Today the anti-Muslim ban created on a third try by the President was upheld by the Supreme Court, thanks to the vote by Justice Neil Gorsuch, who was nominated by Trump and joined the court in April 2017.
Sonia Sotomayor’s dissenting opinion argued that Trump’s order was a violation of the establishment clause, which protects freedom of religion. The majority would have none of it. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote that the court is free to “uphold the policy so long as it can reasonably be understood to result from a justification independent of unconstitutional grounds.” In other words, if smart lawyers can concoct some rational excuse for Trump’s irrational acts, then the resulting executive order will pass constitutional scrutiny.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/06/26/the-supreme-court-joins-congressional-republicans-in-refusing-to-see-trump-as-he-is/?utm_term=.5b5858a3e391
A facility that holds abducted youth from Central America lies about a half-mile from my house. Having watched far too many action movies in my past, I want to stage a jailbreak. I lack all facilities for so doing.
Accusations that child detention facilities on the US-Mexican border are similar to Nazi concentration camps were always likely to be rebuked by the White House – but perhaps no one quite expected Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ line of reasoning.
“This is a real exaggeration,” he told Fox News. “Because in Nazi Germany they were keeping the Jews from leaving the country.”
Attorney General Sessions said: “We’re doing the right thing. We’re taking care of these children,” adding “they are not being abused”.
The concept that children being stolen from their parents aka ‘kidnapping’ doesn’t constitute abuse, because the children are being treated well, is mind-boggling.
Trevor Noah’s take: “Your children were just taken from the schoolyard! They’ve been kidnapped!”
“OMG! Call the police!”
“They were driven off in a Bentley!”
“A Bentley… well, never mind.”
What Attorney General Sessions seems to have missed, in his high school social studies classes [he’s 5 years older than I am] is the simple fact that Hitler instigated the killing of Jews simply because he hated Jews; and because the Jew was the ‘perfect scapegoat for all of the problems of Germany’.
C.S Lewis:
The Germans, perhaps, at first ill-treated the Jews because they hated them: afterwards they hated them much more because they had ill-treated them. The more cruel you are, the more you will hate; and the more you hate, the more cruel you will become-and so on in a vicious circle forever. Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of. An apparently trivial indulgence in lust or anger today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible.
Mere Christianity [1952]
Our world is filled with hate right now. It’s like a disease.
While I’m reluctant to put the blame entirely upon the man sitting behind the Resolute Desk, the nature of “The Presidency” has changed. It seems like the haters have taken P45’s behavior as an excuse to be as nasty as they want to be.
What saddens me is the realization that the ‘political correctness’ of 20-30 years ago apparently did not result in a greater respect for all people, as much as it was a mask people reluctantly put on.
Back when dinosaurs ruled the earth, and I worked for the Bureau of Buildings, I heard lots of complaints about having to be politically correct–which never was a problem for me, as a follower of Christ–but they changed their behavior. I had hoped that PC was some sort of ‘evolutionary improvement’–apparently, I was wrong.
It seems that the haters have decided they no longer need to be politically correct.
Tonight, on PBS Newshour, Ed Rendell, former Governor of Pennsylvania, pointed out that one person in this country has the responsibility and the authority to address the growing sense of outrage and hatred spewing between the Right and Left Wings—the man in the Oval Office; and he refuses to take up the challenge. I am of the opinion that the angry environment in America today is exactly that which the President wants to exist. An anger that will bring out the haters; and a defensive position by people who will refuse to vote for either Democrats or Republicans in the upcoming mid-term elections, because they can’t stand either party. That’s how we got here. Half the country refused to vote.
I am by nature non-confrontational. I am by nature asocial [my nature is to not require people in my life]. During my years in Portland’s Permit Center, I survived my years there with hyperventilating in the men’s room on my breaks. No one wants to get Building Permits. I calmed down over the years; medication played a large part in that. I finally burned out and went upstairs to primarily interact with large sets of construction plans.
Conceptually, for an INTJ, social media is a great thing. One can interact with people without having to actually interact with people. I find however, that connecting with people becomes more difficult as the kindness in our society erodes with polarity. I’m a follower of Jesus; Scripture is really clear how I am supposed to treat strangers in my life…how to treat immigrants like my forbears. I am the child of Immigrants: First Generation on my mother’s side; third on my father’s side. I find myself getting in digital arguments with people that seem to stem from the idea that only one response is possible in regard to moral questions, and that one idea is usually one that Scripture doesn’t address clearly.
A guy I know read a series of articles I posted about children being stolen from their parents, IN MY NAME [I assure you—when our government steals children from their parents, they are doing this in your name. It is your government]. Some of these abducted children are in a facility a few blocks from my home. The guy asked if I was willing to be as upset in regard to the area that he has committed his energy. I’m not, for a variety of reasons; one of them being that Scripture is silent about that particular issue. It’s an issue that began thousands of years ago and won’t ever be stopped by legislation.
A woman I know ranted about the evils of immigration and apparently watches a particular news channel I avoid; it being one of the sources of the ‘fake news’ its champion complains about. A woman I worship with on Sundays in the same sanctuary…
The entire world seems to be getting meaner. Or is it the same meanness there has always been; and social media and the 24-hour news cycle makes the meanness more available?
I often wonder if the billionaires of this world realize that the millionaires of this world won’t pick the crops. Nor will the upper middle class. There is no shortage of money in the world; there is a lack of will to use the money of this world for public benefit. At present, there is no shortage of food in the world; there is an extreme shortage of generosity.
I pulled this off of Facebook recently. This is the world that my parents taught me to expect…I can’t hope for this, for my children.
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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 