Daughter-Father Dance Podcast
Episode 8: Sweet Land of Liberty
TRANSCRIPT

SHOW INTRO

[00:00:00] Jenée Arthur: [VOICEOVER] Hey everybody. Welcome back. Thank you for hanging in there with us on last week's very divisive topic. It's never a comfortable one to discuss. As I feel about most uncomfortable issues, I think we need to talk about it more so we can better understand where we're all coming from. I know I sound like a broken record, but it is the premise and the hope of this podcast to demonstrate, by way of me and my dad, the ways we can, in fact, converse with people who don't share our same views.

Dad and I learn from each other.And though we're not using these episodes as teaching tools, per se, I hope you too can come away with pieces of these conversations that can in turn help conversations that you might find difficult, or give you the nudge to actually have them.

And before we begin, I do hope you check out the humanlibrary.org to see what they too are doing to help bridge the many divides of our human experience.

As I've mentioned, humanlibrary.org is unlike a traditional library. Instead of checking out books, you check out open-book humans. That's right. Instead of reading about a particular subject, you check out a human and learn from them. Humanlibrary.org's intent is to provide a space to, as they say, “unjudge someone.”

As you'll hear in today's episode, I have my own issues with judging others, and I'm grateful for the reminder that humanlibrary.org provides in helping to change such judgment.

On that note, let's go hang out with my dad.

[00:02:05] Gene Arthur: Wow, immigration. Okay. Immigration, uh, growing up never entered my mind. Immigration as a teenager, never entered my mind. Immigration in my time in the United States Navy never entered my mind. Uh, immigration never entered my mind when you were born or the children were born.

Immigration started…

[00:02:33] Jenée Arthur: Okay, just to preface this next spot, and so you don't think Dad is uneducated, he knows that U.S. immigration began when our forefathers came to establish the United States as a nation. The first migration of immigrants, if you will. What we are referring to here in this episode is the issue of immigration as a divisive topic that has been highly politicized.

[00:02:58] Gene Arthur: It started politically, I guess, about people coming to this country illegally. Well, the legal process is how your ancestors came to this country—your mother's side, and your father's side came through either Ellis island or Philadelphia from Ireland and immigrated to the United States. The immigration history shows that coming to America was a wonderful dream because of its prosperity, its opportunities, its freedom.

Well, some of them didn't get all that. When they came, they got hostility, opposition, anger, resentment, prejudice, and they dealt with it the best they could. Immigration is actually, I believe, is a gift that the United States gives to the world because of our founding fathers constitution and bill of rights and the declaration of independence.

Those right there set the framework for the good and the bad that has happened with immigration. My first thought is to realize that immigration is actually a gift that the United States has given to the world.

[00:03:22] Jenée Arthur: I love that!

[00:03:24] Gene Arthur: We have a process that we have to go through, which if you compare immigration rules and regulations and laws that other countries have, you will see that the United States is more charitable, more friendly, more accepting than most of the other countries' immigration laws .

What's going on in our country now because of political pressure, special interests, uh, the economy. Um, and I'm sure a few other things that I can't think of have influenced. Policies on immigration and I'm not an expert on it. I’m just a Joe-Six-Pack-In-the-Pew. I know, from what I read, what I've researched.

That's the best thing I could say to start this conversation off— is we, the United States of America, have given the world a great gift to allow them to come into our country. The way it was established by rules, laws, statutes, things you can and cannot do. What's required of you.

[00:05:55] Jenée Arthur: [VOICEOVER] These moments when Dad is compelled to list things often reminds me of Christopher Guest's character, Harlan Pepper in Best in Show, when, while driving his truck, he names just about every nut imaginable—pine nut, cashew nut, peanut ,macadamia nut…

[00:06:12] Gene Arthur: As you know, we watched my best friend, Danny Webster's wife, Christine, become an American citizen. She came here from Austria. We were at her swearing in and receiving American citizenship program and celebration. That was when you were, I think all your kids were born. And we were privileged to have someone that we know go through that process and it was beautiful. Your mother even was brought to tears by what was said about accepting the rules and regulations of becoming an American citizen.

