EXISTENTIAL …

If you’re from New York, you can’t go to Hawaii. They won’t let you in. At least it was that way for a hot minute.

My ears perked up when my wife (who works for a major American Airline) gave me this piece of interesting information. 

“Really?” I replied. “Hawaii. Won’t. Let. Them. In?”

She casually told me about how they are worried about Covid. Because, after all, they are a series of islands separated from the rest of the world by thousands of miles. An outbreak there could be disastrous. She went on to explain that the restrictions were changing moment to moment and they have since gone from out-and-out travel ban, to a mandatory 14-day quarantine as well as a Covid test, blah blah blah. But the upshot is, they didn’t feel they had enough information from certain places (like New York) to allow tourists in, from those places.

I listened, then repeated, “So, you’re saying Hawaii. Won’t. Let. Them. In?” 

Then I smiled at the irony. 

You see, it was a Hawaiian judge who overturned President Trump’s travel ban back in 2017 …

Judge Derrick Watson said the travel ban — Trump’s third version of the policy — “plainly discriminates based on nationality.”

The President’s executive order “suffers from precisely the same maladies as its predecessor: it lacks sufficient findings that the entry of more than 150 million nationals from six specified countries would be ‘detrimental to the interests of the United States,'” Watson wrote.

Sarah Sanders explained the travel ban and why it was there …

“The entry restrictions in the proclamation apply to countries based on their inability or unwillingness to share critical information necessary to safely vet applications, as well as a threat assessment related to terrorism, instability, and other grave national security concerns.” CNN. 

Of course these were the days when everyone was supposed to be allowed to just go anywhere and move anywhere and decide to live anywhere, without filing any paper work or letting anybody know. 

Back in those days, we were supposed to accept waves of caravans, coming across our southern borders, with open arms and house-warming gifts. 

Anyone who questioned open borders or favored vetting immigrants or (God forbid) building a barrier between two sovereign countries, was scolded as a racist on par with Hitler himself. It was right about then that the term “white nationalist” was coined. I didn’t then, and don’t now, have any idea what that term means. 

I’m white. And I’m pro-American. Does that make me a white nationalist? Oh, who cares? 

The point is, Hawaii won’t let you in right now, if you’re from New York. Why? Because they are afraid of the unknown; of what might happen to them if you come in with a virus. This is a valid fear. And they have every right to decide who comes in and who doesn’t. That’s what those guards are there for. That’s what guards everywhere are there for. 

But it’s interesting to watch people who have screamed the loudest and stomped the hardest, in protest of anyone from anywhere, being detained or turned away or sent back to their country of origin, for any valid reason, now turning into movement shamers. 

I suppose once humans actually feel a direct threat and see the possibility of their own harm, they get real rulesy, real fast. 

If I may use an overused word, it’s what we call existential. 

How’s everybody feeling about caravans of strangers pouring across any border, anywhere, right now? Ya’ll good? No? Ya sure?

Maybe this virus can teach us a little about human nature and a lot about hypocrisy. 

We know that not everyone in New York has Covid 19. In fact, we know that most people in New York probably don’t have Covid 19. But guess what, New York? You are now being profiled by America’s most tropical location. 

I wonder how Judge Derrick Watson feels about that?

Many of us not on the left (I’m not a Republican but not insane), would simply appreciate people on the left to just stop virtue signaling and at least be honest about their own bullshit. Just own it. 

John Lennon wrote, “imagine no possessions …”

But here’s a fun little experiment: shoot a movie and try to use Imagine as your end title song. In fact, try to use Lennon’s version of it. See how quickly you will find out there are most definitely possessions and how swiftly you learn just how much you will have to pay to use said possessions, under penalty of the law.

When it comes to the socialist utopian theme song, imagining is all you get to do.

All we’re asking is stop clutching your pearls over #metoo if you’re going to vote for a guy who is accused of sexual assault or a woman who will look the other way in order to be his running mate. 

Just come out and say, “None of that really matters. It never did. We just want to win.”

I would TOTALLY respect that. 

Don’t say Black Lives Matter if black police officers’ lives don’t seem to matter or blacks killed by other blacks don’t register on the “matter” meter. AT. ALL. Just come out and say, “We want to overturn the system and it’s really not about race. It’s just a convenient tool that puts everybody on their heels and gives us an edge.” 

That’s an honest conversation we can actually have without all the tiptoeing around language. 

If you protest gun ownership then hire armed bodyguards, we’d rather you just be honest and say, “I think I’m more important than all the hayseeds out there who want guns.”

Cool. Now we know we’re actually talking about classism and elitism – not gun control. 

If you advocate for the destruction of property but then protect your own, just say what you mean, man – “I want MY house to be safe and sound, but I want YOU to have to rebuild your business, because I don’t like how the world works.”

Excellent. Now, we know we’re merely dealing with a child – arrested development of critical thinking – and not a real revolution. 

See? Definition of terms is a beautiful thing. 

Covid 19 is allowing all the closeted fear of the open-minded to finally surface. We’re getting to finally see some true colors. 

Yes – Covid is real. I lost two friends to it this past week. Don’t for one minute think I’m playing down this virus. 

But it’s showing us exactly how we will respond in the face of a direct threat. We don’t have to even speculate, anymore. And it’s also showing us which tightly held ideals we will sell out at a moment’s notice, given the right circumstances; the right existential threat.

You appalled at children being detained behind fencing, at a border? Just assume they all have Covid. Now, how appalled are you? Still want them at your house? Still want to grab them and hug them?  

At the end of all this, those who survive will have an actual accounting of how everyone else acted during it. 

Who got gripped by fear? Who kept their cool? Who kept their sense of wonder? Who kept their sense of humor? Who helped? Who didn’t? 

And we will also have an accurate accounting of how Hawaii treated people from New York.  

For a time, at least…they wouldn’t let them in.

R

PS – I have edited this piece to reflect the fluid nature of the information it’s based on, which has apparently changed since I penned the blog.

This is an opinion site but I never want to report anything untrue or not based in verifiable fact.

I can, however, report with absolute certainty that you will never get to use Imagine in your movie without negotiating a price.

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