Paradise Found

With everything going on in the present political climate, it can be tricky to know where to begin. I think, for me, the most bone-chilling behavior I see currently is what strikes me as most urgent to address, so I will start there and then we can delve into other topics once I get this off my chest.

In my (admittedly amateur) opinion, I think a lot of the sensationalized fear and outrage we’re witnessing right now stems from a deeply flawed inability to recognize people other than ourselves as exactly that — people. Although, in terms of the sensationalized aspect of it, that part is purely political, designed to manipulate the masses into believing a conceived reality about immigrants that simply isn’t true. But OK, OK, let’s not skip ahead.

Obviously, the idea of considering others as less than is a crazy thing to type, because you’d have thought we’d learned our lesson a long time ago on this one. As Americans, as a society — as the human race. You’d think we’d be tapped out, what with the Holocaust, slavery, internment camps, prevalent discrimination throughout our country — I mean, the list goes on and on.

I guess we’re not, as a society, sufficiently ashamed by now. We have to go ahead and make it worse by continuing to add examples to an already long and embarrassing list. But OK cool, let’s chat about the latest installment of Your Rights Don’t Matter Because You Aren’t a Privileged White Man, brought to you by the current administration.

Consider. At this moment in time, our government is sending allegedly undocumented immigrants to a notorious supermax prison in El Salvador, known for human rights violations of its prisoners and them never getting out. Now. If that’s what President Bukele believes is best for his country, what with its history of gang violence and all that, fine. I’m not here to advise the president of El Salvador on how to lead his country. You do you. However. It is when the United States of America — land of the free, avid champion of democracy, etc. decides to do it to its own residents — oh and also subsidizes said foreign prison with American tax dollars — that I then take issue.

Look. I understand President Trump ran on immigration reform, was elected on immigration reform, and is going to continue said “reform” for the duration of his term, because that’s what we all said we wanted. Fine. It’s not what I personally find to be the most pressing issue of our time, but to be perfectly transparent, I did not wholly disagree with his sentiments when he was running for office and I do concur our immigration system is in need of reform, so I don’t disagree with the guiding theory here. We have different ideas of what reform constitutes, clearly, but sure — do your thing. No one is stopping anybody from enacting lawful and ethical immigration policies.

The lawful and ethical part is where we have a problem. I’m sorry this has become a controversial issue, but sending immigrants to a Salvadoran prison without any semblance of a hearing or trial to contest their deserving of such a harsh (and likely permanent) sentence is neither lawful nor ethical. Whether or not you agree that we need to be deporting immigrants who are here in the country illegally — I think most Americans would agree with that point, at least on some level — that is completely irrelevant to sending people to prison for life, in a foreign country, without trial.

They are two distinct things. Our government can keep attempting to combine them in their discussion of the topic, to confuse us, I guess — but it’s not confusing. Deporting illegal migrants back to their home country vs. sending them to prison in another country are totally separate issues. Why are we combining them in the first place?

In terms of deportation, one could give alleged unlawful immigrates a standard hearing — not a lengthy, involved trial by jury — just a simple hearing to ensure they are actually here illegally and haven’t followed the procedure to stay in the country. Due process does not equal trial by jury; it means the standard legal process, whatever it happens to be in that case. So, in the case of illegal immigration, give people the right to contest that claim, hold an ordinary immigration hearing, and either deport to their home country or don’t, if they have legal status to be here (or have a court order against deportation). Simple. It’s not complicated.

Separate thing. If you intend to lock people up in prison, particularly in a foreign country where they have little to no hope of getting out, you best be giving them a jury trial at a minimum. For the life of me, I don’t know why the U.S. government is sending people to notorious torture prisons in foreign countries to begin with — here’s a thought, let’s not do that — I consider the whole thing is uncontrollably unethical from start to finish. Yet. As it would appear that is what we already are doing, how can you — a human being, with a soul — possibly justify doing so without a trial, if you aren’t even certain they deserve to be there in the first place? And then you make a mistake, and leave them there to rot? What?

If someone is here illegally — even if you can prove that to be true — how is that a justification to be banished to life in prison? No really, tell me — how is that an appropriate sentence, in any way, shape, or form? All of us, no matter who you are or where you came from, are just trying to make a better life for ourselves, in the best way we know how.

Even if someone came here unlawfully, it shouldn’t be punishable by a forever sentence in a foreign gulag. That doesn’t make any sense. But the worst part is, we aren’t even attempting to prove that’s true. The government is just arbitrarily sending people away, based on tattoos or apparel or the most random criteria ever.

