The ISIS/ISIL/IS (could we please agree on a convention, folks? -- see below) terrorists in Paris have finally pushed America over the top, it would seem.
Well, let the reader decide. Here are just the straight facts:
1. The President proposes to increase the number of refugees authorized to immigrate here by up to 100,000 per year by 2017. This year alone, at least 10,000 will come from Syria.
2. More than 96% of the Syrian refugees the President and the State Department are bringing in identify themselves as Muslim.
3. Since over 70% of the civilian mass murders in recent times have been carried out by Muslims; since ISIS/ISIL/IS proclaims itself to be the re-establishment of the ancient Islamic caliphate; and since ISISILIS (let's just call it that: pronounced I-SIS'-I-LIS, to rhyme with syphilis) has announced its intention to bring Paris-style terrorism to these shores, many Americans think that to bring tens of thousands of Muslims into America from a country where ISISILIS operates is a particularly bad idea.
4. The Republicans in the House, led by their new Speaker Paul Ryan, have introduced a bill that supposedly requires the Government to check all new Syrian emigrants before approving them for travel to the US and resettlement there. The bill is a sham, because its vetting requirements are mostly meaningless, impractical to carry out, and may be evaded with a simple certification.
5. The President, however, is not one to allow the House Republicans to show him up as unconcerned for America's safety. He has announced he will veto the Republican bill -- before he even has seen what it will finally say -- because his administration is already taking the necessary steps to protect us. And the media, as usual, are right behind him.
6. At the same time, the chief religious denominations in the US are also joining in castigating the Republicans for trying to put limits on the resettlement of Syrian Muslims -- even if some of the immigrants might prove to be terrorists traveling incognito. That is just the price we will have to pay for our upholding Christian principles of charity toward all strangers -- "be not afraid!"
7. Other religious groups and House Republicans -- a definite minority in both places -- point out that it is a little hypocritical for the majority denominations to speak of "simple Christian charity", because it is precisely the Syrian Christians who are being persecuted and driven out of their traditional regions. At the same time, the State Department, pursuant to Obama's direction, absolutely refuses to open up any refugee resettlement slots for Christians.
8. President Obama and the major Christian denominations say that admission to America must never be based on any kind of "religious test" -- regardless of the fact that our immigration laws require that a refugee's religion be taken into account, since one of the most prominent forms of persecution in refugee areas is religious persecution: just as Syrian Christians are, as you read this, being persecuted and driven out of their homes by Syrian Muslims.
9. Evangelical Christians add that they do not need any of their fellow Christians rescued, as they are already "eager to share their faith with [the non-Christian] new arrivals." So the suffering Christians should apparently just go on suffering, as far as their evangelical brethren are concerned.
10. Meanwhile, as all this takes place, Obama's unilateral changes last year to immigration enforcement policy are allowing over 80% of those already here illegally to stay without fear of deportation.
The end result is that President Obama and his State Department, joined by the media and major Christian denominations, want only Syrian Muslims brought into the country, regardless of their backgrounds. The House Republicans, meanwhile, want to be seen as opposing this policy while also doing nothing to stop it, or to help Syrian Christians. All of them do not want the immigration laws enforced as written -- if doing so would mean that most Syrian Christians would qualify for resettlement here. The Christians, as a consequence, are left to perish.
As Dave Barry always says, you cannot make this stuff up.
When people say that as a Christian we should, "Be not afraid!" I respond by saying that as a Christian we should, "Be not stupid".
ReplyDeleteYes. And her places of worship.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2015/08/from_church_to_mosque_syracuse_islamic_group_cuts_crosses_tries_to_connect_to_ne.html
Here is Maxine's link, in clickable form: Syracuse church conversion.
ReplyDeleteNo refugees from a perceived warring nation should be taken in during wartime. The enemy would Trojan Horse it and the enemy would desire your nation to take them in for infiltration sake. As a matter of fact, keeping them out is actually the more Christian thing to do. If they come over here and act up, we might need to kill them. Killing is not good and should be avoided as far as possible. It is better, if there is a way, to keep them from killing us and us them. The way of bringing that about is by saying "no" to the warring nation refugees. It keeps us from having to kill them plus it gives them more time to see the error of their way, repent from it and come to Christ.
ReplyDelete"No refugees from a perceived warring nation should be taken in during wartime."
ReplyDeleteSo do you think we were right to refuse Jewish German refugees during the Nazi era?
Apples meet orange. Many faceted variances must be taken into consideration nationwide. In finality, when a nation enters a war, the nation better enter it to win it. The only pansies allowed in a war are those on the graves of the nation's children.
DeleteIn the South we thought that the War would be a bit of a six-week dalliance against effete Northerners with no sense of chivalry. We knew that some gunpowder mixed with notions of romantic valour would allow everyone to come home, marching in great victorious columns of heroic Grey.
DeleteWe learned that the War really was Hell, and that it was difficult to march with so many leftovers and amputees within what remained of the columns of marching heroes.
The Syrian and all Muslim and/or Arabic Refugees can stay closer to home, under Nato and Euro guardianship in clean, organised, American Army standards of tent cities. There is no need to bring in more people who will not assimilate and who will, according to precedent, simply glob on to the the public assistance systems, and isolate themselves....as they have in every country they have so far infected outside of their homelands.
The Jews and Christians should be given exception, vetted, and removed from areas where they are singled out for extinction.
El Gringo Viejo
Wisdom. A thing much unlike activism. Good words from a man who tempers his thoughts with the backdrop of history. Thank you, El Gringo Viejo. It's good to be armed with the knowledge of the players on the stage.
DeleteReality Check: U.S. Policies In Middle East Responsible for Refugee Crisis... https://youtu.be/n_FmtjSQnDM
ReplyDeleteReality Check: Proof U.S. Government Wanted ISIS To Emerge In Syria https://youtu.be/Z1aDciHCejA
The fact is that it was not "we" who denied entry to the Jews and their ill-fated ship. It was Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt, who are people, I am sure, of your favour due to their elitist, "progrerssive" bent. Franklin would not shake hands with Jesse Owens after Jesse's great Olympic successes, because Franklin did not want to be touched by a Negro. Eleanor and Margaret Sanger were great believers in much of the National Socialist and Bolshevik Socialist quest for a human-sourced Utopia. Utopia for them did not include Hebrews, Negroes, or Mexican people.....nor Japanese.
ReplyDeleteFor instance, while J. Edgar Hoover did not want the Japanese-ancestried people interned during World War II, Franklin and Eleanor overruled his wishes. Hoover said that the FBI "....had all 14 of the Japanese spies and saboteurs under watch, and that the remainder of the Nisei were very co-operative and patriotic. Who gets the blame in these days? The Republicans.
The Cubans were about to let the Jews in when they received notice that the White House thought that it could "complicate other diplomatic measures in Europe". One of the hallmarks of the 20th and 21st Centuries is how all socialist, imperialist nations...Germany, the Soviet Union, Red China, Cuba....Nicaragua during the "Period of Sandinista Liberation", etc. etc. hated Jews and worked for their extinction.
The other oddity is how Jews, who are known to be among the most intelligent people in the human race, cleave in their majority unto socialism in general and the American Democratic National Socialst Workers' Party in particular. Such a sad contradiction.
El Gringo Viejo
So, OK, say that the Jews were kept out by progressive, socialist elitists. I assume we both agree that they were wrong to do so. My only point was that the the excluded refugees were also Germans, and, under Mr. Finch's proposed rule of conduct, only "pansies" would have extended a hand to persecuted Germans.
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