I spent much of the week ruminating on the situation in Murrieta, California. I was on the ground, and I watched as passion took the streets and both sides shouted their case to whomever would listen. I learned a lot.
I learned that pretty much everyone loves children, but children are easy to love. For me, that has never been a challenge. The challenge is loving them by action, not feeling. Human traffickers charging $5,000 bring children across the border. While some die, others are raped, and all are robbed of growing up in their family of origin. That doesn’t seem loving to me. That same $5,000 spent to get them here from their own countries could feed a child and their entire family in the country of their birth for a lifetime. In fact, $5,200 a year is the per capita GDP in Guatemala.
I learned that history repeats itself no matter how hard those of us who see the nightmare bang our heads against the wall, trying to warn others. I only ever have to remember the words of Adolf Hitler in “Mein Kampf”: “The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation.”
I learned that some of those who stood across the road from each other at the protests agree on enough to start a dialogue that could be very productive, revolutionary even.
I learned that many of those who stood across the road from the conservative side at the protest 1) think Obama is doing a horrible job
