Today, January 27th, 2017, was International Holocaust Remembrance day. It also happened to be the day that President Trump signed an executive order shutting the door to the United States on all refugees from all countries.
Trump is an incompetent madman, and his die hard supporters are morons. But as bad as they are, they are not the worst. The worst are those who accept all of this madness as a new normal, who dismiss the discourse as nothing more than the usual partisan bickering. Admittedly, often times the dialogue fails to rise above the lowest levels. But the stakes are so much higher now. There are literally lives at stake.
Trump’s decision today violates the best interests of both American values and American interests. It violates the values of freedom and compassion that we’ve tried to live up to ever since they were written into our constitution, and it goes against our interests in that it will only give rise to the very extremism the order is intended to protect us from. Of the thousands of people we turn away and condemn, it’s inevitable that hatred for America and Americans will rise. American people, soldiers and tourists, Republicans and Democrats, will become targets of retaliation both at home and abroad.
To those of you out there in Facebook land who are tired of all the political posts, who wish that social media would get back to just being pictures of cute little kitties and the such, to those of you who are sick of all the hate and think you’re above all of the fray, go ahead and stick your head in the sand. You won’t be the first ones to tune out the cries of innocent people dying.
Today is a reminder that we have to remember the Holocaust because we can no longer hear the crying of six million innocent lives. But if you listen closely, you can hear the same silence that emboldened another small man who become the architect of the perversion of another great nation in 1933. It grows louder with every order Trump signs, and the shadows of guilt spread over the souls of those who remain silent like a cancer, black and bitter and cold.
Drivel by Dave 
Yours is an impassioned voice that rightly rages against Trump and fears the dangers and injustices his cohorts bring. But I want to use my energy to join cries that work to support not only those harmed by a dictator but all those struggling to live in peace under the sometimes burden of being human. As people we can be selfish, but we also can be compassionate. .