fine!

Then the rogue local conference of some besieged church will appoint such a bishop, some lesbian woman openly married to another lesbian woman, and pretend that the words in the church rule book that forbid such, and the words in the Bible that forbid such, mean nothing, or anything else but what the words actually say.

And they'll put the rest of the church to the time and trouble of fighting it, and going to ecclesiastical court over it and risking schisms and heart aches and drop offs in attendance all to ram through their own private agenda upon the entire world of believers who joined the church for not agreeing with that very thing!

And after it's ruled "no", they'll re-introduce it another way, or raise another "argument" that they will - "honestly" - believe!  "Maybe it's okay if they're legally married!" or "Maybe the words that said, 'don't do this ever' meant that each sub section of the church was to decide!" or "God is Love, so, so, so there!" or "Maybe since there's so much confusion on this we need to have a whole conference on this to see about 'clarifying' the rules!"

Meanwhile that homosexual church teachers and preachers are molesting children, well that little "side-effect" gets shouted down the moment it is brought up.  "Homosexuality is not pedophilia!" will be the chant used to bludgeon you into silence, as if they truly don't get that a deviancy from the norm in one area makes it statistically more likely for a deviation from the norm in another.  Or that given that most adult parishioners know that engaging in homosexual play is sinful, who else but the children could be sought?

What do all three of those examples have in common?  Besides innocents being jailed, killed, molested or otherwise abused?

In all three of those cases, and in every other case in each of those three realms, it is profoundly selfish and profoundly evil men (and women) who feel that their personal wishes are to take precedent over the wishes and well-being of every other person involved.  That is how they honestly feel, and it is the only thing that they honestly feel.  All other claims of "honestly" feeling or believing a thing are lies, flat out lies, and blatantly obvious lies.

They know that this trick will work because they know that everyone judges others on how they are. Thus as most of us are regular honest Joes (and Janes) we'll naturally assume others are.  So when these Little Psychopaths (the kind that don't personally kill) trot out their "plausible" stories of how "this expression isn't really expression" or "this toxic sludge isn't what the Clean Water Act meant" or "when Paul said that unrepentant homosexuals won't see Heaven he really meant we should ordain them" the rest of us are to think, "Aww, gee, do they believe that?  Well, golly, I guess we'll have to all go to a bunch of time and trouble to correct them as they bitterly fight us every step of the way!"

Or - and here's the real point - say, "We've fought this issue so long, I can't afford it any longer.  Fine, let them jail hot head teens, or poison a whole town or minister to the congregation with his co-husband!"

You, the reader reading this, you pause at the phrase "Little Psychopaths", but that is what they are. Oh, not all who then go along with it are, but those who originally propose it and vigorously proclaim it are. And yeah, some who do go along with it are not tricked or fatigued into that, but have their own little malicious reasons for wishing things to be a way they know is inappropriate.

And it is we, the "polite ones" who not being evil cannot conceive it in others that let them get away with it.  If more people were willing to unashamedly stand up and say, "Senator Porkbarrel?  You're an idiot and/or a liar.  There is no world in which you could have spent nearly a decade studying Constitutional Law and think that letting Citizen A burn a flag to dispose of it is fine, but Citizen B burning a flag while thinking bad thoughts is not fine.  You are being a demagogue and a rabble rouser and trying to wipe your bottom with the very Constitution you claim to hold sacred and swore an oath to defend."

Or, "Oh, you work for SludgeCo?  Then you are a well-poisoning, child murdering psycho and when you say you're just working to feed your family all I'm hearing is that you choose to feed them by being a hired killer instead of working for an honest living like the rest of us do.  All I'm hearing is 'Blah, blah, blah, I'm an order following, baby killing Nazi'."

Or, "Oh, your cousin, son, niece or such is homosexual and they're good people and who are we to judge?  So what?  Sorry to hear it!  But drunkards, murderers and homosexuals don't get to go to heaven unless they repent of being a drunkard, repent of being a murderer, or - oh yeah - repent of homosexuality!  As to who I am to judge, I'm the person who Christ told to judge in righteousness in John 7:24!  And yeah, that means your loved one is a sinning sinner, who no matter how nice, sweet and gosh darn cute they are - shouldn't be teaching the kids alone or preaching to anyone who has hope for heaven!"

When we fail to say such things loudly, clearly and yes, even "rudely" - as no matter how you say it, it'll be took as "rude" - then we are conceding the battle to all the Little Psychopaths who not content with the stolen cookies of childhood are now going to seize the whole world and with crumbs on their greedy lips say that they don't know nuthin' 'bout nuthin'.

