The
economics of refugee children
If
the most important thing in the world is the Economy and all else is secondary
in consideration, then human life is only valuable in as much as it contributes
to the efficient maintenance of the Economy.
In such a world the makers of
things and the investors of Capital are of primary importance, while the takers
of things and those incapable of meaningful contribution are at best to be
considered luxuries and at worst impediments to our great society.
It
is easy to understand why Terry Gorman, founder of nativist hate group RIILE,
motivated by racism and misanthropy, would be so outraged by the influx of
refugee children that he would hold weekly rallies to announce his special kind
of awfulness to the world, but it is harder to understand the rationale of
those who maintain that they are not motivated by unreasoning hatred, but by
simple considerations of market forces and uncontrollable economic reality.
In his defense,
Katz is merely following his economic ideas to their inevitable conclusion:
Since the kinds of policies the Center advocates for have already made it
more difficult to adequately care for at-risk children presently living in
Rhode Island, how can our state possibly afford to care for even more at-risk
children?
What
any potential influx of refugee children will reveal about the Rhode Island
economy is what economist Robert Reich calls a vicious circle, a complex
working of policies that reinforces itself through a feedback loop with ever
more negative economic consequences, at least for most of us. (A very few will
attain unimaginable wealth.)
The rules in Rhode Island have been constructed to
deprive the necessities of life to those deemed incapable of meaningful
contributions to the all-important Economy. The arrival of hungry children
simply makes this fact gallingly apparent.
This
is why religious values always fail when stacked up against conservative
economic values.
Bishop Tobin, of the Providence Catholic Diocese, can quite clearly say, on
religious grounds, “If the refugee children come to Rhode Island I
hope and pray that all the members of our community will work together, in a
thoughtful and compassionate way, to welcome them and care for them to the very
best of our ability. The Catholic Church will do its part.
Certainly the
children should not be the object of our political scorn” but these words are
completely ignored by members of groups like RI Taxpayers [EDITOR'S NOTE: they are the current incarnation of the formerly Charlestown-based RI Statewide Coalition], who publicly “supports Terry Gorman
and his RIILE group.”
Larry
Girouard, President of RI Taxpayers, allows his website to carry
such pleasantries as, “While the feds may be paying the expenses of
these children, we all know it will be a matter of time before that expense
will be passed to the state taxpayers. This state is under enough financial
pressure with a bloated state budget. This is just another expense the
taxpayers didn’t need or expect.”
How
small.
What
are we to make of an economic system bounded by policies that cannot value the
lives of children? Are we to simply shrug our shoulders and resign ourselves to
an arbitrary rule system, championed by people like Girouard and Katz, that
reduces and dehumanizes refugee children to “objects of our political scorn”? If the rules are such that multitudes of people must suffer so that a very few might live in unimaginable and undeserved opulence, why are we playing by such rules?
Why must we reject what
is best in ourselves, our empathy, to serve the venal economic wishes of a
group of small minded Objectivists more concerned with fostering human greed
than human compassion?
Happily,
those that would deny food and shelter to refugee children are far outnumbered
by the rest of us who see caring for those in need as being essential to our
very humanity. Questioning the need to offer assistance to children stuns us.
It’s impossible to not see such attitudes as some kind of perverse joke and an
abandonment of essential human values. “I’m not going to ruin a perfectly good
pair of $200 shoes wading into a puddle to save a drowning two-year old,” is
something said by villains, not decent people.
When
groups like RI Taxpayers or the RI Center for Freedom and Prosperity tell us
what the rules of the economy should be, we hear them talk about fairness and
equity, and we assume that they are honest moral players with whom we disagree.
When the pain of their policies fall on us, we bear it, because we have been
bewildered by their talk of fairness.
We believe that our placement in the
great Economic game has been determined honestly, and that we are somehow
getting what we deserve.
However,
at the moment children show up at our door, hungry and without shelter and
those that set the rules tell us we are powerless to help, we see the Economy
for what it is: a game to keep us poor and powerless.
That’s
when we wake up, and tell them we aren’t playing their game anymore.
Steve Ahlquist
is a writer, artist and current president of the Humanists of Rhode Island, a
non-profit group dedicated to reason, compassion, optimism and action. He also
maintains the blog SteveAhlquist.com where almost all his writing can be found.
The views expressed are his own and not necessarily those of any organization
of which he is a member.
His
photos and video are usable under the Creative Commons license. Free to share
with credit.
Email:
atomicsteve@gmail.com. Twitter: @SteveAhlquist
