Reason the first: This one is really 18 trillion reasons. We don't have the money. With over 18 trillion dollars in US debt, we simply cannot afford it. It is time to stop doing things which we cannot afford. If you want to help Syrians and other refugees, then fix the damn tax code. Close the loopholes. This has gone on long enough, and don't say, "Oh, we have the money for this and that, but we can't help out these refugees?" Bullshit. We don't have the money for any of any-fucking-thing. Period. If we want to do something, then we start with reigning in corporate welfare and fix the tax code. We have been putting that shit off for long enough. Get on your congresspeople and get this fixed now. By the time we get through the red tape and the background checks for these refugees who need help it will have been at least a year. Therefore, we have one year to fix this and it can be done. The clock starts this week, so y'all better get on the phones. If you give one flying fig about helping anyone, then this is the first step. If you don't feel like calling your elected officials, then STFU about refugees or pretty much anything because I don't want to hear it.
Reason the second: We have people living like refugees in this country that we obviously give zero shits about. According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness there are over 500,000 homeless in this country on any given day. All you liberal jackasses looking east and hollering about refugees better turn around and look behind you. Once your heads are firmly out of your asses you will see that we have a huge fucking problem right in our front yards. Am I completely nuts or should we maybe look at this first? Let's make sure the people already here have food and clothes and homes and treatment for mental illness and addiction. On top of homelessness, we have people living below the poverty level, children going to school hungry, and an underfunded education system. Americans are reactionary and the press absolutely feeds into this. Everyone is hollering about 10,000 people and we are perfectly content to turn a blind eye on people who are in need at home. That is completely irresponsible and total political bullshit. Let's get our own house in order and handle our moral and financial obligations at home before we start reaching out to the world. We always want to address what is current and catchy in the headlines because it allows us to forget the obligations we already have and choose to ignore. Fix the tax code, develop some income and use that money to fix the non-flashy issues (of which there are plenty!) here in the US.
Reason the third: Our government sucks at pretty much everything they do. I think that is pretty clear at this point. So, while we're working on the first two things on this list, let us just leave the US government out of the refugee business. I do not reject the idea of bringing Syrian refugees to this country. In fact, I am ecstatic about it. What I reject is that we place the responsibility on our government to handle this. Somewhere in the last 60 years we forgot the words of John F. Kennedy. We should not be asking how the government can help these refugees. We should be telling it how we Americans can help them. Here's a brilliant idea. Let's have a list. This list will be a contract of sorts. That contract will say that whoever signs it, provided they can maintain a certain income, will house an entire refugee family of a given size for a given time. Our government will run a background check on refugees (they'll suck at it, but it needs to be done anyway). They can run checks on whoever signs this list as well and approve the list. When the refugees get into DC, or NY or Miami or wherever the hell, then the people who signed that list will go pick up that family. These American homes will get no reward other than perhaps a tax break. Based on the list we will then know exactly how many refugees these homes could handle. Maybe we wouldn't get enough signers to get to 10,000. Maybe we would get so damned many that we could have backup homes! Have social workers pop in every month or so to make sure these people aren't being turned into slave labor and generally find their conditions livable. I have discussed this idea with my wife. She would encourage me to sign this list and offer our home to a family of 3 or 4 Syrians. I am grateful for her. I hate to use this term, but in a traditional sense this solution is the "Christian" solution. This is giving of ones self selflessly to help a family in need. This is taking the bull by the horns and not letting our impoverished government shoulder and mismanage the task.
As I was telling people that I was against this influx of government supported refugees I was called things like "heartless", "over-comfortable", and "immoral". My response was along the lines of, "If you are unwilling to support a government that operates in the black and to stop feeding our debt while ignoring hundreds of thousands of Americans in need for a flashy fix for the few, and pawn this 'obligation' of helping everyone off on the US government rather than lifting a finger yourself, then fuck your irrational, hypocritical morals and phony empathy". I'm too busy trying to save the world to listen to that shit.
Please share this if you believe that logic, reason, and true heart beat a catchy headline every time.
Caustic the Clown
