Monday, April 6, 2015

The People Who Live in a Community, are the Community

   The people who live in a community, are the community, whether government recognizes them or not. Government can disenfranchise them, say they don't belong there, deny them rights and privileges, jail them, and deport them, but they remain "citizens' in terms of being people who live there. There is something about a free country, to me, that implies you should be free to live there. It was that way when our country was founded, and I wish it were that way today. We and the government might not approve of their being here, but is it right of us? Is it just? It presupposes that the people arriving first have the right to tell others they cannot come. Further, it presupposes that rather than everyone having rights, some have the right to tell others they do not have rights. Telling them they don't belong here, and cannot stay here  mocks the principle that freedom for one means freedom for all.

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