November 19, 2015

What if I were President? I’d let as many Syrians as I could. Mercy and compassion should win the day, but even if they didn’t, reason should come to the same conclusion. Who vetted Timothy McVeigh? He was a Veteran, a Christian, a fine upstanding specimen of American manhood. Put him near the top of a list of dozens, all red-blooded gun-totting American terrorists. Every shred of evidence testifies that were are at greater risk–by levels of magnitude–from American citizens than we are from anyone who ever came here for any reason. There is no proof–though there is supposition– that any of the Paris conspirators came with the present influx of refugees. And he would have gotten where he needed to get anyway, driven by hate as his fellows were driven by desperation. There is no reason to suppose (by “reason” I mean reasonable reason, not the familiar stab of right-wing hysteria) that ANY person we let in will become anything but a useful and grateful citizen, the way my ancestors did when they came from Ireland–which, by the way, had a similar (and more earned) reputation for sending thugs and criminals. And there is something worse than the danger of one or two hateful immigrants. That is the perpetual fear that is stirred up, mostly groundlessly, by devious and reflexive reference to our “security.” Consider who it is that wants to make us afraid of everything all the time, and what they stand to gain from it.  W’s warning of “perpetual war” with terrorism was the nearest any recent American has come to suggesting a totalitarian state, where we must obey unthinkingly because of reasons of “security.” The Patriot Act is an un-American horror that it will take generations to erase. Even now we pass like sheep through airport “security” that every single person knows is pointless, or at best a piece of laborious theater. What’s next? Turning in our neighbors for suspicious activity? Closing down Taco Bell for being un-American?  Casual surveillance? Peremptory arrest without explanation? Why not? It’s all for our safety. It’s all to give us the sense of security we didn’t know we needed until politicians and media began to fear-monger. Listen, we are the most secure nation that has ever been on earth, and one of the most fearful. How has that happened? Is that the legacy we want to pass down?  Paris is doing it right by going out even now and eating in the cafes, and opening her arms to homeless Syrians. This makes her a hero. She has not been driven into a bolt-hole by fear. Racism and xenophobia are the real reasons for deflecting the needy from our shores, and both of those are a form of cowardice. Those who know how to stir up our latent xenophobia with a threat dropped here or a warning dropped there are in fact the single great threat to the American Way. Open the golden doors.

Took the Facebook “Most used words” test, and my most used word is “one.” I remember from my concordance days that both Yeats and Blake used “all” more than any other word.

Beer and cheese soup lingers in fond memory from last night. . . .