Tag: immigration

Choose for Yourselves This Day…

ContemplativeMan

Until recently, I lived in a society, a culture, a nation that thrived on diversity, respect, and appreciation. But I really don’t recognize the current state of the union. America is divided more than we have ever been since the Civil War. We are at a critical juncture where each citizen must decide on where he or she stands. No one can have it both ways. We must choose for ourselves this day whom we will serve.

After the hard-fought acquisition of the promised land of Israel by God’s chosen people, their leader, Joshua, made a profound proclamation. He charged the holy nation to, “…choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, …but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” Now in our day, God has given us Americans the greatest nation in the history of mankind. Its formation and development have been nothing short of miraculous. Its victories, bought by the blood of thousands of brave men and women, were phenomenal and won only with the hand of God.

We are now experiencing a civil-war-like divide as a movement across the nation seeks to aggressively oppose our heritage, our morals, and our freedoms. It is a movement driven by external influences and void of godly perspective. The loudest and most persuasive voices of this movement are those who aspire to the objectives of foreign religions and and governments. They are bent on making America what it has never been and was never meant to be. They want to change almost everything that made us the great nation God intended.

America has persevered through many divisive issues since its founding–the level of independence, geographic expansion, geographic separation, dependence on slavery, financial crisis, social change, and other challenges that could have torn us apart. Instead, we came together to preserve a mutual way of life more important than our individual positions. However, today, we face a different challenge that is arguably the worst yet.

Seemingly, half of our nation is siding with a domestic force that will, if successful, lead us away from almost every influence that has made ours the greatest country on earth. America is being pulled toward socialism, atheism, relativism, and globalism. Who could have imagined that one of our main two political parties would be embracing the government-centric, socialist philosophy. Who would have thought that over half of Americans who no longer consider themselves religious have excluded prayer from public entities, supported abortions, outlawed crosses, and coddled foreign gods. Who ever thought that our law enforcement and courts would be focused more on situational ethics than on biblical principles. Who foresaw the day that much of America would be kowtowing to the United Nations and advocating unlimited immigration.

Unlike other times in our history, I do not believe saner minds will prevail in our present divide. Those who would take us further from our foundational beliefs and principles will not relent. We are in an era when our conversation, our financial support, our prayers, and our votes must reflect the faith and objectives of our nation’s founders. We must not depend on compromise. We must now, “…choose for ourselves this day whom we will serve. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

 

0

Immigration Standoff: All Politics, No Logic from the Liberals

The government is at a showdown. Both sides claim to support increased border security. The Democrats just a few years ago advocated $25 billion to fund it including $8 billion for the wall. Somehow, now that the President wants some kind of barrier, it is immoral and ineffective. The American family household is perfectly analogous to the country when it comes to neighborly benevolence and security. Here is a brief comparison.

The character of America is a conglomeration of the character of 126 million households. Almost all of those households have a heart for others–family, friends, acquaintances, even strangers. By and large, we are all benevolent people willing to help others when they communicate a need. However, we all have doors on our houses or apartments. All of us have locks on the doors, and many have security systems to ensure safety. The more affluent have security fences or walls or live in gated communities. No sane person would live in a house without a lockable door leaving it vulnerable to the unrestricted entry of all outsiders.

If a stranger outside those doors or enhanced protective barriers communicated to us a legitimate need, almost all of us would be open to satisfying that need according to our ability to do so. If it were a dire emergency need, and we could verify the situation and integrity of the victim, most of us would even open our house for his or her immediate shelter and security.

On the other hand, if a stranger busted down our locked door, entered our living room, and demanded that we give him or her immediate protection, shelter, and resources, we would take drastic measures to get that person out of our house. If we had the capability, we would probably eliminate them as a threat to our family. They might have a legitimate need, but without time and ability to determine that, we could only assume they meant us harm. We would have every reason to expect such an intruder, if having an honest need, to receive our help through proper channels. Anyone crashing through a locked door has to be considered a personal threat.

To expand on this analogy, what if we left our door wide open? A stranger walking through the open door into our living room is still just as much a threat, but shame on us for being so naive as to leave the door open.

America is, without a doubt, the most benevolent nation in the world now and has been throughout history. We give $50 billion every year to other nations for the care of their people. About one million legal immigrants are processed and welcomed into our country each year. These recipients knock on our door and provide legitimate evidence that convinces us to share our resources with them out of sympathy and kindness.

However, about a half-million foreigners cross our borders illegally each year. Another half-million enter on legal visas, then overstay their limited time and become permanent illegal residents. Thus, a million illegal immigrants enter our country each year. Those million people bust down our locked doors, or walk through our open doors, with no invitation or documented reason to do so. Every one is a threat as if he or she showed up in our living room unannounced and unexpected.

