After all these years of listening to Conservatives and Republicans argue that the nation’s liberal and Democratic population are nothing but a bunch of weaklings aching to sell out their national ideals, it turns out that it is the GOP—who I have officially renamed the “Generation of P- - -ies Party” (fill in the blanks)—that is now guilty of working to destroy so much of what generations before us lived and died to protect and enhance.
It always starts at the top, right?
Yesterday, the GOP frontrunner for the Party’s nomination to be president, Donald Trump, told NBC News that, if he should become president, he would implement databases and more to keep track of Muslims in America.
When NBC’s Vaughn Hillyard asked Trump how such a plan would be any different than how the Nazis tracked the Jews in Germany, all Trump could muster was a “You tell me.”
I’m sure that Trump’s response was quite genuine as he had no idea what the Nazis did to the Jews in Germany before they ultimately collected as many Jews as they could onto the cattle cars and took them to their death.
So allow me to provide Trump with the facts—not that I imagine he cares.
It is beyond well documented that the Nazis kept very detailed records of each and every Jew in their country. They accomplished the gathering of this data through their ordinary census process, however they would then separate out the information on Jews and place that data into its own database. As Trump would put it, it was “good management.”
As a result, the Nazis knew the name of virtually each and every Jew in the country—who they were, where they lived and so much other bits of critical personal data. And when that government decided to share that data with the general public, so as to better ostracize Jews from everyday society, they did it by forcing Jews to wear yellow Star of David badges whenever they went out.
Again, we all know how that story ended.
And yet, here is Donald Trump, who will, no doubt, anxiously remind us today about his Jewish friends; who will remind us that his own daughter converted to Judaism when she married into a Jewish family; and will remind us that he doesn’t have an anti-Semitic bone in his body; suggesting that America do precisely the same thing the Nazis did to the Jews.
Only this time—and in America—he suggests doing this to the Muslims so...it's all good.
Trump would have been wise to consult his in-laws before venturing off on a policy that horrifies all Jews—or certainly should.
All this week, I’ve been struggling to show people the frightening comparisons between the effort to keep Jewish refugees out of the United States, both during and after WWII, to what we are now seeing with the Syrian refugee issue. If you care about this, please see here for an excellent historic narrative of just what took place and how we are repeating so much of this awful bit of history.
But it is not just Trump.
Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would “pause” the refugee program for Syrians until certain conditions are met, including a much improved vetting process. It remains to be seen if the bill will make it through the Senate, but if it does, the President has promised to veto the legislation.
I’m all for doing everything necessary to get a first class vetting procedure in place. I’ve been very public in saying that we need to take this job away from the UN and do it ourselves.
But let’s not kid one-another.
We all know that “pause” means “end” when it comes to allowing suffering refugees, bombed out of their homes by both the Assad government and ISIL, to enter our country.
To make sure the point is driven home, various Republican Members of Congress have fallen all over themselves to introduce amendments and further legislation going much, much further when it comes to shutting off these people—including legislation to end all refugee admittances to America, no matter where the asylum seeker comes from.
Others have said that they would permit Syrians to come to our shores, but only if they are kept in refugee camps, separated from American society.
Great idea…because nobody has ever been radicalized as they sit bored to death in a refugee camp with nothing else to do but plot against the people who are keeping them locked up.
This is all quite a retreat from the American values and ideals we have long known and loved.
Indeed, this is so much the case that yesterday’s House bill pretty much demands that we take the plaque that adorns the Statute of Liberty down at once, as to leave it in place now constitutes a serious bit of false advertising on the part of the United States.
Yet, many will tell you that this is what we must do because there are people out there who want to hurt us.
I have a newsflash for these folks. There have always been people out there who want to hurt us. The difference is that, in the past, Americans said "bring it" in the belief that what our nation stands for is far more important than fearing for our individual skins.
It appears that the ship has sailed on getting a great many Americans to understand that while we may not be doing a very good job of fighting ISIS on the military front—and we are not—we are doing an even worse job when it comes to the battle of ideologies. We are now, on a daily basis, giving the Islamic extremists exactly what they want. They are enlisting people to their cause by telling them that America hates Muslims. They are telling whomever will listen listen that America talks a big game about freedom and the importance of human value but folds its tent the moment they have to muster some courage to stand up for what they say they believe in.
How are these monsters wrong when they say this if we will sell out critical American values because people want to hurt us? Yes, we must do everything we can to protect ourselves, but always within the ideological boundaries of being Americans and everything that comes with that—including the responsibility to stand up for what so many of our ancestors fought and died for.
You can blame Obama for failing on the military front. But if you support this current waive of anti-refugee behavior and are not blaming yourself for a failure to live up to the American way of life, then you are either just kidding yourself or don’t understand what America’s values really are.
That is not on President Obama—it is squarely on you.
I assure you that our hard won values are not about singling out a religious community and keeping databases on them, despite Donald Trump's perverted vision of America. If you aren’t clear on this, then you might seek some advice from those dubbed “our greatest generation” what it was they were fighting for.
Of course, I have little doubt that Donald Trump will see a bump in his poll numbers as a result of his terrifying remarks.
If that makes you happy, then bully for you.
But enough with the false dialogue that progressives are trying to destroy America as the nation's left-leaning thinkers could never come close to doing the job as effectively as the Republicans are now doing, both within Congress and without.
Before much longer, it will become clear who is and who is not willing to stand up for their country and the national ideology it has long treasured. And when it is, the GOP—the “Generation Of P- - -ies Party”, will be drilled out of existence by real Americans who are willing to stand up for who we are—even if we do so by accepting that there is danger in supporting our values, just as there has always been danger when Americans are called on to stand up for who we are and who we are supposed to be.
UPDATE: Sometimes, support and good thinking comes from the most unexpected places. I strongly urge that you read the excellent report written by Alex Nowrasteh, Immigration Policy expert at the very conservative CATO Institute and published by CATO. While I rarely am in agreement with CATO on policy, it is good to see that they understand American values, the actual facts and are not quivering in fear.
Contact Rick at thepolicypage@gmail.com and follow me on Twitter and Facebook. Rick can be seen daily on on Newsmax TV and heard on Saturdays at 11am on his radio program, Steele&Ungar, with Michael Steele, on Sirius XM POTUS Channel 124.
