FB Post re Huckabee Bible quote on Separating Children at Border
The U.S. Attorney General and The White House Press Secretary (as the official representative of the President) are quoting the Bible and using it to justify separating children from their mothers at the U.S. border.
The Ukrainian-Russian-American Observer
https://www.facebook.com/URA.Observer/posts/2182909705056490
https://www.facebook.com/gkrasovsky/posts/10155839862753742
Sure, many butchers, tyrants and oppressive (authoritarian) regimes, both secular and reliogious, have used sacred texts - The Christian Bible, The Jewish "Old Testament" (The Torah & other texts in the Tanakh, The Hebrew Bible), The Koran, Hindu & Buddhist sacred texts -- to justify Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes (modern definitions) through out human history.
They've also used various secular ideologies to persecute and murder people under various noble justifications.
Just look at the Nazis and their treatment of Jews, Roma (Gypsies), the mentally ill, the retarded and those with birth defects.
But how did we come back to this in 2018? In the U.S., a country supposedly based on the separation of church and state - including to prevent persecution in the name of G-d.
Are we morally obliged to obey even unjust laws? This moral question addresses what we commonly know as civil disobedience
As an attorney, an officer of the court, I am obligated to obey the law, no matter how repugnant or immoral it may be.
Yet as religious man, a father and a citizen, I agree with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. - "One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws."
There is no moral or spiritual justification to separate illegal alien mothers from their children at the border - especially if they are applying for asylum as refugees fleeing from threats to their life & limb, prosecution and/or discrimination.
This is a blatant punitive policy - pure and simple - designed to discourage border crossings and applications for asylum at the border by families with minor children.
On top of it, hundreds of children separated from their parents have gone missing and could have become the victims of pedophiles, human trafficking, illegal organ harvesting for transplants or even "satanic" human sacrifices.
Is this what we Americans want to do as a country?
We already have the genocide of Native Americans on our collective conscience as well as the enslavement and discrimination (apartheid) against African-Americans for over two hundred years.
Now do we want to do this to refugees - even if they're actually economic ones - especially innocent children who have no legal say in where their parents take them?
Actually, it costs less to detain mothers with children together -- and more importantly, causes less trauma to the innocent children.
Do we want to spend more taxpayer money on separating innocent children from their mothers & fathers and & incarcerating them, often in for-profit private prisons?
Is this what we want - punishing, traumatizing and possibly maiming for life innocent children just because they are from a foreign country and their parents wanted to bring them to the U.S. for a better & safer life?
What do you think?
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Sarah Huckabee Sanders on family separation at the border.
Ezra Klein (Facebook)
I don't even know what to say.
https://www.facebook.com/ezraklein/videos/910270375827232/
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Press Briefing with the Press Secretary Sarah Sanders
The White House
June 14, 2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4994&v=u4I9-s98be0
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Sanders uses Bible to defend Trump's separation of children from families at border.
Press secretary rejects criticism of Jeff Sessions citing Romans 13 to justify policy and says ‘it is very biblical to enforce the law’
Sarah Sanders, the White House press secretary, invoked the Bible to defend the Trump administration’s immigration policy of separating mothers from their children.
Child abuse is now part of America's official immigration policy
Michael Paarlberg
Read more
She was speaking at Thursday’s White House briefing, in response to a question about comments made by the attorney general Jeff Sessions, where he cited a passage in the Bible to justify the policy.
“I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13 to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order,” said Sessions.
He added: “Orderly and lawful processes are good in themselves and protect the weak and lawful.”
Sanders was asked about Sessions’ statement, and was challenged: “Where does it say in the Bible that’s moral to take children away from mothers?”
Pushing back, Sanders said: “I’m not aware of the attorney general’s comments or what he would be referencing, [but] I can say that it is very biblical to enforce the law. That is repeated throughout the Bible.”
The policy of separating undocumented parents from their children at the border was announced by Sessions in May as part of a “zero-tolerance policy”.
