As any fool can see
As any fool can see
As ever throughout our history, America is a country from which no one seeks to escape and people from other nations are always wanting to get in by all means possible, legal or illegal, documented or undocumented. That truth about America marked the difference between us and all others during the years of the Cold War, when people behind the Iron Curtain were seeking to escape, and after the Vietnam War, when Vietnamese refugees were welcomed into the United States and resettled peacefully across our land.
The Syrian refugee crisis is altogether different, driven by religious insanity. Last Friday rendered it moot that the nations of western Europe are making a fatal mistake for which the horrendous Paris atrocity is, as yesterday’s gospel from Mark 13 phrased it, "but the beginning of the birth pangs." And now, the United States, the ultimate target, the most hated nation for many, many reasons but nevertheless, bringing in Syrian refugees. Federal officials who are not toeing the WhiteHouse line and are not afraid to speak the truth admit it is impossible to screen these immigrants to keep Americans safe. Those who hold up figures showing statistically how infinitesimally unlikely it is that radical Islamic terrorists are among the immigrants can answer morally and self-righteously to the families of those innocents, including an American girl, someone's beloved daughter and granddaughter, murdered in Paris last Friday by terrorists taking instructions from ISIS in Syria. Statistics and those who rattle them off be damned, it only takes one organizer here and one there. Shall we become a policed state with armed guards at every department store entrance and back door, every bank, every mall, every theater, every sports arena, every elementary school, at every gated community, the walled off entrance to every neighborhood, surrounding every high school stadium, on every rooftop? I saw that in the Philippines during the late 1960s and it was not uncommon in Eastern European countries behind the Iron Curtain to control the people. Our government is insane. At the certainty of my being judged to have finally gone off the deep end, we have reached the point where the federal government is the enemy of the people. And once again, this is why our founding fathers gave us the Second Amendment, not for hunting squirrels or shooting burglars, but to stand against the powers of darkness. Alabama and Michigan governors have said their states will not accept Syrian refugees. Those are meaningless gestures, as once inside American borders, travel across state lines is not an issue for anyone. They are toothless protests anyway, as states are not in control and federal government is not of the people, by the people, and for the people, but federal bureaucracy answering to no one.