With Same Judgment, Judge Ourselves

In pointing our finger at the undocumented, suggesting they are thieves for coming into a land that doesn't belong to them, and using the analogy of a child whose dad steals him a bicycle . . .

I wonder if we are looking at the mote in our brother's eye, but not the beam in our own.

The analogy has it that just because a dad steals a bicycle, and it isn't the child himself doing the stealing, that doesn't mean it is okay for the child to keep the bike.

The analogy is used to justify taking away instate tuition for children of undocumented immigrants.

Long ago, before you and I thought to consider this issue, another version of it was played out. There was a people in possession of this land. They'd had it for a long, long time. Then, along came a new people, coming from England, and from Spain, and from Scandinavia, and eventually from all touches of the globe.

They, just like the immigrants today, saw a place they liked, and came here. They didn't ask for permission -- at least the first ones didn't. They didn't think too bad of themselves for taking another man's land. I don't know, maybe because they considered the people here to be no more than savages, it was quite okay to just come in and take their land. Maybe sometimes they asked, but a lot of times they not only didn't ask, they actually kicked out the people who were here to make room for themselves.

They force the natives into pockets called reservations. Remember the Trail of Tears? Yes, they rounded them up and marched them right off their own lands.

Thievery, of course, flat-out thievery.

Then, their children grew up here, and their children's children. And the children (that would be us) kept the land.

Just because a dad steals a bicycle for you doesn't mean its yours to keep? So, we should not be giving instate tuition to children of undocumented residents?

Well, years have passed since we confined the people who once owned this land to reservations, years since we took their land away. Now, their cousins are coming from the south, coming into "our land," coming without permission.

And, we are outraged.