He said at the time: “If you are smuggling a child then we will prosecute you, and that child will be separated from you as required by law. If you don’t like that, then don’t smuggle children over our border.”
It has since met a wide range of criticism including from the United Nations human rights office as well as from prominent evangelical groups.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/14/sarah-sanders-bible-trump-immigration-border-policy
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Sarah Sanders on immigrant family separation: “It is very biblical to enforce the law”
Jeff Sessions said separating immigrant children and parents is rooted in the Bible. Sanders agreed.
A White House briefing with press secretary Sarah Sanders grew tense on Thursday as reporters pressed her on the matter of the Trump administration’s family separation policy for asylum seekers at the US-Mexico border. Sanders upheld the practice as a matter of law and defended Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s assertion that separating immigrant children from their parents is in line with the Bible.
During a speech to law enforcement officers in Fort Wayne, Indiana, earlier in the day, Sessions said that his department’s separation of migrant families was not “unusual or unjustified” but instead a matter of law — Christian law, in fact. “Persons who violate the law of our nation are subject to prosecution. I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13 to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order,” Sessions said, according to NBC News. “Orderly and lawful processes are good in themselves and protect the weak and lawful.”
CNN’s Jim Acosta asked Sanders during Thursday’s White House press briefing what Sessions was talking about. She said she wasn’t “aware” of the attorney general’s comments or “what he was referencing” but sided with him on the “it’s what the Bible says” part.
“I can say that it is very biblical to enforce the law,” Sanders said. “That is actually repeated a number of times throughout the Bible.”
https://www.vox.com/2018/6/14/17465662/sarah-sanders-family-separation-bible-sessions
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What really happened to the 1,500 immigrant children the Trump administration 'lost'?
News of missing children spurs backlash, while Trump administration cries 'fake news'
Tuesday 29 May 2018 17:50
The internet was ablaze this weekend with reports that the US government had “lost” nearly 1,500 immigrant children inside the country. The news sparked outrage from advocates and activists, with some calling it a "crime against humanity”. But experts say the reality – while shocking – isn’t so simple.
The backlash started when disturbing quotes from a Health and Human Services (HHS) official starting circulating on social media last week. Steven Wagner, an acting assistant secretary at the agency, told Congress in April that HHS had lost track of 1,475 immigrant children they had placed with sponsors inside the US while their asylum cases were processed.
The admission sparked criticism online, spawning hundreds of tweets under the hashtag #WhereAreTheChildren.
“When I think about the 1500 lost children and those who are systematically separated from their mothers at the border, I come back to the same thought: If we can’t stop this in America we won’t stop it anywhere,” tweeted Texas Representative Joaquin Castro.
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The news about the missing, unaccompanied children came at a bad time for the Trump administration: The Justice Department had just introduced its new, “zero tolerance” policy for families who cross the border illegally.
Under this new policy, debuted by Attorney General Jeff Sessions earlier this month, the Justice Department will prosecute all people caught immigrating illegally – regardless of whether they come with their children or not.
That means the government will have to separate these parents from their children while they face criminal charges. According to a Times analysis, more than 700 children have already been separated from adults claiming to be their parents since October.
The Trump administration has portrayed this policy as a common-sense means of cracking down in illegal immigration. "If you cross the border unlawfully, then we will prosecute you. It’s that simple,” Mr Sessions said at a press conference announcing the change.
But advocates say it is an unnecessarily harsh way of dealing with families fleeing unsafe conditions.
“[The Trump administration] is holding kids hostage to deter their parents from applying for asylum.” Mr Leopold said. “The idea is to deter people from coming and applying for protection. That is what authoritarian governments do.”
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The Trump administration’s separation of families at the border, explained
Why children are being sent to “foster care or whatever” while their parents are sent to jail.
Jun 11, 2018
As a matter of policy, the US government is separating families who seek asylum in the US by crossing the border illegally.
