Putting Immigration Into Historical Perspectives - A Difficult Read
The issue of immigration is often hijacked politically.
It is a humanitarian issue when considering why people in one place risk leaving all they know, for another place.
Regarding immigration from south of the U.S. border, the historic economic role of the U.S. is largely ignored, or not widely explored.
The U.S.'s policy of regional supremacy, and how that hegemony has influenced all places in the Western Hemisphere, is widely ignored or inadequately explained.
The aim was for 'good' in a sense, but left much trouble in its wake.
Such is mankind's fingerprint on the earth... and sadly, on other people.
I don't think most U.S. citizens fully understand how the situation south of the U.S. border developed.
Although the U.S. has its fair share of poverty, injustice, and cultural breakdowns, it could be argued such abrasions are more exacerbated south of the U.S. border.
I think many people only see the results of past policies.
A byproduct of 'America First' policy that caused much harm to both human and environment in places south of the border.
It is similar to an attitude of throwing one's trash over the fence into the neighbor's property.
An attitude of 'it's their problem now'.
One spiritual dynamic that should be considered, sometimes physically manifested:
So the last will be first, and the first will be last.
- Matthew 20: 16
A current popular political motif is 'America First'.
I am not sure people know what they are chanting or supporting.
There is no justification for lawlessness or the breaking of any laws (illegal border crossing, for example).
However, one has to consider the motivation.
One should realize how laws change from day to day.
Sometimes the changing of a law is based on an economic benefit for financial interests.
Sometimes laws change to dignify a person's humanity.
When it comes to immigration, laws are loosened to allow for a rise in labor demand.
The same laws are tightened to curb immigration.
When those who both write the law and enforce it lack dignity towards other human beings, lives can be destroyed.
When a mob mentality gets behind political slogans, yet the mob is likely unaware of past crimes that gave rise to immigration, it is a recipe for pain on all sides.
The human destruction is justified because of how immigrants are viewed - as commodities, less than human, 'foreign', and a myriad of other labels.
Such labels remove the fact that they are fellow human beings.
People just like the law writers and law enforcers and the vilifying mob.
To allow for a human resemblance would mean individuals have to look at themselves in the mirror and question how they are treating others.
It is much easier to judge others according to external appearance and whatever expedient political noise is most popular.
This is why it is easier, politically, to vilify a human being as an 'illegal alien', rather than identify them as an 'undocumented immigrant'.
Words are powerful.
Sentiments behind words are very important.
When we look south of the U.S. border, what do we find?
In some places, poverty in the wake of U.S. financial interests historically linked to foreign policy.
Corruption in some governments supported by U.S. policy.
Details of such manners is widely ignored in mainstream news, or somehow twisted in a way to justify the profit effort while blaming foreign governments and their peoples as inept.
Instead of identifying historical realities - that are obviously difficult to talk about because they are popularly unknown - the issues that give rise to immigration is instead portrayed as an 'invasion'.
Throughout mankind's existence on earth, people have moved from one place to another in pursuing means, food, peace, and a better semblance of life.
But now with ideas like 'political borders', one could say people are caged-in.
A better existence is the very reason why the forefathers of most U.S. citizens came to reside in the U.S..
The fact that the entire world's population cannot migrate to the U.S. is why some aspects of foreign policy is to export U.S. ideology.
The manner this effort is done can be very problematic and difficult to see.
The forefathers of most U.S. citizens, for one reason or another, left everything behind and trekked to the U.S..
Then at the same time there exists a hateful attitude regarding immigrants to the U.S. and other places.
A 'shoot them' attitude.
Interesting how the children of those who begged to be let in now demand the border be closed.
A case of arrogance, or ignorance?
Likely both and much more.
But such is the product of a consistent programming of dehumanizing anyone not like one's self.
This is what politics is all about, and such attitudes are found in the world's history books going back to ancient times.
Generational prejudices are authored into domestic and foreign policy.
Why?
Because men know not God, but instead make gods for themselves.
The remnant sins of today's honored 'founding fathers' is one piece of evidence.
It isn't an 'American sin' alone, but a typical sin of mankind defined through whatever ideas beyond 'you are your brother's keeper'.
Who is your brother?
Your neighbor.
Who is your neighbor?
The persons you were raised to suspect as 'foreigners', or 'different' or 'beneath' you.
Yet these are your brother and sister according to God's Word and, finally, science.
Such things demand people to look critically at the things they honor and believe in... namely ideologies and popular notions.
Such things demand people who claim to love God to deny themselves.
Many people believe in U.S. policy and the worship of things made by man's hands.
They believe in the ideas a man manifests, and calls them ‘great'.
So many idols... so many false gods.
The dehumanizing of fellow human beings is racist at its core.
It is typical of how one culture comes to dominate another.
Nothing is surprisingly new in this American narrative.
Dehumanizing foreigners is how the Romans conquered the world in their time, and the Arabs in the places they went, and so on.
If it's an issue of ignorance on the part of some people, that's understandable.
I understand U.S. / world history books don't always go into great detail regarding past crimes and dismal popular attitudes towards those outside a common and glorified identity.
Such is how any time's empire goes about the business of conquest.
But if someone does know and understands the issue, yet persist with a 'shoot them up' attitude, then they are the very reason why good is called evil, and evil called good.
When looking at one's country in a similar way as one's residence, what is true?
Is that a logical and rational conclusion based upon things evidently true?
