Consider the current brouhaha over the Central American citizens who are trying to enter the United States to seek refugee status. They are fleeing their countries in an attempt to save their lives from violence and tyranny.
Conservatives object to that. They feel that those people should be forcibly returned to their countries of origin even if it means death for them.
But here’s the thing: The violence and tyranny is in large part due to the U.S. drug war and to U.S. foreign intervention in that part of the world, both of which conservatives have long supported and still support.
No one can deny that the drug war has ravaged and destroyed Mexico and Central America with drug gangs, drug cartels, massive violence, and official corruption.
Also, no one can deny that U.S. interventionism in Latin America has produced brutal rightwing tyrannical regimes with death squads that have resulted in violent civil wars and insurgencies.
Have any conservatives taken responsibility for these two programs? I don’t know of one who has. Moreover, the vast majority of conservatives continue to support the drug war and foreign interventionism even while decrying the massive exodus of people such programs are producing. What’s up with that?
The conservative (and liberal) war on immigrants has produced a severe shortage of workers in various American industries, causing massive financial losses for the owners. Perfectly good farm crops are rotting in the fields owing to an insufficient number of people available and willing to harvest them. The same phenomenon is taking place in the crabbing industry in the Northeast.
Have any conservatives taken responsibility by volunteering to help these farmers, crabbing companies, and other companies that are losing money resulting from their war on immigrants? I don’t know of one who has. They just watch those crops rotting in the fields and crabbing companies going bankrupt without raising a finger to give them a hand. What’s up with that?
U.S. interventionism in the Middle East and Afghanistan, which conservatives wholeheartedly endorsed and supported and continue to do so, has produced a massive refugee crisis in Europe. Have any conservatives taken personal responsibility for the chaos and crises their invasions and occupations ended up producing in Europe? I don’t know of one conservative who has. They just continue insisting that the refugees be forcibly returned to their countries of origin to face the almost-certain prospect of death from U.S. bombs or from the internal violence that their policy of interventionism has produced. What’s up with that?
Several years ago, a pastor in Arizona named Steven Anderson was brutally beaten and tasered by U.S. immigration goons after he refused to answer their questions at a domestic highway checkpoint. Have any conservatives taken responsibility for the injuries suffered by Anderson in what is part of the immigration police state that has been imposed in the American Southwest as part of the war on immigrants? I don’t know of one conservative who has. What’s up with that?
Last year, ten undocumented immigrants died in the back of a tractor-trailer while being smuggled into the United States to avoid the system of U.S. immigration controls that conservatives (and liberals) have foisted upon our nation. Have any conservatives taken responsibility for the deaths of these ten people? I don’t know of one conservative who has. What’s up with that?
Recently, a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agent was charged with murdering four women in Laredo, Texas, as part of the immigration police state that that the U.S. government has imposed in the American Southwest. Have any conservatives taken responsibility for the deaths of these four innocent women? I don’t know of one conservative who has. What’s up with that?
The next time you hear a conservative exclaim, “With freedom comes responsibility,” respond: “Really? When are you conservatives going to start practicing what you’re preaching?”
This article was published by The Future of Freedom Foundation.
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