Dozens of parents are being split from their children each day — the children labeled “unaccompanied minors” and sent to government custody or foster care, the parents labeled criminals and sent to jail.
To many critics of the Trump administration, family separation is an unpardonable atrocity. Articles depict children crying themselves to sleep because they don’t know where their parents are; one Honduran man killed himself in a detention cell after his child was taken from him.
But the horror can make it hard to wrap your head around the policy.
https://www.vox.com/2018/6/11/17443198/children-immigrant-families-separated-parents
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“One Has a Moral Responsibility to Disobey Unjust Laws”
The Longform guide to open letters from MLK, Philip Roth, and others.
Letter From Birmingham Jail
Martin Luther King, Jr. • Liberation • May 1963
On the moral responsibility to break unjust laws.
"There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair.
I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.
You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws.
This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws.
One may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?"
The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust.
I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws.
One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws.
Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.
I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all.”
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Are We Obligated to Obey Unjust Laws?
August 23, 2011 by Dan Mitchell
After World War II, some Germans tried to defend venal behavior by claiming that they were “just following orders” from their government.
Governments in America have never done anything nearly as awful as the Nazis, but there certainly are some very unpleasant blemishes in our past – and some very bad laws today.
This raises an interesting moral quandary. To what extent are we – as moral individuals – obliged to obey (or help enforce) bad law?
As is so often the case, Walter Williams has strong feelings and compelling analysis.
"Decent people should not obey immoral laws.
What’s moral and immoral can be a contentious issue, but there are some broad guides for deciding what laws and government actions are immoral.
Lysander S. Spooner, one of America’s great 19th-century thinkers, said no person or group of people can “authorize government to destroy or take away from men their natural rights; for natural rights are inalienable, and can no more be surrendered to government — which is but an association of individuals — than to a single individual.”
French economist/philosopher Frederic Bastiat (1801-50) gave a test for immoral government acts:
“See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.”
He added in his book “The Law,” “When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law.”
https://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2011/08/23/are-we-obligated-to-obey-unjust-laws/
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Civil Disobedience: Are We Morally Obliged to Obey Unjust Laws?
Are we morally obliged to obey even unjust laws? This question raises the discussion of what we call civil disobedience.
Elliot Zashin, author of Civil Disobedience and Democracy, defines civil disobedience as, “a knowing violation of public norm (considered binding by local authorities but which may ultimately be invalidated by the courts) as a form of protest: it is non-revolutionary, public, and nonviolent (i.e. there is no use of physical violence except self-defensively when participants are physically attacked, and no resistance to arrest if made properly and without undue force).” (Zashin, 118)
One point that Carl Cohen, associate professor of philosophy at University of Michigan, thinks is essential to the definition is that …show more content…
Carl Cohen offers, “if respect for the law and obedience to it are basic social goods, under what circumstances can deliberate disobedience of that law be a greater good? The search for such circumstances—whether or not they are actually found—goes straight to the heart of political philosophy: How sacred is the law of the state?” (Cohen, 3)
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Are we morally obliged to obey even unjust laws? This question raises the discussion of what we call civil disobedience. Elliot Zashin, author of Civil Disobedience and Democracy, defines civil disobedience as, “a knowing violation of public norm (considered binding by local authorities but which may ultimately be invalidated by the courts) as a form of protest: it is non-revolutionary, public, and nonviolent (i.e. there is no use of physical violence except self-defensively when participants are physically attacked, and no resistance to arrest if made properly and without undue force).” (Zashin, 118)
One point that Carl Cohen, associate professor of philosophy at University of Michigan, thinks is essential to the definition is that the, “mere knowledge of the unlawfulness does not make it civil disobedience…the civil disobedient must do more than knowingly break the law. Absolutely essential is the further element of protest.” (Cohen, 11)
In other words, civil disobedience is knowingly breaking a law to protest the law. This may not be as controversial as some topics, but there are many strong points on both sides.
