On November 20, 1910, Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy, Russian author of several classic novels, including War and Peace, and novellas such as The Death of Ivan Ilyich, died. Late in his life he wrote a Letter to a Hindoo and the essay The Kingdom of God Is Within You that later served as a major influence on Mohandes K. Gandhi and the non-violent independence movement in India.
“I find friendship to be like wine, raw when new, ripened with age, the true old man’s milk and restorative cordial.”
Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Rush, August 17, 1811
My family isn’t in a position to take in any Syrian refugees.
Not that we’ve been asked.
Months ago, President Obama simply announced that “we” would take 10,000 refugees. After last Friday’s terrorist attack in Paris, and upon evidence that one of the perpetrators came into Europe with other refugees, 31 governors declared that their states will not accept Syrian refugees.
But note: this country doesn’t belong to Obama; those states don’t belong to those governors.
Back in September, I floated a different approach. “If I were president, I’d push for Congress to pass legislation specifically authorizing the acceptance of as many Syrian refugees as [Americans] stepped forward to sponsor. . . .”
“Sponsors could be individuals, families, churches, glee clubs, what-have-you, and would agree to cover costs for the Syrian person or family for one year or two or three,” I proposed. “But no welfare, no food stamps, no government housing. . . .”
Granted, my suggestion came before the latest terrorism. It was aimed not at security concerns but at sparing taxpayers. Why shouldn’t voluntary generosity dictate the extent of “our” generosity?
But come to think of it, my plan offers greater security, too. Why? It involves the personal faces of citizens, not merely a faceless bureaucracy. No matter how much vetting the government does, an ongoing link to an actual American provides another check.
There’s a legitimate debate about security vs. compassion. Millions are in need, displaced by terror — from both Daesh (ISIS) and the Assad regime. The Niskanen Center’s David Bier notes the resistance to accepting Jewish refugees prior to and during World War II, out of fear some might be spies. Christians may find Matthew 25:44-45 compelling.
On the other hand, there is undeniable risk. GOP presidential aspirants have called taking Syrian refugees “insane” and “looney.” Speaker Paul Ryan argues for a “better safe than sorry” pause.
Me? I support accepting the risk . . . but only if committed individual citizens step forward.
Not by any politician’s decree.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Artwork based on original photo by Phil Warren on Flickr (endorsement of this message is not implied):
“Reason directs those who are truly pious and philosophical to honour and love only what is true, declining to follow traditional opinions, if these be worthless. For not only does sound reason direct us to refuse the guidance of those who did or taught anything wrong, but it is incumbent on the lover of truth, by all means, and if death be threatened, even before his own life, to choose to do and say what is right.”
Justin Martyr, First Apology, c. 155-157 AD
On November 19, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address at the ceremonial dedication of the military cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, appropriating an old phraseology for republican government — “of the people, by the people, for the people” — and giving it its most memorable usage.
On the same date in 1955, National Review published its first issue.
Comparing Friday’s horrific shootings by Islamist terrorists to the events of last January, one-time presidential candidate John Kerry noted that there is “something different about what happened from Charlie Hebdo. . . . There was a sort of particularized focus and perhaps even a legitimacy in terms of — not a legitimacy, but a rationale that you could attach yourself to somehow and say, ‘OK, they’re really angry because of this and that.’ This Friday was absolutely indiscriminate. It wasn’t to aggrieve [sic] one particular sense of wrong. It was to terrorize people. It was to attack everything that we do stand for.”
Yes, Kerry pulled himself out of the fire pretty fast, but, even if he earnestly believes that (as Reason characterized it) “killing cartoonists is less appalling than killing concertgoers,” this was a thought better left unexpressed.
What could Kerry have been thinking?
Here’s a guess: John Kerry sees himself as a reasonable man. Reasonable men try to understand things. And in the course of trying to understand things, a reasonable man will likely explore all sorts of ideas, make uncomfortable comparisons, follow challenging arguments wherever they lead.
But Mr. Kerry does have a job: Secretary of State. This makes him a key mouthpiece for the United States of America . . . to the world, and about world events.
A Secretary of State should know that standing up for rights is his public duty. It is not spinning theories about motivation that could ominously pass as justification for slaughtering some folks but not others.
His statement may betray him mid-thought, but hey: “everything we stand for” includes free speech and the press.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
On November 18, 1307, William Tell shot a crossbow bolt to pierce an apple, toppling it off his son’s head. He was forced to do this by the local Austrian authority, whose hat hung on a pole in the Altdorf town square Tell had refused to bow to when entering the village. Tell endures as a Swiss folk hero, and provides the subject of a famous opera by Rossini — the music of which is associated with, in many ears, Bugs Bunny and the Lone Ranger.
In 1926, George Bernard Shaw formally refused to accept the money for his Nobel Prize for Literature, saying, “I can forgive Alfred Nobel for inventing dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize.”
“Under the law of nature, all men are born free, every one comes into the world with a right to his own person, which includes the liberty of moving and using it at his own will. This is what is called personal liberty, and is given him by the author of nature, because necessary for his own sustenance.”
Thomas Jefferson, from his Argument in the Case of Howell vs. Netherland (April 1770)
Support for criminal justice reform, especially the common sense use of body cameras for police, marks a bright spot for the Obama Administration.
Or so I thought.
The president has called on local police to don the video devices. He has even offered $75 million of his own hard-earned money to help communities pay for the cameras. No, wait — turns out that $75M is not his personal stash but rather our tax money.
Oh, well. While I think local taxpayers should fund their own police forces, without federal subsidies, at least President O’s administration supports the right policy. No?
“The Justice Department is publicly urging local police departments to adopt body cameras, saying they are an important tool to improve transparency and trust . . .” reports The Wall Street Journal. “But privately, the department is telling some of its agents they cannot work with officers using such cameras as part of joint task forces . . .”
Weeks ago, the U.S. Marshals “announced that the agency wouldn’t allow any local law-enforcement officers wearing body cameras to serve on Marshals task forces. . . .”
I’m only surprised that I’m surprised. I should have known that while preaching to others to use body cameras, the Obama Administration would completely ignore camera use for federal police agencies. I shouldn’t be shocked that it even failed to establish rules for working with local and state police who might be required to wear cameras, at the administration’s urging.
It’s a very candid snapshot of the utter hypocrisy we’ve come to know and loathe from Washington.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
“Always drink upstream from the herd.”
Will Rogers, in The Friars Club Bible of Jokes, Pokes, Roasts, and Toasts (2001), by Nina Colman, p. 316