AOC is an Insensitive Moron

AOC is an Insensitive Moron
Commentary by Sanford D. Horn
June 18, 2019

On the very far outside chance Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez actually reads this, I will use simple language to say that she is an insensitive moron.

“The United States is running concentration camps on our southern border - that is what they are,” said US Rep. Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). “The fact that concentration camps are now an institutionalized practice in the land of the free is extraordinarily disturbing,” she continued in an Instagram on Monday, June 17.

What is extraordinarily disturbing is that those are Ocasio-Cortez’s actual words - comparing migrant detention centers to Holocaust concentration camps where millions of Jewish people were murdered simply for being Jewish. Such chutzpah!

There are stark differences between an American detention center and Nazi concentration camps. Migrant detention centers in the Unites States are housing refugees and/or asylum seekers - people who have chosen to flee their country of origin specifically heading to the United States, when they could seek refuge in many other countries. These people were not forced to come to the United States, they are not being held beyond their will - they are free to return to their country, nor are they being forcibly put to hard labor, tortured, or murdered.

Concentration camps, some constructed as labor and/or prison camps, but mostly designed as death camps to slaughter, en masse, entire populations of Jews as well as gays and Gypsies. More than seven million were murdered. Millions of Jews were forcibly deported from their legal residences where they were citizens in the various European countries they inhabited. Tens of thousands of Jews were arrested on false charges of various so-called crimes and remanded to concentration camps never to be seen again by their families and friends. Concentration camps held millions of Jews beyond their will with inhumanely less than adequate food, clothing, and medical attention. Jews were tortured for no reason, shot for no reason, stripped naked for the amusement of guards, heads shaven - hair to fill pillows, skin tattooed - skin used for lamp shades, the victims of medical “experiments,” then ultimately gassed to death and incinerated in crematoria as part of Hitler’s plot to rid the world of the Jewish people.

The people held in detention centers are receiving food, health and medical care, opportunities for exercise, reading materials, and are not being tortured and murdered. This may not be the most ideal circumstance for these migrants, but it is vital that they be vetted and a determination made whether or not they are a national security risk or if they should be permitted to remain in the United States. They are not prisoners, but they must be detained to insure the safety of the American people while their background is under investigation. After all, the United States is a sovereign nation and has the absolute right to determine who is permitted within its borders. Because there are so many people flooding the southern border of the United States, it will take a lengthy period of time to thoroughly complete the vetting and investigations.

For Ocasio-Cortez to call these detention centers concentration camps is demonstrative of her complete lack of knowledge of history - both American history and Holocaust history. Her words, intentionally chosen, are disgraceful and an insult specifically to Holocaust survivors, demeaning the memories of the six million Jews slaughtered, and offensive to the Jewish community as a whole. Ocasio-Cortez, who has not visited the border or a detention center, is ignorant. Has she ever learned anything about the Holocaust? Comparing President Trump to Hitler also proves how little Ocasio-Cortez knows about history.

Ocasio-Cortez is also offending the members of the Border Patrol who are working difficult jobs under very challenging circumstances. “It’s disgusting to compare concentration camps to what the men and women are doing here protecting our country,” said Art Del Cueto, vice president of the National Border Patrol Council. “It is definitely a slap in the face to a lot of those people who had family members who actually went through concentration camps,” continued Del Cueto. Del Cueto offered to personally escort Ocasio-Cortez through a detention center to prove the level of humane treatment the refugees are receiving while awaiting their vetting results and asylum hearings.

It is careless and irresponsible for Ocasio-Cortez, who supports the dismantling of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), to use such language, particularly when those Holocaust survivors had precious little option in their disposition. If she really wants to point fingers, crack open an American history book and lay blame at the feet of President Franklin Roosevelt (D) for the internment, from 1942 through 1945, of between 110,000 and 120,000 Japanese-Americans in concentration camps via his Executive Order 9066. 

For more recent history, don’t forget Barack Obama (D) had detention centers, only the Obama-friendly media did not shine the light of day on them as they do at present. Why are there more people seeking asylum in 2019? Perhaps more people are trying to enter the United States because of a stronger economy and this country is simply a better place then that of their countries of origin. Plus, more people have been trying to enter the United States before stricter immigration laws are enacted.

Regardless, none of that excuses Ocasio-Cortez and her insensitive and ignorant use of language. She owes numerous apologies - to Holocaust survivors and the members of the Border Patrol at the very least, but such apologies would be disingenuous at best. Ocasio-Cortez continues to engage mouth prior to engaging brain and has many lessons still to learn.

Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN. He is also a Charter Member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC.