FIRST… YOU HAVE TO CARE

/ November 18, 2015

I hate doing controversial posts.  But sometimes you just have to stand up and say are you kidding me?

Currently social media is starting to look like what it probably would have at the start of WWII.  And we can stop it.  We can use our voices to say… No that isn’t accurate and I don’t agree.

We often ask ourselves HOW can a whole country be conned into exterminating an entire race of people?  The answer. We give fear a face to fight.  We generalize it and then we label it.

We can stop it.  We can stop generalizing and start specifying.  We don’t do the world any favors when we use Meme’s to spread hateful and generic labels.

I am writing this because of the following conversation I had this morning:
I made it tiny because it disgusts me.
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Me: Good grief this is offensive.

Anonymous: I don’t care because it that simple. If you stand with those will to harm my family then you would not be standing very long.

Me:  “I don’t care” is really all it boils down to. I have a family too and it’s for them I see past simplistic viewpoints that keep us from being better people and try to sort out the complexity to find solutions.

Anonymous: There is a solution take the fight

Me: Fight the right people. Your meme suggests if the Westboro Baptist Church started blowing people up then ALL Christians are fair game. Sorry but….NO

 Anonymous: The solution is to take the fight to them, quit playing with them, and turn that shit hole to glass.

Anonymous: And what I don’t care about is how offended you or anybody else gets about what is say, or do. People afraid of offending someone is one of the problems. Stop being offended and do something!! Say something! Or sit there and be offended like a spoiled child..

Me: I’m glad it’s so simple for you. I want those asshats as bad as you do I’m just not willing to kill innocent people to do it. Let’s hope you’re not one of the innocent someone decides to turn to glass someday.

Me: You do care or you wouldn’t be here trying to state your shallow minded case. YOU do something about it other than spread hate. How about that?

Me: Spoiled child lol… Name calling = I don’t like you so please stop having an opinion.

Anonymous: If so then it was meant to be. But I won’t run from a fight like a scared little bitch claiming it’s against my religion to fight so I am going to come and not fight for this country either.

Anonymous:  I wasn’t calling you a spoiled child.

Anonymous: Just a comparison.

Anonymous: And not towards you.

Me: I’m all for fighting. BUT labeling a whole race of people because of fear and destroying them is not the right way. I feel like I’m watching what SM would look like during WWII.

Anonymous: I am afraid your right about that. But I am saying instead of taken a chance on letting them enemy in the front door. Close all borders and prepare for it.
Me: Ok but… That meme does damage. It implies much more than you intend. WE both want to help those who need help… Protect the world from ISIS. Let’s find a solution. We have resources.  We have land.  We have people needing jobs to do the security. Give them a place under heavy security. Then we are seen as a kind country. We are putting our people to work. And if ISIS is among those seeking asylum we root them out and track them back like ants to their home. THE bad guys home. Then little girls like mine and yours in another country can live.

Anonymous: No the meme is pretty right on, if they choose to hide terrorist amongst them then they are fair game. If they say hey this guy is not who he says. Then yes, he is not fair game. But many choose to hide them for whatever reason. That’s is the rub. The ultimate question really. To rat or not.

Me:  Imagine living there? You are dead by the bad guy or by foreign govt. A no win situation.  They know their immediate threat is within. Thank God for the truly brave men and women who care enough to weed the bad from good and risk their lives undercover for all of us. We as a world need to stand against these extremists. We owe the innocent people they have taken hostage  the humanity of doing so.

 

You don’t have to agree with me to see the harm labels can do.  History proves this truth time and again.  I also know it takes a LOT to make positive changes and to keep the world a safe place to live free.  The problem is there are SO many problems.

So many problems can be solved if we just took the first step to CARE.  And then you have to CARE ENOUGH.  You want to deny Syrians entrance based on the idea we can’t even take care of our own??? You are right we do a shitty job.  We have a lot to fix.  We have a LOT to care about.

So stop spreading GENERIC MEMES and start caring enough to specificy what the real issue is and then maybe… we can have a useful conversation.

 

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Extremist’s win if you let them scare you into hurting those who need you

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42 thoughts on “FIRST… YOU HAVE TO CARE”

  1. approximately 20 million people have disappeared murdered in the arab world over a short few years, 20 perhaps, and it’s something that has to be admitted to, and since Israel turned the Palestinians into nomads, homeless, so much resentment has been sown, that is now being harvested, time to put up the hands and admit the past!

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  3. I was having the same debate with someone on my FB…although, I take a much harder stance on the security of American principles. I honestly hate the feeling, because it violates my core to think that I could look at someone and pass a judgment without knowing who they are on the inside, but the scary thing is that we can not tell who is good and who is bad. For example, the news quoted today something a friend of one of the suspected Paris attackers and his statement is very telling. He said, “He showed no sign of hatred.” To me, this is evidence of the fact that we can never tell who is going to do what to us, never able to tell which is a “good” one and which is a “bad” one. I think the one thing Americans truly want is for the Muslim community to HELP us. I think most Americans are truly caring people, and we are HATED for being who we are. I think we are yearning for a solution, but we don’t know where to come up with that solution.