Is a person walking across a border line the same as someone breaking into one's home?
Is that analogy sound?
There is a beauty in the way the Constitution was written to allow for a variety of ideas, mindsets, and perceptions.
There is also man's failure found therein, but this is not easily understood.
To suggest 'failure' in such an honored document is interpreted like a blasphemous suggestion.
Yet it was written by fallible human beings.
Interpretations have changed due to an identifying of that time's sin (blindness).
One good point in the Constitution is the religious clause.
It is quite important.
It protects people's beliefs while also restraining government from demanding people believe something in particular.
Thus, not every U.S. citizen (regardless of ethnic background or family's historical legacy in the states) 'believes' that any space beyond their own real property line is also ‘theirs'.
This is because not every mind sees or interprets the world around them in the same way.
Another point worth mentioning from the Constitution is this: all men are created equal.
At that time (18th century), there was a law allowing for slavery.
Slaves were not considered 'humans' in the way 'men' are identified as having been created equal.
Clear evidence of fallibility, ignorance, prejudice, cultural attitudes ignoring Truth.
A failure to love one's neighbor, your fellow human being, is a failure to love the fellow descendant of Noah.
Why this failure?
Economic incentives blind.
Ethnic prejudices blind.
Pride in things that men idealize, or idolize, easily blind.
These are some underlying issues that put America 'first' while left broken things in places beyond U.S. borders.
It is interesting how men fight and die over dirt.
Surely, men must reside somewhere and derive a living from the ground in some fashion.
But it is very interesting how men violently defend one patch of land while ignoring another patch of land.
A man perceives one portion of earth 'theirs' and another not theirs.
They care for one portion while trash or ignore another... ignorant to how all things are connected.
At some time, someone said 'there is a line there', although that line didn't previously exist.
Ideas are very powerful.
Another nice aspect of the Constitution is that in defending a man's right to their own ideas, and also the right to speak those ideas without restraint, what is true can be acknowledged from what is false or absolutely and ridiculously irrational.
These truths are not popularly touted in the news, but are found buried deep in books... or mentioned by people who look past the popular programming of prejudice and pessimism.
The foundation of the immigration issue, now and in the past, is a humanitarian issue.
A humanitarian issue that historically is ignored, justified, or simply pushed outside of popular discussion.
The humanitarian issue of viewing another human being as a commodity instead of one's brother or sister or neighbor.
Viewing a reflection of yourself (or Christ) as an enemy.
Notice how any one of us are likely to identify with another human being who looks like us, or speaks like us, or shares something in common with us (according to what we see and hear).
But someone that looks or seems 'foreign' to us are often times categorized in our hearts and minds as 'different' and somehow, not as our brother or sister or neighbor.
They are treated according to prejudices or judgments already present.
Popular prejudices and judgments that have saturated culture.
Prejudices and judgments which are, in this case, an extension of previous prejudices and judgments filtered through government laws and attitudes.
The programming of supremacy is quite succinct yet very much intrenched in the human psyche.
Such a programming is not solely owned by the U.S., but any group of people who presume themselves superior in any way to another.
This is why some have the flippant attitude of taking aim with their weapons at people searching for a better life.
Instead of seeing them as human beings, the immigrant seeking refuge is vilified.
Nothing new under the sun.
This is not an America sin alone, but a human sin.
It is now being identified, once again, in the modern age in what people honor and glorify as ‘American'.
The concept of 'American' is promoted the world over, and everyone in their mind wants to become an American for the reasons marketed to them.
Freedoms.
Pursuit of happiness.
Whatever and however that dream is imagined in the mind.
Yet, immigrants are shocked when they arrive to America and are treated like enemies.
The American sales pitch says one thing, but the reception says something else.
Those who believe themselves to be 'true Americans' hate on those desiring to be like them.
Perspective.
Some perceive it very American to kill someone... and then go to church on Sunday as if nothing happened.
As if Christ has a machine gun in-hand instead of an olive branch.
As if Christ is cloaked in a red, white, and blue flag and holds instead of a Scripture scroll the U.S. Constitution.
Brainwashing.
One American repeats hateful, racist, and demented ideology into public spaces - manners learned in the home and echoed in government political ideology.
Such an American absorbs such madness easily because it is found in the public sphere.
These also go to church on Sunday as if they are 'right'.
Often times those in their church look and sound just like them.
I'm not sure if all fo them are known by Christ.
Some are, because God is gracious and overlooks men's ignorance and sees instead the heart He placed in them.
The bad examples are found in the Gospel, clearly teaching us to not be like them, but to rise above such ignorance.
Much how some Jews during the time of Christ on earth hated Truth itself when He appeared before them.
They didn't see Truth as being a part of them.
They had abandoned Truth long ago.
They instead worshipped their own ideas, their own identities, their own institutions.
Much can be related to the American mindset, politically and religiously and economically.
Not every Jew denied the Lord.
All of the earliest Christians were Hebrews / Jews... and many Jews born today are also gifted faith in the Messiah.
In the same way not every American Christian is misled into following a false gospel that puts secular ideologies before the kingdom of God.
A kingdom made up of these:
After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.
They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.
- Revelation 7: 9
This is the reality found throughout the earth.
True Christians among the weeds, those afflicted with more doubt than faith.
This reality is made clearer when men deny their idols and the gods their forefathers worshipped... even the things spoken through political intrigue and economic means.
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