Freedom Isn’t Protected; It’s Practiced

[DemocratsForProgress]

Walter Rhett: Freedom Isn’t Protected; It’s Practiced

Think above the noise. Blot out the video images and the inane questions about fault, authority, notification, gangs, judges, hearings, surges, resources, executive action. Find the quiet within yourself.

Think about the faces of children—your own face, your friends when you were young. Would you have walked a hundred miles when you were nine, ten, eleven? Could you have walked two, three, four, five hundred miles across three countries to reach a dirty inland river crossing a scrub bush prairie? Could you have confronted an uninhabited wilderness under a burning sun, without food or love?

The enslaved were once guided by the North Star. What guides the children—is there an intangible sense of security and freedom strong enough in young hearts to drive them from home and hugs? Should our laws make us blind to their dangers, the threats of violence they report?

Played out on our borders, stretching back into the depths of Central America to Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, beginning in 2012, but rising rapidly, we are witnessing the greatest tragedy for children since the Crusades, when Europe sent children off to fight its religious wars...

More at: http://www.democratsforprogress.com/2014/07/02/freedom-isnt-protected-its-practiced/