Atheists & Agnostics
Related: About this forumIn 1941 Dr. Seuss sent a message that, sadly, hasn’t lost its meaning.
November 19, 2015 by JT Eberhard
Dr. Seuss was actually a political cartoon contributor for New Yorks PM Newspaper for part of his early career. This was his piece on October 1, 1941:
This was in reaction to the fact that most Americans opposed Adolph Hitlers anti-Jew policies while also being opposed to granting safe haven to refugee Jews.
And here we are again today, over 74 years later, where people are being executed by on occupying force and need to get out of the country. Most Americans oppose ISIL in pretty much every way, yet the people who think a freshly fertilized egg is a human being for which anything and everything should be done are willing to turn their back on actual refugee children. If it were their families in Syria theyd be begging for safe haven, but they just cant put themselves in the other peoples shoes. Were safe, and thats all that matters, right?
You want America to be a hero to the world. Well heres the news flash: heroes take risks. They go into burning buildings to pull people out. Bravery isnt the absence of fear, its the courage and the strength to do what is right even though youre afraid. And all the people who want America to be a hero simultaneously want her to cave to fear, fear ISIL purposefully has tried to impose upon us. There are gobs of refugees in so many other countries, countries that arent separated from ISIL by an ocean, countries that dont spend 47% of all the worlds military spending on their own military. And yet, theyre the ones stepping up.
So much flag-waving. So much faux patriotism. You just want America to be viewed as a hero, but you want to make her a coward and its obvious why. Sit down, because this is going to sting: its because you are cowards, racists, or some combination of the two. You demand the worlds respect without wanting to do any of the work, without taking any of the risk that doesnt include bombing places that contain way more innocents than terrorists. Thats nice and 100% safe and the only price we might have to pay are a bunch of dead innocent people and for you thats good enough to be a hero. But it aint, thats just your cowardice coming up with justifications.
Nobodys asking you to run into a burning building, literally or metaphorically. We just want to let people into a country where theyre safe something that once meant a great deal to this nation if the inscription on the Statue of Liberty is any indication. Yeah, a terrorist or two might try to come over and, who knows, they might get through the extremely strict screening process to get into this country. Well cross that bridge when we get to it and deal with it. But this argument rests on the presumption that if a terrorist sneaks through people might die and it ignores the fact that people are already dying and many more are certain to die unless countries help! Other countries are, but your big, tough, macho Republican leaders are cowering like children.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/wwjtd/2015/11/in-1941-dr-seuss-sent-a-message-that-sadly-hasnt-lost-its-meaning
I am an anti-theist but as the daughter of a refugee I am sickened by people who would turn away those who are desperately fleeing religious persecution.
Yorktown
(2,884 posts)Yes, I think anyone with half a heart (see the Grinch) would empathize with any refugee.
BUT I must confess to being torn, not the least because of my own background.
50% of Muslims, in Muslim countries or the West, favor applying the Sharia (*)
And we can't just brush aside the fact the Sharia is what creates future refugees or wars.
Empathy now, civil strif etomorrow, the heart's choice is not that easy to make.
(*) detailed proof upon demand.
Response to Yorktown (Reply #1)
Pacifist Patriot This message was self-deleted by its author.
Yorktown
(2,884 posts)UK
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1510866/Poll-reveals-40pc-of-Muslims-want-sharia-law-in-UK.html
US
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/06/poll_shows_high_levels_of_support_for_shariah_law_and_violence_among_american_muslims.html#ixzz3s5jsHc1f
France
http://chretienslibres.over-blog.com/article-les-musulmans-francais-un-sondage-aux-resultats-inquietants-111917892.html
When I presented these links in a discussion yesterday, the person I was discussing with objected to the US source on the grounds the poll had been commissioned by a conservative org. However, I find it striiking that the figures roughly converge around 50% in all 3 western countries (the average was roughly over 50% in the Pew poll, but there was a greater dispersion)
Response to Yorktown (Reply #23)
Pacifist Patriot This message was self-deleted by its author.
Yorktown
(2,884 posts)beam me up scottie
(57,349 posts)I've heard all of the xenophobic excuses for denying Muslims entry and I'm not buying them.
Yorktown
(2,884 posts)I wanted to share the facts which ground my opinion.
Hundreds of millions of Muslims are good folks, RINOs (religious in name only)
But the minds of other hundreds of millions are tainted by a bad ideology.
beam me up scottie
(57,349 posts)I've already seen those stats and I still think we should welcome Muslim refugees.
To turn them away because of their religion is unconscionable.
Yorktown
(2,884 posts)The wars of religion in France killed far more than WWI
WWI: 1.4M dead/40M pop
Casualty rate: 3.5%
Wars of religion: Between 2M and 4M people killed as a result of war, famine and disease/Population 20M
Casualty rate: 10 to 20%
I fear the clash between conflicting value systems: secular Constitution vs Sharia.
beam me up scottie
(57,349 posts)How are you any better than the people who didn't want to take in Jewish children?