Yet, the liberal faction of our society calls our doors immoral and ineffective. Here is the truth. They don’t really believe the wall is wrong. No one can really deny its logic. Their objective is solely to deny the President the realization of his top campaign promise to the American people. Their hope is to convince Americans that he is not strong enough to get the job done. Playing such a political game is total disregard for the safety and welfare of the American people they represent. Their obstruction is 100% politics with no logic.

 

0

Hey World, It’s Not Business As Usual for America Anymore!

 

After decades of other nations taking unfair advantage of America’s generosity, President Trump is reducing the outflow of our tax dollars to other countries and holding them accountable for more of their own security and prosperity. It isn’t setting well with nations which have been enriching themselves on our resources for generations. This will be a painful process for America and the rest of the world, but the adjustment is crucial for the future of all nations. Here is what it will require.

Most of the current inequity began with America’s compassion and goodwill demonstrated in the post-WWII reconstruction of Europe and Japan. Our subsequent prosperity during the 50’s and 60’s placed us head and shoulders above the rest of the world in economic and military power. Our Judeo-Christian values led us to share our blessings through foreign aid, the World Bank, imports, defense alliances, liberal immigration, response to disasters, etc. By and large, the rest of the world’s governments became dependent on us to supplement their subsistence. Allies depend on our military to supplement theirs. The oppressed depend on us to take them in. Foreign businesses expect to export to us without barriers, but don’t reciprocate. Even our enemies assume we will feed their economy while they threaten us. A world game-changing adjustment is well overdue.

Of course, America must always be America, the nation that shares its incredible blessings with those less fortunate both domestically and throughout the world. We have a moral responsibility to heed the words of Jesus, “Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required.” But, when the giving gets way out of balance and enables others to neglect their own responsibility, such enabling is wrong and the giver is to blame.

The controversial NATO Summit just concluded exemplified the new order of international relationships with America. Since 1949, western European nations have trusted in the U.S. to protect them from the former Soviet Union and now Russia. Although all the nations have military forces, the U.S. contributes well over half of the investment of those forces. The chart above shows that, of the 29 NATO nations, ours funds over 70% of the total military capability. Defense spending as a percentage of GDP is probably a fair comparison of skin in the game. Even at that, we spend 3.6% of our GDP on defense–much more than any other member country. All NATO countries agreed at the 2014 NATO Summit to spend at least 2% of their GDP on their military annually. Only four other countries are doing that. Yet the Russian threat is in their back yard and an ocean away from America.

Some European governments argue that all of their defense spending is in support of the NATO region while much of U.S. spending funds forces obligated to the Pacific and other areas of the world. That argument doesn’t consider the fact that, if Europe were attacked, almost all of our forces would be immediately deployed to the European theater.

And, there are other ways America is moving from business as usual to fairness and equity in international relations. For years, foreign governments have placed excessive tariff charges on imported U.S. products to keep their domestic businesses competitive. Then, their businesses enjoy exporting products to the U.S. with little or no tariff charges by us. That is a big reason we have such a trade deficit with other countries. We import much more than we export due to unfair trade barriers of our trading partners. President Trump’s tariff increases may cause some discomfort to our own citizens in the form of higher prices. Trade wars may make certain items scarce. But, it is a necessary temporary pain in order to ultimately create a level playing field for international trade. Free trade must be fair trade.

We are also seeing adjustments to the long-running open borders that have allowed almost anyone and everyone to enter our country, often illegally. We have long-established legal processes for reasonable immigration and asylum. But, millions of illegal immigrants have entered our land and are siphoning our resources. Business as usual trespassing on America is starting to be denied although not without major opposition from the liberal faction among us.

The U.S. GDP is greater than that of all European countries combined and almost twice that of the second highest nation, China. The U.S. military comprises over a third of the entire world’s fighting forces. There is almost no possibility of losing our world leader status anytime soon. Other nations will continue to look to America for help and direction for the foreseeable future, and we are morally obligated to maintain that role. However, the time has come for a global reshuffling of commitments and an environment of fairness among the nations. Mainstream media will decry it as betraying our friends, and protests will abound both here and abroad. But, just sit back and watch an essential and healthy cultural shift take shape. “Make America Great Again” is not a motto of arrogance; it is a reset toward fairness. It’s not Trump’s isolationist doctrine; it’s Trump’s fairness doctrine.

Please like and share.

0

Powered by WordPress.com.

Up ↑

%d bloggers like this: