Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 7:36pm

We Agree About There Being Shame Sister

 

 

 

Sister Mary Ann Walsh, press flack for the Catholic Bishops of  our country, has written a column entitled Busloads of  turned back immigrants, an image of shame, in which she attacks all Americans foolish enough to think that the immigration laws of our country should be respected.  Go here to read it.  Here is her column with my commentary:

Sometimes a picture says it all.

Consider the 1963 picture of fire hoses and snarling police dogs in Birmingham, Ala., used against African-American students protesting racial segregation. Surely not our civil servants at their best.

Yep, Sister, we get it.  Those who do not agree with you on immigration are racist bigots.

 

Or the 1972 picture of the little girl in North Vietnam running terrified and naked with burning skin after South Vietnamese planes accidentally dropped napalm on Trang Bang, which had been occupied by North Vietnamese troops. The world then saw how war could hurt children.

I think the world already understood that Sister. Kim Phuc, the girl in the picture, tired of being used as a symbol by the Communists, converted to Christianity, and later was granted asylum by Canada.

“Now, in 2014, we see citizens of Murrieta, Calif., turning back buses of women and children headed for a federal processing center, a day after Mayor Alan Long told them to let the government know they opposed its decision to move recent undocumented immigrants to the local Border Patrol station.”

Undocumented immigrants?  Do you mean illegal aliens Sister?

The first two images helped turn the tide when they awakened U.S. citizens to a shameful tragedy. We know the aftermath. The U.S. Congress 50 years ago passed civil rights legislation to guarantee basic human and equal rights for minorities that civil rights workers fought (and some died) for. We pulled out of Vietnam, a war we could not win.

The persecution of the Catholic Church in Vietnam, the million put in Communist re-education camps, the summary execution by the Communists of at least 100,000, the 900,000 boat people, do you regard that Sister as an acceptable result of the American people “awakening to a tragedy”?  I think for some people the year will always be 1968. Judging from the “social justice advocacy” page of Sister Mary Ann Walsh’s order, go here to view it, I’d say that their views have been frozen in amber since that time. 

We now await a moral conscience moment in the welcoming of children and others escaping the violence in such countries as Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. Parents and children from these countries have made the difficult decision to leave their homes and have endured dangerous journeys to cross the U.S.-Mexican border. They risk it because the possible horrors of the treacherous migration, such as trafficking, abuse and even death in the desert, still look better than possible death by gang violence at home.

Actually Sister, I agree with you that we await a moral conscience moment, but I think that was provided by the American protestors, sick at the mass violation of their immigration laws, with the active collusion of their government.  The ills of Central America will not be cured by the parents of Central America paying $12,000.00 a head to Coyotes who then transit Mexico by bribing Mexican officials, with kids in tow subject to every type of exploitation.  This farce came about because the Obama administration sent a signal south of the border that they were no longer going to face the enforcement of the immigration laws.  Now the Catholic Church in this country, that has faced persecution from the Obama administration, joyfully links arms with this same administration in giving a one fingered salute to every American who believes in the rule of law in regard to immigration.   

Some hopes exist already. Contrast the mob in Murrieta, with the people of Brownsville and McAllen, Texas. There Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley offers welcome centers at Sacred Heart Church in McAllen and Immaculate Conception Cathedral in Brownsville. The youngest guest: a 1-day-old baby girl. The baby and others are being helped by a host of volunteers.

It is good to help people in need Sister.  It is bad to help them violate the laws of your nation in regard to immigration.  If you don’t like the laws on immigration Sister, work to change them, but do not encourage illegal aliens to flaunt them.

Heroes are emerging. First might be Sister Norma Pimentel, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley. She is convening the local faith communities to address the problem and organizing the local populace to collect food, medicine, children’s sweaters and hoodies, men’s sneakers, and women’s socks and underwear. The city of McAllen is collaborating by providing portable shower facilities and tents for overnight stays.

Will these same “heroes” be picking up the welfare tab for these illegal aliens over the next few decades Sister, and the cost of education and medical care?  When they are ready to do that, then I will be impressed.

Another is Bishop Daniel Flores of Brownsville. On his social media blog, he notes: “What we are seeing unfold in front of our eyes is a humanitarian and refugee reality, not an immigration problem.” He adds that “the Church must respond in the best way we can to the human need” and says “at the same time we ask our government to act responsibly to address the reality of migrant refugees. A hemispheric response is needed, not a simple border response. And we ask the government to protect the church’s freedom to serve people.”

