So they just coincidentally happened to have surveillance footage of a safe house, and just coincidentally happened to use it now? You would think that they would use that knowledge immediately, since such a terrible crime is being committed.
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We are all going to have to decide what we will do for our fellow humans as ICE and the Border Patrol (Trump’s Brownshirts) continue to harass and arrest them. Are we willing to hide them? Are we willing to break the law to help them? Last week Border Patrol agents boarded a bus in Ft. Lauderdale and demanded, 'Papers, please." What would you do? Would you comply? We all need to ask ourselves these questions, because until we can stop them the atrocities will continue.
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If anyone should die the agents who dumped the water should be tried for manslaughter.
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A volunteer for an organization that tries to prevent immigrants from dying … was arrested.
Kinda’ sums up the administration’s policies right there…
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Wow, I did not see this coming…
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Sort of like getting shit on by a pigeon.
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Huh. I remember that verse being couched as a powerful rebuke of the self -satisfied disciples:”I hungered and you did not feed me…”
I’ll have to look it up in some other translations when I get home tonight. @tiowally did you copy and paste from a web version or transcribe it yourself. ?
Yes. Copied and pasted from a web version.
The rebuke, if you want to call it that, is verse 25:40:
“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
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Shorter: John 11, 35 Jesus wept.
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I don’t have a kneejerk response against LE; I assume that most of them are just doing their jobs. But something like this could persuade me that certain units attract a certain type of personality, and force out anyone who won’t conform–anyone aware of the concepts of nuance or forbearance.
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This is hideous - but it also present hideous situations & possibilities & choices
stick with me for a moment - if viewed with total analytical objectivity it becomes a really even more screwed-up situation -
imagine you are an impartial Border Agent ‘manager’ with agents under your control - and an independent thinker - intent upon being highly responsible - responsible for the length of border that you & your agents are to manage - but also strongly intent upon respecting the life of every individual who enters into this area - and you stress - rules & laws will be enforced - but NO ONE DIES.
… then your agents report these random improvised ‘aid stations’ - popping up in various places - no documentation - no idea who put them up - and no clues as to where the food and water came from …
- what goes through your head ? ‘oh maybe this could help somebody’ … or … “Oh Crap - we don’t know who put this here - this whole thing is so politically contentious that some lunatics could be putting rat poison out there … we have no control over the contents … if we leave it there & it is toxic - it is all on us - we saw it and we did nothing” Even the well intended individuals in border patrol end up in an impossible situation.
So here we are with a bad situation - and the reals solution would be to pro-actively manage the situation in a compassionate manner - create official humanitarian water stations that are regularly monitored for safety and purity - it is possible to enforce the rules and the law - and be humane about it - and have a reasonable assurance of safety for the humane gestures.
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“(Did I mention that 80% of “white evangelicals” voted for Trump?)”
I wonder what sealed the deal for them?
Trump’s sexual escapades?
Trump’s lack of any semblance of Biblical knowledge?
Trump’s embrace of White Nationalists?
Trump’s complete and utter lack of scruples?
Trump’s Russian web of lies, deceit, and money laundering?
Tough to choose!
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And this did not just start:
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Or, alternatively:
… actually what tipped them in his direction was his obvious hostility toward ethnic & religious minorities - and his tacit approval of articulating long suppressed hate language that they have wanted to shout for years & years -
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend” - really carried the day.
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I was going to say “one thing we’ve learned this last gear is that at least since it was moved to DHS and became ICE, the agency has accumulated the most miserable excuses for human beings in the US government.” But, yeah. That’ll work too.
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My dad used to have a house in the desert on the outskirts of habitation. I think that most people around there gave “the wetbacks” water but nobody talked about it. Sometimes there would be a knock at the door. I think that the sentiment was that if you were willing to make that walk you pretty much earned a drink of water and to be let go on your way, even by arch-conservatives like my family.
As the years passed and the migration becam e more organized and the border patrol scrutiny more intense, there were many problems. There were dozens of break-ins at my dad’s place. Food and clothing, not other stuff.
One day my brother was visiting the place and found the body of somebody who didn’t make it.
It’s still a problem fraught with ambiguity but most people support the blue water containers.
We don’t have that house anymore but at the moment I’m camping a couple of miles from there in a beautiful lonesome place. Except in the late afternoon when the border patrol destroys the peace and stillness of the desert evening by flying overhead looking for migrants.
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Hmm… now I’m even more curious how that verse is rendered in other translations. I believe the NIV is the preferred translation of evangelicals. The version you quoted comforts the reader with the assurance that they are a good person who has done what they were called to do. The version I remember makes for considerably more uncomfortable reading.
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I know. I happened to be in Georgia when Jane Fonda, then married to Ted Turner, said that living conditions in parts of the state were akin to the Third World.
Georgians clutched their pearls and came positively unglued. Even more so after the Atlanta Journal-Constitution ran a series documenting the abject poverty to be found in the Peach State. Needless to say, their anger was hardly assuaged when the paper won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage.
Poor crackers.
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Flint. Not sure it was done intentionally, but they sure weren’t in a hurry to investigate and rectify once the problem was reported. Makes me sick to think how many kids’ brains were permanently changed from lead poisoning because of it.
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