RE: SUSAN HULL’S APRIL 6 COLUMN
Recently an “Independent” wrote to the Opinion page a piece that required a response. Comforting as it may be that she would willingly vote for a Republican, so long as he or she supported Democrat initiatives, it’s pretty clear that writers from the left persuasion do not read nor accept at face value much of anything written by those of a traditional viewpoint and she gave us all a reason why. Rather than respond to direct statements and facts, they prefer recasting the conservative viewpoints in abominable terms, calling into question their humanity and common decency. This is known as employing the “straw man fallacy” that discredits the opposition with inaccurate hideous terms and then destroys their cartoon creation with invective. She appears to subscribe to the philosophical viewpoint of some European philosphers that our concept of reality is untrustworthy as it is likely illusion and that we cannot really know what we think we know, presumably because we all have preconceived notions that require reinforcing and we compromise the truth in order to do so. Taken to extremes, the doubt leads to educated incapacity by denying any validlity of our perceptions. We can probably all acknowledge that our biases have an impact on our worldview and may skew our ability to make good decisions. After all, many of us absorbed the Simon & Garfunkel song, “The Boxer”, which enshrined the idea: “All lies and jests, Still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.” However, once upon a time, before TV and video games, people, notably the Founding Fathers used to read and traditional Biblical morality was taught in the schools as a way to test and constrain our own ideas and impulses against those of a higher power. Marxists and others who would substitute themselves for the supreme authority have cleverly abolished this curricula as an infringement on liberty, an imposition of guilt or anti-science. How has that worked out for us? Can it be said anymore that we all have an internal law, a conscience that constrains our actions? The psychological view is not only a cynical view of everyone’s integrity, but assumes a super-sanctimonious position of moral superiority above the rest of us as if her elite type of expert is unaffected by the hu man condition. If it is indeed a valid psychological principle, I would urge the writer to inspect the actual fruits of her own persuasion, including the unintended consequences which must be owned before casting aspersions at those held by others she clearly does not understand or maliciously mischaracterises. Is there any limit to the arrogance of people who assume there are no other consequences of the policies they put into place beside the ones they sanctimoniously intend? Further, it should be understood that what she proposes is substituting her unsupported by history version of morality for established law which has at least been the result of much expert experience and legal testing. While any given law may not be perfect, it has had the input from more than one interest, is the result of compormise and thus been subjected to the search for truth.
What would an immigration system that was informed by traditional Biblical instruction look like? After President Obama quoted scripture justifying his immigration speech a few years ago and knowing America’s Founders drew heavily on the Old Testament; I did a little Bible study myself, looked for context and tried to see if the Bible has anything deeper to say about our current affairs and maybe find a basis for compromise between the many voices. The former President’s quote was Exodus 23:9 below, to which I have added a few relevant passages:
Ex 23:9 Also you shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the heart of a stranger, because you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
Deu 1:17 You shall not show partiality in judgment; you shall hear the small and the great alike. You shall not fear man, for the judgment is God’s.
Deu 10:17 For the Lord your God is the God of gods and the Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God who does not show partiality, nor take a bribe. He executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and shows His love for the alien by giving him food and clothing. So show your love for the alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.
Deu 15 1-4 At the end of every seven years you shall grant a remission of debts. 2 And this is the manner of remission: every creditor shall release what he has loaned to his neighbor; he shall not exact it of his neighbor and his brother, because the Lord’s remission has been proclaimed. 3. From a foreigner you may exact it, but your hand shall release whatever of yours is with your brother.
Deu 15: 7 If there is a poor man with you, one of your brothers, in any of your towns in your land which the lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart, nor close your hand from your poor brother; but you shall freely open your hand to him, and shall generously lend him sufficient for his need in whatever he lacks.
Deu 15:11: For the poor will never cease to be in the land; therefore I command you, saying, “You shall freely open your hand to your brother, to your needy and poor in your land.”
Deu 16: 19 You shall not distort justice; you shall not be partial, and you shall not take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and perverts the words of the righteous.
Lev 19:15 You shall do no injustice in judgment. You shall not be partial to the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty. In righteousness you shall judge your neighbor.
Prov 28:6 Better is the poor who walks in his integrity than one perverse in his ways, though he be rich.