So that is another plus— that's the good part about immigration.

[00:07:00] Jenée Arthur: When I think of immigration, it just makes sense. Like, “Duh, do it legally.”

What about the refugees? How do we accept the refugee onslaught? Because as you said, America is the best place to come. Everybody's trying to get here because of their own oppressed countries or just opportunity.But when you look at the refugees coming in, how do we deal with that as a country? Because that's an issue.

[00:07:26] Gene Arthur: Well, what comes to mind immediately— and this has actually been used in a political arena by the Catholic church. Mary and Joseph were refugees. They fled into Egypt to escape the slaughter of the innocence that Herod wanted to kill all the new and two and three-year-old children in Israel— because that was a threat to his kingdom.

So if you look about Mary and Joseph and Baby Jesus fleeing into Egypt to escape persecution, that really hits home. You got the think, you know, this family escaped the country that they lived in and loved and were born in to go to a foreign country to leave everything that they actually had worked for, built and saved and accumulated— leave it behind, except for what you could carry on a back of a jackass.

Well, that is a heartfelt immigration story. But what I think the Catholic Church has done, they have used that heartwarming event in our Lord's life as an excuse to have open borders, to let anybody and everybody come so that we fulfill the gospel message of,” I was a stranger and you welcomed me.”

Well, boy, you know, that's hard to really fight.

I mean, you can't fight against that. If you are a kind person or a person of goodwill, you want to help the refugees. Well, because of the Church's stance on immigration, they are willing to bypass the legal process, just to be a welcoming community.

Well, okay. That's a good thought. And that's a nice thought and I'm sure that's been done throughout the ages without any of us really know what's going on, especially to our neighbors, to the south Mexico and further south to all the central American countries of...

[00:09:48] Jenée Arthur: [VOICEOVER] Dad, again in Harlan Pepper fashion, goes on to name nearly all the South and Central American countries. We'll just keep things moving right along.

[00:09:59] Gene Arthur: The immigration process that we are experiencing now that I think is the root of it is that these people coming to America.

[00:10:12] Jenée Arthur: To escape tyranny and

[00:10:16] Gene Arthur: Yeah, but the blame lies on the countries, themselves, not the people who are fleeing the countries.

[00:10:24] Jenée Arthur: Well, sure!

[00:10:25] Gene Arthur: When you got a country like Mexico, that the local ____ and the local governments. There's corruption upon corruption. They don't take care of their own and people want to come to America because America has always—or, I shouldn't say always—but has learned a process of how to take care of its own. So they're coming here for that, that they're not getting in their own country. The blame goes to all these people in these other countries who are not charitable or thoughtful and don’t take care of their own. It's like the…

[00:11:07] Jenée Arthur: Okay. But dad, that's not the people's fault. Just like Mary and Joseph and Jesus fled that persecution, the people are attempting to do the same thing. Where are they going to go— but to a country that actually embraces them.

[00:11:21] Gene Arthur: Okay. Here's what they do. They stay in their own country and fight for the rights like the American people have done in their history, they don't flee.

[00:11:33] Jenée Arthur: The example you gave of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. They didn't stay and try to figure out how to help Herod become a kind and loving human. I don't understand

[00:11:42] Gene Arthur: Jenée. That's an exception. That's not the norm. The people that did not escape Herod’s anger were put to the sword and killed.

[00:11:51] Jenée Arthur: Exactly!

[00:11:53] Gene Arthur: Well, that was a situation that, uh, happened overnight. There was nobody prepared for that. We in the Americas, we know what a democracy representation is. We have a really good idea about what that means.

These other countries are not looking to us for the rule of law, a constitution. Most of these countries don't have a constitution. These people don't have shit to fall back on for any rights —that doesn't mean you get the hell out and come to America to take care of it. Because you're really not its own until you do it legally by the immigration process, but that the problem lies in foreign countries not providing for their own.

[00:12:48] Jenée Arthur: Okay. I concur on that—otherwise we wouldn't have people fleeing and trying to escape death and murder and rape and pillage. But it's interesting that a government or a country, the United States, can invade countries and demand that they turn to democracy, but they can't accept the people that are trying to flee from the very thing we're starting wars to go over and change. It makes no sense

[00:13:16] Gene Arthur: When did the United States invade another country?

