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Sunday, June 17, 2018

Father's Day 2018, on the Border

There's a certain irony to the fact that, on Father's Day, the United States is right at this very moment taking innocent children away from their parents.   

Now the Trump supporters I know are good people. None of them, I want to believe, would ever think that taking children away from their parents is in any way a good policy or even morally defensible. None of them could personally participate in this kind of activity. Yet some just seem to buy into the rhetoric coming out of the President's camp; for that, well I feel sorry for them...but not as sorry as I do for the children who are frightened beyond all belief because they simply just want their Mom and Dad.

The fact is this: The President can, right now, simply tell A.G. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III to simply STOP doing this. There is no law requiring that children be separated from their parents. Taking children away from their parents (let that sink in...taking children away from their parents) is the result of a choice made by the administration to charge those crossing at the border as criminals, simply by virtue of trying to cross into the United States, instead of as asylum seekers. What's happening now is that these frightened children are being used as pawns to goad Congressional Democrats to fund a border wall. A border wall that is more about the President's legacy and ego than it is about actual border security. 

Yes, children have been weaponized, which is both cruel and wrong.

As I noted in a Facebook posting, I simply don't care about the politics of this issue.  I also don't care whether others disagree with me.  In fact, I'll go one better:  If you disagree with my position on this issue then, well, please don't tell me that, because it will forever change my opinion of you, and not for the better.  Again, I want to believe that all of us can agree that the forcible separation of children from their parents...parents who are simply seeking asylum...is wrong.  In every circumstance.  

Coming back to my original premise, if you were working on the border, could you take children away from their parents?  I sincerely hope that the answer would be no.

More on this issue can be found HERE.

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