Of Short Memories, Ignorance and Illegal Immigrant Children

Of Short Memories

Approximately 1.5 million children died during the Holocaust.

In 1938, just after the German pogrom against the Jews known as Kristallnacht, Great Britain eased its visa requirements to allow children under the age of 17 from Nazi Germany, or from any of its annexed territories, to enter the country on temporary travel visas. From December 2, 1938 until May 14, 1940 between 9,000 to 10,000 children – about 7,500 of them Jewish – were rescued from Germany, Austria, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. This was done even though Great Britain was also experiencing the severe effects of the Great Depression – the value of British exports was halved, industrial output had fallen by a third, unemployment rose to 20% (with some areas reaching 70% unemployment). While some areas of the economy around London still prospered, poverty and unemployment devastated Northern England and Wales; and still they took in 10,000 children in need.

Between 1934 – 1945, in the United States 1,400 mostly Jewish children were rescued from Europe and the Nazi’s atrocities. Why did Great Britain wind up rescuing more than seven times as many children in just 1 and a half years than the United States did in 11 years?

•  Great Britain’s program was well known (the Refugee Children’s Movement or kindertransport) and promoted. The American One Thousand Children effort was kept quiet and low key so as not to antagonize the isolationists and anti-Semitists in this country.
•  Great Britain loosened the laws on immigration to allow these children to enter and stay. The United States did not, instead maintaining strict quotas even after the events of Kristallnacht made it clear the Nazi’s intentions towards Jews. Legislation was proposed, the Wagner-Rogers Bill, that would have admitted 20,000 Jewish refuges under the age of 14 to enter the United States. It failed to pass.

 

Of Ignorance

Guatemala – Due to crime cartels and gangs (often consisting of retired generals and police officers) there are 52 murders per 100,000 people every year. In the United States is it only five per 100,000, and only one per 100,000 for England. In 2009 the number of people shot, beaten, and knifed to death in Guatemala outnumbered Iraqi’s who died in the war zone in Iraq. More than 2/3 of homicides in Guatemala are unsolved. Police are both ineffective and corrupt.

Guatemala also has the fourth highest rate of chronic malnutrition in the world. According to a study by the US based research institute The Fund for Peace, this will get worse.

Gangs in Guatemala force children to join, usually young teens. The average age of those recruited has been going down and as of 2012 was close to 12 years old. Girls are recruited to be “girlfriends” (although last year two girls – age 13 and 15 were arrested for assassinating a 20 year old man). Boys to be soldiers. Even some kindergarteners have been recruited. Schools are often just as much recruiting grounds as educational institutions. Refusal to be recruited often results in beatings at first, and then escalates from there. Extreme poverty also eases the decision, even in the face of unwillingness and fear for what they might have to do.

Honduras – In addition to being the poorest country in Latin America, the Honduras also are region’s most violent and crime ridden. It also has one of the most corrupt police forces in Latin America. Often the political and economic elites of this country are the ones directing the activities of the drug cartels and crime syndicates.

Gangs in Hondura force children to join, usually young teens. The average age of those recruited has been going down and as of 2012 was close to 12 years old. Girls are recruited to be “girlfriends”. Boys to be soldiers. Even some kindergarteners have been recruited. Schools are often just as much recruiting grounds as educational institutions. Refusal to be recruited often results in beatings at first, and then escalates from there.  Extreme poverty also eases the decision, even in the face of unwillingness and fear for what they might have to do.

El Salvador – According to the United Nations office on Drugs and crime, El Salvador is one of the most dangerous places in the world, having a homicide rate of 69.2 per 100,000 in 2011. Again, corruption among public officials and police is rampant.
Gangs in El Salvador force children to join, usually young teens. The average age of those recruited has been going down and as of 2012 was close to 12 years old. Girls are recruited to be “girlfriends”. Boys to be soldiers. Even some kindergarteners have been recruited. Schools are often just as much recruiting grounds as educational institutions. Refusal to be recruited often results in beatings at first, and then escalates from there. Extreme poverty also eases the decision, even in the face of unwillingness and fear for what they might have to do.

According to the Border Patrol, 3 out of 4 current unaccompanied children are from the Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador.

In 2008 the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act was voted on and passed by both chambers of Congress without issue or objection. This law was one of the last law signed by President George W. Bush before leaving office. Its purpose was to fight against human trafficking, including sex traffic of children.
Towards that end, any child entering the country alone who was not from Canada or Mexico was to be given the opportunity to appear at an immigration hearing to determine their status. It was also recommended in this law that they have access to counsel. Further, these children were to be turned over to the care of the Department of Health and Human Services, placed “in the least restrictive setting that is in the best interest of the child” and to explore reuniting these children with their family members.