[00:13:17] Jenée Arthur: Look at Afghanistan. We're trying to put our democracy on them. When that, that was a failed experiment.

[00:13:22] Gene Arthur: We were invited to come to Afghanistan. The only people/country that I know that actually invaded countries on a regular basis was England— because they wanted world domination.

[00:13:36] Jenée Arthur: Okay. Maybe I used the wrong word.

[00:13:39] Gene Arthur: The United States has never sought to be the leaders of the world. We became a superpower and an economical power by the blood, sweat and tears of our ancestors that came to this country, followed the laws and rules. And that's why the United States was blessed with a religious base by the founding fathers. And only one or two of them were Catholic. The rest of them were Protestants or nothing at all.

But the problem lies in people not taking care of their own. The church in these other countries, the church in Mexico, the church in Guatemala and all the other countries that I've mentioned already— it's up to the individuals to take care of each other. It's not the government's main responsibility. The church has failed in all these other countries trying to take care of their own.

Now, what was the cause of that failure? That's gotta be researched and it's gotta be documented. Was it that the economy was so bad because of corruption or was it wasn't because the product that they grow couldn't be exported. Was it the fact that education was not sought as an aid to help the peasant.

[00:15:01] Jenée Arthur: Yeah. Or they have radical dictators and people that are, you know, getting away with literal murder. I mean, there's a lot of different things, but Dad, my question to you is— I don't agree that we should have open borders but I think we have to look at refugees; however. How do we turn them away and expect them to go back when, and again, you're citing the greatest example of it being Mary and Joseph on the back of a donkey. And yet we're going to change the tune when it comes to anybody else coming into our country. So I'm just wondering what…

Huh?

[00:15:38] Gene Arthur: We didn't change the tune.

[00:15:40] Jenée Arthur: I'm talking about. You're changing the tune when you're, you're not letting these people flee tyranny and oppression and possible murder, but you're using an example of Jesus and Mary and Joseph doing the exact thing.

[00:15:52] Gene Arthur: Jenée, the reason I brought that particular example up is because what the Church, our Catholic faith, is doing with using Jesus and Mary and Joseph fleeing into Egypt.

[00:16:32] Jenée Arthur: But isn't that a, that a relevant example?

[00:16:37] Gene Arthur: Well, okay. That is the Christian thing to think about helping or welcoming the stranger. But you have a country that has rules and regulations for doing that. We have, we have an immigration process that allows us to welcome the stranger. So you better, not a stranger is. As a refugee.

[00:16:51] Jenée Arthur: So you're not saying don't welcome them. I'm just trying to get this straight.

How do we, what's the right way when you have 20,000 hundreds of thousands of people trying to flee into the country in a single swoop? I know a lot of this has been exaggerated, but how do we do what you're saying and still be good people—Christian or not—kindness and Goodwill as you referred to earlier, how do we do that enmasse?

[00:17:21] Gene Arthur: Okay. See, you got to remember part of the communist or Marxists of manifesto is mob rule. What the hell do you do at a border on our Southern countries— Texas and Arizona and California, and the such, what do you do when you have such a glut of people who have been induced to come to America?

Because through investigation and documentation and interrogation, a lot of these caravans and mob groups of thousands of people coming north, they've been paid to come north. They've been paid to come to America for a political agenda, which would be to have more people in the country. To vote a certain way against the opposition, because we know that George Soros is behind a lot of these caravans coming to America.

There's even been evidence that some people in the Catholic church have been behind. Getting people to come to America through these caravans, residual affects taking place with this immigration glut coming to the Southern borders that a law abiding country has, has to deal with it, but they're dealing with it with an enormous amount of numbers, enormous amount of people needing food, needing water, uh, needing some kind of shelter, needing some kind of medical —— are overcrowded and over flooded with a glut of humanity moving towards the United States from the Southern countries. Now this has, this has got two ideas involved with it. It's done on purpose. And it's done because people are in need.

