You Can't Go Home Again

Photo: Ileana Johnson, August 23, 2018

Untold numbers of people and families have escaped totalitarian and oppressive regimes with just the clothes on their backs. Some swam across treacherous rivers; some cut through barbed wire; some hid on the floorboard of a car, some fit into the carved out car seats; some walked across the desert, through dense forests, climbed mountainous terrain, or hiked into steep valleys.

Once they escaped dangerous territories, the surviving defectors trekked to the west, to freedom, to America, the shining city on the hill that held the promise of freedom and the opportunity to succeed, if they were willing to work hard and integrate into society peacefully and productively.

Things have changed in the last twenty years, borders are being erased by the liberal elites, countries are succumbing to multiculturalism and the invasion of the third world interested solely in redistribution of wealth or as the leftist PC police have told us repeatedly, social justice – code word for communist taking from the productive and redistribution to the unproductive as reparations for perceived grievances and injustices of the past.

The latest leftist euphemism, agrarian or land reform, hides the true goal of confiscation of land from white farmers in South Africa who must agree to a ten percent purchase price or else. Black South Africans have already been encouraged by their president to “cut the throat of whiteness.”

And so the white farmers must leave everything they’ve ever known behind, their homes and the rich farm land their families have turned productive from wilderness areas, and must flee to escape with their lives.

How long will it be before the productive farm land will become a wasteland and the formerly agricultural rich South Africa will turn to the World Bank for food handouts and imports like the former Rhodesia did when it became the bankrupt Zimbabwe?

Millions have escaped from communist regimes; sadly, many did not make it, shot at the border during their attempted escapes. Those who fled made it to the free west and were eventually able to return to their homelands for brief visits or even come back for good after the fall of communism in 1989.

A successful family now living and thriving in California, brother, sister, and mother had escaped from Iran. As defectors, they could no longer visit the country of their birth, the place where their dad had been buried. The closest they could get on a recent trip was the border between Turkey and Iran.

After a long drive and a difficult trek on rocky cliffs, the shining sun over the valleys miles away brought into view their former homeland where a religious Ayatollah rules with an iron fist and harsh prisons, where religion oppression and the threat of overt nuclear holocaust defines every facet of Iranian life. A once thriving civilization, Iran has fallen back into oppression in 1979 and religious domination by a few well-armed zealots.

The family trio were overcome with grief and emotion, so close to the country of their birth calling them back for a visit, yet so far away, kept at the border by an intolerant regime who dominates the entire population with one book.

Spreading like snow angels on the ground, their hands touched dirt and rocks, in an effort to melt back into the ancestral lands. By being there, the brother and sister felt that huge rocks had been lifted off their chests. It was only fitting that each carried home a small stone from the land bordering Iran.

Like millions of humans before them, they finally came to the realization that they could not go home again, literally and figuratively, no matter how badly they wished to go.

But if they could return, if their house they left long ago was still there, if they were allowed to retrace their steps from childhood or youth, they would not find what they were looking for because it is no longer there. People and life have moved on.

They would find out that they were just strangers in their own land, looking for the essence of their being, of their existence, that Je ne sais quoi, something intangible which resides only in a person’s soul and in his/her fleeting memories.

Crybullies' Safe Spaces or Spaces to Whine?

In the face of worldwide “refugee” crisis, the poor ISIS fighters who had slaughtered, tortured, and enslaved thousands in their wake, sneaking into Europe and U.S., blowing up and killing more than 129 innocents in Paris and 14 in San Bernardino, injuring hundreds others, the world’s leaders have met in Paris not to discuss the existential Islamist threat to the world, but their faux concerns of the climate change industry, potentially worth trillions, instead of the imminent threat of Islam around the world coming from ISIS. Elites are more interested in fleecing and spreading the western world’s wealth to the third world, whose leadership dominates the U.N., rather than in the safety of their own citizens.

It is frightening how, after Parisians were killed in an attack orchestrated by ISIS, who recruited and convinced EU nationals to join them, how our regime and the leftist response is, "Wow, we need more of those Muslim refugees here!”

If you disagree, you are ignorant, racist, un-American, and un-Christian, even though Islam is not a race but a theocracy. And no one says, let’s bring in more Christian refugees who legitimately face crucifixion, or Muslim gays who risk being thrown from rooftops, or Muslim single mothers who risk being stoned to death for adultery, or Syrian atheists who risk being burned alive, or Syrian girls who risk being turned into sex slaves, abused, murdered, or sold. According to the regime, it is "against American values" to accept anyone other than regressive, radical Muslims. The regime’s anti-American conspiracy has become mainstream liberal foreign policy.

