Entry Penned Beginning
Tuesday January 21st 2025 C.E
14:27 GMT+11
No I really am not, and don’t call me Shirley!
So there is lots happening here, most quite positive but as is my nature I am not inclined to share about it until it is settled and sorted; my grandfather used to say “It is all bullshit till its money in the bank” and personally I prefer to avoid spreading bullshit.
Instead I am going to reflect on the last few hours as they have unfolded in the US.
There are folks who most certainly would have said we were over reacting, especially back when we were first starting our plans and yet had we not started back then we would have faced a very real possibility of still being in the US today.
Today when capital punishment has been pushed at a federal level and states are being required to have lethal injection materials available.
Today when the federal government decreed that there are only two genders.
Today when the 14th amendment to the constitution of the United States of America was nullified.
While the executive order ending birthright citizenship only applies to births occurring 30 days from now and onwards, so not retroactively, that is TODAY. Once this order is ratified by the courts as lawful, and I think it will be, it will only be a short period of time before some special interest group, or indeed the administration itself, move the goal posts.
Move the goal post back to the start of just the first term and my son is suddenly stateless, a non-citizen, and as vulnerable as his mother and I to the slew of new regulations coming in.
Make no mistake, these laws impact documented and undocumented foreigners equally. Against this background we have preparations to use the Alien Enemies Act; this act allows the US government to treat all non-citizens as enemy combatants, it is the same act that was used to justify and implement the internment camps during the second world war.
Today that definition would include myself and Rose. Tomorrow it might have included Robert, and how long before it included the rest of family? All American born to American parents but not one of the two “official” genders, how soon before they are not “real Americans”?
Especially given they associate and live with non-citizens.
Perhaps I am alarmist in drawing connections between the push to restore capital punishment and to treat non-citizens as “invaders”, perhaps those are entirely unconnected things.
Perhaps I am reading too much into statements like “… we’re only hiring people who are faithful to the American public” and “until we have full control of this government”.
Perhaps the narrative of values like tolerance, acceptance of LGBTQ+ folks and people of all faiths and not just Christian being part of a “cultural invasion” by “foreigners” is some sort of misunderstanding.
Perhaps those words and phrasing aren’t being used over and over and over specifically because that is the wording used in things like the Alien Enemies Act and it is just a coincidence.
Perhaps I am a Batman. (But I am not)
Today it has shown that we were right to be concerned, that our fears were not irrational. The incoming administration has made very clear that America is to be for Americans, and their definition of American leaves out a whole lot of people and if you don’t fit the definition then you may find yourself branded a non-citizen, or worse seditious.
I take no joy in being right, I would much rather have been wrong. I would much rather the experience that I had in the airport to have been an outlier not a bellweather because I would rather the world be a nicer place, but it isn’t.
My thoughts are with those I care for in the US and hope that you are all safe and have plans for your own safety; I am hopeful that in a day or two I will have some much happier things to share as the bullshit gets banked.
If nothing else this weekend will absolutely see some short posts after I get in to Melbourne and get Yum Cha for lunch at least once and visit some of my old haunts.
-Robert James-Noonan O’Wayreth
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