Sister, you can call illegal aliens whatever you please, but it does not change the reality.  These are not refugees but rather illegal aliens gaming a broken system and many Americans rightfully are fed up with it.

Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso, Texas, spoke before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee in late June. He called the number of children crossing the U.S.-Mexico border “a test of the moral character” of our nation. “We must not fail this test,” he said.

It is a test of the moral character of the nation indeed Sister.  Will the nation tolerate the mass violation of its immigration laws, aided and abetted by the administration, or will the American people finally rise up and say that they are done being taken as complete fools by people who wish to flood the nation with illegal aliens for their own purposes and leave the American taxpayers to pick up the tab.

I see no mention of the Bishop of San Bernardino.  Perhaps that is because, according to a caller to the Rush Limbaugh Show today, Catholics in the diocese have been told to keep his involvement in this fiasco hush-hush:

ANN:  Great.  Well, we have some interesting news.  My husband Eddie is on the phone with us.  We live in Southern California, and we’re Catholic, active Catholics in our community, and there was a town hall meeting last evening, emergency meeting called by our local parish priest, ordered by our bishop (unintelligible) and the Archdiocese of San Bernardino. They have made the decision that they’re going to absorb the immigrants that are coming through because the federal government called the bishop’s office on Monday and they’re gonna be busing these immigrants to our communities and asking us to open our homes and to house them for up to a month.  The church will reimburse us for any out-of-pocket expenses and we were told not to talk to anybody about it, especially the media.  I’m not especially happy about it.  My husband is a retired doctor, and he will share his concerns with you regarding this matter.  Eddie, do you want to go ahead and talk about your thoughts?

 

Right now, the welcoming community of Brownsville and surrounding communities are acing the test. In Murrieta, the mayor and the citizens who drove back the buses need to study more. President Obama looks for ways to return the children to their perilous homeland. The U.S. Congress sits on its hands. To prepare for the test of moral character, protesters in Murrieta, the president and the Congress, might hit the books, especially the New Testament. A place to start is Matthew 25, where Jesus states: “Whatever you do for these, the least of my brethren, you do also for me.”

Sister, I think you might wish to brush up on this section of the Catechism:

2241 The more prosperous nations are obliged, to the extent they are able, to welcome the foreigner in search of the security and the means of livelihood which he cannot find in his country of origin. Public authorities should see to it that the natural right is respected that places a guest under the protection of those who receive him.

 

 

Political authorities, for the sake of the common good for which they are responsible, may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions, especially with regard to the immigrants’ duties toward their country of adoption. Immigrants are obliged to respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them, to obey its laws and to assist in carrying civic burdens.

I think Sister you have the first paragraph down pat, but you have completely forgotten the second paragraph.

 

 

 

 

 

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Penguins Fan
Penguins Fan
Tuesday, July 8, AD 2014 6:47pm

Individually we have some very fine bishops. Put ’em together and they spout absolute nonsense.

I have had it with the illegal immigration and its supporters, among the loudest of who is the USCCB. Their support of unchecked mass immigration from our neighbors to the South of the US border is nothing new but they are growing more obnoxious about it.

The solution is to get Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador out of poverty. That would require capitalism, and the Big Boss in Rome – who is from a country that is just as much a basket case as any Central American nation – doesn’t like capitalism.

Anzlyne
Anzlyne
Tuesday, July 8, AD 2014 10:00pm

The bishops have good intentions but they just don’t see the whole picture. Someone commented on another post that the pope needs to begin to read something besides left wing publications and I think the bishops just don’t get the solid informational input they need. I think they are surrounded by staffs that are Very liberal and have been in their positions for years. Like these lost-in-the-70’s nuns.
Also there is this idea that Jesus was a refugee ( to Egypt as a baby) so all refugees should be welcomed. Very far from any correlation to the events of today.

Anzlyne
Anzlyne
Tuesday, July 8, AD 2014 10:41pm

Genesis 19:1-11 is the story of the townspeople of Sodom trying to force their way into Lot’s home. Hospitality for the stranger does not mean opening your doors to criminals.

the Old Adam
Tuesday, July 8, AD 2014 11:23pm

Put them all up in the rectories of the churches.

