MY CHALLENGE TO DONALD TRUMP: An Open letter from a resistance fighter.

Hello Donald.

We haven't personally met, so let me introduce myself. My name is Leia. I am a 31 year old high -functioning autistic from the midwest who has been paying close attention to what is going on in my country. I recently came upon your speech saying that you wish to possibly try to " revoke" the licenses from media stations who you deem to be fake so that they cannot continue to speak out against you. To the best of my knowledge, you have not threatened to pursue any actions beyond that. I am writing this blog post for two reasons. One is to confront you and the other is a request to other writers here and abroad.

My message to you is rather simple and can be summed up in one sentence, You are free to come and get me if you so desire. I do not feel intimidated by your threats against free speech and I am not afraid to stand up and speak out against  you or any other injustices I witness, no matter the consequences to my person. I value freedom enough to publicly take this stand and say that anything you plan to do to those whom you perceive as defying your leadership is worth the price in order to keep democracy alive. I am not the first person in history to have to make a proclamation such as this and sadly I will not be the last. But I consider it an honor to be in a situation where I can do so. 

My second message is to all other writers here and around the world. I urge you to join me in making a blogpost such as this stating that you too are willing to sacrifice anything in order to ensure that freedom abounds wherever you are. Join me in sending a clear message that attacks on our civil liberties will not be tolerated as long as we are around. I look forward to seeing responses to this and to reading the blogs from others. Until then, in the words of my namesake, General Leia Organa Solo ,MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU.

Lions and tigers and Arab migrants oh my....

So it is official. Donald J Trump is the 45th president of the United States. And may I say, it has been interesting. During his first 100 days in office he has issued numerous executive orders that have been met with much resistance by a plurality of the public. I would like to focus on just one such order for this blog post; his order to ban travel from seven predominantly Muslim countries.

Since September 11,2001, and even before, the threat of terrorism has been an ever present possibility in the minds of most Americans, myself included. Hardly a week goes by that we are not bombarded with some news report of a militant group somewhere in the world wreaking havoc on civilization in the name of some bronze age misinterpretation of a religion. Donald Trump capitalized on this fear during his presidential campaign and promised the American people that he would be the " law and order" president that would rein in these terrorist groups. He has stated that this ban is an attempt to protect the American populace " until we can improve our vetting system enough to ensure we are safe." Let me start by saying that the threat of terrorism is a real and legitimate fear and that I am in full agreement that we should continue to improve ways of vetting people who want to enter our country from anywhere in the world. I must, however, object to many of the arguments made by Donald and his supporters for this particular order. I will cover some of them in this blogpost with my personal rebuttals.

One argument I hear is that the people who want to come into America from these countries would bring with them backwards ideologies and cultures since their way of life is diametrically opposite of modern western society. The argument goes that if we let in too many people from these lands  the human rights violations that are endemic in those societies will become tolerated and common place in our country.  I will say that I agree with the statement that people originating from the middle east in particular are coming from a very different world than one most Americans are accustomed to. I will also agree that there ARE problems with abuses, particularly of women, in those societies that the residents of those societies and the world at large need to address. Despite this, I do have some problems with this argument. First, the practices that are common in the 7 banned countries are widely practiced in other countries NOT included in the ban. So the ban would not ensure that we would not have people from that way of life coming here anyway, South Africa is called the rape capital of the world. One in four men ADMITS to committing rape in that country. There are places in New Guinea where rape is so prevalent that women do not leave their houses without first inserting female condoms. The MAJORITY of people in India think marital rape should not be considered a crime. Russia just decriminalized certain forms of domestic violence, with a 50% approval rating from the public. Should we also ban people from THOSE societies from coming here because their beliefs systems are too backwards and dangerous? Third, it is noteworthy that our own dear America has her own past sins to beg forgiveness for. There was a time when the majority of people thought slavery was a sound institution. Before the 20th century, there were few laws regulating child labor. Women could not vote until 1920. Contraception was completely illegal for everyone until 1965. Only 4% of white Americans approved of interracial dating in 1957. Should we look back on our ancestors and think that they should have been denied assistance, aid or entrance to other parts of the world because their beliefs systems were appalling? And what beliefs and practices do we CURRENTLY accept that generations from now will look back on and find barbaric?  Speaking on a personal note, there are MAJORITY opinions that Americans hold that I find hideous. Most Americans think we should ban Syrian refugees. Most Americans think the government should not pay for abortion care. Not to mention that there are small subsets of people, such as the Ku Klux Klan, that I have little to no common ground with. But I assure you that if some disaster were to befall our great republic and there was a need for us to flee as refugees, I would STILL want every last American, regardless of how deplorable I find their beliefs, to find a safe haven. Why? Because they are human beings and that automatically grants them a certain level of protection in my worldview. It is also worth mentioning that there are other WESTERN nations that are more progressive than we are that would and probably do find the American way of life a little bizarre to say the least. 85% of Swedes identify with being atheist or agnostic compared with 90% of Americans that believe in GOD. The right to abortion is practically an accepted fact in Norway. Their government pays for it and they are regularly performed in hospitals. Denmark bans corporal punishment of children whereas half of Americans approve of spanking children as a legitimate disciplinary action. Would most Americans be ok with these countries denying us entry due to the fact that our way of life is a " little behind the times" of theirs? This argument also fails to acknowledge that there are probably GOOD aspects of those cultures that could be an asset to ours. America is called the great melting pot for a reason. It is because we say that our strength is in our diversity. Or at least that is what we say.