This law was originally pushed by a bipartisan group of lawmakers as well as by evangelical associations concerned with sex trafficking. It passed unanimously.

Health – Despite the rumors, illegal immigrant children pose a very low health risk to the United States. Despite the rumor, they do not have the Ebola virus, which is an African disease and not one found in Latin America. Despite the rumors, dengue is spread by mosquitoes, not people.

What these children do have are illnesses related to long journeys – diarrhea and respiratory illnesses – that do not pose a risk to Americans. In fact, although the U.S. has a 92% vaccination rate for our children, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras have a 93% vaccination rate for theirs. There is no danger of plague being unleashed upon American citizens by these children.

Gangmember Infiltration of US – Yes, there are gangs in the countries these children are fleeing from. That is why they are running after all. And yes, 16 children have been found with links to gangs. Sixteen out of over 50,000. And are these children trying to hook up to gangs here (unlikely) or are they trying to get out of the gangs by moving far away?

Here is a good article from Insight Crime on this.

Nevertheless, it is still possible that some of the youths are active gang members, but this is unlikely to pose a serious security threat to the United States.

Latin street gangs, especially the MS13, already have a presence in the United States and there is ample evidence that they coordinate criminal activities with counterparts in Central America, in particular in El Salvador. Gangs on both sides of the border likely have access to established networks for the movement of arms, drugs, people and money. It is therefore unlikely they would utilize the routes of common migrants, which are arduous, dangerous and risky, for any important gang operations.

The numbers support this; while the US authorities have discovered 16 gang members so far, if Townhall.com’s account is accurate, this is a tiny fraction of the tens of thousands of children crossing the border.

Border Security – If they are being stopped and detained, then we are securing our borders at the entry point. What more would you have them do – shoot on sight? More boots on the ground would not hurt, but that is not the problem. The problem is that we have this massive flood coming in and we ARE stopping them. Now we have to figure out how to handle them after we have stopped them.

 

Of Illegal Immigrant Children

Today – July 15, 2014 – there are protestors in Tucson Arizona. They are protesting the bussing of 40 immigrant children to a nearby academy for troubled youths. Holding signs reading “Return to sender” “Take them away from here” and “Go home non-Yankees”, they plan to physically block the buses. Just as did:

July 1, 2014. Murrieta California. There protestors shouting “Go back home”, “Nobody wants you”, and “USA” physically blocked three buses carrying illegal immigrant children.

July 14, 2014. Vassar Michigan. Protestors waving American flags, holding signs, and praying together protested the possible arrival of 120 illegal immigrant children to be temporarily housed there while they receive their vaccinations and basic education before either being re-united with relatives or going into foster care. The process is supposed to take 2-4 weeks. Hence the adjective “temporarily”. Yet even this temporary is seemingly too long.

Today I see too many voices yelling at children. I see too many people displaying hatred to children. Today I see too many Americans following in the mindset of the 1930’s. No, these children are not fleeing a holocaust. But they are fleeing for their lives. Dead is dead whether in a Nazi gas chamber or beaten to death by a syndicate crime soldier. The crisis is the same, the lives of refugee children.

I hear many asking why are these children sent alone. They point out, quite rightly, that it is a long and dangerous journey from El Salvador, from Guatemala, from Honduras. However they and their family know that dangerous as that journey is it is still safer than staying in an impoverished home and being recruited for a gang. Just as the mother of Moses launched him to an uncertain fate in a basket upon the waters of the Nile, so too have these parents launched their children fate in the US, knowing too well what their fate will be should they stay.

SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras — Twelve-year-old Maynor Serrano points to the rows of houses where his friends and neighbors used to live. All are gone — many fleeing to the U.S.

Two of his friends were killed as 10-year-olds, their bodies chopped to pieces in a suspected gang vendetta.
He saw homes reduced to crumbling wrecks, their walls pockmarked with bullet holes. Entire neighborhoods were abandoned in hours — the result of monstrous gang violence.

Some houses became casas locas, crazy homes, for torturing families in this macabre city, which has the highest homicide rate in the world. Daily newspapers are filled with graphic photographs of bodies.

Like many, Maynor Serrano yearns to escape to the U.S., where he has relatives.

“It’s tough to live without hope,” he said. “If it’s not there, you go look for it.”

