First, additional issues from last Immigration post. I want to clear up some misconceptions. Immigrants do not commit more crime than the rest, crime rates have fallen in the face of increased immigration, and immigrant incarceration rates are lower than average. Second, only 8% of ICE-detained and incarceration (in “detention” centers) have a record of violent crime, and 73% have no prior convictions. Third, American citizens have been detained. Fourth, recruitment standards for our new national domestic standing army (ICE) are insufficient to ensure competent, well-trained, psychologically stable agents and interfere with local law enforcement in their community focus. A recent whistleblower account in the Washington Post (requires subscription) recounts the reduction of training. Local and state law enforcement agencies require psychological assessment of applicants; ICE does not. Any crazy SOB (capable of brutality and murder) may apply and be accepted! This is not an environment in which compassionate enforcement of immigration law can be enforced…not by a hastily expanded domestic militia of disrespectful, cammo-draped, masked, body-armored, heavily armed, authority-abusing thugs. If you would want to create a scenario conducive to inciting rage and violence as an excuse for martial law, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better one. I must add, though, that there are probably some sincere and dedicated ICE employees that are trying to do the right thing; they should be detaining only those illegals who have committed significant crimes (the vast minority). Here is another great summation of the Immigration issues.
On to the current post. Let me begin by walking you through a process to highlight our relationship to the earth in its entirety. Hang in there with me–there is method in my madness.
Who or what are you? Are you your hand, arm, leg, liver, brain, DNA, intestinal microbes, etc? This brings to mind Dalton Trumbo’s disturbing 1939 novel, Johnny Got His Gun, wherein the war victim protagonist is left with nothing but his mind. But what if you lose that? What then are you? Try this exercise: Imagine yourself eating a nice warm buttered piece of toast; In one moment’s bite there is also the farmer growing and harvesting the wheat, the miller, the transporter, the grocery store and employees, the sun and water to grow the wheat, the minerals and microbes/worms in the soil, the distant past of causes and conditions leading up to now. You are the Earth and the Earth is you, all of it, each and every moment. Everything is related and interdependent. This confers upon all of us a great responsibility to care for this life, this person, all persons, all living things and even the infrastructure of oceans, rivers, rocks, atmosphere…What are you? Far more than you can imagine. You “own” the universe every awesome moment, so where is there a need for grasping greed, for ill will, for only I, Me, Mine?
With that intro, I will address my thoughts on existential threat #3 in the next post.
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