Let’s see who the real bigots are.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Wednesday, July 9, AD 2014 5:31am

The “rule of law” includes international conventions to which a state is a party. The US is a state party to the 1967 Protocol to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees.
Article 31 provides: “The Contracting States shall not impose penalties, on account of their illegal entry or presence, on refugees who, coming directly from a territory where their life or freedom was threatened in the sense of Article 1, enter or are present in their territory without authorization, provided they present themselves without delay to the authorities and show good cause for their illegal entry or presence.” [Art 1, “A person who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.”]
Article 33 provides: “”No Contracting State shall expel or return (‘refouler’) a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion”

Barbara Gordon
Barbara Gordon
Wednesday, July 9, AD 2014 7:24am

MPS said: “The ‘rule of law’ includes international conventions to which a state is a party. The US is a state party to the 1967 Protocol to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees.
Article 31 provides: ‘The Contracting States shall not impose penalties, on account of their illegal entry or presence, on refugees who, coming directly from a territory where their life or freedom was threatened in the sense of Article 1, enter or are present in their territory without authorization, provided they present themselves without delay to the authorities and show good cause for their illegal entry or presence.’ [Art 1, ‘A person who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.’]
Article 33 provides: ‘No Contracting State shall expel or return (‘refouler’) a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion'”

Super info MPS! However, this is not the reasoning being used by the liberals like Nancy Pelosi for allowing the entry of illegals in mass into the US.

Barbara Gordon
Barbara Gordon
Wednesday, July 9, AD 2014 7:28am

Donald wrote: “It is ludicrous to call these illegal aliens refugees MPS and international treaties are subject to the provisions of the US Constitution. However, if the people of Scotland feel tender towards the plight of people in Central America, I would be willing to contribute a $1,000.00 towards a fund set up to ship a few million ‘undocumented immigrants’ to bonnie Scotland!”

I will contribute to the cause as well! 🙂

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Wednesday, July 9, AD 2014 7:31am

People go to Hell for lying too, Sister.

Refugees!?!?!

Shame and refugees? That’s the samea as rationalizing a (violent) home invasion by claims of refugee status. And, shame on you for trying to protect your life and property.

Phillip
Phillip
Wednesday, July 9, AD 2014 7:31am

“A person who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.”

I missed it. What persecution of race, religion, nationality or membership in a particular social group or political opinion is going on with these illegal aliens? What can countries of the world, who collectively take in fewer immigrants than the U.S., do to correct these abuses in these illegal aliens’ home countries?

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Wednesday, July 9, AD 2014 8:00am

Philip

That is the definition. If any individual does not satisfy it, then they cannot properly be described as refugees or claim Convention rights.

Again, a refugee must claim asylum in the first place of safety they reach, so a refugee from Central America, who had passed through Mexico would have to show why they did not claim refugee status there and could, quite properly be returned to that country.
Indeed, Mexico is a signatory to the more generous 1984 Cartagena Declaration that defines refugees as including “Persons who flee their countries because their lives, safety or freedom have been threatened by generalised violence, foreign aggression, internal conflicts, massive violation of human rights or other circumstances which have seriously disturbed public order.”
It is possible some of those who do not qualify under the 1951 Convention could claim asylum in Mexico under the Cartagena Declaration.

Phillip
Phillip
Wednesday, July 9, AD 2014 8:17am

So it seems from this they are not refugees.

Mary De Voe
Wednesday, July 9, AD 2014 9:05am

Since the illegal immigrants are not refugees, then, they are running from building schools, hospitals and modern infrastucture for their countries, and Sister Mayanne Walsh is an enabler in helping the illegals abandon their own native land.

Stephen E Dalton
Wednesday, July 9, AD 2014 9:11am

If you think this Sister is an off the wall leftist about this ‘immigration crisis’, go here and see lunacy unleased! http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markshea/2014/07/remember-when-3.html

Clinton
Clinton
Wednesday, July 9, AD 2014 9:36am

A decent Director of Media Relations for any organization would only publish
such an op-ed piece with their job affiliation in its byline if and only if
he had his employer’s approval.
.
Sr. Walsh could have published her opinion piece under her own name and left
it at that. Instead, she’s made sure to invoke her employer, the USCCB, which
implies that her opinions somehow reflect those of the US bishops. In her
Religion News piece, I saw no disclaimer to the contrary.
.
If her commentary is not, in fact, the official position of the bishops of the USCCB,
then it was unprofessional for her to flash her connection to her employers and,
in effect, put her words in their mouths. If it is, in fact, the official position of
the USCCB, then both parties should say so and remove all doubt.
.
I’m guessing Sr. Walsh deserves a trip to the woodshed.