A major objection is tied to the idea of social contract theory as well as extreme faith in the proper workings of the judicial and legislative systems. According the this objection, the government of the United States, which calls itself democratic, for instance, is set up to listen to the needs of the people and to make laws accordingly. There is no need to protest or to “civilly disobey” because the government’s job is to take care of such problems.
Socrates, a Greek philosopher, when forced with a suicide execution refused escape because he had profited from the laws of Athens thus far, was given a chance to prove himself innocent, and therefore he was bound to obey all laws and decisions of the government.
Carl Cohen offers, “if respect for the law and obedience to it are basic social goods, under what circumstances can deliberate disobedience of that law be a greater good? The search for such circumstances—whether or not they are actually found—goes straight to the heart of political philosophy: How sacred is the law of the state?” (Cohen, 3)
The social contract theory says that laws were created out of necessity to prevent chaos and therefore it is essential for citizens who benefit from the laws of a society to obey all laws. “…Breaking laws is wrong. It isn’t merely culpable in some technical or legal sense, [though] it is that too; more deeply it is wrong because (excluding for the present the possibility of a cruel and tyrannical government) every citizen has more than a legal obligation to obey the laws. His obligation is a general and moral duty arising out of his role as citizen. And that duty is specially compelling in a democracy, where citizens participate, or have a right to participate, in making the laws of their community. …
Every citizen of a lawful government, then, has a most important duty to obey its laws. That is true whatever the form of government, providing the authorities have been duly constituted and their laws and administration of them are reasonably just. Where each citizen has a proportionate voice in the making and the framing of laws (either directly or through representatives), his acceptance of this role as partial legislator commits him yet more strongly to abide the laws of that body.” (Cohen, 5-6)
With this objection, one is never permitted to disobey a law, even if it is immoral. Another objection is the slippery slope argument. This argues that if it is okay for one to break a law they view immoral (and because morality must be universally applicable) then it will be okay for someone else to break a different law and eventually people would be allowed to pick-and-choose which laws to obey and anarchy would result. Zashin offers, “Without obedience to law, no social peace and security would exist…” (Zashin, 132)
Justifying civil disobedience is, perhaps, considerably easier. Peter Singer, author of Practical Ethics, writes, “It is true that in democratic societies there are legal procedures that can be used by those seeking reforms; but this in itself does not show that the use of illegal means is wrong.
Legal channels may exist, but the prospects of using them to bring about the change in the foreseeable future may be very poor. While one makes slow and painful progress – or perhaps no progress at all – through these legal channels, the indefensible wrongs one is trying to stop will continue.” (Singer, 298)
Since members of Congress are generally more interested in reelection or loyalty to the party, certain issues (which although very important to the public) may be viewed as too risky and therefore put off until a more opportune time.
Martin Luther King Jr., a very powerful activist in the Civil Rights Movement certainly felt that waiting for the government to fix something they don’t realize is a problem is delaying justice. “But justice delayed, King proclaimed, is justice denied.” (Suber, 1)
Also, congress works on a majority system which delegates that for any change to occur, a majority must agree, whether among the congressmen or among American voters.
Singer gives a very powerful example. “In the case of abortion in the United States, the crucial decision was not made by a majority of voters, but by the Supreme Court. It cannot be overturned by a simple majority of the electors, but only by the Court itself, or by the complicated procedure of a constitutional amendment, which can be thwarted by a minority of the electorate…. No sensible democrat would claim that the majority is always right. If 49 per cent of the population can be wrong, so can 51 per cent.” (Singer, 299-300)
Because of this, the only sensible way to get things accomplished is to wake the public up to faults of certain laws.
The best way to do this, perhaps, is to civilly disobey, since getting anything accomplished in Congress is impractical and civil disobedience can occur immediately.
