The mother walked in and found her 6-year-old daughter feverishly cleaning up her room. "Dorothy," said Mother, "What's gotten into you? Take it easy."
"Oh, please help me, Mother," begged little Dorothy. "The man on the radio just said two women were arrested for running a disorderly house!"
Perhaps Dorothy's misunderstanding can help us achieve some moral clarity, to help us navigate the world as it is today. In the early 1990s – long before 9/11 and the rise of ISIS – the big argument in Germany was a law that would drive American conservatives clinically insane. It was "Article 16," and it held that anybody in the world who wanted asylum in democratic Germany, for any reason, need only walk into Germany (easier than walking from Mexico into the USA!) and go up to the first person in uniform – a soldier, policeman, even a mailman! – and utter one German word, "asyl," which means "asylum." The German state would then provide housing, food, clothing, medical care, education and a generous wad of cash to the asylum seeker.
The German media bristled with reports of videoabende – "video-evenings" – in poorer countries like Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine and elsewhere. Commercialized "coyotes," those who spirit people across borders for cash, invite people to gather their friends in someone's home to see video presentations of happy people from those countries living happily-ever-after in good old prosperous and generous Germany. Those who sign up are taken to a spot on the Polish side of the German border whence they walk into Germany and look for someone in uniform to greet with a hearty "asyl"!
A German legislator, when asked to justify such generous, no-questions-asked giveaways to all who ask, interestingly replied, "Germany used to be the worst country in the world. And now we want to be the best country in the world!"
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That doctrine is sound provided one assumes "The asylum-seeker is always right!" Indeed, the German constitution refers to asylum as "Germany's humanitarian duty."
We have to forgive the overwhelming majority of people who believe the asylum seeker is always right. Look at our history. During World War II, tens of millions of people frantically sought asylum from the Nazis, in Sweden, Switzerland and, if they could swing it, the USA and Canada. Many sought asylum in Norway, Denmark, France and other countries that were later overrun by Nazi armies. After that war additional tens of millions of people looked for asylum from Soviet communism all over Western Europe, North and South America, Japan, Taiwan and Australia. No wonder we concluded the asylum seeker was always right. It was never questioned. It was corkscrewed into our bone marrow that whosoever seeks asylum is endangered, persecuted and in need of a safe place to live. And always, of course, innocent and harmless.
The German people opposed Article 16. But their leaders simply cracked the asylum whip all the louder, while explaining something like, "These people who oppose asylum are the kind that made Germany the country most refugees sought asylum from!"
To this day Angela Merkel is making herself widely despised by shoving massive numbers of asylum seekers down the throats of her people, and Hillary Clinton has announced her intention to admit unprecedented numbers of Syrian refugees into America.
The misbehavior of those "refugees" ranges, big-time, from annoying disruption to mass rape and, in the case of Sweden, murder. ISIS makes no secret of its intention to infiltrate and magnify the mayhem.
Suppose you're an American who thinks it would be a good idea to slam the brakes on any influx of Islamic refugees until we can set up effective vetting mechanisms and thwart ISIS' open threat to infiltrate the ranks of refugees with their own agents. Further suppose you have nothing against those of the Islamic religion, you oppose only radical jihadists. The twin cannons of xenophobia and Islamophobia will nonetheless bombard you irrationally and unjustly.
It's taken ISIS and jihadists and infiltrators bent upon violence all this time to show us the asylum seeker is not always right. Sometimes the asylum seeker is dangerous. Mosquitoes carrying the Zika virus are dangerous. Publicity to that effect has made those mosquitoes unwelcome. Publicity about Muslims who come here to kill has made those Muslims unwelcome. Too bad for the Muslims who merely seek a peaceful life in America. Their enemy is not the American conservative opposed to Hillary's "Y'all come!" policy. Their enemy is the jihadist Muslims who've forced us to restrict immigration until we can tell which is which with reasonable assurances of accuracy.
Does anybody know where the notion originated that everybody and anybody who wants to gain admission to America is somehow born with that as a civil right, and that any American who dares challenge it is a half-step from being a Nazi? A more important question is, "How can we abort such a notion before it goes any further?"
A country that cannot control its borders doesn't deserve the respect of those who cross those borders illegally.
Media wishing to interview Barry Farber, please contact [email protected].
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