TomD
TomD
Wednesday, July 9, AD 2014 10:57am

Michael Paterson-Seymour, it is well documented in the U.S. print media that Mexico is far less ‘welcoming’ to Central Americans compared with the U.S. Rates of violence against them is far higher than in the U.S. Given this it is hard to see how Mexico could possibly be the ‘safe haven’ international law requires it to be for asylum.

Damien
Damien
Wednesday, July 9, AD 2014 11:10am

Just imagine: if these were busloads of embryonic stem cells, you’d all be crowing for billions in aid and legal protections. What utter hypocrites. “Pro-life,” my backside.

Shame on you calling yourselves “Catholics.” LOL. Very telling this site puts “American” before Catholic.

Phillip
Phillip
Wednesday, July 9, AD 2014 11:38am

Damien,

Here’s a bit from John Paul II on World Migration day in 1996. He does talk about the problems of illegal immigration and the duty to help individuals as well as to address the root causes of such migration. He also talks about preventing illegal immigration idependent of addressing its causes – this because it is wrong to do so illegally. He also talks about deporting illegal immigrants if the situation dictates its need.

“2. Today the phenomenon of illegal migrants has assumed considerable proportions, both because the supply of foreign labour is becoming excessive in comparison to the needs of the economy, which already has difficulty in absorbing its domestic workers, and because of the spread of forced migration. The necessary prudence required to deal with so delicate a matter cannot become one of reticence or exclusivity, because thousands would suffer the consequences as victims of situations that seem destined to deteriorate instead of being resolved. His irregular legal status cannot allow the migrant to lose his dignity, since he is endowed with inalienable rights, which can neither be violated nor ignored.

Illegal immigration should be prevented, but it is also essential to combat vigorously the criminal activities which exploit illegal immigrants. The most appropriate choice, which will yield consistent and long-lasting results is that of international co-operation which aims to foster political stability and to eliminate underdevelopment. The present economic and social imbalance, which to a large extent encourages the migratory flow, should not be seen as something inevitable, but as a challenge to the human race’s sense of responsibility.

3. The Church considers the problem of illegal migrants from the standpoint of Christ, who died to gather together the dispersed children of God (cf. Jn 11:52), to rehabilitate the marginalized and to bring close those who are distant, in order to integrate all within a communion that is not based on ethnic, cultural or social membership, but on the common desire to accept God’s word and to seek justice. “God shows no partiality, but in every nation any one who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him” (Acts 10:34-35).

The Church acts in continuity with Christ’s mission. In particular, she asks herself how to meet the needs, while respecting the law of those persons who are not allowed to remain in a national territory. She also asks what the right to emigrate is worth without the corresponding right to immigrate. She tackles the problem of how to involve in this work of solidarity those Christian communities frequently infected by a public opinion that is often hostile to immigrants.

The first way to help these people is to listen to them in order to become acquainted with their situation, and, whatever their legal status with regard to State law, to provide them with the necessary means of subsistence.

Thus it is important to help illegal migrants to complete the necessary administrative papers to obtain a residence permit. Social and charitable institutions can make contact with the authorities in order to seek appropriate, lawful solutions to various cases. This kind of effort should be made especially on behalf of those who, after a long stay, are so deeply rooted in the local society that returning to their country of origin would be tantamount to a form of reverse emigration, with serious consequences particularly for the children.

4. When no solution is foreseen, these same institutions should direct those they are helping, perhaps also providing them with material assistance, either to seek acceptance in other countries, or to return to their own country.”

Jason
Jason
Wednesday, July 9, AD 2014 11:55am

To Damien, embryonic stem cells are not people.

Try getting your head out of your “backside.”

mike hurcum
mike hurcum
Wednesday, July 9, AD 2014 12:18pm

give unto to Caesar what is Caesar’s. In other words do not break the law. This silly sob sister should obey scriptures

Botolph
Botolph
Wednesday, July 9, AD 2014 2:36pm

Human life is to be respected and protected from the moment of conception until natural death

This is the Gospel of Life, Evangelium Vitae

Phillip
Phillip
Wednesday, July 9, AD 2014 3:32pm

And it can be respected and protected even if one deports individuals. This is Church teaching.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Wednesday, July 9, AD 2014 3:41pm

“Honor thy Father and Mother” is interpreted as obeying civilian laws, too.