And we have, in the main, failed to say anything.  Which is why businesses are doing whatever they please and whenever they please to whoever they please.  And why those who want to destroy organized religion strive to keep watering down the message into nothingness - and when it leads to less member retention, not more as they said it would, they respond by watering it down even more! Which is why Congress perpetually makes any law against all the things that the Bill of Rights said they'd make "no law" against.

This is not as inconsequential as you think.  Business-wise, it's why that government regulatory agencies are little more than rubber stamps to give an impression of fairness and justice to any chicanery they choose to partake in.  Government-wise, it's why more than 100,000 teens have been killed overseas in the past 70 plus years - even though we've not declared any war in 70 plus years!  Religion-wise it's why you see women ministers last year and lesbian ministers this year and married lesbian co-wives as Bishops the next year.

It's why the numbers of Christians in America have gone from 98% to 68%.  It's why our "limited government" now controls, regulates, taxes and oversees every facet of our lives.  It's why Business is King and Unions are co-opted when they're not disbanded.

All for psychopaths using pretense instead of poison, golden words instead of guns, sophisms instead of stabbings.  And their goals are the same as any "real" psychopaths.  Directing or Destroying.  They want to run things, or they want to run it into the ground.

They also have allies.  Any who like something being different, but know that it is wrong, or that it would make them look bad to advocate for it, will ally with the smooth talk of the "honest" psycho. They will gladly pretend - for the sake of their job - that the factory isn't polluting "too" much, if at all. Or that their nation isn't really the baddie, it's that other nations hate us for our freedom.  Or that sin isn't really sin - when they know someone who does that particular sin, or want to do that themselves.

Those are the strongest allies of those who seek to direct or destroy.  Similarly strong - because while less strident, there are more of them - are the ones who just don't want to get involved.  They'll then follow whoever screams loudest, and in this culture, that's mostly those who have the sly agenda.  They sometimes even see the game, or at least know that the person is full of it, but they're just keeping their head down, they're not there to cause trouble or make waves.

The psychopath and his active and passive followers count for 99% of all mankind.  1% psychopaths, 8% active followers, and 90% passive folk who won't oppose the 9%.

The last 1% are those few who see the game and name the game.  And since they use real words like "psychopath" they mostly will fail in waking anyone up, as it is far more comfortable to dismiss them and just assume that to the extent anything is ever wrong, it is only due to "honest" error.

For many of the followers, it may be.  For the few yelling the loudest - no.

Dead GI Selfies

Memorial Day is apparently to be on the 29th of May this year, but I already saw the first Dead GI Selfie of Spring.  I hadn't seen one since Veteran's Day last year - and I hadn't missed these.

Here's what I'm talking about:

Because in the most militaristic nation on Earth, only Posey McPoser
remembers the real meaning of these days.  Attention.  For her.

So not a lot to add.  But I'll go ahead and add somethings.  And yeah, I'm a vet, so I get to speak.  As are two out of three of my sons, my Dad, my uncle, both my granddads.  So quiet down.  I can speak my piece, it's what we fought for, right?

Right?

Here's the sadness.  Memorial Day and Veterans Day substantially take note of the same thing.  Which is those who have either served, or more often, served and died in the United States Armed Forces.

Notice I do not say, "those who died for freedom", as universally, except on these days, we all justly complain about the lack of freedom in our nation.

Notice I do not say, "those who died that others might be free", as most of us over 25 know that they liberated absolutely ZERO nations, nor were they even sent there for those reasons.

Notice I do not say, "those who died fighting terrorism", because frankly, those in the military are usually responsible for others wishing to harm us.  I mean, see too many buildings being flown into over in Paraguay?

But there is sadness, and that's when good men and women sign up for one thing, and die for another.  We recruit teen kids - as young as 17 - to fight and die for "freedom", for "liberation", for "ending terrorism", but then we send them over to die for "profits", for "profits" and just for variety, for "profits".

And that is sad.

And if any spouse, or even girlfriend, wanted to go visit Arlington or any other cemetery to mourn the death of their loved one, I have nothing but respect and sympathy.  And if they want to mourn while imagining that he died for freedom, truth, justice and the American Way, then yeah, sure, I've nothing to say against that, at least not to them.

Certainly not then and there.

Their hearts are in the right places, and that's sufficient.

But then along comes Posey McPoser here, and she's hardly alone.  The one who puts some heavy duty planning into her mourning.  And if that's the level she felt it, I'd be the last to criticize.

Yet it is patently obvious that such is not the reasons for her pulling out all the stops.  Contemplate the above picture.  The artful pose, the specially made blanket facing the right way - the right way for what?  The dead soldier?  The baby?