Response to beam me up scottie (Reply #32)
Post removed
beam me up scottie
(57,349 posts)Who are fleeing from radical Jihadists, there is no reason to believe that they will be a threat once they come here.
Yorktown
(2,884 posts)The fact these refugees fled violence is no guarantee they or their offspring will be grateful.
1- polls of Syrian refugees show a solid 10% support ISIS.
2- experience (Germany, Britain) suggests the second generation grows more radical than the first.
3- more generally, the ideology of Islam includes such violent notions as jihad and violent response to blasphemy, and religious ideologies take 4 to 6 generations to fade away and/or become acceptable to the host culture.
Back to my frog and scorpion question: because many among the refugees deeply believe in the Muslim ideology, and because that ideology is actively being radicalized by the KSA and Qatar, are we sure welcoming refugees is not fraught with danger down the line in 10, 20, 30 years?
I am scared or scorpions and of religions.
beam me up scottie
(57,349 posts)How do we know any abused child won't grow up to be a mass shooter?
Should we suspect all abused children, monitor them their entire life?
I refuse to condemn refugees because of what they might do in the future, it's illiberal and goes against everything I was taught.
By my mother.
The refugee.
Who knew what it was like to be judged by others as a child.
Yorktown
(2,884 posts)To be exact, to hide Jews from fanatics.
25% of young German Muslims today are violently antisemitic.
I'll think twice before welcoming large groups who hold ideas of religious supremacism.
But if S hits the F, I won't hide under my bed but protect those ostracized by fanatics.
Do not underestimate the lasting damage ideas can cause over generations.
beam me up scottie
(57,349 posts)That is who you'd turn away.
Android3.14
(5,402 posts)It's an unrealistic reason for denying someone refuge. They have as much chance of enforcing Sharia Law here as they have of magically transforming into The Spice Girls.
Yorktown
(2,884 posts)And 'Muslim' arbitration in Germany (ZDF TV report)
Response to Yorktown (Reply #22)
Pacifist Patriot This message was self-deleted by its author.
Android3.14
(5,402 posts)That makes much better sense.
Yorktown
(2,884 posts)granted, the Sharia courts in the uK have not attempted to deal with criminal cases.
But Sharia arbitration is dealing with theft cases in Germany.
And Sharia arbitration 'courts' in the UK have predominance over secular courts in matters like divorce.
I remember a few testimonies by women who were desperate to get a Sharia divorce ruling in their favor, even after they had been granted divorce by a legal UK court.
Based on that kind of soft power over hearts and minds, I'm not quite sure one can't quite call them courts.
hueymahl
(2,640 posts)Liberalagogo
(1,770 posts)jtuck004
(15,882 posts)invasion of Iraq, or the subsequent unrest and war that has resulted largely because of our actions.
That was mostly Christians still trying to kill off the Muslims - been going on for a long, long time, and won't stop until we quit sticking our nose into other countries affairs for our own personal profit.
The vast majority of the bombs going off are ours, and those bombs are what is creating refugees. Also creating new and better educated terrorists, since we can't forget that either.
Live and Learn
(12,769 posts)Brainstormy
(2,426 posts)Sometimes you just have to keep re-stating the obvious.
AlbertCat
(17,505 posts)Did this include a margin error for those who are afraid to say otherwise because of... y'know.... sharia?
Does it relate to the Christians who tout Deuteronomy laws.... just not all of them?
Yorktown
(2,884 posts)It generally helps give a safer debate ground than just opinions.
muriel_volestrangler
(102,398 posts)Ask them if they want to start civil strife in the USA.
I'd like a definition of "applying the Sharia", with some evidence of what that means to the people concerned. There are specific examples of Islamic law that I think are wrong and dangerous, such as blasphemy and apostasy being illegal. But if you ask a typical refugee fleeing a civil war between Sunni fundamentalists and a government with strong backing from Shia fundamentalists (Hizbollah and Iran), I suspect they'll say "religion is making this worse, I want a world where people mind their own business about how we worship".
Amimnoch
(4,558 posts)Extra irony that most of the same ones who would deny those people entry are the same ones that always talk with so much bravado when it comes to their guns and bibles.
beam me up scottie
(57,349 posts)They're cowards and hypocrites.
daleanime
(17,796 posts)onager
(9,356 posts)The bipartisan Wagner-Rogers Bill, proposed by Senator Robert Wagner (D-N.Y.) and Representative Edith Rogers (R-Mass), would have admitted 20,000 Jewish children from Germany above the existing quota. But not their parents. This was only a few months after the Nov. 1938 Kristallnacht atrocities in Germany.
The bill died in committee. With the comment that it was "God's will that children should stay with their parents." Apparently God was just peachy with the idea of the whole family being turned into ashes together.
One excuse for turning away those kids was the Depression and the US economy. But the even more financially strapped Britain took in about 10,000 Jewish kids before the war started in Sept. 1939. Many became the only members of their families to survive the Holocaust. That program was called "Kindertransport" and there are several great documentaries about it. Including one, "Into the Arms of Strangers," made by the daughter of a woman who was saved by the Kindertransport program.
beam me up scottie
(57,349 posts)And what have we learned?
