don shequixote tilting at windmills? where is the moral outrage?

“Where is the moral outrage in this country,” MSNBC contributor Mike Barnicle asked yesterday (August 01) on Morning Joe in referring to a discussion Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D – Rhode Island) led earlier in the show about the hearing the Senate Judiciary Committee held Tuesday, July 31st., on the status of the immigrant children forcibly separated from their families in response to the zero tolerance policy of the current administration in previous months.

Indeed, where is the moral outrage in America? Where is Don Quixote de la Mancha when we need him…come on, all you would-be Cervantes fiction writers out there. Give us a champion, that character who is brave enough to undo wrongs and bring justice to the world. Give us a Wonder Woman who penetrates the No, No, Get Out signs at the federal detention centers around the country, goes inside the facilities, gives us the real pictures of the detainees’ circumstances and rescues them from harm.

Give us a Sherlock Holmes who is up to the task of searching in Central America and Mexico for the parents of 711 children whose families were basically stampeded out of our country, according to the testimony of Commander Jonathan D. White who is in charge of the reunification efforts of the United States Public Health Service. Commander White went on to say at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on July 31st. that the separation policy had not been in the best interests of the children. I’m thinking that Sherlock Holmes could use the assistance of several IBM Watsons because he will be looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack while 711 children remain incarcerated.

Television writers, give us a Law and Order prosecutor Jack McKoy character who will speak truth to power and bring charges of deliberate cruelty or cruelty by incompetence to those responsible for the creation and implementation of the zero tolerance policy because no one gave any federal agency prior notice before Attorney General Sessions announced the policy. And Hollywood screen writers, hurry up and give us another Chief Trial Judge Dan Haywood who ruled the military court in the film Judgment at Nuremberg presiding over the trial of four judges that served on the bench during the Nazi regime for crimes against humanity.

Come on, media moguls. We need Don Quixote – like heroes… hopefully more successful than his character which tilted at windmills he believed to be ferocious giants. Sigh. Oh well, you can’t have everything in a fictional hero.

Speaking of tilting at windmills, I visited the campaign headquarters of the Congressman from my district yesterday. The purpose of my visit was to hand deliver a letter I wrote asking for his immediate intervention in the migrant reunification process. I included a copy of a previous blog on this issue (see my blog adding to the hue and cry on July 19th.) which I was fairly sure he hadn’t read before. What I found interesting about his campaign poster on the front of his headquarters  was the family portrait.

Representative Joe Wilson and his family

I had to wonder whether this man would be glib in his response to the zero tolerance policy if it had applied to the children or grandchildren of members of Congress. I’m just saying.

As I drove to Zaxby’s to get a basket of toast after I left my windmill tilting, I saw another sign next to our West Columbia City Hall.

Indeed, Mike Barnicle, where is the moral outrage of a nation blessed because their God is the Lord – referring to the same Lord who said in Matthew 19:14 (King James Version of the New Testament) “But Jesus said, Suffer the little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”

If only we could treat the migrant children as the kingdom of heaven.

Stay tuned.