Or, oh yeah, the cameraman she brought along with her in her "moment of grief" to click the picture!  Or pictures.  You want to get several and then sort through which one is cutest.  Er, specialist!

And she's even got her head lifted and leaning forward like she's having a special moment, talking to her dearly departed - except, which are we to believe?  That the cameraman was so unbelievably rude as to interrupt such unfeigned grief for the sake of his pic?

Or that the reason she's not turned towards this stranger to ask him to leave her in peace is that - oh, yeah, that she brought him here and is specifically pretending this pose so that he can snap the right shot of it!  For her to then choose the best one and post it on her feed!

Wow.  Private Died For Nothing would have wanted it that way, huh?  Not only did his death generate a 3 and 3/8ths rise in the 2nd quarter stock price in Halliburton back in '06, but his widow - or just former girlfriend - gets to use his grave as a big old social media net to grab some sweet, sweet "likes" and "shares" and "comments".

Ugh.  I mean, really, ugh.  Just ugh.  Greater love hath no man, that he gave of his life that Posey might have click-bait.

Were I his parents, or any kin of his at all, I'd have some darn sharp words to say to Posey there.  And Merry Christmas would not be among them.

Now listen, and listen carefully, because I wish to be clear.

Any of you want to go put flowers on a loved ones grave, that's great.  You want a picnic lunch there to feel closer to him, that's great.  You want to do anything you darn well please that lets you have a bit of peace in remembering him, who the heck am I to say a word?

It's all good.

But when you drag along another to take some pretty piccies and snappy snap shots, so you can blaze them over facebook, twitter, instagram and such, not for his sake, but for you to show how tight fitting your jeans are and what a superduperexpial-atrocious girlfriend you are, well, oops, you just lost me.

And quite a few others who are too reticent to speak up, but are thinking what I've been thinking.

Grieve.  In.  Private.

Learn some decorum.  Learn some respect.  Learn some dignity.

That is all.

No One Told Trump

Poor Donald Trump.  A victim of our nation's own propaganda.

No, no, come back.  I'm not actually bashing our President this time.  And I mean that honestly.  I saw a headline today about how he wants South Korea to pay a billion or so dollars for their missile defense, and the typically outraged replies from other power players, and it struck me all at once -

- President Trump honestly thinks those nations really are our allies!  He thinks they are our friends!

This accounted for his earlier wishes that Japan pay to defend themselves now, or Germany pay more for NATO and all his other gaffs on this issue!

He was taught - as we all were as kids - that these nations are our allies, and he bought that!

In truth, they are of course nations that we conquered and now occupy for our own benefit.  Germany, Japan, Turkey, South Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, Panama, Cuba, the Philippines...etc.

Here we are waterboarding our future Philippine allies!

When you're raised in America, it somehow never crosses your mind to wonder, "How come all our allies are nations that we once were at war with?"

lol

So here's the problem that the power players have with Donald - he gives away the game. Or rather, he forces them to have to duck and weave to avoid the game being exposed.

Conquering a nation is relatively easy compared to holding it.  And the United States holds the vast number of nations it holds as much by diplomacy as military might.

Yes, yes, we make sure to have our bases in their nations - while not letting our "allies" have any of their bases here! - but more to the point, we let them pretend to be independent.  Because if we did not let them keep their pride, they'd have to rise up every ten years or so and we'd have to go to the trouble of putting them back down.

Oh, sure, some weaker nations like Hawaii and Guam and Alaska such we could just out and out overwhelm and absorb.  We sure had plenty of practice at that in the 19th century.  But for most others, best to take the more prudent course.  Holding a world takes more than might, it takes finesse.

So as tributary nations, all our “allies” are expected to agree with us on most all of our foreign policy adventures and to give us first call on their resources and productivity.  In exchange we guard them from other empires that would love to harness their work forces.

The former Soviets, now the Russians.  The Chinese.  Brazil or India, if they thought there was a power vacuum.  Indonesia.

Now along comes Trump and upsets that apple cart, not because he's stupid, but just because - and it really took me awhile to realize this - he honestly does not get that we occupy those nations!  His only error is in believing as he was taught, as we all were taught!  He thinks that we are guarding them out of kindness and that it’s time they paid their fair share!  

Most politicians rise up through the ranks, and so have time to learn this and get this.  But Donald leaped from the bottom to the top all at once and so had no chance to learn this as a governor or a congressman or even the mayor of a big city.

Had he occupied any of those positions, then he'd have dealt with some of these conquered provinces and been let in on what's what.  How to talk to them - and how not to.  How to make sure to give them a lot of lead in their leash.  Particularly the United Kingdom.

