Someone broke into my home last week. They took four computers, jewelry, and two of our ducks. I have never felt such shame and anger towards my fellow humans.

This feeling is new to me. But not because some young punk broke into our house and violated our privacy. Crystal meth is creating a lost generation on Kauai who are driven to unconscionable acts. I can understand that.

It’s our collective response to the worst humanitarian crisis since World War II that makes me want to vomit. It’s the venom that is coming out on Social Media that’s making me lose faith in humanity. From my friends– people I know to be smart, good people.

That, I cannot understand.

Last Monday Governor Ige said that Hawaii would welcome Syrian refugees with aloha. And social media exploded in vehemence. The xenophobic outburst caused Governor Ige to partially retract his statement by saying “I suppose in hindsight I should probably be more thoughtful about my statements.”

Yes — Governor Ige, you should have known better. While we don’t talk about it, we all know that under the thin veneer of the aloha spirit, Hawaii harbors an intense distrust towards outsiders. But no — Governor Ige, you shouldn’t have to apologize for Hawaii’s lack of humanity.

My wife was born in a Cambodian refugee camp. My grandparents and great-grand parents were refugees. Most of my grandfather’s family were shot or gassed because they could not get political asylum quick enough. Jews were painted as communists, and communists were thought to be dangerous. Nearly 70 percent of Americans were opposed to accepting Jewish refugees on the eve of World War II.

And the wheel of history turns.

According to a recent Bloomberg Poll a majority of Americans do not want the U.S. to allow Syrian refugees into our country. The Syrian crisis is our generation’s holocaust. And we’re using the same xenophobic arguments against Muslims as were made against Jews.

I used to wonder how the world could turn their back on Jewish refugees in the face of Nazi atrocities. Now it’s my generation’s turn, and we’re making the same obscene mistake.

I recently read an article that said that liberals are exacerbating the situation by making this a moral issue. As soon as you mention “morality” you lose your reader. And, instead, we should focus our conversation on something that we can all agree on, like increasing the security process to gain entry.

Sorry, but I have more respect than that for whoever is reading this. If you think that minimal background checks are a problem, then please take 14 seconds to Google the process. It takes two years of security clearance to gain entry as a refugee.

So, unless you’re a politician looking to avoid substantive conversation on the issue (cough cough, Tulsi Gabbard), then can we all agree to discuss the real issues?

Are Syrians Terrorists?

There is a line of reasoning that goes: Terrorists are Muslim. Syrians are Muslim. So Syrians are terrorists.

This flawed logic and elementary thought process is what fuels all racial hatred.

It’s why Tulsi Gabbard voted for the SAFE Act. It’s what is driving Marco Rubio to say that the U.S., despite international law, shouldn’t accept any Syrian refugees. It’s driving Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush to say that we should only accept Christians, despite anti-discrimination laws. It’s why Donald Trump is saying that we should deport all current Syrian refugees from the U.S. It’s why 31 governors are saying that they won’t accept Syrian refugees in their state, despite the fact that governors have no say over refugee placement.

This racial backlash is what drives ISIS. It’s literally their stated goal. And politicians like Tulsi Gabbard are playing right into their hands.

Back in the real world, the UN resettles only 1 percent of refugees. And then only a very small portion of those makes it into the U.S. Imagine that ISIS killed your mother and raped your sister. And your brother, in angry desperation, gives food to a young resistance fighter engaged in a pursuit against ISIS.

Your entire family is now disqualified from resettlement. Entering as a refugee is the most difficult possible way to get into our country.

While we’re spreading our beach towels and scolding our kids for not putting on sunscreen, the bloated bodies of decomposing Syrian children are still washing up on Turskish beaches.

Since 2001, the U.S. has resettled 748,000 refugees. None of them have committed an act of terrorism against the US.

For all of the heat that Obama is in, he is only proposing that the U.S. accept a paltry 10,000 Syrians out of 4.2 million hoping for resettlement. Last year, one out of every 35,000 refugees admitted to the U.S. came to Hawaii. Chances are that no Syrian refugees will come to Hawaii.

But, assuming that we do get a handful, will it increase homelessness?

We have the one of the highest proportions of residents without a roof over their heads in the country. Homelessness in Hawaii is a complex mix of high home prices, failing public education, lack of shelters, and abysmal support for displaced Native Hawaiians. Yet, there is no evidence that Syrian refugees will impact those conditions.

State level job re-training and English language programs for refugees are funded by federal grant money and non-profits. The only power that the state has in refugee resettlement is to reject federal funding, thereby starving them of the resources necessary for integration into the fabric of American society.

A recent World Bank study says that the inflow of Syrian refugees into Turkey has caused average wages to increase, and in Jordan there has been no rise in total unemployment. Looking at the U.S., a study of the economic impact of refugees in Cleveland shows that they “are more likely to be entrepreneurial and enjoy higher rates of successful business ventures compared to natives … (and) immigrants in general do not take jobs away from natives.”

Social media seems to have quieted down now after the fear-mongering outrage of the recent refugee crisis. Yet, while we’re spreading our beach towels and scolding our kids for not putting on sunscreen, the bloated bodies of decomposing Syrian children are still washing up on Turskish beaches.

We’re Americans; we have a lot of issues. It’s apparently time to move on.

In the coming months the Senate will pass the SAFE Act. Obama will veto it. Republican members of Congress will then threaten a Government shutdown if the SAFE Act isn’t signed into law. The Syrian Civil War will continue. And the refugee crisis will get worse.

Yet the nation, especially social media, will have long since stopped paying attention. Tulsi Gabbard will sweep her way to reelection as our representative in Congress without ever having to defend her vote to halt the flow of refugees. And Governor Ige won’t mention the issue again.

Our dysfunctional political process is fueled by our chronically short attention spans.

I have one simple plea for this holiday season: don’t stop paying attention. We all can vote and we all have a voice. Please use them to ensure that we don’t repeat the same mistakes that we made during World War II.