San Diego and Tijuana?

Suppose you live in an area like Detroit, where automobile plants are closing. Imagine that in your area, jobs are being lost, stores are closing, services are dwindling, and the cost of living at the standard to which you are accustomed is increasing.

You decide to move to an area which you hear is much more prosperous, and the government less corrupt.

As you are about to arrive there, you are stopped by a group of what appears to be bandits. They are armed with automatic weapons. They wear similar looking clothing, which you take to be gang related. They start looking through your car.

Your initial fear of losing your life softens into curiosity, as it becomes evident that they are not going to kill you and your family, or even steal from you. As the questioning and conversation continues, you learn that at least one of the gang members believes in the same God you do. But before you can challenge his actions in terms of his professed religion, the gang leader tells you that you have to turn around and go back home.

Back home, you learn that many other people have had this same experience.

Now suppose that your home is Tijuana, Mexico, and you were trying to get a better job and live in a nicer home in San Diego, and the gang was the U.S. "immigration authorities."

Imagine further than many people who have been stopped by these armed "immigration authorities" are outraged at the initiation of force against them and the prevention of their being hired by employers who want to hire them and their purchase of homes by builders who want to sell to them.

Immigration laws are a violation of "rights" with which we have been endowed by our Creator.

Angry opponents of immigration laws start launching rockets into government facilities in San Diego, sometimes missing and hitting innocent civilian targets. Some radical groups intentionally target innocent civilians on the grounds that they are not innocent, but complicit in the armed denial of human rights by their government.

Is violence on the part of pro-immigration forces justified?

Of course not.

Now imagine the government starts launching rockets from San Diego into Tijuana against the pro-immigration radicals, occasionally hitting schools, hospitals, etc. in Tijuana.





This is how I understand current events in Gaza. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Some have suggested that the U.S. government is unwittingly subsidizing terrorism in the Middle East. Perhaps it's more than unwittingly. In any case, it is certainly unconstitutional.





Pictures of human beings not allowed to cross an arbitary political border to be with their families.

[video of an unexpected opening of the border]




Select Commentary

View these photos and tell me why Israel is not guilty of using "weapons of mass destruction."

The Other Side of the Story! - Palestinian Mothers

Keep in mind that the Bush-Cheney Regime will describe hand grenades [pdf] as “weapons of mass destruction” when it suits the state's purpose.

Of course, this is not to deny that Hamas also uses “weapons of mass destruction.” (And the use of quotation marks is not meant to imply that these weapons are not horrifically anti-Christian in their moral character.)

Orwell, blinding tribalism, selective Terrorism, and Israel/Gaza - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com

A conservative declares:

All of this talk of "innocent civilian casualties" is utter nonsense anyway. There are no more innocent civilians in Gaza than there were innocent Nazis in Germany. They are all Palestinians. They all voted for Hamas socialism and rule. They all defend and support Hamas in one way or another. They are all a part of the terrorist machine that Hamas represents (kind of like the people of Chicago supporting their corrupt political machine).

Mary Mostert points out that

There are only about 5.5 million Jews living in Israel, and 1029 of them have been killed by [Palestinian] terrorists (along with thousands of Jews wounded by terrorists).

Any U.S. criticism of Israel would have to be pretty hypocritical, since "That is approximately 20 times the equivalent percentage of people killed in the World Trade Center in the USA, with our 305 million population, when 3000 died on September 11, 2001." But at least Israel is aiming its rockets in the direction of the attackers. Not a single 9-11 terrorist came from Iraq, the nation that the U.S. destroyed after 9-11.

Lost in the Rubble Chris Hedges

"Top 5 Lies About Israel’s Assault on Gaza" Jeremy R. Hammond - Foreign Policy Journal