Monday, June 18, 2018

Concentration Camps For Kids

I expected things to get bad under Trump, yet have not lost my capacity for surprise over just how bad things are getting. Among other things, the man who pardoned Sheriff Joe Arpaio is fine with warehousing innocent children in tent cities in the desert. Meanwhile, ProPublica took audio recording of wailing children inside one of our new prison camps for children (warning: it's very difficult to listen to).

For all that I've long fancied myself a bit of a misanthrope, it turns out I did, in fact, have considerable faith in humanity left to lose .... because I simply cannot fathom how people can be capable of such wanton cruelty. Anecdote: for a few months in my late teens I worked part-time as an assistant in an at-home day care, and I remember one kid --perhaps a "new" kid, who started at the day care after I was already there -- anyway, I think it might've been the kid's first time away from Mommy (and with strangers, as opposed to "an afternoon at Grandma's" or whatever). I don't remember the exact context; what I remember is having to help pry a screaming unhappy toddler off her mother's leg -- with the mother's permission and assistance, and the knowledge that this genuinely was necessary, not in any amoral "I'm just following orders no matter how evil those orders might be" kind of way, but in the sense that Mommy genuinely did need to go to her job to earn money to support herself and her family, and furthermore I knew (even if the toddler did not believe) that this separation was only temporary, and Mommy would return in a few hours and the little girl would sleep in her own bed that night -- yet hearing the child's screams and knowing I was partly responsible for creating them still absolutely shredded me inside.

What kind of wretched person can take and keep a job pulling kids away from their parents when they know NONE of those mitigating factors are in play? What kind of wretched government creates jobs for such people? What kind of wretched country has such a government in place?

Wait, I know the answer to that last question: my country does.

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