Thos two things. It's done on purpose. And there are people who are in need.

[00:19:12] Jenée Arthur: Just want to be clear. What you're saying is two of these things are actually happening. There's a political movement that is paying people to come in— is what you're saying. And then there are actual true refugees that want to escape tyranny.

Is that what you're trying to say? That those two things are happening concurrently?

[00:19:28] Gene Arthur: from your shippable minded. Idea. Yes.

[00:19:33] Jenée Arthur: Okay.

[00:19:33] Gene Arthur: That's all. I just things that I see.

[00:19:36] Jenée Arthur: Okay.

[00:19:36] Gene Arthur: Somebody smarter than me is probably got a lot more add to that, but that's what I see.

[00:19:44] Jenée Arthur: Well, I mean, you know, I don't need a smarter than you person because for one, I think you're pretty smart, but I think what's great about this is we're showing that we can have these conversations together, right?

I learn something every time I talked to you ,and I can literally say every time. Now, sometimes I don't want to fucking learn it. I wish I wouldn't have heard it, but I get to go away and think about things. And I don't even— I have a mixed, you know—as everybody tries to peg me as a liberal, because I'm gay, I'm a moderate because I try to stay in the middle of everything.I have a better perspective there. I can see to my left and to my right. And so I don't know where I fall on immigration. I think everything should be done legally. However, where I get really hung up is this refugee piece, because my understanding is these are oppressive and you're talking about everybody from the south to us of us—I'm talking about people across seas, you know, that are leaving the Middle East and trying to come to us because these people are being....

[00:20:47] Gene Arthur: They're leaving the middle east and coming through the Southern borders.

[00:20:50] Jenée Arthur: They're not coming through any other way?

[00:20:53] Gene Arthur: No, they're coming through the Southern. You got Haitians who were in the Caribbean and we're coming through, uh, by way of Mexico to the,

[00:21:04] Jenée Arthur: Okay. I just wanted to make that distinction. One, I didn't know that they were coming through the Southern border— in my own ignorance, but, two, I don't want our listeners to think you're only talking about Mexicans and Central Americans, because that seems like a divisive, you know, we've got this whole thing, “we've got too much of Mexico in the United States” and those are fighting words.

[00:21:28] Gene Arthur: No, I'm not saying that at all.

[00:21:31] Jenée Arthur: Okay. So basically, if I can summarize what you're saying, you're saying you believe in immigration because it's a gift. The United States gives the world. You just want it done legally on refugees. Same thing applies, right? Except that you're putting responsibility on the countries or what you said, the churches in those countries to take better care of their people,

[00:21:58] Gene Arthur: The governments and the Church.

[00:22:00] Jenée Arthur: Okay.

[00:22:00] Gene Arthur: Both of them have a responsibility and in general, that's why I'm telling you, Née, people don't know Jesus Christ.

They don't know the truth. And if these countries knew the truth and embraced the truth, their problems would be manageable. They would be addressed.

[00:22:20] Jenée Arthur: [VOICEOVER] After a recent episode, my childhood best friend, Gina, texted me and said,”Remember the old days, when your dad would go door to door to evangelize? Now he has a captive audience of many just by having a conversation with you.”

She goes on to say that she believes it takes a lifetime to become who we are truly meant to be. And I think she's right.

I've heard my entire life Dad discussing the necessary relevance of Jesus to turn any problem around and balanced the dark with the light. It used to bug me that that was his only solution to anything, but now I just smile and choose to see the truth and the things he shared.

[00:22:56] Gene Arthur: What we dealing with in the Southern borders, we don't have the manpower to make it a legal and purposeful way of immigrating to the country.

[00:23:08] Jenée Arthur: Should we just say the United States is currently closed because we don't have room or we don't have a way to put you through our system. It's like the DMV had to shut its doors because they've got too many damn people needing the license.

[00:23:20] Gene Arthur: Well, if there's a way that our cultured could say, let's slow this down, let's put the brakes on. Or however else you want to say it let's, let's close the borders,

[00:23:32] Jenée Arthur: But what if Grandma and Grandpa— Great Great Grandma and Grandpa had to be one of those people who couldn't be accepted to Ellis island or Philadelphia, or one of the other ports, because the United States was overwhelmed.

