Love is an important idea, which means it can be easily misused. Mathew Crawford recently authored an excellent article in First Things Magazine. In Love in the Time of Mass Migration , Crawford talks about the difference between the insider and the outsider, and the one and the many, as they impact immigration policy. I want to emphasize that I cannot give Crawford’s article it’s due in this shorter article.
The role of the “Good Samaritan” is a short-term role aiding a limited number of people. Before the welfare state, churches, and synagogues, often ethnically based, or social groups would care for families dealing with tough times. Sometimes help was in the form of clothing or food. Immigrants would be helped in getting acclimated. Translations, help with forms and assistance maneuvering through government red tape were provided within these groups.
The newcomers and their children would settle in, stop needing help, and start helping others. They would continue to be proud of their heritage and certain that their foods were best but also be happy and grateful to be Americans.
There is a classic story about Sunday School and “Loving Your Neighbor.” Suzy was a nice 8‑year‑old whose 5‑year‑old brother, Johnny, was causing her lots of trouble. When she was told that she was supposed to love her neighbor, she agreed that it was the right thing to do if she did not have to love Johnny. There is a lesson here that Crawford discusses.
We are commanded to love our personal enemies. We are also commanded to love our neighbors. Conveniently, these are often the same people. The neighbor, like the personal enemy, is someone specific and concrete, someone known. He is therefore someone one could love. But for the same reason, he is someone who is difficult to love. … [My brother Johnny] are you kidding me?!
We can easily love, or say we love, people who we know only as an abstraction and at a distance. It is cheap virtue to display lawn signs and bumper stickers about your love for a group you have never encountered. It leaves a bad taste in the mouths of those who have been or continue to be harmed by that group.
Parents teach their children the difference between safe and dangerous. That applies to people as well as stoves. That task also falls to political and religious leadership in different realms. We expect parents to train and warn their children that certain actions and people are not what they seem to be and must be avoided.
Crawford talks about two Greek words for enemy. Our leaders are making things murky to serve their goals. The simplest parallel is the Trojan Horse. When people arrive in these numbers with large percentages of young unattached men it feels like a military landing.
There is a major difference between our obligation to treat the individuals we meet with due concern and allowing or encouraging a massive migration of people who will immediately put our societies at risk. That is not charity, it is stupidity. I am not going to cut our leaders slack. They are not naive. There is financial and organizational benefit involved here. These leaders are misusing the teachings to support their purposes.
The most insane part of it is so-called birthright citizenship. The Fourteenth Amendment was written at the end of the Civil War to make sure Blacks would be citizens as they should be.
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.
There are two methods for assigning citizenship: by blood and by soil, The phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” was intended to exclude non-residents or non-citizens and create “by blood” citizenship. It referred to the Blacks born in slavery or purchased into here as “born or naturalized.” The text assumed they had no foreign allegiance.
Obviously, children of diplomats, or foreign officers in training here, or embassy staff would be citizens of their parent’s country. Children of American officials and military born overseas are Americans at birth. These children have their citizenship by their bloodline.
Birthright citizenship grants citizenship by soil depending on the land where the baby lets out its first scream. Sometimes, the mother comes into the country illegally and without the resources to pay for the medical care needed for childbirth. This is not a gracious way to start a bloodline connection to your fellow citizens.
There is another way to start that leads us to believe the child will never have loyalty to the nation. Assume an enemy county called Eland wants to plan for the long term. They routinely take women late in their pregnancies and fly them to the United States. They have children who are U.S. citizens and mothers and children fly home to Eland. They spend years being indoctrinated in favor of Eland and against America. They have created a bloodline of American citizens who are enemies of America.
But they are also given excellent academic training in English and kept current on matters of fashion and slang. Then Eland arranges for them to be accepted by excellent universities in the USA. Eland now has an active force of educated English-speaking American citizens completely loyal to another country.
When Lincoln violated habeas corpus to keep Maryland in the Union, he argued that the Constitution is not a “suicide pact.” The question for the courts is simple: Does the 14th Amendment absolutely mandate national suicide, or is the court going to keep birthright citizenship just because Donald Trump does not want it?