Our country is in deep distress. The economy continues to stumble. Millions of Americans have lost their jobs and millions more fear for theirs. Our public discourse, prodded by trash-talking commentators and the Internet free-for-all, has sunk to new lows.
Faced with this crisis, our politicians have failed us. They offer minimal action and little hope.
This is religion's time. Yes, the claim will be made that religion is more a source of division than harmony. But I suggest that at this perilous moment, a grand coalition of religious voices can lift us out of our stupor and move us forward.
Let us take one example. The immigration issue is tearing this country apart. The emotions that it generates are so heated that our political parties refuse to act. In the meantime, anti-immigrant hysteria has reached new heights; the language used every day to describe the 12 million immigrants who are here illegally is vicious, hateful, and utterly shameful. Religious people, in particular, know that such language is wrong and that we are all brothers and sisters under the parenthood of God.
In these difficult times, can religious Americans of both the right and left join together on a common platform? I believe that they can.
We will recognize that the flow of illegal immigrants must stop, or at the very least, be drastically reduced. If immigrants continue to pour across the border at the current rate, no solution will be possible. We will therefore call for greatly enhanced border security and much tougher penalties for employers who hire illegals.
We will state, in plain language, that this great country will not put 12 million people on buses, trucks, and trains and send them across the border. Millions of crying children will not be forcibly removed from their homes. Such a step would be impossible, a violation of all that we hold dear and a blow to our self-image as a compassionate nation. These immigrants will be given a path to full citizenship that will ultimately integrate them into American life, offering the benefits but imposing the duties that all Americans share. Some will cry "amnesty," but in our hearts we all know there is no other way.
These will be the essential elements of our platform, and the key to holding our coalition together will be demanding that it be accepted as a package. Liberals will not talk of citizenship for immigrants without calling for action at our borders, and conservatives will not call for border security without a path to citizenship.
And as religious people, we will frame the issue in religious language that Americans will understand. We will remind them that Americans have done reasonably well at loving our neighbors but not nearly as well at loving the stranger. And we will prod them to recall that the Bible instructs us -- repeatedly, insistently, emphatically -- to treat the stranger in our midst as a native. If you mistreat the stranger or the outsider, you have no claim to being a religious man or woman.
I am not naïve. When Americans are struggling to support their families, fears fester, prejudice grows, and demagogues thrive. It will take courage for religious leaders -- pastors, priests, rabbis and imams -- to drive home a religious message that many in their flock do not want to hear. But it is at precisely such times that religion is needed to be the moral tutor of all humankind.
And it is possible. Evangelicals have recently become active in support of immigration reform. The Catholic Church, mainline Protestants, Muslims and Jews are broadly sympathetic. As hysteria increases and ugly, racist terms like "anchor babies" gain currency, why not join together as religious Americans to send the message that an immigrant, who may not be exactly in our image, is nonetheless in God's image? Why not bring our voices together to say that America can find a resolution to the immigration crisis that will be fair and just, and that recognizes the humanity of our fellow human beings?
And after this is done, this same coalition of religious Americans, inspired by their success and empowered by their faith, can turn their attention to the other crises of American life.
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Yes, it should, if religion were any of the things that religious people claim that it is. A source of unity, peace, serenity, salvation and grace.
As an atheist, however, I recognize that religion is none of those things---it is a tool the weak use to gain power, prestige and wealth by leveraging fear over the heads of the ignorant and superstitious. Thus religion is not just a haven for for individuals to exult in wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony, it institutionalizes it. Child raping-priests are protected and promoted, religious leaders exult in conspicuous power and luxury while their flocks live in abject poverty. The faithful are kept in line by denying them birth control (a house full of hungry mouths makes revolution difficult to foment) and by endlessly pitting them against those who believe in some different version of the Great Skydaddy.
Quote: "Faced with this crisis, our politicians have failed us."
Yes they have; and our religious leaders have been failing us since one man first pointed to the sun and said to his fellows, "you must kneel before this mighty god...
Don't count on religion to give us anything we haven't gotten from it in the past...doing the same thing over and over and expecting different result is, after all, insanity.
Religion cannot save America, but it certainly can destroy it.
Construction and extraction occupations = 15.9% Unemployment
Production occupations = 12.3% Unemployment
Transportation, material moving occupations = 11.9% Unemployment
Farming, fishing, and forestry occupations = 10.9% Unemployment
Service occupations = 10.3% Unemployment
The unemployment rate for Men and Women less than 20 years old is 26.1%.
