SYRIAN REFUGEES DO NOT DESERVE OUR HELP.

I was standing in an arcade last night, sirens and flashing lights drowning my senses. A friend of mine had just jumped into this Star Wars immersive pod and I decided to check out Facebook while I waited for him to emerge victorious after destroying the Death Star. Upon opening my feed, I saw this photo re-posted a number of times by various people. Clearly it was striking a chord in the populous. A real hot-button meme if ever there was one.

We’re all constantly badgered by one another’s political opinions and we all live on opposing sides of the fence. We all believe something different and we all constantly have to hear about it from the Too Conservative or the Overly Liberal. We all have That Mom, That Son, That Uncle, That Cousin, That Friend From High School that we want to shake because they are so frustratingly stupid. People can complain up and down about how tired they are of their feed being filled with opinions that are in contradiction to their own but it’s like… I don’t know. Facebook is a social media platform where everyone gets to stand on a soapbox and type in exactly what they’re feeling. That’s what it is. That’s what this place is. I thought everyone understood that. Like, “I gave this guy an opportunity to talk and he told me his opinion. I was so disgusted by his audacity.” So it’s always so strange to me when people say, “I’m tired of hearing other people’s opinions. I want to discuss things as long as you’re a carbon copy of me.” Diversity is what makes our culture rich and it’s what expands our world view. We as a people have to understand that even the people that believe something on the very opposite end of the spectrum believe it because, for some inner-logical reason, it makes perfect sense to them. They are not just hate-mongers. There is a decisive purpose to their decisions. It doesn’t mean that they are wrong. It means we don’t understand them. It is a personal failure of ours to not see the point of view of another. And understanding that, I believe, is the first step to finding common ground. We need to understand where each side is coming from. Listen, Donald Trump is not filled with hate. He is filled with fear. And I don’t need Yoda to tell me how that turns out… but just in case you do…

We all have something to learn from one another and I believe it’s a very dangerous practice to start blocking out the variety of life. I understand that certain people were raised in a very different culture, in a very different city, in a very different family, with very different opinions than the ones I’ve been brought up in. It makes sense that we all view the same object from different perspectives. That is what life is.

But last night I saw this image on Facebook and it struck me quite hard. Really made me question everything I thought I believed about myself.

I just stared at it and it all suddenly clicked into place for me. I finally got it. I finally understood the deep, unsettling kernel of truth at the very center of this current historical dilemma.

The Syrian refugees do not deserve our help.

And it is my basic right as an American Christian to deny that help.

It’s OKAY to tell people that they’re going to die at the hands of savages. We don’t need to feel guilt over that.

I understand that ISIS is doing bad things over there but that’s what those people do. Their entire culture breeds hatred and animosity and it makes sense that hatred and animosity rises up out of that. I understand that ISIS is pure evil. I mean they are really the closest thing to absolute pure darkness that I can imagine. If an army of demons were to crawl out of Hell and begin attacking the Earth, I would imagine the headlines and acts of atrocity would look the same. The inhuman brutality of what they are doing is reprehensible. And we can all agree on this, right? No one is questioning who the bad guy is.

We can all look at the group of men that rape children and lock people in cages and cover them in gasoline and light them on fire and cut the throats of men and women while they videotape it to share with their friends and the public. We all know those are the bad guys. The guys that are stomping in the skulls of infants and cutting off their heads and taking photos for their social media feed. We can all look at those guys and go, “That is so fucking evil I feel like “evil” is too kind of a word for it.” No discrepancies. It is the one thing we can all get on the same side about. Great. That’s progress! We’re all coming together on something and let’s not take that lightly. Dude, Christians, atheists, gay people, straight people, let’s all high five. We are on the exact same page!

Now, there is currently a group of people in this world that are just wreaking absolute havoc on another group of people. They are not bullying them. They are not ruling them with some kind of tyrannical fist. They are capturing them like prey. They are torturing them. And they are killing them. And they are doing this on a massive scale. It’s like real life Hostel. I can only assume that there are no words, phrases, images or otherwise that could possibly allow you and I to know the concentrated fear that has been placed on these individuals. I can’t even imagine what it must be like to watch a large group of masked men break into my house, strip my children naked, sexually assault them in front of me and then murder them. If someone cut off Rory’s head in front of me, I feel like I would just lose my mind. Like, legitimately my brain would slip into a place where there would be no coming back from. Something inside of me would just break and I wouldn’t be a person anymore. If someone raped Bryce in front of me, I would just… it’s as though my consciousness would simply shut off.