Yes, we occupy England, too, the difference being that they don't mind as their business and our business are so closely tied together that it's a coin flip as to who is wagging who!

Goodness.  I could go on.  But honestly he - and any reading this  who doubt me - need only get a map and a history book.  Look at where each U.S. Military base is - and read of which war we fought with that place before it was built.

Heck, this applies right here at home - think about how many of our cities are named after the conquered peoples or the "Forts" that held the troops that exterminated them!  Look at the distribution of bases west of the Mississippi!

We are the Anglo-American Empire, and sadly, our leader is under some false impression that we're just the main contributors to some kind of benevolent mutual aid society!  

Four Star General Clarke

As tragic an indictment of the police and court system as the death of Terrill Thomas of dehydration while locked in solitary in Sheriff Clarke's jail was, I'd like to also point out the continued absurdity of these tin horn Sheriffs not only militarizing their police forces, but then self-awarding themselves four stars.

Not one star - which is Brigadier General and would be absurd enough - but always the leap to the four stars.

"Angry?  At who's death?  No, I'm just frustrated about not
having my fifth star yet!"

Except in some even more insane cases where I've seen some Andy Griffith - in all but integrity - have 5 stars on each shoulder!

You know what used to qualify a man for Colonel in the old days?  Being enough of a producer to outfit and support 500 men.  That's not only providing for your own uniform, gear and transport, but that of 500 other guys.

These "Four Star Generals" can't even support themselves without tax-dollars.  And they dare to presume the garb of pillars of the community giving voluntary military defense of their nation?  And dare further to presume that they are of higher rank than such real men of old?

I would dearly love an opportunity to ask these posers - "Can you name all six types of Generals, or at least the four types you have represented upon your shoulders?"

"Can you tell me what just being a three star represents?  Start with the title, please."

"How about two stars?"

"How about one star?"

"General - er, Sheriff - can you tell me how long you spent in service as just a 'one star' before getting promoted to the second star?"

"General, who promoted you from one star to a second star?"

"Oh, wait, you're telling us that you started at four stars?"

"General, what advice do you have for those one and two star Generals who are waging wars against entire nations and commanding tens of thousands of men and billions of dollars of munitions and supplies and arms? Any advice from you, the guy who sits around while his deputies bust drunks and wife beaters?"

But anyway, back to the death of a man who was having his 8th amendment rights violated even before being found guilty of anything.

Under the General's watch his men - that others pay for, as he sure can't afford to - murdered a mentally ill man.  At least "murder" is how they'd put it if any did that to the Sheriff or his deputies.

As it is, this is yet another "mistakes were made" moment - there are many such moments in our newsfeeds - and after a year the DA is still doing all in his power to do nothing about this while pretending to be getting to the bottom of it.

Meanwhile, no Sheriff, no LEO and no guard has yet been harmed or inconvenienced in the making of this tragedy.  And while in an unusually extreme case a least ranked guard might be punished, one need not fear that General Clarke will lose even so much as a single star.

Waco

On this date 24 years ago, the Branch Davidian church and residences was burned down, and the available evidence suggests either a misuse of government incendiary devices, or at best, a driving of those within to think that immolation was their best option.

I respect that some people are intensely law and order. But honestly, sometimes it is better to just leave some alone. The general consensus is that this started as a suspected weapons violation, and then other crap was made up and thrown on afterwards to retroactively justify such a massive display of force.

Bringing a tank to a church fight is probably over-kill.

What needs to be remembered is that it is better to take the time to be careful. It would not have hurt to have waited for food to run low, even had that took a year.

What needs to be remembered is that the solution should never be worse than the alleged problem. Perhaps it was of concern to have a lot of rifles in one place. Perhaps it was of concern to have a rifle be able to fire more than one bullet at a time. But I think the death of any was worse than just having left them alone.

What needs to be remembered that if one unpopular and odd ball church can be destroyed, then so can the next one. And the next one. The precedent is set.

In my youth, after it was all over, I hitchhiked over and saw it. The few survivors who had not been on site that day were bravely trying to rebuild. Other, non-Davidians, were planting trees, one for each who died, as a memorial.

Others, still non-Davidians, put up a stone monument with an inscription marking the needless deaths of the Davidians. Seeing that, the Davidians put up one mourning the deaths of their own attackers.

Many years after that, I took my sons to see the site. We were visiting relatives in Texas, so it wasn't that far out of the way. The memorial grove was coming along, new buildings, new church. Still very few members, understandably. But such as were there were taking care of the site.