There is absolutely zero proof these individuals sent to El Salvador did anything wrong. It has not been proven. But even it were, please explain to me why we wouldn’t then simply deport unlawful criminals who don’t belong here. You can deport people without sentencing them to life in a jail cell. What is so complicated? Why are people in power making it sound so needlessly convoluted? It’s not.

This is not normal, and it’s not okay. We are better than this. Our nation is better than this.

Anyhow. All of this is, to put it mildly, concerning. So where does it stem from? What I’ve noticed, from observing the talking heads who love to talk about immigration reform as if they’re saving us all from endless fear and suffering, is it comes from an inherent fear of the other. Of people who aren’t like us. Is that not always what this stuff is about, at the core?

The problem, in this case (and I guess in all cases) is the facts don’t support said fear. They just don’t. There is no evidence that undocumented immigrants commit more crimes than US born citizens — in fact, it’s the exact opposite. They clearly don’t. (Link to further research if so inclined.) People in power play with the inherent fear of the unknown to massively influence public opinion. But it’s not based in reality.

Extreme right talking heads repeatedly flout a few individual examples where undocumented migrants did in fact hurt American-born citizens, and those cases are exceedingly sad and unfortunate. Without question. It is always devastating to hear of other people’s harm. However, citing a few examples does not equivocate labeling an entire group of people as irredeemable criminals. We should be considering people on their own merits, for their own unique and individual situations — not lumping everyone together as a class because a select few did terrible things. Lots of people do terrible things, and no one is suggesting condoning violent crime. I’m only saying, one person’s actions do not translate to sufficiently classify a whole.

The fact that it even has to be stated aloud is already discouraging. I would have assumed the bulk of Americans would know this intrinsically, and it wouldn’t have to be said. Because, obviously. Obviously, the actions of one person do not translate to the actions of everyone of that religion, nationality, class, race, political affiliation, and so on. We should know this, in our hearts. I mean, really. Is this not something you learn in, oh I don’t know, elementary school? Or earlier? That you can’t classify an entire group of people based on the actions of a handful of individuals?

Like what are we talking about here? How can anyone even pretend that’s an acceptable way to approach our understanding of humanity?

Not only do the actions of a few not equate to defining a whole, the current preoccupation dismissing and dehumanizing anyone who isn’t a US citizen or isn’t exactly like us, generally, is utterly flawed to begin with. Whatever happened to equal human dignity, for everyone? Listen. I care about our country enormously, and I’m proud to be an American. However, those indisputable facts don’t translate to me regarding anyone who is not an American citizen as less deserving of basic human dignity and respect. Every single human on the planet deserves compassion and respect, no matter who they are or what they’ve allegedly done. You can treat all people with dignity. You can! Just try and see.

This isn’t exactly a novel concept, by the way. This is old news. What exactly do you think Jesus was teaching, back in the day, if not love thy neighbor and be kind and compassionate to others. It is all basic, fundamental stuff. And the exact same people denouncing their neighbors and banishing people to torture prisons abroad without hint of a trial for any alleged crimes are claiming Christianity as their guiding light. It makes me wonder: Do they even know anything about their own religion?

Perhaps at this point you might be asking, OK then, what do I know about Christianity?

OK well, I know enough. My goal is not for this piece to suddenly morph into the entire history of my wide-ranging (and ongoing) exploration of religion, because that would take a long time and also defuse what I want to focus on here. Perhaps I will do it for the next post. But, just briefly, I was raised Christian, went to Sunday school regularly, the whole deal, was confirmed as a Lutheran, and have been and continue to be endlessly fascinated with religion and specifically the Bible, which I’ve read in multiple translations, multiple times.*

Long story short, it’s been an exploration — not only of Christianity, but of lots of world religions, and I have many opinions on the subject which I will spare you to dive into another time. Listening to one of Tim Ferriss’s podcasts the other day, he had a philosopher on named Stephen West (link to conversation here) who subscribes to panpsychism, which explores the idea that consciousness resides in everything, at least to a degree. Interesting. Not sure if I believe that (would have to first do a far more extensive research and discovery stage — but I’m open to it), however, he also describes himself as a heretical Christian, which really resonated with me. I like that.

Recently, I’ve been grappling a bit with Christianity’s place in my life, and I appreciate the idea that you can agree with and follow many of the guiding principles while still leaving room to question everything. Sounds familiar. Anyway, in summary, I am by no means a Christian scholar (lol) but I understand enough to know that complete disregard for the humanity of others is definitively not of the teachings of Christ. Just something to think about. I believe He taught forgiveness, acceptance, and love, above all else.

*I had one of those parallel Bibles with different translations side-by-side growing up, it was really neat. I recall enjoying New Revised Standard and King James Version the best. Which makes sense I guess, since one is super traditional and one super modern. Also my favorite book is Romans.