Donald Trump’s poll numbers have surged since he suggested that we should enact a temporary pause in admitting any more Muslims into our country until the vetting process is actually valid and working.

The media ignores the fact that Jimmy Carter revoked Iranian visas during the hostage crisis in 1979. Rush Limbaugh described and posted the video from the ABC News archives that demonstrates that, what Trump had suggested, had been done before by President Carter and it is neither bigoted nor xenophobic, it is acting in the best interest of the American people, protecting their safety. http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2015/12/11/abc_news_digs_up_video_of_jimmy_carter_announcing_ban_on_iranian_immigration

The few libertarians still residing on American campuses cannot publicly post or voice their divergent opinions because their progressive colleagues are so indoctrinated by the "poor, innocent, cuddly" refugee idiocy that they can't see objective reasoning and will skewer them.

My friend K. received unbelievable backlash for saying "they should be screened not just for terror, but to make sure they believe in the American principles of equality, dignity, and freedom of religion--we don't need to import more bigots."

It reminded me of our conversation in D.C., "Don't liberals and gays have any sense of self-preservation?" Many of his liberal gay friends want to open America's doors to these Muslims who would love to toss gays off of rooftops and stone women to death for engaging in unmarried relationships or for dressing in revealing clothes.

Liberal academics would probably walk into areas where illegals have taken over the local government, have exhausted welfare services, have changed the face and demographics of schools, and turned the area into a cesspool of Sharia compliant ghetto and would say, “Wow, diversity!” then leave to go eat, stay, and vacation in their pretty white yuppie neighborhoods and hangouts.

Black Lives Matter, Stalinist “useful idiots” and “crybullies” on the left’s payroll, have fanned around the country, shrieking successfully in the faces of academics and administrators who cower in fear and give in to their outrageous demands, transforming the campus into an intolerant blitzkrieg, take no prisoners atmosphere, if anyone disagrees with their views and demands.

And the namby-pamby students themselves now whine about “safe spaces” on campus where they can be sheltered from reality, work, and any kind of strenuous thinking that might upset their drug-induced, rose-colored haze in vaunted majors such as women’s studies, race studies, and communist social justice. They are frightened by the sight of sober reality, American flags, Confederate flags, Halloween costumes, Christian symbols, people with white skin and non-existent “white privilege,” personal responsibility, entrepreneurship, and work ethic.

The concept of “safe space” involves retreating from the challenges of college, of life and reality in general, from the fear of uncertainty, an expression of the coddled generations raised by liberal parents and perhaps well-intentioned conservatives who wanted everything for their children that they did not have.

Did we have a safe space in schools under socialism/communism? Maybe it was the dark, dank, smelly, and dirty bathrooms flooded with urine. The courtyard was not a safe place either because we were only allowed there when we arrived and assembled in rows before we could go into the building, during PE classes once a day, and when we left school – congregation or protests of any kind were not allowed.

If anybody protested anything, they were dealt with speedily and efficiently – they never could nor would do it again. We could not go to the teacher’s office because they did not have one and talking to them would be like talking to an information gathering agency that would be used against you.

It was not allowed to congregate in the hallways unless one wanted detention. The classroom was not a safe space either. You had to sit in your chair at rapt attention and take notes. You had to keep your mouth shut unless asked a question. Should you give the wrong answer, or talk out of line, you were given a verbal dress down, physical punishment, but the next day you tried a little harder to blend into conformity.

Life and reality have few safe spaces. While these cowardly college students whine about escaping from the “harsh” reality of the world, coddled and sheltered their entire lives by liberal schools and misguided parents, brave American soldiers go to places around the world most of us cannot even imagine, the last line of defense between us and invading “refugees” who wish us harm.

Is a college “safe space” a misguided escape to communist dystopia, the dystopia in which Saul Alinsky still teaches his radicals to shake down the hard-working taxpayers under the guise of “social justice” and “fair share?”

Colleges have created “free speech zones,” tiny corners where divergent opinions may or may not be tolerated. Now they demand “safe spaces” on their campuses. Do these college students truly want safety in their country, on their campuses, or do they just want spaces to whine and shake down the social structure?