How to Grow Future Terrorists 101

Over the past 17 months, the world has been astonished as it watches the slow and complete unmasking of the United States. The administration, elected by the American people--although not by the majority of them--has revealed the dark underbelly that the country has always kept hidden behind flags, Bibles, soaring eagles, and amber waves of grain. Yes, the PR image of wholesome goodness and morality that the country so proudly showed the rest of the world has been revealed for what it is: smoke and mirrors.

Somehow, through a history that includes the genocide of native Americans, the brutality and immoral centuries of slavery, Jim Crow, the KKK, setting up violent puppet dictatorships in the Caribbean and Central America, and a host of other embarrassments, we've managed to maintain our reputation as the world's beacon of freedom and morality. Stepping in at the last minute to help win the "war to end all wars" and the one after that does have some redeeming value and makes up for a lot of poor choices. Everyone needs a second chance to make-up for errors in judgment and save their reputation.

Can we ever recover from the egregious errors of the past 17 months, though? In that time, conservatives on the right who have made a platform of "family values" and won support by pointing out the moral failings of their opponents have: decided that extramarital affairs are ok, as long as you ask for forgiveness, or continue to deny wrongdoing. Unless you're a Democrat. Just talk that contradiction away by saying, "But Bill Clinton LIED. That's what we were so mad about." Or not. They'll even embrace lying about those illicit affairs, as long as it's the right person doing the lying. Isn't that a far cry from he hell-storm of self-righteous fury we saw from that party in the 90s, as they fiercely and persistently went after Clinton (while turning a blind-eye to Newt, Limbaugh, and so many others' dalliances)? But be careful, they'll also turn on you like rabid dogs if you find that you draw the line at lying and step up to call out further wrong doing within the party, as Mark Sanford just found out. 

If you're keeping count, so far, here are the things the GOP has revealed it stands for--embraces--now that their leader has said, through his actions and words that they no longer have to hide behind some cloak of morality. In the past 17 months, we've witnessed the party's true positions that all of these things are AOK (at least for the GOP): extramarital affairs; lying; pussy-grabbing; lying; making fun of the disabled and elderly; getting other people to lie for you (I'm looking at you, Sarah Sanders); nepotism; the KKK; hate-groups; slavery; lying; dictators; human rights violations; and, lying.

Now, because I guess below-rock-bottom isn't deep enough for the GOP to sink, they've started shoveling: taking children and infants from their parents and putting them into concentration camps, er, "tender age shelters" while they prosecute their parents. Where the guards, keepers, handlers, babysitters aren't allowed to touch, hold, or comfort the children. Not even to comfort a frightened and screaming toddler.

AP photo, from: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/apnewsbreak-youngest-migrants-held-in-tender-age-shelters/ar-AAySDHH?li=BBnb7Kz

While the right contort themselves into bizarre arguments supporting the brutal policy ("the Bible says so"--seriously?  WTF is wrong with you people??!) Here's what the Bible says about immigrants: 

Leviticus 19:33-34 “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.

Exodus 22:21 “You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.

Exodus 23:9 “You shall not oppress a sojourner. You know the heart of a sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.

Thankfully, the Bible also tells there will be repercussions for the GOP and all their supporters:

Malachi 3:5 “Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts.

Deuteronomy 27:19 “‘Cursed be anyone who perverts the justice due to the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’

Let me reiterate that last one from Deuteronomy: CURSED BE ANYONE WHO PERVERTS THE JUSTICE DUE TO THE SOJOURNER..." Here illegally or not, good people don't treat other people that way. A party that screams about "right-to-life" and the evils of abortion, but has no qualms about tearing children from parents' arms, mistreating children in this way, has no claim on ANY moral high road or any kind. EVER.

Remember when the US was attacked by terrorists from the Middle East and so many people, looking for answers to how anyone could justify such horrifying behavior using religion? How horrible the Koran and Islam are that their religion allows that. And it must allow it, because where's the outrage from the Muslims who don't support that kind of behavior? How do supposedly Godly people turn into terrorists?

Look in the mirror, conservatives. What the "good people" of the GOP, the good, God-fearing supporters of this administration and its policies are doing is no different from how the Taliban and ISIS use their religion to justify terrorist acts. Life in #DontheCon's America is like being in an episode of the Twilight Zone. We--the United States of America, former beacon of freedom, tolerance, and goodness--have become a nation led by a party of terrorists.

How are terrorists created? How could those young men from the middle-east have so callously and unconscionably attacked men, women, and children in New York. You're looking at it, watching it happen, as those children held in detention centers and (soon) tent cities in the desert, suffer trauma, separation, fear, and absolutely ZERO compassion from the people of this country. That will stay with those children. They won't grow up with a warm and fuzzy feeling about this country, but the first-hand knowledge of our reality. They won't flood the border because we're a beacon of hope. They'll flood the borders for revenge.

And THIS is how to grow a future terrorist.