Enough fun for the day.

I really don’t want to say anything but Doc smells like something downwind of the tiger cage at the Ringling Brother’s Circus.  And how do I know what it smells like?  Well, once upon a time, my father managed to land front row seats for my sister and I.  Moral of the story:  Never sit on the front row of the Ringling Brothers Circus when they park the tiger cages in front of you!  It isn’t pleasant. Especially when….. I think you get the very odiferous picture!

What is a Blue Moon?  I know.  Do you? 

What if you are a college lacrosse player, accused of a crime you did not commit, arrested by cops of a different race, and fingered because of your race?  If you are rich and white you receive press attention and a formal apology.  If you are poor and black….? 

Should Bigfoot be a protected species?  My two cents?  Why the heck not!  I have a sense of humor.  It could be fun.

The comments from “CW” continue.

This is my response to a comment today.  In many ways I am appreciative of the challenge.  It made me think of something. 

ANOTHER RANT

An Additional Response to “CW”

Like I said, I was very tired last night.  Sometimes we sound cranky when we are not.  I think if you were being above-board you would reply by email, instead of commenting.  It is obvious you want everyone to see what you are saying.  That’s fine.  Doesn’t bother me.  I will reply by email because it is easier for me. 

From your language “we’ll all find out if you can take it”, it appears to me as though I am being set up for something. 

I would truly love to have you prove me wrong about the anti-immigration organizations.  I really would.  I am not closed minded.  One of the things that frustrates me most when dealing with historians is their abject refusal to consider any other possibility besides their own pre-conceived notions.  I’ve spent enough time dealing with science and the space program to know that a person considers all the possibilities and all the facts before coming to a conclusion.  An intelligent, logical person makes a reasoned judgment on qualified facts.  If you can present facts that hold up against scrutiny, I will shout it to the world.

The thing is, I will not change my position concerning the illegal “migrants” who are here now.  My Christian faith, and my adherence to the Sermon on the Mount and the passage ‘whatever you do to the very least of them you do unto me’.  It appears to me that many of the people who are here illegally are ‘the very least of them’.  I’ve seen how they live.  I’ve seen the terror and starvation of a family who was here illegally, separated from their father.  I am proud to say my church (Episcopal) fed them, helped them, gave them money.  It was not that they were illegal, it was the fact that it was a family of a mother and five small children, all starving and terrified. 

I look at some of these people the way my parents’ generation looked at the hippies and ‘druggies’.  They had a very dear friend who had been invited to take the pulpit at a very prestigious church, I think in Louisville.  He dressed up like a drugged out hippie and crashed on the front steps of the church before Sunday service.  The people just walked around him.  When the service started, he roamed in and continued the test, asking people for help.  They called the cops instead of helping him.  When the cops arrived, he handed them his identification and then went up to the pulpit and told them he would not be accepting their call.  If you do not understand why, then you will not understand my determination to help migrant families who are here illegally.

In many ways I think dealing humanely, honorably, and compassionately with migrants who are here illegally is very much a test of faith for those of us who claim to be conservative (I still consider myself a ‘Reagan Conservative’) which is different from today’s brand of conservative, Republican, and Christian.  I think there are times that God tests individuals and nations.  The Christian population of Germany failed in the 1930’s when they did not protect the Jews.  In fact, we failed as a nation when we also refused to protect those same people. Instead, the KKK demanded very strong immigration laws be created and passed, for the first time in the history of this nation.  They did not want Jews coming into the United States.   Four million Jews died.

Christian Conservatives wax poetic about a nation following the laws of a ‘Higher Power’ of adhering to the laws, teachings, and traditions of the Bible.  Throughout the Bible we are entreated to be kind to immigrants.  We are to weigh our treatment of strangers because they may be Angels unaware.  We are to do unto the very least among us as we would treat Christ, himself.  We are to render unto Caesar our taxes – WITHOUT COMPLAINING or questioning that tax.  The big problem with calling oneself a Christian, and claiming to follow the teachings of Christ is you don’t get to pick and choose which ones you want to adhere to, unless you are part of a cult. 

Thank you for asking me these questions.  I never thought of this before, but now I truly believe Christian Conservatives are being tested.  We are all being tested – all of us who call ourselves Christians.  If we fail this test, the way Christians in Germany failed, we allow our nation to fall to the powers of darkness.  God does abandon nations.  Germany is the perfect example of this.

If we follow what hard-liners want, millions upon millions of people from Mexico, guilty only of crossing a border illegally, will be sent back to a nation where 40% of the population already lives in poverty and in frequent fear of starvation.  The situation in Mexico is such that these people have no chance even of rebellion.  How many million of the people we send back will die in poverty of either disease or starvation?  I don’t know about you, but I do not want this guilt on my hands, just to follow the letter of the law.

There are laws more important than the laws of man.  I gather if you are so intent upon dealing with illegal immigration the way you are, then, you would have been determined to follow the letter of the law concerning the Dredd-Scott Decision.  The law of the land required escaping slaves be returned to their ‘masters’.  You would have followed the law of the land.  The law of the land today requires anyone living here without legal papers to be deported, often to depravation, poverty, and death.  The law of the land once demanded people who were not Caucasian be forced to eat in different restaurants, drink from different water fountains, go to different schools, use different bathrooms.  If they did not obey these laws they would be arrested and even hung.  I am proud of my elderly grandmother Reidhead who stood up to buck the system in her own quiet way.  If you are intent on following the law, we would still have ‘separate but equal’ it was the law of the land. 

I am also proud of the fact that the Republican Party was “liberal” enough to be the party to field candidates and elected officials who were humane and fore-sighted enough to realize that laws evolve.  Today’s conservatives are acting exactly like yesterday’s Democrats like Algore’s father, who refused to vote for Civil Rights.  Today’s anti-immigration organizations are no different than the organizations that fought to retain ‘separate but equal’ or to maintain the status quo of slavery.  Fact is, some of the very same organizations are sill at work. 

In Germany during Hitler’s reign, the law of the land required all Jews be handed over to the government.  I gather you would follow the law and turn them in – to certain torture and imprisonment.  The law of the land once stated that soldiers be quartered in private homes.  It stated taxes be paid on stamps, newspapers, and tea.  I am proud to state that my ancestors, including Timothy Dustin (Bunker Hill), James Carter, Jr., James Carter, Sr., Richard Bohannon, Elliott Bohannon, William Godbey, Nathanial Ladd, William Nutt, and Jacob Perkins had enough courage not to follow the law of the land. 

I am truly sorry, but I see no difference today.  When laws are immoral, and you are moral, you must violate the law or change it. 

Best;

SJ Reidhead