What is happening at our southern border represents a national disgrace that Americans could scarcely have foreseen occurring within the United States.
The sight of children torn from their parents and confined behind chain link fences recalls the darkest chapters of the 20th century—the concentration camps and gulags into which millions were forced by the world’s most brutal authoritarian regimes.
For nearly 250 years, America has stood as more than just a geographic location; it has embodied an ideal rooted in the belief that all men are created equally and possess inherent rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Yet in the span of mere days, the foundational principles that Thomas Jefferson and the Founding Fathers articulated so powerfully in the Declaration of Independence have been dismantled.
The rationale offered for what constitutes, by any reasonable measure of human decency, an inhumane practice follows the pattern of reductio ad absurdum.
Conservative columnist David Brooks of The New York Times addressed this dynamic in examining the rhetoric employed to describe the situation:
“This is what George Orwell noticed about the authoritarian brutalists: They don’t use words to illuminate the complexity of reality; they use words to eradicate the complexity of reality.”
Our silence carries a message to these families and their children—that they merit such treatment. When confining people in metal cages becomes acceptable, what does that reveal about the character of our nation and ourselves?