Some call me a bleeding heart. It is a label that I willingly, proudly, and loudly embrace. After all, for atheists, isn’t empathy for others’ pain, suffering and problems an essential part of what we are? Isn’t this an essential part of why we create societies? Without empathy, without our acting on these impulses, we, eventually, lose what makes us human. Bleeding hearts help set goals that reason and logic then find ways to best achieve.

For the Jews and Christians, I have already mentioned Moses. For Christians, remember also that Joseph and Mary and baby Jesus were refugees too at one time. Remember to love one another. Remember your Bible and Jesus’ words in Matthew 25: 37-40:

“37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

For all those who are religious, isn’t concern for the unfortunate, the poor and suffering, the needy an essential part of your religion? From what I have read, whether Buddhist or Jew, whether Muslim or Sikh, almost all religions require one to help the other, to treat those in need as us and not them.

I am not saying that we should make all of these children citizens. No. What I am saying is that we have a law and a process set up to determine whether these children are refugees and in need of protection and shelter. Fund it so that those organizations set to implement this law and these processes can do their job quickly, efficiently, and effectively. And then if need be, if they would be in danger if returned, then we find homes for them here – just as we have for so many in danger and need, and just as we did not do for the Jewish children.

I am saying that they should have legal counsel during these proceedings to ensure that they do not become merely window dressings for a rubber stamp saying “Go Away”.

I am saying that while here, while waiting for the process to work itself out, they need to receive medical care, food, and a proper place to live.

I am saying that we should not let our bigotry, fear, hatred, uncertainty get the better of us and display our lack of humanity by picketing children and shouting hateful words towards them. They are not the source of your frustration and disagreements. They are merely seeking shelter from a harsh world. Treat them as children in need.

I am saying that we should find solutions that are true to what makes us human.

I am saying that instead of ignoring our bleeding heart, denying its existence, or killing it we should be healing that which causes it to bleed.

 

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The Certainty of Uncertainty

Words.   They are a wonderful creation of humanity’s.   They have allowed us to pass on information, to record the present to share with the future, to communicate the present to change the present, to share experiences and either laugh or cry together, and to understand.    Words, coupled with the tools of logic and reason have given us knowledge – science, modern medicine, the automobile, the internet, aircraft and spacecraft.     Words have proven to be our boon, our great advantage over the other species we share this planet with.   And yet, when hard pressed words and logic and reason ultimately fail us.

Look at philosophy.   The philosopher’s use of reason and logic to parse meanings of words – whether used in conversation, in ethics, in science – is not only laudable but a necessity.  And yet, while progress is made, while improvements are made, in the end we are left with uncertainty.   Words fail, logic fails.

It is striking how often questions within philosophy – ethical and moral questions, metaphysics, logic, questions about how science works, etc. eventually wind up in a place where every position has problems and strengths with seemingly no way to resolve them.     And the reason they do is because words and logic and reason are only tools we use to try to understand and make sense of the world around us – they are not, however, that world.   Because of that, they can only approximate reality, not be it.

Mathematics in science has been able to carry us further down the path of understanding the workings of the universe.   But only at the cost of not understanding on a gut level, in a visual level, what they mean when they are used in the further reaches of science – quantum theory, string theory, relativity.    And I cannot help but wonder, since they too are a construct of ours, will they ultimately fail us someday?   Perhaps one day something else will be needed to deal with the truly basic questions of the universe’s existence that goes beyond mathematics, just as mathematics goes beyond words in explaining the world.   And when that day comes, perhaps we will not be smart enough to figure out what that next tool, that something else, should be.

In fact, this seems to be part of the take away from Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems.   His two theorems showed that even mathematical systems, the examplar par excellence of pure logical reasoning, cannot be proven.    More specifically, they state that there will always be mathematical statements that are true but that cannot be proven to be true within that system and that because of this no mathematical system can prove that it is consistent.   In other words, even within mathematics there is no certainty.    As Carl B. Boyer put it in his History of Mathematics “It appears to foredoom hope of mathematical certitude through use of the obvious methods. Perhaps doomed also, as a result, is the ideal of science – to devise a set of axioms from which all phenomena of the external world can be deduced.”

This is not to argue that we should not strive to be as logical, as rational as we can be in forming our beliefs.   However, it is to say that we should be aware that words and logic and reason are tools and only give us approximations of reality only.  We need to be aware that what we live is richer than what they will ever be able describe, and that, at its core, our existence will always have a mystery residing.    We have discovered that the universe, and ourselves, will always be greater than our understanding.

Which is one reason why I think art, music, and poetry exist, and always will.

