Many years ago, 14 at least, we were having a 4th of July celebration. My son had a lit sparkler or a punk or something along those lines and he snuck up behind. My family yelled, I turned in the course of events he jammed that lit firework into my hand vs my ass where he was aiming. Funny kid, funny. The firework basically melted into my hand a good quarter inch or so. It took years for my hand to heal completely. Ever since then not only do I keep an eye on him when he handles fireworks, I watch other people and how they handle fireworks. I don’t let people with fireworks behind me and I make sure that I’m protected from the sides and I also keep an eye on others I like to think of it is once burned twice shy.
Is this fair to anybody that I’m passing judgement on entire group of people where even the person who committed the wrong isn’t the same person? No, not especially but it seems better to error on the side of caution. I bring this up because a good friend of mine Travis who I do a podcast with 2 Trolls & a Brew” posted this picture.
I commented “just do it in Missouri” for those we don’t know Sam Brownback is the governor of Kansas and I live in Kansas. So simply what I am stating is I do not want these refugees to come to Kansas.
I have a list of perfectly logical reasons why 10000 additional people shouldn’t up and be moved to Kansas.
- Our economy can’t handle 10000 unemployed right now
- Education our education system at the moment is incredibly taxed with the people we already have
- Housing, we really don’t have the additional housing for 10,000 new people.
And that is before we add the risk of bad apples sneaking their way into our mist. It doesn’t seem unreasonable for me to say I am not on board with the plan to have the federal government vett 10,000 people and drop them off in my backyard.
Now you want to bring in a small groups of families, bring them to my local community. Let me talk to them. Personally, vett them. I would be more than happy to give a family a place to live, food, whatever they need. More than happy to do that on the small scale that I (capitalize supergiant Mega “I” ) sign off on. And i bet we could find 10,000 willing households to do the same. I would guess a lot of them right here in Kansas.
Unfortunately what I think when I see this sign is a 10000+ strong refugee camp. And that is no good. No thank you.
I think back to a few years ago when the Occupy Wall Street people, Americans in America primarily, were camped out in different major cities and I would read story after story after story about crimes that were going on in these miniature camps of volunteer individuals. Just picture that happening on a scale 10 times as large and a place where the people in these camps feel that they don’t have the rights to report these things and where they don’t have the ability to leave on their own volition.
As I write this I keep going back to the number 10000. I think it might be the massive number that is causing my issues, for example that is a fifth of the population of the town that I’m currently living in. Now if you say bring us a hundred refugees three hundred. No problem.
Should the number of refugees be that important to me? I don’t know and yet it is.
I don’t have the answers to this one. I just have to balance my fears vs my willingness to help. Fear is not logical. It just is. Send me 4-5 and I can help, send me 10,000 and i will see you later.
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