Monthly Archives: February 2017
Donald Trump uttered those words when pressed on the campaign trail while defending his immigration proposals. The context was immigrants that had jumped the line and were here undocumented, and likely to get deported given his strategies. – We have a test case now. A mother of two American born children showed up for her ICE meeting and was dutifully deported. She herself was brought to the USA as a fourteen-year-old — she did not even jump the line of her own…..
A recent flight that goes on to Japan was filled with young Japanese families. Maybe they were all coming home from a school vacation, or leaving for one. But the expressions and conversations didn’t convey the vacation aura. – Japanese American families a generation or two before the westward-bound ones were subject to sudden detention and incarceration based on ethnicity in the USA during WWII. The consequences include a fragile trust appear to be near breaking. – Are some Japanese-American…..
Rules of Engagement for Freedom When Harry Vane came to Boston, before there was a United States, the governing forums were sometimes little more than brawls. Physical violence was common. The people had come to the New World to create their version of utopia and they cared deeply about how it operated. Unfortunately, even though they shared the same protest movement and the the same religion, they had deep differences in how to go about achieving goals. Harry Vane was…..
Secular means not having to do with religion. In a world where everyone believes in a God or gods, and church is separated from state, that could mean secular is a synonym for the functions having to do with the state. However, at least since Darwin, and perhaps for all time, there has been category of conscience called an unbeliever, or atheist. When there is no “higher power” everything is secular, and secular takes the form of a worldview. With…..
Jesus was a refugee. Roger Williams was a refugee. Many current Americans are descended from refugees. Of course we should have compassion on those that make it to our midst. And that is what we promised when we signed the convention above with a note limiting the number we accept. We did promise as part of the above pictured agreement once they make it here, we would not send them back to the dangerous place just escaped, and we would…..