We Have Become the Enemy
Jan. 28th, 2017 08:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aYesterday, our United States government undertook the most evil action of my lifetime. The president banned anyone with a passport from seven Muslim countries from entering the country. The only action that comes close is Ronald Reagan's utter contempt for the AIDS epidemic, which resulted in thousands of deaths amid a vulnerable minority. This may not cause as much death (though it could), but it's certainly causing as much misery.
If Trump had just sought to stem new refugees, he would only have entered xenophobia into our codified Books of Federal Law. However, he went further than that. He showed a total contempt and disregard, at a positively sociopathic level, for anyone from this countries. It doesn't matter if they have H-1B work visas or green cards. It doesn't matter if they were on the path to citizenship. It doesn't matter if they have highly sought-after skills that were improving this country. If they happened to be out of the country when Trump signed this order, they've been barred from re-entry. And, this order was so sudden, and so shocking in its scope, that there was no real warning. People going out of the country to attend conferences, to visit relatives, or just to spend a few hours in nearby Canada or Mexico can't return. It doesn't matter that their jobs are here, their family are here, their wives, their husbands, their children are here. It doesn't matter that their apartments and all their worldly possessions are here. They're not coming back.
It's vile. It's evil. It's inhumane.
Even worse, Trump entered an exception into his executive order that prioritizes religious minorities from those countries who are being prosecuted. That's right, using weasel words and the most evil governmental action in this country since the internment of the Japanese, Trump is trying to discriminate against Muslims and discriminate for ... Christians. It shows breathtaking contempt for not just the separation of church and state, but our entire Constitution.
Oh, and there's another exception: Trump banned travel from seven Muslim nations, and somehow didn't manage to include any Muslim nations where he himself has business ties. To be precise, he omitted all the Muslim nations that actually supplied the 9/11 bombers, notably including Saudi Arabia (especially Saudi Arabia) and the United Arabs Emirate. I personally believe that his fear-mongering has absolutely zero basis in reality, and that if anything white nationalists and Nazis are more of a danger to this country than the predominantly peaceful religion of Islam. But, if you accept Trump's premise, then you also have to accept that he's decided that his business interests are more important than our country's safety.
I am disgusted by Trump's actions. I am horrified at the military and police filling our airports, taking innocent people off to indefinite detention. I am sickened that Americans are not being allowed to return to their homes because they don't yet have full citizenship and Trump has decided to discriminate against their countries of birth based solely on fear-mongering, not on reality.
This can not stand. Today, xenophobia, bigotry, and hatred rule our proud country. This is not the Home of the Free. This is not the Home of the Brave.
It's the Home of the Detained and the Cowardly.
If Trump had just sought to stem new refugees, he would only have entered xenophobia into our codified Books of Federal Law. However, he went further than that. He showed a total contempt and disregard, at a positively sociopathic level, for anyone from this countries. It doesn't matter if they have H-1B work visas or green cards. It doesn't matter if they were on the path to citizenship. It doesn't matter if they have highly sought-after skills that were improving this country. If they happened to be out of the country when Trump signed this order, they've been barred from re-entry. And, this order was so sudden, and so shocking in its scope, that there was no real warning. People going out of the country to attend conferences, to visit relatives, or just to spend a few hours in nearby Canada or Mexico can't return. It doesn't matter that their jobs are here, their family are here, their wives, their husbands, their children are here. It doesn't matter that their apartments and all their worldly possessions are here. They're not coming back.
It's vile. It's evil. It's inhumane.
Even worse, Trump entered an exception into his executive order that prioritizes religious minorities from those countries who are being prosecuted. That's right, using weasel words and the most evil governmental action in this country since the internment of the Japanese, Trump is trying to discriminate against Muslims and discriminate for ... Christians. It shows breathtaking contempt for not just the separation of church and state, but our entire Constitution.
Oh, and there's another exception: Trump banned travel from seven Muslim nations, and somehow didn't manage to include any Muslim nations where he himself has business ties. To be precise, he omitted all the Muslim nations that actually supplied the 9/11 bombers, notably including Saudi Arabia (especially Saudi Arabia) and the United Arabs Emirate. I personally believe that his fear-mongering has absolutely zero basis in reality, and that if anything white nationalists and Nazis are more of a danger to this country than the predominantly peaceful religion of Islam. But, if you accept Trump's premise, then you also have to accept that he's decided that his business interests are more important than our country's safety.
I am disgusted by Trump's actions. I am horrified at the military and police filling our airports, taking innocent people off to indefinite detention. I am sickened that Americans are not being allowed to return to their homes because they don't yet have full citizenship and Trump has decided to discriminate against their countries of birth based solely on fear-mongering, not on reality.
This can not stand. Today, xenophobia, bigotry, and hatred rule our proud country. This is not the Home of the Free. This is not the Home of the Brave.
It's the Home of the Detained and the Cowardly.