Another support of civil disobedience is the rebuttal of the social contract theory. While it is agreed that we should obey the laws of our society, it is argued that a higher law exists. It is then, our duty to obey the higher law above the societal law.
During the Vietnam War, many claimed affiliation to a higher law and therefore were opposed to involvement in the war. One such person was Private Dennis Mora, who was part of the “Fort Hood Three” who were all members of the United States Military. They released a public statement that they would refuse any orders given to them to fight in Vietnam and they were therefore court-martialed.
When accepting his sentence of three years at Fort Leavenworth Penitentiary, Mora said, “I do not want to have to excuse my participation in the war in Vietnam…by explaining ‘the question of conscience is a matter for the head of state.’ On the contrary, I believe the matter of conscience is an individual responsibility.” (Cohen, 9)
In response to the slippery slope argument, Peter Suber, head of Philosophy at Earlham College writes about the Utilitarian perspective on the argument. “Utilitarians observe that disobedience and obedience may both be harmful. The slippery slope objection falsely assumes that the former sort of harm always outweighs the latter. In the case of an iniquitous law, the harm of disobedience can be the lesser evil. This utilitarian reply is sometimes found to coexist with a complementary…reply…:one simply must not lend one’s weight to an unjust cause.” (Suber, 2)
In Singer’s example of Oskar Shindler, surely any just person would agree that by disobeying a law that would exterminate 1,200 people, the lesser evil was disobeying rather than obeying.
Furthermore, the slippery slope argues that civil disobedience cannot be universalized because the result would be chaos, but Zashin argues, “Civil disobedients do not claim an absolute right to disobey; disobedience is permissible, they claim, only under narrowly defined conditions. If everyone were to practice civil disobedience with these limitations, chaos would not be the result” (Zashin, 131)
Henry David Thoreau with his 1849 paper, “Civil Disobedience”, coined the term “civil disobedience,” and certainly his words can be used to justify such an action. He does in fact call for disobedience in the case of slavery. “…When a sixth of the population of a nation which has undertaken to be the refuge of liberty are slaves…I think that it is not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize…There are thousands who are, in opinion, opposed to slavery and to the war, who yet, in effect do nothing to put an end to them; who esteeming themselves children of Washington and Franklin, sit down with their hands in their pockets, and say that they know not what to do, and do nothing. Who even postpone the question of freedom to the question of free-trade…” (Smith, pg. 179-180)
Thoreau would have definitely agreed that when there is an obvious problem in society, it is a societal obligation to act immediately. If utilizing the government will not result in action, then men need to “revolutionize.”
Weighing all the supports and objections, it seems that civil disobedience is a good thing. Where would we be if we were still waiting for the government to realize that “separate but equal” is a fantasy? I don’t think anyone (aside from the KKK or neo-nazi groups of the like) can really say that segregation was fair and it was obvious that without civil disobedience, nothing was going to change; even political leaders of the era were opposed to integration. In a government we so freely call a democracy, how can the people’s voice be heard if they don’t speak up, or if what they say falls on the deaf ears of representatives? Isn’t it our responsibility to make them listen to what is important? If there is a law that oppresses our neighbor, I think it is a moral obligation to assist.
The Declaration of Independence even makes a case for civil disobedience. “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” (www.archives.gov)
Henry David Thoreau summarizes the case for civil disobedience perfectly.
“Unjust laws exist, shall we be content to obey them or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?
Why does [the government] not cherish it’s minority? Why does it not encourage its citizens to be on the alert to point out its faults, and do better than it would have them?
Why does it always crucify Christ, and excommunicate Copernicus and Luther and pronounce Washington and Franklin rebels?” (Smith, 183)
In our government, which prides itself on being a democracy, I think if the people didn’t get involved to their fullest capabilities, an injustice to democracy would be done. The citizens should make their voices heard and only then can we have a truly democratic government.
https://www.bartleby.com/essay/Civil-Disobedience-Are-We-Morally-Obliged-to-F3CKN4LZTJ