Thursday, November 19, 2015

Fraidy cat nation

A Central Maine newspaper knows what it thinks of Governor Paul LePage's attempt to ban Syrian refugees.

The anti-refugee argument goes like this: At least one of the killers in Paris was carrying a Syrian passport and he appears to have come into Western Europe on the migrant trail, along with hundreds of thousands of refugees from Syria’s brutal three-way civil war. Since it is difficult to tell real refugees from impostors, the argument goes, the U.S. can’t risk helping any of them.

This is ridiculous.

If they had been pretending to be tourists instead of migrants, would we end tourism? If they had been hiding in cargo ships, would we stop world trade? No, and we should not abandon people in need just because we’re scared.

A young New England friend has no truck with the fear among her friends:

... you are scared they are going to make a bomb and blow you up? Well, you are American. America is home of the brave. You are suppose to be BRAVE dum dum, and if you aren't, go move to Switzerland, oh wait, Switzerland is accepting refugees.

Republican cowards just want to keep us scared witless, I guess.

3 comments:

Rain Trueax said...

And it was a forged passport. All the plotters were European and the leader from a well off family who had private education and was pampered growing up. Everything you read about the terrorists looks the same time after time. I am proud of Oregon's governor to say Syrian refugees will be welcomed there... of course, what they will do for jobs is up for debate.

What got me though was Kasich with his desire for a new government branch if he becomes President that spreads the Judeo-Christian values to compete with ISIS for propaganda... except his version of them has very little to do with what Christ taught. If they were following personally the Sermon on the Mount, they'd be living very different lives where it comes to the poor, to accepting refugees, wanting living wages, avoiding these wars of choice, taking care of the mote in their own eye before judging their brother, etc. etc. Christ's teaching isn't in what christianists like Kasich preach.

It works though as I heard yesterday listening to as much of Rush Limbaugh as I could stand as he twisted what Obama said, what Kerry said and how I know his followers will not know enough to recognize as Limbaugh calls us the low information voters. We can take about five minutes of his distortion before we have to turn him off.

Brandon said...

At first glance I read "Friday Cat Nation" and thought, a day early.

Hattie said...

I want to see photos of REAL cats!