Human Life’s Mystery

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

We sow the glebe, we reap the corn,
We build the house where we may rest,
And then, at moments, suddenly,
We look up to the great wide sky,
Inquiring wherefore we were born…
For earnest or for jest?

The senses folding thick and dark
About the stifled soul within,
We guess diviner things beyond,
And yearn to them with yearning fond;
We strike out blindly to a mark
Believed in, but not seen.

We vibrate to the pant and thrill
Wherewith Eternity has curled
In serpent-twine about God’s seat;
While, freshening upward to His feet,
In gradual growth His full-leaved will
Expands from world to world.

And, in the tumult and excess
Of act and passion under sun,
We sometimes hear—oh, soft and far,
As silver star did touch with star,
The kiss of Peace and Righteousness
Through all things that are done.

God keeps His holy mysteries
Just on the outside of man’s dream;
In diapason slow, we think
To hear their pinions rise and sink,
While they float pure beneath His eyes,
Like swans adown a stream.

Abstractions, are they, from the forms
Of His great beauty?—exaltations
From His great glory?—strong previsions
Of what we shall be?—intuitions
Of what we are—in calms and storms,
Beyond our peace and passions?

Things nameless! which, in passing so,
Do stroke us with a subtle grace.
We say, ‘Who passes?’—they are dumb.
We cannot see them go or come:
Their touches fall soft, cold, as snow
Upon a blind man’s face.

Yet, touching so, they draw above
Our common thoughts to Heaven’s unknown,
Our daily joy and pain advance
To a divine significance,
Our human love—O mortal love,
That light is not its own!

And sometimes horror chills our blood
To be so near such mystic Things,
And we wrap round us for defence
Our purple manners, moods of sense—
As angels from the face of God
Stand hidden in their wings.

And sometimes through life’s heavy swound
We grope for them!—with strangled breath
We stretch our hands abroad and try
To reach them in our agony,—
And widen, so, the broad life-wound
Which soon is large enough for death.

 

 

 

 

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Religious Bigotry On Display – The Wells Report

Given that I occasionally listen to conservative talk radio and Christian talk radio shows when I am driving, I usually have a high tolerance for idiocy (just for the record, most of the time I listen to music, either radio or CD’s).   I find them informative (usually not in the way the talk hosts wish), amusing, and often the source of a blog or two.   Occasionally though they do manage to get me angry.   Tuesday was one occasion.

The Wells Report, an AM conservative talk show (660AM, the Answer – a proud example of a misnomer), was the show.   The subject was atheist chaplains.   While there were many offensive remarks made by Wells and his listeners, the one that pierced even my toughened skin was Mr. Well’s argument that atheists do not need chaplains because they do not suffer from the same issues theists do.

For example, according to Mr. Wells, atheists do not suffer survivor’s guilt when their friends and buddies die.  After all, since atheists believe everyone is just a bag of meat then it really doesn’t matter if someone dies or not.  It is all just a matter of chance, so too bad about good old Joe and let’s move out.

Because of that I did something I have never done before; I sent an e-mail to the show letting them know my displeasure.   So far there has been no response to my e mail, but it has been only two days.   Still, I don’t expect there to be one.

Anyway, here was my e mail to him.

“While driving I was flipping through stations looking for something to listen to.   Your show caught my attention.   I only heard a small part of it and, unfortunately, I could not listen to all of it, or even the parts I did hear consecutively since I was stopping at different places.   But during the parts I listened to you were discussing atheist chaplains.  At one time you had a caller saying that atheist chaplains should come from dog catchers – after they catch a problem, give the person three days and then put them down.   Later, and this is what I wish to discuss, you asked what would an atheist chaplain do?  You illustrated the point of your question by making the argument that atheists do not suffer from survivor’s guilt.  

I won’t go over your argument since I imagine you remember it.   However, let me point out its fallacy by making a similar argument for Christians.   Why should they suffer survivor’s guilt?   After all, the person is not really dead, there is a life after death.   In fact, your dead friend and comrade have now gone to a better place than you are in now (assuming they are Christian).   Seems you should be celebrating their escape from the hell of war and suffering instead of feeling guilty.  Envious perhaps, but not guilty.  Further, you friend is not gone forever.  You and he will be reunited and continue your friendship in the hereafter.   And if your friend is not a Christian, well, God’s will is supreme.   Who are you to question his will in allowing your comrade to die.  Pray for his soul and move on. 

I imagine you see, and more important feel, the ridiculousness of this argument.   Yet you make a very similar argument for atheists on this topic.  