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    • We see that on a small scale everyday. A neighbor who we love until we find out he is a pedophile or the straight A student who ends up shooting his class mates. I truly feel like the reason so much is going so wrong with the WORLD (because it is the same everywhere) is because we are self absorbed. We don’t care enough to make a real difference. We are afraid to help the man on the side of the road because he could be a BAD guy. We have created monsters because we are all too afraid to take a risk. I understand it. Better safe than sorry right? But there is a way. That man on the side of the road… make a call as you pass by. Get reinforcements. Throw a blanket out the window. ??? Just all of us do more than metaphorically pass by.

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      • “…because we are self absorbed…” I agree, wholeheartedly. And it softens my heart to read those words from someone else. I, too, feel like our society has forgotten to care about one another. We are only seeing the world from our own perspective.
        At the same time, however, the guy on the street that appears to need help has that “appearance” mentioned, and out rational has a difficult time understanding that people in turbans don’t want to kill us. Sadly, these attacks that keep occurring so often are on a global scale and are increasing rapidly… I just have a hard time seeing that giving some of these people, who are committed to ending our way of life, will change after being given a meal, a home or anything else. In fact, often times, many of these folks are receiving all kinds of aid in the U.S. and then join ISIS after receiving the help. So, in this sense our compassion isn’t anything more than a tool to further their agenda.

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          • That seems too passive, on a large scale. I can see it being a proper stance on an individual scale – i.e. I hope my compassion for you, is something you interpret as good, but is your hatred of me going to override my compassion for you? I wonder, if a clash of cultures is something that can be integrated when one side wants nothing but total annihilation.

            Complex matter, for sure.

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  5. Bravo. Thank you for stating this so perfectly. I couldn’t believe the vitriol in the comments after the various posts about which states were saying no to taking in refugees. It brought me to tears. People saying they didn’t have any room. I am in the UK, and yes when all this started there were many outraged about the thousands trying to get in here through the channel tunnel, but we are expected to take 100’s of thousands like the rest of the EU countries. We are a tiny island that would fit into just one of your states two or three times, America isn’t a country it’s a whole continent! Why is there no room for some of these refugees? How come we have room and you don’t? I was so saddened to read these comments. Granted, there appears to be huge quantities of young men compared to women and children, I don’t know why that is, or what to do about it. I read the other day that the UK has already foiled seven attacks that might have preceded the atrocities in Paris, and been just as severe if not discovered in time. I agree with you about the security issue, and thank God our security services are on the ball and have already prevented disaster, I’m sure with the superior security services in the US, you can all be safe too. The point is that we CARE and show it, just like you said, but are our sentiments just falling on deaf ears? How can we make a difference if the majority decide flat out to oppose it at every turn. We all want our families to be safe and to protect them, but should it really be at the expense of turning our own backs on the rest of humanity? Those trying to do the Same for their own families? What example are we setting our children for the future when we are long gone? Can we seriously reach the end of our lives one day and know that we did good and have no regrets if we did nothing to help these refugees because we selfishly believed it was more important to look after our own and let ‘them’ perish? If there is a judgement at the end of it all, I don’t want to be cast out for having shown no compassion. Do you?

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    • If we generalize about Muslims (or anyone, for that matter), we are doing exactly what they are doing. And, I believe, at some point in the future will likely follow the same military path. If we fight with each other and let this sort of thing effect us (i.e. refuse to take in refugees), then they have won. I choose love and peace.

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  6. A lazy society generalizes because it’s faster and easier; we are evolving into that society. I read something yesterday that made a lot of sense: “Saying that ISIS represents Muslim belief is like saying the KKK represents Christianity.” To get to the root of the problem, we need to stop generalizing. It’s within the cloud of generalization that terrorists spread the most fear.

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    • It isn’t so easy when you put yourself in the shoes of those who are accessories. A mother doing as she is told because her neighbors will come and kill her and her family if she says anything to the military at her door. We wouldn’t tell a child abuse victim who is afraid to tell on their abuser that they are an accessory to the abuse others may suffer because of their silence. Seriously… let’s break these situations down and stop generalizing. It isn’t fair and it leads to bad decisions.

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      • That isn’t the point. We aint talking about kids so don’t pull that card! And what YOU SAY about a kid not telling on an abuser is just plain cheap and card playing. Not even on topic!

        Rationalization is even easier.

        Thing is you got called out on what you said. You know it is correct and you don’t like it so you spin it.

        Yeah it is that easy. There is a reason Eisenhower paraded your kind of accessories.

        https://www.warhistoryonline.com/articles/during-wwii-general-eisenhower-ordered-every-citizen-of-gotha-germany-to-tour-a-concentration-camp-after-seeing-the-camp-the-mayor-hanged-himself.html

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        • I made a specific point. You keep generalizing. We ARE talking about kids and grown ups. We are talking about men women and children.

          I am still not even exactly sure what your argument is. Other than telling me my ideas aren’t valid.

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        • I would seriously question if any refugee, of the eleven million displaced since 2011 Syrian civil war began, would knowingly harbor a killer among them. These are people trying to escape that life. These are people, in reference to the current refugee crisis, fleeing a country that has been bombed thousands of times just in the past year.

