The Mastur(de)baters On Immigration.

    I've been thinking about ideas.  What is an idea?  What do ideas lead to?  Mainly, I've been pondering the concepts that thoughts (ideas) are things, and eventually thoughts or ideas are transformed into physical matter.  Most often, thoughts and ideas are transferred into their physical equivalent by their expression through human bodies.  In others words, thoughts become things through people's actions.

     Let that sink in.


     What do our ideas become?  The answer is as limitless as it is intriguing.  Ideas become:  Books.  Music.  Movies.  Governments.  Businesses.  Corporations.  Religions.  Countries.  Nations.  Collectives.  Systems of currency.  Wealth.  The list goes on.  A gathering of people that stand behind an idea, generally will breathe life into an idea, giving it the momentum to come into fuller fruition.  What happens when ideas (thoughts) compete against each other?  What happens if there is a disjunction?  Usually there is an argument, a conflict of sorts.  It may be resolved, it may not.  But the important question to ask is this:  What happens to the people in between?

      According to what I've been seeing on social media recently....nothing happens to the people in between.  Although this is not true, this is what is presented by the majority of people slandering one another in the name of opinions, then justifying their behavior under the guise of "having a civilized debate."  Sorry old chaps, there's no debate when the other parties don't even have a chance to respond.  I guess Facebook is the new Athens, and, real talk, if someone spoke like that to me in person I would punch them in the face.  Point being, I'm of the school that if someone isn't going to say it to my face, point-blank, man-to-man, then they ought to have the self-respect to hold their itchy keyboard fingers and keep it to themselves on social media.  It's ridiculous....

     I'll admit, though,  sometimes when I see this inane chatter go on for 200+ comments on someone's feed, I may slip in an underhanded remark or two just to get a reaction.  It's always the same-old-same-old, though: "My god is bigger than your god.  My religion is better than your religion.  My politics are better than your politics.  My penis is bigger than you penis", essentially.  I'm always left with the question:  If someone is so thoroughly grounded in what they think they believe, then why do they get so bent out of shape when someone else challenges that belief?  If I've learned two things during my adventures on this planet it is this:

1.          Your beliefs don't amount to a pile of flying monkey turds unless they can withstand scrutiny (or another's opinion, or the trials of day-to-day living.  Theory and application are two very different birds).  Light those turds on fire and see if they still smell like roses.
2.         You don't know what you don't know.   

    A belief is just that though....it's a belief.  An idea is an idea.  A thought is a thought.  A person, on the other hand, is a living, breathing, flesh and blood, body, soul and spirit with beliefs, ideas, and thoughts of their own and literally limitless potential to create beautiful things with their life.  I recently watched (with great amusement and consternation) as a group of Christian intellectuals beat each other senseless verbally over the Immigration issue in the United States.

     I'm not going to go into the issue itself, it goes much deeper than just a mere political solution.  I've lived on both sides of the border so I have a unique perspective on the matter.  People just really don't know how far the rabbit hole goes.  I'll leave it at that for now.   

     What got me riled up in observing the debate is how, not only did the arguers completely dehumanize the "illegal immigrants" and "illegal aliens", speaking of them as if they were insects or commodities that needed to be "controlled" (as if a legal/illegal status has anything to do with a person's humanity), but the arguers also engaged one another as if they themselves were merely the sum of a few ideas.

      A person is a person and not just an idea.  Your neighbor is flesh and blood human being, not just a pastiche of 1's and 0's encoded on a bitmapped screen.  We have been duped.  The mentality that deems an idea, a system, a government, a country, a religion more important than the living person standing in front of them, is the same mentality that sent millions to be slaughtered and cremated in charnel houses.        
   
       If I fail to recognize that the person behind the screen and stylish profile picture disagreeing with me is still a part of me, if I fail to realize that the young man sneaking across the border "illegally" to work towards a better life is also a part of me, then I have missed the point entirely.

       Enough divisions.  Enough ism and schism.  Enough separation.  No system is going to fix this.  So strap on your beards, boys.  It's time for the real fun to begin.