prisoners packed like sardines into a cell\u00a0<\/a>, that might not be the same as a cattle car. It might be more like something prior to the cattle cars. The ghettos, perhaps. A lot of dreadful things happened prior to the cattle cars.<\/p>\nIf you find yourself saying \u201cthey should have followed the law,\u201d despite the fact that this is happening to legal asylum-seekers who are following all the laws as well as to illegal migrants\u2013 you should realize that what you\u2019re saying is that it\u2019s okay to violate the rights of some human beings, as long as those human beings are law-breakers. And laws can be changed. A government can keep ramping up what they consider illegal, until everyone of a certain race finds themselves illegal no matter how hard they tried to follow the rules. It has happened before. If we don\u2019t have a certain inviolable baseline of the ways in which it\u2019s all right to treat a criminal\u2013 if we\u2019ve convinced ourselves that any indignity is appropriate for a law-breaker\u2013 then anything is possible.<\/p>\n
And if you find you\u2019re listening only to news sources that tell you everything the president does is okay instead of to news that critiques his administration\u2013 no, those news sources aren\u2019t nearly as slick as the Nazi propaganda machine. They are laughably oafish by comparison. Yet, here you are believing them. And they are spreading only the news the president would like for you to hear, and that ought to give you pause.<\/p>\n
Genocides don\u2019t happen all at once.<\/p>\n
But once we accept the premise that it\u2019s okay to hurt some people for a greater good, we have accepted that it\u2019s okay to hurt some people for a greater good. Exactly how much hurt for how little good can quickly balloon out of the proportions you were willing to accept in the first place, and at that point you can\u2019t stop it.<\/p>\n
Once we accept that treatment we wouldn\u2019t want visited on our own children is all right for somebody else\u2019s children\u2013 that\u2019s what we\u2019ve decided to do, to somebody. The question of how many somebodies, and how severely, quickly snowballs out of hand.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Do you remember when you first learned about the Holocaust? Maybe you were in elementary school. Maybe you visited a museum or saw a documentary on television. Perhaps you fell in love with Corrie Ten Boom or Anne Frank. Maybe you checked Number the Stars<\/em> out of the library\u2019s Newbery Honor Book section and read it all in one sitting, breathless.<\/p>\nDo you remember imagining what you\u2019d do, if something like that ever happened in your time? Of course you didn\u2019t think it would. But do you remember how brave and generous and sneaky you hoped you\u2019d be, if you had been alive during the Holocaust? Do you remember the list of actions you thought you might take, to protect your friends and neighbors and to foil the government\u2019s plans?<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s say that there isn\u2019t really a genocide gearing up at our Southern border. Let\u2019s say it\u2019s something less serious than that. What\u2019s the worst that could happen if you fought against what really is happening? That you were compassionate to some refugees and migrants as Christ commanded you to be anyway?<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s say there is a genocide going on right now, albeit in its earlier stages. What would you like history to remember you as having done?<\/p>\n
What if you decided to do that? To be that person? To be brave?<\/p>\n
What\u2019s the worst that could happen? And would it really be worse than being one of the people who stood by and did nothing\u2013 or the people who helped it happen?<\/p>\n
Remember, those people didn\u2019t think it was a genocide either. They thought they were being practical and obeying the law, for everybody\u2019s good.<\/p>\n
I know what I choose to do.<\/p>\n
(image via Pixabay)\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00a0 Let\u2019s say that there are no concentration camps in our country right now. Let\u2019s say that\u2019s not where we\u2019re keeping the migrants who keep stubbornly showing up on the Southern border. Let\u2019s go ahead and grant that that word is totally inappropriate, despite what some\u00a0actual Shoah historians say.\u00a0 Some say it is, after all. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2694,"featured_media":9303,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/p>\n