First, this really is hypocritical. Conservatives have famously supported the woman clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to homosexuals awhile back. They have famously supported armed ranchers occupying Federal lands and buildings. They see nothing wrong with holding up the Supreme Court appointment of a President they don't like.
And everyone of those things - and many more - were against the law. Those who did them were lawbreakers. I wonder what part of illegal was not understood by these conservatives?
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| A Middle Eastern family breaks the law to flee to another nation. |
Secondly, I suspect I do know which part. The part of "illegal" that conservatives don't understand is that they aren't the only ones who get to make moral judgments about which laws to obey and which laws to flout. Others, even others who think differently then them, also have that as a right.
The conservatives - and liberals, too - love to claim that a law is "unconstitutional". A magical six syllable word that apparently means, "Ignore it as you please." It would be claimed, and with a straight face, that no, they aren't advocating lawlessness, but that the Constitution is the "Supreme Law of the Land", and takes precedence.
And rather than wait to be affirmed in this by the Supreme Court, they feel it's okay to start ignoring that "unconstitutional" law now.
Understand, I actually have no problem with that. I'm an armchair anarchist, of course I have no problem with that! But what I find annoying is that these same Constitutional scholars can NEVER point out where in the Constitution the People delegated to Congress, the Courts or the Presidency the right to regulate the free passage of people in and out of the Republic, or to be able to decide who I will and will not marry from a foreign land, or who I will or will not hire from elsewhere!
And yeah, when you forbid an immigrant from coming here, it is MY rights you are trampling upon as well as theirs! Who is anyone to say who I marry, who I hire and who I feed or clothe or shelter?
In other words, the "law" that those immigrants who ignore it are perfectly well understanding are the laws that are literally "unconstitutional" by any plain reading of the document. And any conservative who doesn't get that is then free to "yes, sir" any government stooge who might ever - by law - come for any gun of theirs!
Thirdly, we come to the example of the parents of our Lord and Savior Jesus. A couple who were ordered by their lawful government to take their less than two year old boy child to King Herod. But instead of complying with the laws of their nation, they willfully violated those laws and escaped - with no papers or permission - into the neighboring nation of Egypt.
Without even checking with Pharaoh! Without getting permission from King Herod! Without doing it "legally"!
But...but...but...I hear it sputtered already. But they were fleeing a danger! The Christ child was to be murdered! Obviously that is an exception!
Of course it is. I'd never deny it. What a pity then that the conservatives deny this exception to everyone else. But that is a conservative. There's not a one of them who doesn't claim that they'd have marched arm in arm with the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And not a one who doesn't whine about BLM adding ten minutes to a commute.
There are people in other lands in danger. A danger as great, and as real, as the danger that faced Jesus Christ. Those refugees - and their parents if they are minors - are guilty of only one crime.
The crime of wanting to live. And to this end they willfully and with desperate hope aforethought, look towards America and see a glimpse of a giant Statue of Liberty holding an invitation. An invitation specifically for them.
Inviting these "huddled masses", beckoning to the "wretched refuse" of all the "teeming shores" to come over and be free.
They heed that invitation. They come, because to not come is to die. To not come is for their children to die.
And no sooner do they do so then a Trump supporter who'd be the first to claim that he'd carry Christ's cross, hide a Jew from Hitler, help a runaway slave escape, leaps to his feet to baaa, baaa, baaa about "What part of 'illegal' don't they get!?" and "I love all of them, I just want them to come in legally!"
There is no love. Not of the immigrants who trust the invite here, and not of the Law. Conservatives have no more or less love for the law than any liberal. Which is to say that they love it when it agrees with their mood or their feelings, and otherwise ignore it. Same as liberals do, same as everyone does.
Would that they did love immigrants. Would that they did love mercy. Would that they did love aiding those as Christ commanded we aid them.
Then they'd be quick enough to be smuggling the refugees across the border. They'd be clamoring, "Mr. Trump, tear down this wall!". They'd be feeding the poor refugee, clothing the poor refugee, sheltering the poor refugee, knowing that these were part of the "least of these my brothers" that Christ spoke of.
Instead, they fear the foreigners, as the Levi and Pharisee feared the injured man on the road to Jericho. They hurry along the other side of that dusty road, aiding not, and excusing their lack of charity by going on about the dangers, the disease the this and the that.
They fear job competition. Or bird flu. Or terrorism. So many different reasons cited, but as any who have raised teens know, if several different reasons are given you, you may be sure that the real reason is being hid.
Try and explain that if the workers are legalized, that they'd have a harder time competing - it won't make an impression. Explain how if they are in no fear of arrest, they'd go to a doctor to avoid disease - it won't make an impression. Explain how the 9/11 terrorists came in "legally" - it won't make an impression.
Because those reasons aren't the real reason. The real reason they oppose open borders is the same reason that anyone opposes anything good or harmless - their own petty personal prejudices. The conservative just doesn't want the foreigner here.
The conservative doesn't want other faiths, other languages, other ways of doing things, right in his backyard. Understand, liberals have their own equal idiocies, their own petty personal prejudices, but this one is the conservatives.
And as surely as a liberal reacts like a scalded cat to any suggestion of a person having to "earn" something, so does a conservative react to hearing that "different" might be coming.
It's sad. It's un-Christ-like. And it needs to stop.
(And no, this isn't just a conservative problem. That "liberal" still in office, President Obama, could normalize the status of all 12 million "illegals" right now. Remember that if and when President Trump tries to round them up - the Democrats had it in their power to stop that. If such are to be rounded up, it will be the fault of liberals and conservatives alike.)
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