[00:23:43] Gene Arthur: They were.

[00:23:44] Jenée Arthur: They were?

[00:23:45] Gene Arthur: They were. And they were by not able to disembark from the ships that brought them here because the process was bottle-necking. They could not leave the ships. And that's when disease and dysentery and other things affected the people who had paid the passage from the European trials to come to the United States, they had to pay the price of even death because they couldn't, they couldn't, they wouldn't let them disembark because of the glut of people that were at Ellis Island and the other places in the north, the north Eastern part of the United States that's facts. There's, it's documented it's history. You can read.

[00:24:35] Jenée Arthur: No. I agree. I hear you. I just got something that I was disconnected on in terms of the very question I asked you about, should we close our country for a bit because…

[00:24:56] Gene Arthur: Okay, then how can we do that? I mean, it's, it's like closing the borders is, uh, if the United States closed its borders and these people, her coming here from all over the globe, Are trying to get here.What are they going to be faced with?

[00:25:08] Jenée Arthur: That's why I asked you the question about Ellis island and how about our ancestors.

[00:25:15] Gene Arthur: Well, what's going on on this immigration thing that's not really publicized or not really out there is—there are a lot of people in the United States of America who are giving of their own resources, money, supplies, food. Water clothing, medicine that are being shipped to our Southern borders to help the people who cannot legally come into the country. That's going on, but you're not hearing a lot about that because see, that's good news. That means the United States is doing something to help those who are glutting the borders so that they got some kind of care that they didn't get from where they came from, or they can't get yet because there's so many people to attend to. They've got to be vetted when they come through America there and there, Jenée, there's so much more to this that you and I can't even talk about because we don't know the actual process of Mary and Joseph and Jesus being at the southern border.

Who do they talk to? What are they asked? What do they have to produce? What do they have to qualify? What identification do they have? What do their medical record look like? What are the willing to contribute to this? Well, you know, all that stuff that's going on, that we have no idea other than what the media is feeding us. And a lot of it is bullshit.

[00:27:05] Jenée Arthur: So it basically— what it makes me think when you talk about that is your own home, right? Like in this, in a sense—and I mean this just to make a point:the United States is like a house, like a home, right? You wouldn't let a person that couldn't show you who they were just walk in from outside into your own home. I don't think you would. I think you'd be concerned about my mother ,or your children. So, it's almost like you're also—and I don't if I'm putting words in your mouth, let me know, but you're also sort of giving the basic human rules of “you shall not enter until you show me your hands [or] you tell you show me that you're not going to hurt what you're entering. Same reason you said our ancestors couldn't embark off the ships. They were diseased, or they didn't have the manpower to get them through and process them correctly. So if we could look at it like that, but still this guy that's standing outside your front door might need a cup of water or some food because he's traveled, you know, barefoot for 20 miles.

That's what you're saying— are that all these good Samaritans that are giving money and food and resources that we're not hearing about. So if you, if you put it in the context of an analogy for me, cause that's, as you know, you're really good at those and that's how I've learned best in my life. That's what makes sense to me is that it's not that we don't want to help, it's that we have to be able to— we can't just let anybody in because we don't know enough about what they're bringing with them

[00:28:41] Gene Arthur: To welcome the stranger is a responsibility that Christians have as part of the gospel message. And you're moved to compassion by people in need. But to use your example of a home…If someone came and I was afraid to let them in the home, because of the things you stated, that would not stop me from providing the basics of food, water, some type of shelter and umbrellas, a tent, shed, whatever.

Well, I shouldn't say whatever, because I need to tell you exactly what I would do. Well, because your mom and I don't have people coming to our door and seeking refuge, we find them at the street corners, at the stop sign. Well, if you think about it before you leave the house, pack some water, some little lunch bags of food.

Uh, my grandson Nicholaus, had a ministry to the homeless when he came back from working in the missions at El Salvador, because he was so touched by the poverty of what he saw. Nicholas made bags of simple nourishment, hygiene things, and water or Gatorade. He kept that in his car and he passed those things out to people on the street corners with signs.

