The following is a fictional account. But in our country today, it absolutely could happen.
The other night I was awakened by the sound of many men screaming and pounding on my door, demanding entrance. I was badly frightened — I had no idea who any of them were.
A rear window broke and others started pouring in. They had come all at once, in a caravan of about two dozen. I called 911. The police came. They arrested ME!
“This is insane!” I raged. “They were breaking and entering! They are criminals!” Nothing I said mattered.
I was hauled before a judge, who wore a “Bernie for President” lapel button. “The police report says,” he stated sternly, “that your premises are like a concentration camp. The facilities are grossly inadequate. The building code does not permit so many. What can you be thinking, to be so inhumane?”
“But this caravan descended on me out of nowhere! I could not have possibly accommodated all of them!”
“Tough,” he responded. “That’s your problem. And the police report says that one-third of them are ill.
You must get them medical attention at your expense.”
“My expense?” I sputtered. “I pay thousands of dollars a year for health insurance and have co-pays and deductibles. You’re saying I must give them health care for free, while
I can barely afford health care for my own family?”
“You’ve got that right, buddy.”
“I have a homeless brother. An aunt that needs skilled nursing care. A son who can’t afford his own health insurance. Just how long do I have to fully support these non-citizen criminals?
“They are utterly unskilled. Chances are you are going to have to pay for their welfare indefinitely.”
“But,” I protested, “I’m already over my head in debt.”
“So what?” the judge sneered. “And let me add, in all my years on the bench I have never encountered a defendant as monstrously inhumane as you.”
I hung my head in chastened shame. When I got back home, I learned my brother had died, uncared for, in his cardboard box in San Francisco.
Lee Levin is the author of five historical novels and a lifelong conservative.