NeoGreen
(4,033 posts)...this:
beam me up scottie
(57,349 posts)These were children.
mountain grammy
(27,216 posts)Muslims assimilate well in America, for the most part. Women may still dress modestly and cover their heads, but so do Amish and Mennonite women, big deal. I see more and more head scarves in Costco, in Goodwill, the grocery store, and all around town, and they're as American as I am. My daughter and friend visited a mosque for a college class and were welcomed with open arms.
Americans were afraid of Jewish children? No surprise.
This is an excellent post.
beam me up scottie
(57,349 posts)That has been my experience as well.
They have much more to fear from us.
Yorktown
(2,884 posts)I wrote a thread to detail that:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1218217987
About 2/3rds Muslims favor the application of Sharia in Muslim majority countries.
It would be utopian to expect that proportion to reach zero in one or two generations after moving to secular democracies.
Especially when petrodollars fan the flames of extremism worldwide.
mountain grammy
(27,216 posts)They also believe in religious rule. They appears to be not as radical as Sharia, but I believe it would morph into that without any stretch at all. These folks aren't immigrants or refugees, they are American born and bred, who believe our government should follow Christian law, and that's all that nasty made up stuff in the Bible.
I think religious conservatives in all faiths believe they should rule the world and 30% appears to be the magic number of believers who subscribe to that in any given secular country. So 30% of 1% of the American population (Muslims) believes their religion should be the law, compared to 30% of 70% (Christians) of our population, more than half who believe the Bible should be taken literally and interpreted as they say, and should be the law of the land.
So tell me, in America, who has the most chance of bringing total religious rule to America and which one would be worse? We're looking at states in America that are ruled by the Christian right, where women without means can't get access to health care, and kids are learning that Jesus wrote the Constitution.
http://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/religious-tradition/evangelical-protestant/
http://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/
haikugal
(6,476 posts)This is where the danger is, not refugees who happen to be Muslim.
I was surprised to see a Muslim woman and child in one of our local grocery stores. I smiled and said hello. I love seeing more diversity in my little burg.
Great post BMUS, I too have a parent who came here after the war as a bride. I learned to live with the epithets of "foreigner" and questions about what race my Mom was. This is a nasty, ignorant part of American culture but it is better now than it was in the past.
Those brown shirts following TRump are the same 30% that supported the chimp and his cronies. They're loud but they don't speak for the majority of us.
I want to embrace the refugee's and live up to the promise on Lady Liberty...that statue, and the people who gifted us with it are worthy humans and they have my support.
onager
(9,356 posts)Mom, dad and toddler-sized girl in a store. Mom was wearing the hijab, which sort of gave away the whole thing.
I saw Muslims all the time in Los Angeles. There was an Islamic Center close to my house. But I haven't seen many since moving back here to the South. The local university has an Islamic group, which just sent out LTTEs to all the local papers expressing their shock and horror over the Paris attacks and ISIS in general.
I always like to use my 10 or so words of Arabic when I run into Muslims.
"Marhaba" is a good one, since it means "welcome." It's also an informal greeting, like "hi" or "howdy."
In this case I told them their kid was cute, using the word "gamela" ("beautiful," with the masculine version being "gamel" since Arabic is a gendered language.) Tricky because that word is very close to one of the 27 or so Arabic words for "camel." So I could have been telling them their kid looked like a camel, which probably wouldn't go over very well. Anyway they were very friendly and we talked for a few minutes.
haikugal
(6,476 posts)You gave me an idea to search YouTube for an Arabic tutorial so I can pronounce a few words properly...
beam me up scottie
(57,349 posts)I remember the kids used to call my mother a Nazi because her accent sounded German. They were kids and didn't know any better but looking back I know it must have hurt her because that's who she fled. She lost two brothers to the Nazis in the war too.
I go out of my way to welcome all immigrants because I know how nasty people are, even to the children.
haikugal
(6,476 posts)My Mom wasn't fleeing Nazi's but the USA helped defeat the Japanese who wanted Australia.
I have met (lived among) a population of people who fled the Nazi's and had the scars from bullets and torture, some had a numbered tattoo, all in different parts of the world, at different times in my life.
The folks who fought and escaped the Nazi's were Slav's and I was a child. We communicated using gestures and a few words as they didn't speak English. They told me their stories and showed me the scars. They were wonderful, hard working people who had no children. Two brothers, a sister and a nephew...all that was left of their family.
People can be unbelievably cruel, even to children. People in my fathers family, including my grandfather never accepted my Mother because she was a foreigner...their words. I wonder how they think everyone in America, who isn't Native American, got here
I used to be proud to be an American but not anymore sad to say. I know how hard it is to fit in with a new area so I go out of my way to try to make new people feel welcome and I enjoy learning from people with different cultural experiences from my own.
I'm so glad your Mom escaped and gave you to us BMUS....