The second most common argument I hear being made in support of this ban is that there is no way that we can absolutely ensure that the people coming into our country from these regions do not have harmful intentions towards us. They are right. Despite the fact that we have a very good system already in place to weed out the good apples from the bad, the system is not surefire in its security. I would like to point out though that we Americans regularly accept other flawed systems that result in grave injury and sometimes even death to our citizens without the level of sensationalist fanfare that this ban seems to be generating. Despite the fact that we have the government agency of the FDA to test all products for safety before they hit the market for public consumption, recalls happen. We have federal background checks for people entering professions that require intense interaction with children. Sadly, some predators fall through the cracks. We test automobiles and other heavy machinery for glitches before they are released to the public. Tragically, malfunctions happen and people sometimes die as a result. In regards to the death penalty, innocent people are sometimes convicted of crimes despite a " vetting process" by a jury of their peers. We have even executed innocent people. Yet a majority of Americans still support the death penalty. And to the best of my knowledge, no one is panicking over the fact that the other agencies I just mentioned are not error proof. As i previously stated, I am in full agreement that we should continue to develop ways of perfecting these systems to ensure better outcomes. Every death or injury is a tragedy. But just because a utopian ideal has not yet been achieved doesn't mean that I support shutting down all of it " until we can figure out what the hell is going on" as Donald Trump so infamously stated during his campaign run. Why is it that flaws in these other areas of our government are found to be tolerable by the vast majority of our citizens but for some reason vetting systems for groups such as refugees and immigrants are held to an immaculate standard? I suspect ulterior motives in that much of this rhetoric and fear mongering is motivated by a hatred of people from those regions. 

The third most common argument I hear is that we cannot let people from these places into our country because of what has played out on the European stage in regards to the deluge of people from Arab nations arriving either as refugees or residents. There have been numerous attacks, the most recent being in December in Berlin, of people from these nations who have committed attacks in the name of ISIS. On new years eve in Cologne Germany in 2015, a group of men of Arab descent sexually assaulted a group of German women, sending a shockwave through the world. Many groups roundedly condemned the feminist community at large because most were too afraid to speak out about the incident for fear of enticing violence against arabic people. I strongly condemn the silence of this attack by my sisters in the movement and it is my sincerest hope that the perpetrators of such barbarity were apprehended and punished to the fullest extent of the law. What I have noticed though, is that there is few, if any, mention of the fact that many people from Arab nations have and are currently being the recipients of hate crimes against them BY EUROPEAN citizens. There was a case recently in England of a pregnant women who was beaten so severely that she miscarried both of her twins. There are also reports of unattended Syrian refugee children who have become prey for human traffickers, many of whom are also European citizens. There is good and bad in EVERY group. We could spend all day cherry picking anecdotes to demonize the other side but in the end, we must remember that just because some peoples of these nations mean us harm does not mean they all do. There are also many stories coming out about Syrian refugees who are spreading random acts of kindness to their European counterparts. The day after the sexual assault attacks in Cologne, Germany , a group of Syrian refugees went around the city and handed out free flowers to passing women in an attempt to say how sorry they were for what happened to their city. There is a Syrian refugee boy in Berlin who is now volunteering for free at a soup kitchen in order to give back to Germany for taking him in.

The fourth most common argument I hear is that this is not a "muslim ban" because 85% of muslims around the world live in countries where they are not barred from entering the U.S. in this order. I must disagree. Donald Trump even said during his run that he wanted to create a muslim ban, that he would not role out forming a muslim registry, that mosques should be monitored and that Islam was incompatible with the west. He also has yet to speak out against terrorism directed at muslim communities both here and abroad. Former mayor Rudolph Guliani also let it slip during an interview that Donald Trump called him up and asked him how to form a muslim ban through any legal loopholes he could find. 

The Statue of Liberty famously states " Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. I still believe these words to be true and that they should set the standard for American as to how we should treat foreigners. It remains to be seen if Donald Trump will follow suit.