Independence Day 2018

One week, seven days, a quarter of a moon cycle, and we will celebrate the publication of the Declaration of Independence on its 242nd anniversary. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness, ..."

Among these: Notice that the Founding Fathers did not limit our unalienable rights to these three, among these, there are others not mentioned.

Among these rights, I would add the right to raise one's children, that children will not be taken from their parents without a compelling interest of the state in their behalf, namely that their life or welfare is endangered.

The furor over the policy of the president, his attorney general, and the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security to separate children from their parents who have been detained at our borders caused President Trump to issue an executive order a week ago to stop the practice.

A week later, confusion abounds has to how and if that policy has been implemented. Children remain separated from their parents and despite the assurances of government that they have all the details in hand, U.S. government agencies and officials seem confounded as to how they will reunite these families. They don't seem to know who belongs with whom and even where everyone is.

Reports emerge that border security (ICE: Immigration and Customs Enforcement) do not have the facilities for the detention of families. But they were well prepared for the separation of families.

Government officials, from the low-level routine to the highest levels, say they are struggling to deal with the logistics of reuniting children with parents. Yet they were well-prepared for the separation.

Sorry, but I'm not buying it. We are the nation that put men on the moon. We are the nation that developed vaccines for polio and smallpox and eradicated these diseases from our continent, even the world. We are the nation that invented semiconductors and silicon chips and set off the computer revolution. There is nothing we can't do if we put our minds to it. Yay, America! Trump glories in it.

Oh wait, but we can't figure out after a week how to get 2,300 children back to their parents.

I'm not buying it.

Remember this moment? For the first time, I'm proud of my country ...

She was pilloried for the statement. And I'm expecting the same because now, for the very first time in my life, I am ashamed of my country.

It isn't only the cruel, inhumane, and barbaric policy that Donald Trump and his minions, among them Jeff Sessions and Kirstjen Nielson, have implemented. It isn't only the number of people who are defending the indefensible violation of human rights by the United States of America. It is the justifications that are being offered as if anything could defend this.

Logic and reason do not support the policy of separation because military personnel die in battle nor that first responders sometimes pay that price as well.

One might as well say that sometimes people die in automobile accidents and their children are now orphans and that justifies deliberate orphan-making actions when that does not need to take place.

Shameful.

In the mid-nineteenth century, Alexander de Toqueville visited America and then published his conclusions on what he found. Among them was this very cogent observation: America is great because America is good; if America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.

We are no longer good. Drop the pretense, the world is not buying it.

#MAGA. What a joke. We have ceased to be great and, frankly, I don't see how we'll ever get back.