Of immigrants, thugs, wages, & Dr. Seuss by Don Frost

            WHEN DONALD Trumpwas president he instituted a policy of separating political asylum-seeking parents from their children at our southern border. The hope was that this policy would discourage people from seeking asylum on bogus claims of persecution in their home countries. Records indicate the parents of 600 children – separated at the border – still have not been found. The plight of these hapless children is being used by the “liberal” press and the Democratic Party to pummel the “heartless” Trump administration and Republicans in general.

            But “liberals,” Democrats, news reporters, and others on the Left never ask the obvious question: Where are the parents? The kids are helpless pawns in this game of power politics. They’re stuck in holding centers, powerless to go in search of their parents. Their parents are not similarly helpless. They know where their kids are. Why haven’t they come forward and demanded to be reunited with them? What loving parents would leave their children to languish in a foreign holding center?

            When asylum-seekers make it across the border into America they are given a court date when their case will be heard. They are then turned loose, free to go anywhere they like in America. Many ignore the date they were ordered to appear in court and disappear into the vastness of America. Have the parents – perhaps safely ensconced in a “sanctuary city” – simply abandoned their kids?

            President Biden, reversing Trump’s attempt to enforce border security, recently started letting 25 asylum seekers a day to enter America. They are given their court date, then they’re turned loose, presumably with their kids. Perhaps that entire family will wind up in a “sanctuary city,” never to be heard from again. This is a common dodge that illegals have been exploiting for years.

            It seems impossible to believe parents would so cruelly turn their backs on their own children. But the question that only those parents can answer remains: Why haven’t you appeared in court on the appointed date? If you haven’t abandoned your kids, why are you not clamoring – in full view of TV cameras – to be reunited with them? Why haven’t you stood up at holding centers and shouted for all the world to hear, “Here I am! There! That’s my son! That’s my daughter! Give them back to me!”

            Most likely those claiming to be in desperate need of asylum are really in no need of it at all. They just don’t like living in the country they came from; they’d rather live in America. Many, if not most, don’t especially want to be Americans; they just want to live here. Perhaps they fear that if they turned up in court to be reunited with their children the court would realize their claim of needing political asylum is phony and they and their kids will be sent home. So, perhaps, they’re just waiting for vote-hungry Democrats to take the one or two baby steps required to make it official: America’s “border” is just a line on a map, nothing more.

            I’VE BEEN PORING over our Constitution in search of the clause that requires the federal government to set wages that private businesses must pay their workers. Couldn’t find any such provision.

            Another pandemic relief bill has just been signed by President Biden. In a legal but ethically questionable move Democratic senators tacked irrelevant measures to the bill. Pretty much unnoticed was a clause that had nothing to do with pandemic relief. An Associated Press story out of Washington explains: “Top Democrats have abandoned a potential amendment threatening tax increases on big companies that don’t boost workers’ pay to certain levels.”

            Let that sink in. Our government – or at least Socialistically inclined Democrats – wanted to dictate what private businesses should pay their workers. Under our Constitution they could not actually dictate to, say, General Motors, “You must pay all your assembly line workers $32.50 an hour.” But under the proposed amendment they could have told General Motors, “You better pay all your assembly line workers $32.50 an hour or we’ll boost your taxes.”

            This is coercion, plain and simple. Such governmental meddling in the private sector used to be called “creeping Socialism.” It’s time to bring the term back into vogue. Under the Left-leaning Biden administration we’re going to see a lot more of it.

            THE THOUGHT Policeare at it again. According to all dictionaries currently in print, “thug” means, “. . . a rough, brutal hoodlum, gangster, robber, etc. . . .” No longer. Now it’s a euphemism for “nigger.”

            So says Thought Policeman John McWhorther, a black linguistics and music history teacher at Columbia University and contributing editor to The Atlantic. He wrote “thug” actually means, “Black person behaving badly.” Also, “thug” is “a nominally polite way of using the N-word.” Never mind what the dictionary says, never mind what you think it means; never mind what your intent was in using the word. It’s racist, says McWhorther, author of an essay titled “Is it racist to expect black kids to do math for real?”

            We can only hope his ruling on “thug” and puzzling take on arithmetic will never gain acceptance, but it’s certain to be embraced by the ultra-woke of the Left. It’s scary to realize that otherwise intelligent people like McWhorther can publicly state such nonsense not only without embarrassment, but with pride.

            BOOK BURNING, 21^st Century style: This time it’s the works of Dr. Seuss that are being thrown into the flames.

            Dr. Seuss Enterprises, overseer of the author’s works, will stop publication of  six of his books because they allegedly contain “racist and insensitive” images. Common sense had nothing to do with the company’s decision. Instead company executives consulted  with “teachers, academics, and specialists in the field. . . . We then worked with a panel of experts, including educators, to review our catalog of titles.”

            That all this analyzing by so-called experts should result in the “burning” of books should surprise no one. This is, after all, the 21^st Century and it seems “liberals” and others on the Left spend every waking hour looking for evidence of racism and insensitivity (R&I). It’s like there’s a contest to be the first to discover some heretofore unrecognized form of R&I. Its discoverers then sound the alarm, demonstrating their incredible sensitivity and proof that they most assuredly are not racists.

            One offending illustration in “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street” shows a Chinese man wearing a conical hat, holding chopsticks, and eating from a bowl. For reasons that defy understanding these supposedly learned academics ruled it racist and/or insensitive. Yet conical hats, chopsticks, and eating from bowls is a pretty accurate description of how people in the Orient dressed and ate. Matter of fact, chopsticks and food in bowls are pretty much standard in Chinese restaurants all across America.

            There is no significant difference between Adolf Hitler’s book burning and the way the Left “burns” books today. Hitler and his National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazis) didn’t like certain authors (mostly Jews) and the teachings found in other books. So they were banned and street rallies were organized where everyone was encouraged to add their copies of the evil books to the bonfire.

            For the Nazis it wasn’t a case of “burn these books because Herr Hitler doesn’t like them.” It was “burn these books because they’re harmful for the country; for German society; for the German people.” The German people accepted that burning the books was the right thing to do, so they happily tossed them into the fire.

            American “liberals” and Nazis have much in common. Professional R&I seekers don’t like certain books, too. For woke Americans it’s not a case of “burn these books because we don’t like them.” It’s “burn these books because they’re harmful for the country; for American society; for the American people.” The American people accept that “burning” the books is the right thing to do, so they happily toss them into the “fire.”