A cheery Christmas thought

"They who give up essential liberty for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty or safety".  These prescient words by Benjamin Franklin pose the existential dilemma facing western democracy.   Do we give in to xenophobia and close our borders to refugees and immigrants.  Cheeto Jesus and his followers would board that train in a heartbeat.  The rest of the country should oppose this resurgence of know nothingism with every available means.   Right now the only defender of the dispossessed among western democracies is the chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel.  Ironically, she was born in communist East Germany.  However, she seems to have internalized the tenets of the western liberal canon in a far more visceral way than most of her contemporaries.  The recent Christmas market attack in Berlin will put extreme pressure on her to give in to the reactionaries.  I hope she resists and shows us how a true democractic leader reacts to the those who would close the borders and erect walls.