The reason for why both atheists and Christians suffer survivor’s guilt is because both are human.   Being human means that you make connections to people – you make friends, establish emotional ties, feel another’s joys and pains.   It is the being human that creates the survivor’s guilt.  Doesn’t matter whether you are Christian, Atheist, Buddhist, Muslims, Wiccan, etc.  What matters is, you are human.

Your comments and jokes, the comments from your listeners that I heard, all seem to make the assumption that an atheist is not human; that they do not make attachments, love others, feel other’s pain.   Because your own beliefs are so strongly based on your beliefs does not mean that those who do not believe the same as you do are non-human, non-feeling monsters who would feel nothing when a friend dies in combat, who would put down people with problems if they could not be solved within three days,  etc. 

You might not understand our reasoning (from what I heard, I do not think you have even seriously tried to), but the end results are the same for both the Atheist and the Christian.  We feel, and we create and value attachments to others.   And we hurt and suffer when they are torn apart and we are separated.  

 If it helps you understand a bit, think of it this way.  The Bible says that the law, that morality, is written on men’s hearts.  I and most atheists agree.  Where we disagree with the theist is on who or what did the writing.  We can argue as much as we like on that.  But what we should not be arguing about is the result, because the result, a human heart, is the same.   

Let me ask, how insulted and angry would you feel, were an atheist to make the argument I did for why Christians do not suffer from survivor’s guilt?   A shallow, unfeeling, unthinking, facile argument based more on bias and ignorance than true knowledge.  Sophistry employed to mock and make fun of, to dehumanize.  

Atheists do spout off ignorant and hateful arguments.  And often other atheists, including myself, call them on it.  Your ignorance and total insensitivity to the fact that atheists are humans is an example of why so many atheists spout off the way they do.  Your words and actions here help perpetuate the image of the ignorant and hate filled Christians that too many atheists believe.   People such as yourself make it damned difficult for atheists such as myself and others to keep balance and perspective in our disagreements. 

Congratulations on promoting religious ignorance and bigotry.”

 

One general observation to make here.   First, I have heard theistic commentators trying to figure out atheists.   Actually, let me rephrase that.  I have heard shallow theistic commentators trying to figure us out – why do we form associations, why do we care about justice, why do we …..whatever.    It is as if since we are atheists we must be a different manner of human from them, one that does not share the same fears, joys, concerns, empathy, and so forth as theists do.

The Wells Report though carried this to an extreme.  By contrast let me mention that a couple of years ago I did call in to a conservative talk show (sorry, can’t remember which one right now) on why atheists feel the need to form groups and associations.  My comments were actually aired and the host treated me fairly.   The callers on this were also, by and large, a more fair minded if sometimes surprisingly ignorant bunch.   Although somewhat ignorant on this,  the host on this show did seem to be at least trying to understand.

The Wells Report does not, at least so far.   Instead of understanding it seemingly would rather promote hatred.

 

 

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Questions

Sometimes we get so busy looking for answers that we do not take the time to properly think and consider the questions, or even try to winnow down which questions are most important.  We get so focused on answering these questions that we do so without properly considering them, savoring them, searching them for all the related questions and issues and mysteries hidden within the bigger question.

In so doing we short change the question and ourselves and wind up with incomplete and/or misleading answers.  Or worse, we wind up creating an answer when one really does not exist, or at least no clear one yet.

I won’t claim that these are the most important, but I do think they are important and worth spending a moment contemplating before rushing off to answer them.

 

Perhaps the real conflict is not between the atheist and the theist but rather between those who care for the whole of humanity and who work to improve the lot of all humans and those who do not?

 

If this is so then how do identify which is which?  Even the most repressive and evil dictators say they do what they do in the name of humanity.

 

And how to identify what actions are good for humanity and what actions are not?

 

Then, given the fractious, divisive, and argumentative nature of humanity, how to attain those goals needed for the betterment of mankind?

 

And finally, can these questions be answered and resolved without violence?

 

And as I was putting the finishing touches on this blog I thought of one more question.

Both the theist, and the atheist, the creationist and the scientist, often level the same charges against each other in regards to arguments – ignoring evidence, not thinking logically, being biased by their own beliefs and so forth.   Given that each side perceives the other as being biased and, to a greater or lesser degree, blind to evidence and reason how, can I be sure that I am not?

As I said, some questions for consideration.  Even if you think you have the answers already it is a good exercise to contemplate them again, afresh; putting aside your answers for the moment.   A proper appreciation of the questions not only makes your tentative final answers that much more solid but, just as important, it also allows one to better understand and, hopefully, empathize with those who disagree.

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