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While I'm At It

I think that caring about how policies affect various people, especially people of color, is an important consideration. Even to say "people of color" enrages some people on the Right, as if you've already conceded to some leftist identity politics. All that I will concede and do say is that when we attain equality before the law, it will be because we have joined our neighbors in overcoming the unique challenges of being non-white in this society. We can't listen to anyone's experience, empathize, and fulfill an obligation in solidarity, if we have decided we don't have to, because they are on--or even sound like they are on--"the Left."

If that even sounds like a concession to everything you hate, you might be part of the problem.

And to follow up on my last post, and some questions I received privately, you're darn right I take these unjust deportations personally. If I decline to tell you why, just know that this is not an abstract discussion for me. Frankly, I tire of arguments appealing to abstract principles, while simultaneously  my interlocutors even defend injustice in the concrete and specific. These almost daily reports of almost unbelievable deportations force us to reckon with the fact that these are not mistakes or clerical errors.

I concede that the US has a right to protect its border. Do you really believe that throwing out people who've been enriching their communities for decades in many cases enhances the security of the United States? I'd honestly like an answer. Against what or whom are we enforcing these laws? Better question: If someone cannot attain legal status in 3 decades, even 4, and not for lack of trying--whose fault is that? I say it's not the immigrant's. Aside from the fact of the perfectly valid point that you shouldn't have to be on your way to sainthood, just to get a seat at the table.

The danger of appealing to the majority is that it assumes whatever that majority holds is correct, just, and sensible. Populism is a whole political style and method based upon this fallacy. We're living in these times.

Just suppose that one political party fields a candidate that is endorsed by the largest abortion mill in the nation. Said candidate promises to continue also the normalization of alternative sexuality, and the government-sponsored persecution of traditional religious believers in their fight against all these things. That candidate is a hectoring, domineering scold, who by the way, is casual with national security secrets, to say the least.

The other is completely unqualified, incurious bigot, who--whether in a quest for power, or as part of his constitution--has normalized racism, xenophobia, religious intolerance, police brutality, and sexual assault. I concede that if you voted for the latter, you may not be any of these things. Here's the million-dollar question: How many injustices are you prepared to accept, in your quest to say, "I thank you Lord, that you have not made me like one of these Democrats"?

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