Refugees and Veterans: The Upset is Real

After the terrible event of terrorism that struck Paris a week ago, there has been a massive flood of people who are either pro-refugee or anti-refugee here in the states. Both sides have their reasons, and in some cases, both sides make very valid points. There is, of course, the people on either side talking out of their ass as well; which is completely typical of this sort of thing, and it’s just as typical that they’re the majority. And don’t anyone try to tell me otherwise, a lot of what I hear is just propaganda from one side or the other.

When we sit down and look at it, it really is a matter of if we help fellow human beings or not. After all, in the end we’re all humans. However, there is a point of contention that I think bears looking at… well, a few, actually.

The first one being the issue with America and its own homelessness; that in particular of our veterans. Now, all homelessness is bad, but what’s really key about this issue and the veterans is that they fight for our right to continue to be a free nation, and us being a free nation is what allows us to have the ability to take in refugees. It seems fairly backwards then, that we would be able to find the resources to house all these refugees that we’re going to help, and yet many veterans who fought for our ability to do this will go without shelter, or food.

Why is it, that when these veterans go to the government to get the help they need, to get the support they need, they are denied; and yet that same government can somehow find resources to help the refugees? Our nation’s veterans have more than earned the right to have the government aid them in being properly settled here in their homeland, and yet their pleas fall on deaf ears. Meanwhile, we are opening our arms to refugees and promising them everything the veterans have been asking for. That just does not seem right.

Then, on top of that we have American citizens who are homeless and need our help, but our government once again is not capable of doing that. Yet here come the refugees…

You cannot tell me it’s comparing apples to oranges, either. Because it’s not. At the very core of it we’re talking about taking care of human beings. And in the end, we’re choosing one group over another.

I look at it like this. In this case, the government is like a parent. Our nation’s veterans are one child, and the civilian homeless are another. The parent, already struggling, cannot seem to take care of these children. As such they look pretty terrible, emaciated, and overall not how you want to see a child. It would seem that someone ought to call Child Protective Services, but they’re dragging their feet looking into the case. Then, knocking on the door is another awful looking child, this time the child is our refugees. This child is also looking for help from the parent, even though the parent is not their own. Now, how can anyone expect this parent to take in another child, when it cannot even reasonably take care of the two it already has?

The simple answer is that it can’t. It’s not even a matter of choosing one human being over another at this point, it’s a matter of simple logic. If we cannot take care of our own, how can we take care of another? We can’t. And no one should trust us to be able to, either! Honestly, even our welfare programs are more detrimental as a whole then they are helpful. Our government has no idea how to take care of a group of people properly. It cannot even adequately take care of its own citizens because our politicians are too wrapped up in kissing ass to make their own lives posh and comfortable. There is no way in hell we can do a proper job with refugees.

Toss away all the fear-mongering that the media is trying to feed you, and just come back to basics. It has nothing to do with a terrorist slipping in, or with the idea that we’ll have another Anne Frank. It all comes right down to the fact that the American government does a really, really shitty job at taking care of people in need, and the last thing it needs is more people to take care of.

Just listen to its own citizens. What are people talking about? Why, how much better life would be in Sweden, or Canada, or Denmark, or Switzerland… you name it, American citizens are essentially all concerned with how the policies of other countries are better then ours when it comes to caring for people. So why do we want refugees to come here?

My feeling is that we want to feel helpful, and for some people, noble. Many won’t admit it, but they’re doing it to feel righteous. And that’s a completely natural feeling. But if you don’t have faith in your own government to take care of its own citizens, why would you have faith in that same government to take care of refugees? I cannot fathom this logic at all.

We need to start by cleaning up our own country, and getting it so all citizens are back on their feet. So that veterans who fight to protect the rights we enjoy are not having to fight for what the government has promised them in return for their service to the country that could cost them their life. The citizens of the United States of America need to have the resources available to not end up on the streets, and our welfare system needs to be fixed so that it isn’t so hard to get off of it that it becomes easier to just stay on it. Or, better yet, that it’s so easy to abuse and manipulate that it creates a drain on resources which bungles the whole system up.

When we have successfully done this for our own, then perhaps we can think of helping refugees. But honestly, I think any refugee is crazy to come here expecting to be taken care of. Yes, it’d be safer than a war zone, but how much safer? You cannot take away peoples racism, bigotry, and fear. Even if the government says we must accept them, they cannot force people to do that. And regardless of the weapon used, we all know that we are a testy nation that has plenty of people ready to commit hate crimes. And right now, we’re on a pretty short fuse thanks to the fear mongering the media has managed.

I’m not talking guns, either, for those who will immediately jump on that bandwagon. Oh no, we don’t need guns to ostracize someone. We don’t need guns to hurt people. We can throw words at them, we can use our actions to alienate them. We can be biased, and we can make it so they never fit in. Just like high school all over again, because you never really leave, do you? And then, physically, we still don’t need guns. How many times does it take a brick through a window before you leave an area? Graffiti on a garage door? Gum in a child’s hair, or nails in tires? It can get more violent too, from rape to stabbing a person… No, you don’t need guns to do that. I’m not saying a gun wouldn’t be used either, but I think in our society it’s much less likely then we’re being told to believe (that fear mongering again from the media). No, I think we are not only ill-equipped as a government to handle refugees, but also ill-equipped as people.

It’s a novel idea, taking care of refugees, but we’re not ready at all. We’re still in the stages of figuring out how to tell facts from fiction in the age of the internet. We’re still unable to learn from history, so that we don’t repeat our mistakes. We still cannot accept that some people like the same gender, or have darker skin, or are female. We have yet to really learn to love in many cases, because we are indoctrinated to focus on the differences between us instead of the similarities. And until we can cast off that shadow of differences, we are not ready to take care of a war-torn country’s refugees.

Let us start by learning to love and care for our own, and then we can think about adding more into our family.