Botolph
Botolph
Wednesday, July 9, AD 2014 3:48pm

Philip,

There is a Church teaching on deportation???? Serious not sarcastic question-but waiting for the answer

Phillip
Phillip
Wednesday, July 9, AD 2014 6:13pm

See point 4 in my post above. From John Paul II. Individuals can be sent to another country or returned to their country. Not worded as deportation but a rose by any other name.

slainte
slainte
Wednesday, July 9, AD 2014 7:53pm

Sister Mary Ann Walsh and President Obama appear to have much in common.
.
In 2008, President Obama addressed Berliners and disclosed his vision of a new world order:
.
“….That is why the greatest danger of all is to allow new walls to divide us from one another.
.
The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand. The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down….”
.
Source: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/obama-s-berlin-speech-a-world-that-stands-as-one-a-567920.html
.
I suspect that President Obama was referring to sovereign nation states, the laws and constitutions that govern them, the national boundaries that define them, and the borders that separate them as the “walls that divide us from one another” which must be torn down.
.
Progressive global proponents of Equality (of outcome) are well disposed toward international laws (conventions and treaties) which promote cooperation, assistance, equal treatment of global citizens, and porous borders. They unequivocally reject the laws of many sovereign nations (ie. the U.S Constitution) which secure borders and protect the nation’s citizens whom they view as an entitled and privileged few. A self described “citizen of the world” (see, link above), President Obama assured the international community in 2008 Berlin that global concerns, not sovereign issues were his priority.
.
The President’s priorities are evident in his open border policy and voluntary compliance with the “1967 Protocol to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees”, of which the U.S is a signatory. While he honors and enforces international treaties and conventions, he declines to enforce sovereign U.S laws relating to border security and immigration which laws remain on the books, and in effect, yet are intentionally rendered impotent by political will.
.
We live in a nation where our elected representatives pick and choose which laws to enforce and which to ignore. So while it is true that the U.S Constitution is the supreme law of the land; it is also true that many progressive elites in Washington view it and our entire tradition of Ordered Liberty as an historical anachronism from which they have evolved. Equalite trumps Liberte for these progressives; and enforcement of international treaties trumps enforcement of the constitutions and laws of sovereign nations.

Anzlyne
Anzlyne
Wednesday, July 9, AD 2014 8:00pm

Thank you Slainte. Nationalism is the offender now on the world stage. National interest is right out.
The idea of our world with no borders is frightening because there would be top down authority from Somebody- WHO would that be?
No subsidiarity, and everything would be gray.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Thursday, July 10, AD 2014 4:29am

Botolph asks, “There is a Church teaching on deportation???? Serious not sarcastic question-but waiting for the answer”
“Whatever insults human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportations, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children[arbitrariae incarcerationes, deportationes, servitus, prostitutio, mercatus mulierum et iuvenum]; as well as disgraceful working conditions, where men are treated as mere tools for profit, rather than as free and responsible persons; all these things and others of their like are infamies indeed. They poison human society, but they do more harm to those who practice them than those who suffer from the injury.” – Gaudium et Spes 27
Of course, the sense in which “deportation” is being used is not clear from this merely passing reference. In International Law, such as the 4th Geneva Convention and the Genocide Convention, it is used in the sense of forced resettlement of populations or “ethnic cleansing.”
Also, neither the English nor the Latin text makes clear whether “arbitrary” governs only “imprisonment” or “deportations,” too. It is not a document in which one should expect the precision of a legal text; we are not dealing with Ulpian or Papinian here.
I merely cite it quantum valeat, without pretending to expound it.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Thursday, July 10, AD 2014 4:44am

Slainté
Opposition to national borders interrupting the free movement of capital, labour and goods can be traced all the way back to Bright and Cobden, the Manchester School and the Anti-Corn Law League in the early 19th century and it was part of the quarrel between Légitimistes and Orléanistes in France, the former representing the landed interest and the latter the commercial and industrial interests.
Commodore Perry’s expedition to Japan and the Opium Wars in China show the willingness of the Great Powers to compel foreign governments to open their markets to foreign competition.

Mary De Voe
Thursday, July 10, AD 2014 10:02am

slainte: There are no walls in legal immigration. All people may apply.

slainte
slainte
Thursday, July 10, AD 2014 11:12am

Mary DeVoe writes: “There are no walls in legal immigration. All people may apply.”
.
That is true Mary but our elected representatives ultimately seek a flat world where sovereign boundaries and borders are eliminated, thus negating any application process to regularize one’s immigration status within an integrated world.
.
An incremental step to a borderless world was realized by establishing regions and common markets globally (ie, the North American Union, the European Union, the Asian Union) which gradually, over time. will likely be merged into a centralized global union with an integrated world government, currency, system of laws, etc.
.
This process started some time ago by intentionally weakening sovereign borders worldwide in favor of regional borders and favorable trade arrangements.
.
You may recall the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and then the NAFTA Super-Highway (implemented by President George Bush II’s administration) which extended from Mexico to Canada. The NAFTA superhighway was later renamed “the Trans-Texas Corridor” by one of its more vocal supporters Texas Governor Rick Perry.

