Full title, which won't fit in the title space for the journal: "Thought for the Day: Your Enemies Are Not Who You Think They Are"

We draw arbitrary lines in the earth and teach our children to hate anyone on the other side of these lines. They are "different." They are "dangerous." They are "diseased." They are "the enemy," and they "want to spread crime, come and rape us, steal all our jobs and our money and our stuff, destroy our way of life," et cetera, et cetera... So these people grow up to learn not only to be afraid of anyone from another country or culture, but to celebrate any notion of keeping them out, even through violent means. I read comments in threads on FaceBook of people who advocate the mass murder of people wanting to come into our country, whether through patrolled borders with rifles or setting up mine fields or what have you. Yes, these are actual comments I have read others posting, in all earnestness.

This is disgusting. It's xenophobia, nothing more. And the political party responsible for perpetuating the greatest fear-mongering, the greatest spreading of lies and misinformation, is the same party that claims to speak for an all-loving God that sent his son down to teach us all how to love everybody unconditionally.

Nobody posting these comments seems to think there is anything wrong with the process of legal immigration as it currently stands. I tell them that somebody I know spent 13+ years trying to migrate here legally from Mexico, all due to immigration bureaucracy and red tape, and that such a long wait is a sign that something about our process of legal immigration needs to be revamped...but I'm met with counterarguments that this individual must be doing something wrong and shady himself to have "deserved" to wait so long. They make presumptions about someone based solely on the pre-established, prejudicial belief that our country is always right and people from other countries are always wrong.

Ask yourself what you're really afraid of; and more importantly, ask yourself how likely--I mean, by actual scientific standards, how likely--is it for your fears to come to pass. Stop hating someone else just because you'd rather listen to your fears than the life story of another human being.