He gave of his compassion by organizing something before he left the house and loaded it up in his vehicle to give to them when he encountered them.

[00:30:23] Jenée Arthur: I love that.

[00:30:24] Gene Arthur: Matter of fact, that's what your mother wants to do. She wants to be able to help the needy that we have in our country— and we're not questioning why they're there.

If someone needs help, you’ve got to help them.

[00:30:24] Gene Arthur: Yeah. Well, I appreciate you saying that Dad, because I think a lot of people believe that people that have joined the narrative of immigration as “we've got to be tougher or we've”— almost as if they're heartless, you're proving at least in this scenario of you and Mom and in your family, that that's not the case. That you can believe immigration is a gift from the United States to the world, but also comply with the legal process that we have set up that has historically worked so far, because it's why we're all here. You have to go through that process and can still welcome the stranger. Even if it means you won't let them in your house, but you'll go put a tent out in your front yard and give them food and water because they need it to hide from the rain and the cold.

That's a very different perspective than what I would assume. And this is part of the problem— is because people like me make assumptions that somebody on your side of that argument would just be like, “Nope. Can't help you. Borders closed.” Well kind of like what Trump was accused of saying “You're murderers, rapists and diseased human beings. We're not letting you in.”

I think that's what's gotten skewed, is that people are making up these ideas. Because I do it. I do it. I do it when these evangelists, born-again people, like—I have such an issue with them because I always think they’re up to no good. And the truth is, they might be up to real good. But because I have this preconceived notion of those types of people, I close off the potential good. And I think a lot of people on the other side of the immigration argument are doing that. That’s what I’m surmising. I can’t speak for anyone else but me, but I can tell you— I’m doing it.

[00:32:24] Gene Arthur: Well, there’s a lot of opinions floating around out there. And opinions are what they are. Everybody’s got one. But when you look at the evidence that’s been documented by either dissertation, written, recorded, photographed, you can see that we’ve got a real problem at the southern border.

[00:32:44] Jenée Arthur: I’m not sure anyone would argue with that.

[00:32:47] Gene Arthur: Well, some do. And that’s another thing about this whole immigration thing, it’s so politically boobie trapped… it’s hard to get, like you and I talking like this, with political leaders to sit down and be able to talk like this… and to work out, let’s look at the root cause of this. What was the…what started this? Where does the problem lie?

Daily, we have to deal with what’s going on in our country and do what we can do at whatever age, whatever financial situation we are, or whatever our core beliefs are— we’ve got to do something to help one another. And these people coming from everywhere i nthe known world trying to get into the United States— they are of the same human race. We are God’s children.

[00:32:44] Jenée Arthur: [VOICEOVER] And on that note, I can surprisingly say that there’s not a huge divide on this issue, with the exception of some of the things he cited, which I have no real clue is real or not real on the political shenanigans or media sources. I don’t really know what source to believe anymore. They’ve all spun and twisted the news to fit their agendas for ages. We’re just beginning to see it now.

I’m also not exactly sure how to handle the refugee piece.I still find it interesting that Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus are the poster family for the issues of refugees, yet we can’t figure out how to welcome them all into the land of freedom as they flee danger.

But I guess both of these are reasons that my dad reminds us that prayer is the foundation for any solution to any problem. And despite the fact that I am his moderate, lesbian daughter who is proud of the person God made her to be, and though I walk a spiritual path that is not as indoctrinated or traditional as my dad’s, I agree with him on this issue of prayer.

Why not join forces with the Source of all things— God, the Universe, to put some supernatural power behind some of these issues. It’s definitely not working to argue and attempt to prove who is right and who’s wrong.

What if the answers lie in a place we don’t look often enough. Inside of us. In that place where we are all One.

Thanks again for joining us. Please remember to follow, rate and review the show on Apple Podcast. Because Apple Podcasts is the Queen Mother of making sure little unknown shows like this one can muster the power to stay alive amongst all the other chatter.

I’m so happy you’re here.

See you next time.

Division is Optional