          The problem is, we are seeing all muslims as a single entity and that just isn’t the case. This isn’t so clear cut, we aren’t children living in a black and white world. There are so many shades of grey.

          The lives of women and children and even men fleeing conscription into a war that has no end in sight are at stake. The truth is, if we continue to turn our back on these people, we are pushing them to radicalization because there is nowhere else for them to go. That makes those who sit on their hands and turn their backs on refugees the real accessories.

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          • No we aren’t seeing all as enemy. There are those among them that are. And while you may think those saying saying no are accessories they aren’t. Those saying no are working to prevent an influx of those that would advance terror. Those working are following a damn good plan to keep the fight over there.

            Rape, murder, stoning, not much grey in there.

            Avoiding conscription and avoiding fighting for your country, I’ll shed tears forever.

            You really need to check your bleeding heart and be better informed. I’ll help and just maybe you won’t be one of the peaceful irrelevant.

            Peaceful irrelevant … The numbers are correct and I’m certain you can figure out the math.

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  8. Thank you for this, Hasty. I’ve been sickened over my Facebook feed the past few days. The immediate loss of humanity and compassion is astounding. I hope more people will try to put themselves in a refugee family’s shoes. I mean, heaven forbid our own country became uninhabitable. I would hope and pray that the rest of the world wouldn’t be as fearful and hateful as Americans are today.

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  9. Bravo for entering the fray and for writing such solid words into the heart of the matter. People just need to care about PEOPLE. All of them – the terrorists need to learn to care about people. WE need to learn to care about people. The trolls and haters need to learn to care about people.

    You’re so right.

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  10. I feel I have written over 30,000 words in response to generalizations today. I am tired… battle weary… and I thank everyone who has participated in this discussion. Keep talking about specifics and lets find an answer in the convoluted mess.

    This isn’t just about refugees or terrorists. This is about nations and individuals. It is about good vs bad and all the different shades in between. We can’t just look at these topics generally as black or white because they aren’t.

    The U.S., Middle East, and Russia etc are all involved in a very complicated battle that didn’t just start yesterday. People are fleeing the region because it is a damn mess and we have both helped and hurt that mess develop.

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    • I’ve been reading these comments thinking that you are SO BRAVE especially since you don’t normally take on controversy. I am seriously proud of you right now, Hasty. I’m so grateful that you cared enough to post this, and I see your hard work to respond specifically, without looking at the black and white. You are amazing.

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  12. Kudos to you for stepping in and speaking up. I’ve been pointedly avoiding most of facebook and the internet at large. I know I *should* be paying attention and keeping up with the details, but even in that context I find myself sickened by the whole thing. I know in my heart that hiding from it isn’t the answer, though, is it? This is brave and wonderful from you. xo

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  13. Not being able to tell people apart is bad enough, and illustrates the point sufficiently; “fair game” is where it goes too far, and is almost like not even calling them people.

    The actual refugees are the innocents desperate to get away from the violence. And the terrorists hide anyway, never always giving a clue. If one appreciates innocence one would know that not getting involved is one of the more common choices made. People living under oppressive conditions don’t nearly have the choices we take for granted.

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  15. Pingback: Is Your Love Big Enough? The Syrian Refugee Crisis | The SisterWives

  16. Thanks for your posting. The Canadian govt has resolved to bring 25,000 Syrian refugees to Canada by the end of February. I am proud of this decision, but not so proud of the suspicion, assumptions and ridiculous questions asked by our media and the public. 3 months ago the world was freaking out over the horrible picture of the Syrian toddler lying face down, drowned on the beach. http://www.infostormer.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/syrianbeachboy.jpg

    That boy should have been in Canada with his parents (but former Canadian govt. dragged their feet with lame excuses and this horror was the result).

    The Paris attack has brought out a darker side (though in Canada much less than US on this). The reality is, most of the assailants were raised in Europe. The hysteria is exactly what ISIL is trying to create divide, alienation and separation.

    Most mass murders in the US are 20-something middle-class white males with a grudge. Why isn’t anyone freaking out about them?

    These are people escaping the horrors of war and we should welcome them with compassion and a helping hand vs. suspicion and bigotry.

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  17. Thanks for your posting. The Canadian govt has resolved to bring 25,000 Syrian refugees to Canada by the end of February. I am proud of this decision, but not so proud of the suspicion, assumptions and ridiculous questions asked by our media and the public. 3 months ago the world was freaking out over the horrible picture of the Syrian toddler lying face down, drowned on the beach. http://www.infostormer.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/syrianbeachboy.jpg

    That boy should have been in Canada with his parents (but former Canadian govt. dragged their feet with lame excuses and this horror was the result).

    The Paris attack has brought out a darker side (though in Canada much less than US on this). The reality is, most of the assailants were raised in Europe. The hysteria is exactly what ISIL is trying to create divide, alienation and separation.

    Most mass murderers in the US are 20-something middle-class white males with a grudge. Why isn’t anyone freaking out about them?

    These are people escaping the horrors of war and we should welcome them with compassion and a helping hand vs. suspicion and bigotry.

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