And yeah, with mixed feelings I noticed the "touristing" of it, in that they sell postcards and such and "accept donations". I had donated the whole ten dollars I had the first time I visited. I only donated the same amount the second time as regardless as to motives, I felt the site was worth being preserved.

From what they related to me and my sons back in 2004, they would get half a dozen or so visitors per day from all over the nation. So I wasn't the only one who felt that the site was worth seeing.

If you're ever down there, go see it. It's like America's own concentration camp, an eloquent reminder of the great need to keep a sharp eye upon how "our" government conducts it's affairs.

We are Cattle

I just want to make very clear here that the person principally responsible for that poor guy being drug off the plane was...

....us.

Ask not for whom the Officer tazes...

We either insisted on and praised the police of insanely over-the-top security on planes, in which any disagreement on the part of a passenger was re-branded as a "terroristic threat" or if we did not like it, we at least did nothing of substance to stop it.

This is that coming home to roost. Neither the airline nor the security boys did anything that was anything other than standard procedure.

But Dean, this kind of security saves us! No it doesn't. I used to work security, and I know ways of getting stuff on those planes past the TSA, so if dorky middle aged me does, I'm sure Abu the ISIS Wonder Terrorist does.

I might also mention the obvious - in my business in particular, I know if drugs are available locally or not. And in spite of years of TSA, DEA, NSA, FBI, CIA and ABCDEFG, America has more drugs than ever.

So much for walls and border controls.

No, this is not, and has never been about "security" or "safety" or "stopping terrorism".

It's been about controlling us. The great unwashed. The proletariat.

You will note that private planes - as able to crash into building as passenger ones - don't have the TSA do the private people who board those what they do to you or I.

Because the "security" it's about is keeping those private plane owning privileged few safe and secure from...

....us.

So we get the full treatment, they do not.

Take my neighbor...puh-lease!

I wonder.  If the Germans in the Nineteen Thirties had had the internet, would they have shared funny tweets and memes saying, "I live in constant fear that the Gestapo will round up my half Jewish Mother-in-Law who lives at 2182 Kurferstenstrasse, Potsdam, who gets off work at 5pm."

Here's the deal, folks.  Rounding up people whose crime is what they "are", not what they "did", never ends well.  Does this mean that our current anti-immigration policies will result in six million dead?

No, it does not necessarily mean that.  But remember, when the round up of Jews, Gypsies and various others started in the thirties, the death camps were not a done deal, or even on the table.

Sometimes things get out of hand.  And the best way to avoid getting to the end of a bad road is to not start down that road.

I couldn't find a pic of "Latina Mother-in-Laws" - yet.
Here's a Japanese American one.

America has a sad history of crappy dealing with "others".  Genocide and slavery were "things" until the 20th century, and for that century racism, exploitations, sterilizations, medical experiments, mass round ups and seizures of all properties were all still on the table.

Korematsu vs. U.S. was the Supreme Court case that dealt with rounding up American citizens of Japanese descent, and it was upheld it as Constitutional.  It has never been overturned.

A bit of fatigue is going to set in now.  Where Trump has done so many silly things we're just going to get tired of reading of it for awhile.  But bear in mind, he's pursuing his goals all the same.

We may be entering into an unfortunate period of history.  So far we've been living in the easy kind of history where we all get to tell our kids, "Oh, yeah, I'd have marched with King!" or "Oh, yeah, I'd have had five Jewish families in my attic!" or "I'd have so helped fugitive slaves get to Canada, see if I'd have feared prison!"

Easy things to say when African Americans have rights, Jews aren't hunted and neither is there slavery.

But what of these "illegals"?  How will your kids see you deal with this issue?  Which side will they see you on?  Oh, is this different?

It's always different.  Some who'd have sworn they'd have aided slaves still turned a blind eye to Jews seeking refuge here in the thirties.  Some who'd swear that they'd have hid Jews had no problem with the firehoses and dogs being turned on the protesters at Selma.

And some won't have any problem with a mass round up of immigrants without papers.  While staunchly claiming their enduring love of Africans and Jews - who for their times were as much "lawbreakers" as any Hispanic or Muslim without papers are now.

Do you have a mother in law who is an immigrant?  Then, like those grudge holding neighbors who called in secretly about those they disliked, you'll really be able to call.

And never mind that you’ll “be able to call", you already can call.  What is being passed off as a joke is actually a reality.  And people being perverse, it's already happened at least once or a hundred times.

Be careful.  Do not dismiss with humor something that should be fought.  Do not soothe yourself with the medicine of laughter as our nation bleeds out morally yet again.