Children Ripped From their Mothers

I pulled up to a stoplight in my conservative town and was hit with the image of a fully developed infant drenched in blood held by a woman with gray hair.  She had brought her 6 or 7 year old grandson to stand with her as she held up this large poster.  Across the street another woman held a sign saying that you could be forgiven for your abortion if you take Jesus into your heart.  Farther along the road two middle school boys held images of fetuses outside of the womb.  Who knows how they were obtained or even if they were real.  Obviously these people were protesting abortion… the sign said ‘Do you care?’…

They are protesting fetuses, who cannot fend for themselves, being torn from their mothers.

Our government is tearing CHILDREN, who cannot fend for themselves, from their mothers!!!!! They have just decided that they will try to quickly reunite children under five within a week.  A WEEK!  What about the five, six and seven year-olds? What about the ten year-olds?

Take a moment and think about your own child at five, six, or even ten… take the time to think about their fears, how they made their way through every day, through lunch at school, or their walk home… My own son, at six, would sit against the wall, hide in his coat and cry if I wasn’t standing outside his classroom door when school got out… and that time I was 15 minutes late???? He was beyond upset!

Yes, we all have our priorities… but our government, Trump’s government, at his order,  is KEEPING CHILDREN FROM THEIR MOTHERS! WE are doing this, we are not making it right, we are saying that the 5 year-olds will have to wait!  There are children sitting in our country whose families came seeking shelter, help, and asylum. What have we done?  We are making a mockery of human rights with paperwork and red tape.

These people that protest abortion, who sit on the Supreme Court ready to overturn the right to choose, who vote based on their politicians’ position on this issue, need to think about human rights.  We don’t want them ripped out before they are born, but it is okay to rip them away after?  This makes no sense and it makes me sick.

THIS should never be who we are!  THIS is a shonda, a shame, and something we will regret as we look back on the most horrible things we have done as a country in modern times.  I don’t want to hear that sorting this out takes time…. that is ridiculous… this was a choice to separate children from their parents every precaution should have been made to identify who goes with whom… if they can do it at a childcare center at Target they should be able to do it at the border… there is no excuse!

 

The Red Hen

I have heard conservatives and even some liberals condemn the actions of the owner of the Red Hen for asking Sarah Sanders to leave their restaurant.  They have criticized her for taking a stand saying that it is no different than the Christian cake maker refusing to bake for a gay marriage.  He was against the love between two people.  He thought that somehow their love did not deserve to be celebrated and that his god kept him from making them a cake.  They were not hurting anyone, they were living their lives.  Their choices in marriage had no impact on anyone but themselves.  This is very different.

Why is this different?  Many conservatives will say that I think it is different because I agree with the politics of the Red Hen’s owner.  Yes, I do.  But that is not what makes this different.  What makes this different goes much deeper and is based on history.

No one likes this comparison, it riles people up, it is harsh, it cuts to the core of who we are as Americans and what we believe about ourselves.  Many have said it about this leader and his administration, many have made this comparison… this is like the beginnings of Nazi, Germany.  And Nazis were not just one man, they were a group of people who were following orders, doing their jobs, keeping their heads’ down, and afraid to speak up.

Sarah Sanders represents the man and the beliefs of this administration.  She defends his actions on a daily basis, perpetuating his lies and insults the press.  Yes, she is just doing her job… but that is her choice.  She chose to align herself with a man who brags about grabbing women, mocks the disabled, , calls for his political rivals to be put in jail (lock her up), questions the citizenship of our elected leaders, and thinks that taking children away from their parents is a great way to pressure his opponents (until he realizes that it is making him look bad).

He has traumatized and forever changed the lives of children and families who were fleeing their countries to seek asylum, shelter, and refuge in what they thought was a safer country.  They were not sneaking in, they were presenting themselves to be considered for assistance in their quest to protect the children who were then ripped away from them.

The workers who aided in this order are no different than the Nazis who were just following orders… it starts small, what you are asked to do…. in ways you can almost tolerate, until it is too late.

If we sit back, only holding the very top accountable for the actions of thousands of his followers we are walking down a dangerous road.  Sarah made a choice of her own free will. We do not have to sit back and quietly let her do her job.  She should be held accountable.

The sad thing is that so many Americans are afraid to do what the owner of The Red Hen did… we want to tolerate those different opinions… but this administration is dangerous, this path is taking us so far away from what America was becoming, this path is intolerable.