Wanting Border Security Doesn't Mean Trading in Your Humanity

I've been involved in some twitter wars with some people apparently really unhappy with Dana Loesch. She, along with Glenn Beck and some others, have been donating their time and money to help these kids that are pouring over the border.

This isn't sitting well woth the send-them-back crowd, most of whom are on our side. But the hardline stance isn't going to work at the moment. What started it all was an article by the American Thinker, a blog I typically enjoy but decided to go hardline cynical for some reason.

First from Loesch:

The gospels also implore us to minister and to witness…And the parable of the talents implores us to use that which we have been given by God to do good and glorify his name through our works, which includes using our talents and our platform to serve as good stewards of our fellow man.”

If the issue is Glenn Beck advertising for help with this effort, do they also find it offensive when celebrities promote wounded warriors? Do they find the Salvation Army offensive, when celebrities work with them? I mean, isn't the whole point of charity awareness and to raise funds to help?”

Loesch, who will be accompanying Beck to the border, said she understands the frustrations of those who were angered by the event, saying: “I get it. You feel like you cannot take it anymore from this administration. You feel overwhelmed. Every day there’s a new headline: the NSA, the IRS, the EPA, the NEA, the BLM, the DOJ, the ICE, Benghazi, voter fraud, healthcare.

The list goes on and on and you feel persecuted, and your patience for everything has run out. Fam, I feel you.”

Catherine Evans at the Thinker has taken exception to this and has written an absurdly cynical article insinuating that's it's all for publicity:

This elitist ‘I feel your pain’ rhetoric would not matter or even register on the relevancy meter if these so-called conservative provocateurs did not put up a pretense of representing ‘we the people.’ Their books, speaking engagements, television appearances and radio shows have made them a ton of money. As a token of their gratitude, shouldn't they stop all the pandering and support the general consensus of the people -- you know, the ones who made them rich and famous? If these are our spokespeople, it is no surprise the Left continues to win the war on America.

I don't know Dana or Chris Loesch personally but I do know they've taken the time out to answer my lowly little tweets. Nothing about them strikes me as elitist. But really, that's not the crux of the argument.

Then the hardliners came out, equating helping these people, mostly children, is the same as supporting illegal immigration. I'm hard put to make the connection. I'm not certain if they realize how many of them are kids, how bad the situation is, or if they really are this heartless.

She said children in the camp had measles, scabies, chicken pox and strep throat as well as mental and emotional issues.

“It was not a good atmosphere in terms of health,” she said. “I would be talking to children and lice would just be climbing down their hair.”

A former nurse at the camp told me she was horrified by what she saw.

“We have so many kids coming in that there was no way to control all of the sickness – all this stuff coming into the country,” she said. “We were very concerned at one point about strep going around the base.”

Both the counselor and the nurse said their superiors tried to cover up the extent of the illnesses.

“When they found out the kids had scabies, the charge nurse was adamant – ‘Don’t mention that. Don’t say scabies,’” the nurse recounted. “But everybody knew they had scabies. Some of the workers were very concerned about touching things and picking things up. They asked if they should be concerned, but they were told don’t worry about it.”

The nurse said the lice issue was epidemic – but everything was kept “hush-hush.”

“You could see the bugs crawling through their hair,” she said. “After we would rinse out their hair, the sink would be loaded with black bugs.”

If they do know this, then these tweets may be even worse than I thought.

@OhioCoastie quit tweeting me if you support hand outs and just giving people free shit, go join @TheDemocrats
— Austin Fitzpatrick (@TheAustinFitz) July 21, 2014

Couple of things. 1) The "handouts" are through private funds, either raised through charity or taken out of their own pockets. 2) Supporting humanitarian aid is not the same as making public policy.

The policies of the democrats have led us down this road and it has culminated into this mess. It wasn't of our making and we are definitely against open-borders precisely for what is happening down there right now. These kids didn't really do anything wrong. They are rewarded with disease, bugs, and abandonment.

The hardliners believe this will encourage more to come. "You want more?" they say. Hate to tell you but that encouragement has been happening for decades. What Dana does now isn't going to make or break that.

"We do need to work over the government to enforce our laws." True,  but they haven't been for at least 20 years. The damage is done. We now have sick, hungry, and scared children that need help. Sucks, I agree. But really, you want to just push them over the fence and get eaten by wolves?

"We don't need to pay for it, we don't have the money!"  Well, then what's your beef with private charities and funds trying to help?

"It's the government's problem, they should be fixing it." Sure, cause they do such a good job with this kind of things. Ask the VA patients.

Look, I get it. It's a problem and our side has been warning about this since the last amnesty. We've begged for border security and simply enforce the laws on the books. They didn't and this is what they've wrought. We have a golden opportunity to turn public opinion on our side. Tossing kids into the river is going to turn the public against us in a heartbeat.

Also, there's enough secrecy going on down there, might be helpful to have folks like Loesch and Beck to keep an eye on things and let us know.

There is a public relations aspect to this, true enough but that doesn't mean it has to be self-serving. We can change this destructive policy for the greater good.

And if we happen to help some children while getting it done, so much the better.