At first, I was indifferent.

I had been jaded by the fact that people, as a general rule, like to step outside the bounds of what they actually have the right, the wisdom, or the capacity to do and/or say. Everything that is happening around us are simply manifestations of that general rule. The general rule of entitlement. So, yes, I am indifferent. For example, unlike many, I don’t have an opinion about our gun laws in the USA. Know why? Because there is an overwhelmingly large sum of people who, in their mind, are entitled to make the ultimate choice of preserving or taking life.

So, at first, I didn’t bother to form an opinion about the Syrian refugee stuff going on for the same reason: this is simply another cluster manifestation of people’s general suckiness. But that changed tonight when I read the following Facebook post:

[“I want to hear the other side of this. Why should we let all these Syrian refugees into our country (USA)? How do we know who these people are and if they’re safe?”]

My immediate answer? Because your founding fathers promised. Because:
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these – the homeless, tempest-tossed – to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door.” That’s why.

But then, I thought a bit more about what he was really saying in that post. The intent gathered once I read between the lines. And suddenly, a ton of thoughts just flooded my head. For starters, holy god complex… what gives him or anyone else the right to determine whether or not another human being deserves safety and refuge during times of crisis?

Pfft… “How do we know who these people are and if they’re safe”, he says. Walking down the street alone at night, do you know who I trust? No one! What do I care which part of the planet you’re from? We’re never safe! News flash: all people are capable of having negative intentions. And unfortunately, under the right pressurized circumstances, any one of us can be motivated or convinced to act on those negative intentions.

Just a few months ago, you couldn’t get people to shut up about #BlackLivesMatter; just a few months ago, practically the entire police force was accused of being a danger to a certain segment of American society. Before that? We were reeling from the fact that, once again, some misguided, misunderstood, cry baby wack job decides to walk onto a school campus and fire rounds of bullets at random students! For the millionth time it seems. Our prisons are filled to the brim with untrustworthy and unsavory people – some of which are considered so dangerous that they have been deemed unfit to rejoin the rest of civilization because they can’t be trusted to not pose a threat to others. So, why on earth does anyone care about 20,000 refugees? Ohhhhh, because they have “big bad, scarwy teworwism” over there in Syria. Oh and they happen to have the same skin color and fundamental religious beliefs as the “bad guys” so we have good reason to be wary.  Is that the reasoning we’re going with? Prejudice is back to being something that’s okay as long as the majority of the nation and government agrees with and endorses it?

Also, last I checked, the people who’s agenda actually includes terrorism as a means to intimidate and control, have not needed to do so under the guise of being a refugee. Nor have they always come from some distant part of the earth for that matter. In any case, at some point, they were normal people. Like you and me. Motivated by a strong sense of entitlement. They just needed a cause, the means, and a push. The people that we are afraid of accidentally letting onto our precious chunk of land? They’re already here. They’re our neighbors.

They’re us.