Joey here.

We Americans tend to think of wine as red, the sea as blue.

Ancient Greek poet Homer referred to the Aegean as what has been translated as a wine-faced, wine-eyed, or wine-dark sea.

The most common explanation of this phenomenon today is that, while Greeks of Homer’s day could distinguish between the colors of dark red and dark blue, they did not have words to describe this difference.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine-dark_sea_(Homer)

Our society lacks words for some colors.

Black, brown, white, olive, yellow, red, are some of the words Americans have used to mis-describe human hides.

We’ve only seen humans in color combinations. Never in pure tones, no matter what you call them.

Unless the color came from a bottle.

If we have no words to describe a difference in color, is there a difference?

Jeffrey has ordinary human color vision.

Kangaroos have limited color vision: two sorts of retinal cones, whereas humans have three.

A Kangaroo Court Puppet like me, with plastic eyes, has no cones at all.

In politics, though, Jeffrey and I see things alike.

We see wine-dark.

We think anyone of reason and conscience claiming to be only “red” or “blue” is neither, or both.

Because in the real world, things aren’t only blue or red.

The sun shines on us all, in all its colors.

It’s not red or blue to do the right thing.

It’s human.

It’s right to control our borders. But control doesn’t justify violence or violent language. There is no “border bloodbath”. Data proves that an immigrant is much less likely than an American to be a criminal. (You never hear about Jeffrey’s unauthorized immigrant client who saved the life of an American child.)

It’s right to limit asylum eligibility. American asylum law doesn’t and shouldn’t allow everyone who has been wronged abroad to find a home in the USA. But those who can prove a well-founded fear of persecution, as defined by our laws, are legally and morally entitled to refuge here.

It’s right to have an open economy. That doesn’t mean that employers may exploit immigrant workers, or that honest employers should be denied the willing labor of whomever they choose to hire.

Our point of view is red and blue. Wine-dark.

Using the best of every color makes a country that shines across the spectrum. A country of sensible laws, kindly and generously applied to protect the least among us, and the rest of us too.

We’re not Christian, but we admire these words of Jesus:

Even if we can’t identify a neighbor who is among “the least”, we can support an organization that identifies and defends “the least” in their millions—Emma Lazarus’s “homeless, tempest-tost” victims of persecution—in person, in court, in government, in public opinion, here and abroad.

Support Human Rights First.