Now, these victims. These people that these acts are being done to. It is my understanding that they feel as though their home life has apparently gotten so bad that they want to run to The United States of America for help. They’re so broken and afraid that they are taking makeshift boats blindly across a sea. They would rather slowly starve to death in the middle of a body of water before hunkering down and seeing this problem through. I guess that, to me, it just doesn’t sound very patriotic. On their part, I mean. These people were born in Syria – they knew what they were getting into. And now they act surprised when this kind of thing happens. And then they try to come over to our country and pollute us with it. Y’know, America has done a really impressive job of being the greatest nation on Earth and we didn’t get here by helping out every asshole running from their problems.

America has it’s short comings, I get it. We’re not perfect. We have a homeless veteran situation. We have an orphan situation. We apparently are going through some kind of gun phase right now that I’m hoping we either grow out of or grow into. We. Have. Problems. There are so many bad things happening over here that we should focus on, we don’t have any room to help these other people – very specifically this group of people – because of… well, what they are.

And when I say that, I mean that they are probably Muslims.

This is a safe spot and if I can’t say it here, I can’t say it anywhere. America is for Christians. That’s what we’re ultimately saying, right? America was built by Christians, for Christians and there is no room for Muslims. Their faith is kind of like Christianity – I’ve read that they actually stem from kind of the same belief system although I’ve never dug deep enough into it to give you the details – but it’s different enough to make them bad people. I’m not sure where the disconnect is but the Muslim faith teaches hatred and violence. Here is a brief list of famous Muslims I’ve compiled to show you what I mean…

ICE CUBE: This is not a joke. He converted to Muslimism in the 90s. He raps about killing police officers.

SNOOP DOGG: See ICE CUBE.

MIKE TYSON: Rapist. Has tattoo on face.

ELLEN BURSTYN: This woman looks gentle but you can see in her eyes that she contains a sparkle of hatred. She was in Requiem for a Dream. This movie has lots to do with evil. She was not in The Notebook – that’s Gena Rowlands and as far as I can tell, Gena is not a muslim.

MUHAMMED ALI: This black man made a living out of punching people. He also changed his name and that is suspicious.

CAT STEVENS: Another black man. I’m seeing a re-curring theme here.

Sorry for being long-winded and really driving the point home but I want to make sure I’m heard properly. Some people deserve our help. Some people deserve our attention. Those people are people who were born in our country. If you were not born in our country and you need to get out of a situation where you’re being hunted by demons, this is not the place you should come to. Our shores are filled with enough people begging us to save their lives. We don’t need anymore. Your children are going to have to just get raped. I’m sorry. That sounds a little vicious but it’s the unfortunate truth. You might be a Christian and you might be married and God might even have his gentle hand on your marriage but if ISIS is going to cut off the head of your wife, that’s just the way of it. You are a Syrian and that is your biggest crime.

You, as a human, do not deserve my sympathy. And you as a Syrian do not deserve my American soil. And you as a Muslim sure as fuck don’t deserve my Christian kindness. Sorry, brah. Better luck next time. I’m looking out for numero uno and I’m okay with your family getting the sharp end of the Tragic Stick if it means mine gets to eat at Chuck-E-Cheese without fear of being blown up by one of your brothers in God.

Let’s just call a spade a spade. We are afraid of all the Muslims coming over here and killing us. And if a couple thousand local yokels from The Middle East have to die so that we stay safe, that’s the ticket. I hope I’m not coming across as selfish or prudish. Because I have my own problems. I get it. Life is tough sometimes. Next week I’ve got to figure out how to get the drain from my shower re-plumbed to my rain barrel so that I can water my lawn with grey water. We had a consultation done and they quoted us 10k. That’s crazy. I simply don’t have that kind of money.