Sources,
http://humanevents.com/2006/06/12/bush-administration-quietly-plans-nafta-super-highway/ and
.
http://townhall.com/columnists/rachelalexander/2011/08/12/rick_perrys_nafta_superhighway_problem/page/full
.
Republican and democrat leadership are united in their initiation of policies to tear down walls that divide…unfortunately that appears to include sovereign nations like the USA which must be relegated to the ash heap of history to advance Change.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Thursday, July 10, AD 2014 11:33am

Obamnesty is a disaster for blacks and current hispanics living in Americs.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Thursday, July 10, AD 2014 11:52am

Slainté

Actually, one could see the EU the other way: as essentially protectionist, to safeguard jobs and food production against Third World competition, both for social and strategic reasons.

The other objective, starting with the Franco-German Coal and Steel agreement, was to make national economies inter-dependent to lessen the possibility of war.

slainte
slainte
Thursday, July 10, AD 2014 2:12pm

MPS, It seems at times that we may be retrogressing…moving back in time while forgetting the valuable lessons of history which alert us to the dangers of coalescing and concentrating power in the hands of the few. Where does one who legitimately dissents from oppressive governmental policies or other abuses flee for exile in an integrated global world order and an operative surveillance state?
.
Those who are the most powerless, the least among us…the peasants… have always suffered most profoundly when concentrated power structures devolve into tyranny…and this inevitably happens.
.
Lord Acton noted the effects of our fallen and unchanging Human Nature when he opined, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” One notes that he made this comment in the 1800s when religion informed morality and curbed some of the excesses of our fallen nature by informing ethical conduct in many. While there are exceptions, of course, we appear to be a far less religious, moral, or ethical global population. Thus, one wonders what code of civility will inform those who are charged with governing and managing a global power base responsibly.
.
You will recall the concentrated power structure of the Ancien Regime in France, and the abuses perpetrated by those who willfully injured and took advantage of the powerless just because they could. You will also recall the pain and humiliation of the French peasants who stood naked before an aggressive and powerful landed aristocracy against whom they had no recourse.
.
History repeats itself and the abuses of the past will replay unless appropriate safeguards securing liberty for all are preserved. How does one dissemble concentrations of power held by a distant and unelected international body which will (and perhaps already does) constitute global governance? The founding fathers of the U.S got this component of governance precisely right…power must be curbed and checked lest it destroy.
.
As to the benefits of the European Union…in Ireland during the 70s and 80s, I observed large and happy (my mom also used the term “jolly”) families; my relatives raised their own cows, sheep, chickens, grew their own food, baked their own bread, cut turf in the bog, enjoyed a fag or ciggie with a pint and a half-one. Families were extended with many generations living together and spending time chatting with neighbors and friends in favorite tea shops or pubs…of which there were many. The Irish of that time in the West were not wealthy people, but they were thrifty, went to church regularly, and bicycled and motored on very narrow and bumpy roads designed for one motor car. They were self sufficient and mostly content.
.
Since the European Union…families are smaller; abortion has been legalized; fewer attend church; even fewer grow their own vegetables or bake their own bread…these products are imported from other EU nations. Cutting turf is likely to be made illegal in deference to EU environmental concerns, Many cannot afford to patronize restaurants or pubs due to the high prices of food and drink. The national economy has been destroyed by the government’s decision to guaranty an incalculable bank debt to save the accounts of investors, many of whom are from other EU countries. The roads, however, have been greatly widened and modernized by EU investment schemes…but with so many unemployed in the wake of the 2008 financial collapse, few can afford the spiraling cost of petrol to drive on the new roadways made possible by the EU. Bicycling however, is still a viable alternative and there are very few bumps on the new roads. : )
.
IMHO, a decentralized governing structure is better than a centralized one; and sovereign nations are more worthy alternatives than regional or global power structures…..oh as to the UN and the EU’s efforts to decrease the numbers of wars…recall Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Lebanon, and the Russian incursions into her former republics.

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