What do you value?
It’s a question that a lot of people need to ask themselves right now. And it’s one they need to answer honestly, and do so without political bias.
Because I’m watching a whole bunch of people twist themselves up in knots trying to justify a lot of things – things that don’t jibe with their stated beliefs or religious teachings, things that don’t seem to fit too well with their core values.
And I’m watching those people slowly, but inevitably, turn into monsters.
No, “monsters” is not too harsh a word for this moment, because I simply do not know what else to call people who discuss openly feeding Hispanic people to alligators. (And saying that you’re only “joking” about that is, quite frankly, worse.)
Even if you’re not, I’m confused by the folks who are cheering wildly for the imprisonment of … well, anyone, much less the imprisonment of people who quite literally came to this country trying to make a better life for themselves and their families, to escape horrible poverty and crime and to work like crazy to achieve that American Dream we advertise.
By now, the mistreatment of Hispanic folks by our current federal government has been well documented. I’ll not rehash the stupidity, the cruelty or the injustices.
What I would like to discuss is how this all fits within your belief system. Because, honestly, it seems like a tough fit. We’re mostly not talking about a legal issue here, so the “just come here legally” argument is moot. And we’re not talking about known “really bad hombres,” as the dope in the White House so eloquently put it.
At this point, ICE appears to be targeting, in a large number of cases, anyone with a Hispanic-sounding name and/or anyone who looks to be Hispanic. They’re rolling up outside of home improvement stores and raiding the kitchens of restaurants. They’re detaining American citizens.
Call me crazy, but for some reason I thought the folks who spent the Obama years toting around pocket-sized U.S. constitutions and screaming about freedom might have a bit of an issue with the improper and illegal detainment – based in many cases on nothing more than skin tone – of American citizens by a rogue law enforcement group that refuses to adhere to the Constitution.
But then, maybe it’s only a core value when the Black president is trying to give poor people health insurance.
Speaking of which … how does this whole kicking people off Medicaid to give rich people a tax break sit with you?
Again, call me crazy, but I seem to recall a few lessons from my days in a Sunday School class about the Christian God’s thoughts on wealth and caring for the poor. Just to be sure I wasn’t misremembering things, I Googled up these Bible verses:
Jesus: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
Jesus: “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.”
Jesus: “Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.”
Jesus: “Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.”
Now, I’m no biblical scholar here, but I detect a pattern. And not one with a loophole that makes it OK if the tax breaks are awesome.
That brings me to another issue: Lying.
Do y’all remember when all politicians, and not just the progressive ones, got absolutely trounced publicly for lying about stuff? It used to be so embarrassing for them to get caught in a lie about anything, no matter how seemingly insignificant. We didn’t demand our politicians be perfect, but we at least expected them not to lie right to our faces.
That’s dead, apparently.
I can’t count the number of politicians just from this state who have lied repeatedly over the last few years, about damn near every controversial issue, and lived to politic another day. I mean, just think of the people who have lied about cutting Medicaid. From Trump to the lowliest Republican House member, they lied over and over and over again about not cutting anyone’s health care.
And then they did.
And cheered about it.
The Republicans literally cheered on the House floor after kicking millions of Americans off Medicaid, virtually assuring that some will die and that we’ll all pay higher health care costs in the future.
Does that fit somewhere into those beliefs of yours?
Oh, and what about those deficits and the national debt? Didn’t a bunch of y’all care about that at some point, too?
I guess what I’m asking here, after looking at all that’s happened the last decade or so, is do you actually value anything at all? Or was it always just self-righteousness masking basic greed and bigotry?