There’s a positive correlation between America and Israel as both peoples displaced others when they inhabited their Promised land, thereby incurring a obligation for humility and thanks to the Almighty Who made it possible. What does the ancient wisdom have to say about the current ideas of “social” justice and immigration policy? It appears that the justice the Bible speaks of has nothing to do with re-distribution of wealth. Aliens and foreigners are deserving of kind treatment and should not be oppressed, but there is a distinction in the obligation between foreigners and “your brothers” or “your people”. It seems that if we find a foreigner in our midst who is in need; he ought to be treated with kindness and if he’s down and out, make him a loan to help him get on his feet. But the loan is expected to be paid back and it wouldn’t be subject to being forgiven at the seventh year as those of “our brothers”. There is no Biblical mandate to bribe immigrants with free medical care, education, and welfare payments. It clearly appears that our primary obligations are to “our people”. If others want to become part of “our people”; there are solemn steps they need to follow to fit within our culture, beliefs and responsibilities they need to subscribe to before that happens, just as it was in ancient times.
I will not repeat what I wrote last August with respect to the national government’s interference in the legal conduct of immigration and voting policies in Texas, nor the mischaracterisation of the January 6th demonstrations as an attempted “coup”, other than to reiterate that the actual details have not been refuted or even addressed directly. There is a good reason for the longevity of the old bromide, “If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck; it’s a duck!” It’s because reasonable people with an adequate public education and the experience of adults can reliably recognise any number of metaphorical conditions. I bring this up, because such people can discern when someone is attempting to “pull the wool over their eyes” with justifications that obscure hidden agenda, even if they do not have the entire picture before them. In the case of the referenced article, the “Independent” is a leftist, because she writes, walks and quacks like one. As proof, she writes without a shred of evidence that Ukrainians are being given preference for entry to the USA over illegal immigrants across the southern border because they are white and live in a first world country. The actual truth is that those vulnerable Ukrainians that are fleeing the ravages of war are going to nearby NATO protected countries, undoubtedly because they intend to return to their native land as soon as possible. Her claim is a version of the leftist resort to the worn-out racist epithet applied to anyone who questions the unqualified entry catch and release policy. No conservative believes all immigrants are rapists and criminals and the former President never made that unqualified statement, but any person with the gift of discernment understands that such are likely included in the vast numbers that are being allowed to enter without sufficient scrutiny. A policy that treats “...all members of a group of diverse humans as identical in motivation” is what she is arguing against while she is committing the same foul she decries by assuming they are all coming for legitimate asylum and intend to shoulder all the rights and responsibilities of citizenship, not even having been instructed in them and wants no judgement applied to admission criteria nor to the question of to whom responsibility the welfare of these people belongs. This attitude is correctly labelled virtue signaling and deserves no credit as it costs the signaller nothing. I have been to Mexico, Nicaragua, and Haiti three times in support of missions and can readily discern the difference between an economic refugee and an asylum seeker, without the intervention of an activist judge.
What we are experiencing in the current lawless immigration and voting policy changes are nothing like the legally described and previously established rules. It is perfect anarchy, the absence of legitimate governmental control, and it is at the root of the scepticism that many hold of the validity of the recent election. I have seen no attempt by the left to defend the inordinant amounts of cash from questionable sources injected into American “Coyote” NGO’s supporting illegal immigration and hiring legions of leftist employees to administer elections in critical swing states, the arbitrary qualification of anyone present, regardless of immigration status, the counting of obviously flawed and unqualified illegal ballots, the destruction of ballot evidence, the avoidance of scrutiny by independent or opposition observers, to say nothing of the elimination of positive means of identifcation of voters by residence and voting district. If all this looks and smells like graft, that’s what it is. “Plausible deniability” is not a defense outside of a courtroom. As in a competitive game of sport, if the rules are violated, the play is disqualified and must be repeated if anyone is to have confidence in the fairness of the outcome.
Is it not the height of irony or hypocrisy to point out that “Russia had effectively controlled the story about the war that was communicated to its citizens...” and “...controlled by an autocratic leader who changes laws to suit his whims...” and neglect to give examples of how the very same things are happening in our own country? The proven “violent and deadly” conduct with respect to January 6, 2021 was on the part of the Capitol police who have yet to be brought to justice. Conservative and traditional principled government voices, including the former President’s are the most effectively censored by the myriad of leftist fact-checkers, the widespread use of which is absolutely the primary reason for the “seeds of distrust”. We will not arrive at any semblance of real truth unless all credible and testable voices are heard, including the contrary and inconvenient. A person who has anything worthwhile to say should also have the courage to believe it will stand when subjected to public scrutiny.
John Brooks Parker
Bandera Texas
Mr Parker is a Texas registered architect (of buildings, not computers) with direct experience of the impact of illegal employment in the construction industry, a Masters’ graduate of Texas A&M, and a combat wounded USMC rifle company officer veteran of the Viet Nam War Tet Offensive of 1968.