Total US Unemployed Citizens and Legal Residents = 14,599,000
This figure and the above rates exclude 5,886,000 Persons who want a job but are left out of the statistics for various reasons.
Total Number of Americans Looking for Work = 20,485,000
Plus that means the real unemployment rates for the occupations above are actually 40% larger.
Pew Center estimates indicate 7.5 million Illegal Immigrants work in the USA with the majority employed in agriculture, office and house cleaning, construction, and food preparation. These professions are where the worst unemployment is for Americans.
Meanwhile Management, professional, and related occupations = 5.0% Unemployment
Illegal Immigration has devastated on our Citizen and Legal Resident workforce, especially for young and unskilled Americans. From 'Immigration and Race' By Steve Bailey, The Boston Globe, February 8, 2008: "And the preponderance of evidence indicates that the flood of illegal immigrants has hurt those on the bottom of the economic ladder most, blacks in particular and probably even American-born Hispanics."
The Pural, Cato, and UCLA Studies just adjust the data to fit the conclusion.
Rich white business owners who want to save a buck. If penalties were harsh enough to get these business owners' attention, like say, losing your license for a year, you can bet those jobs would quickly be filled by Americans. No jobs, no illegal immigrants. It really is that simple, yet they still think a fence along our entire border is a better solution. Go figure.
We have immigration limits because five times in the past unrestricted immigration has led to devastating unemployment. Unemployment as bad as 30% nationwide and over 50% in several states. We also have an immigration process so that criminals cannot gain entry into the USA. Illegal Immigration by-passes both controls. You cannot love your neighbors if you do not respect them and the reasons they have for having their laws.
Why is it always a one way street when it comes to Illegal Immigration? That love must go only one way? Love is demanded for the person breaking the law, yet there is no love for the poor American forced out of work. No love for the poor Taxpayer forced to pay for it all. No love for the victim of identity theft. No love for the lost green space and the animals that populate it as we sacrifice it on the alter of explosive population growth. Where is the love and understanding?
1. One can attempt to defeat it with clear-headed logic, as the left persistently tries to do--but somehow I just don't see Americans going there. We spin our wheels when confronted with the mind that believes in magic and superstition.
2. Or one can attempt to defeat it by publicly demonstrating, clearly and loudly, to the country that the greater Christian community does not agree with them.
That would be nice.
Leviticus 19:11 – “Do not steal. Do not lie. Do not deceive one another.”
It is a false impression that the only solutions to Illegal Immigrants living in the USA are either forcible deportation or a "pathway to legalization". Enforce our laws against hiring Illegal Immigrants to cut off the jobs magnet and per Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment pass a law to end the automatic citizenship given to the children of Illegal Immigrants and Birth Tourists and most of those who are here illegally will return home the way they came, of their own accord.
The claim that Illegal Immigrants returning home breaks up families who are of mixed citizen and illegal status is an equally false impression as almost every country on earth practices the jus sanguinis form granting of citizenship. This means that every child of Illegal Immigrant parents is automatically a citizen of the Illegal Immigrant’s home country. Thus breaking up of families is really an act of parental choice rather than a product of anything that we have done in the USA.
ILLEGAL ALIENS are costing us BILLIONS of tax dollars and they are suckin our educational and health care systems dry. They are also taking jobs that CITIZENS and LEGAL immigrants want and NEED.
I do not hate ILLEGAL ALIENS I just want they to do the right thing and go back to their own countries. We take in thousands of LEGAL immigrants every year - we are doing our part.
If we HEAVILY fine and suspend the business licenses for those who hire ILLEGALS the jobs for them would dry up and they would self-deport leaving jobs that CITIZENS and LEGAL immigrants would do.
We do not need AMNESTY that would only make our problems worse.
" who hire ILLEGALS the " - But then who will pick the lettuce for my tasty salad - nummy.
" ILLEGAL ALIENS are costing us BILLIONS " - Did it ever occur to you that the illegals pay taxes into the system the same as you and I EXCEPT they never get anything back - No Social Security for example.
9th Commandment violation
2. "But then who will pick the lettuce for my tasty salad "
Less than 7% of illegal aliens present in the USA work in Agriculture
"There are about 1.2 million hired agricultural workers in our country today, and estimates show that between 600,000 and 800,000 are undocumented workers."
http://www.dhs.gov/xnews/speeches/sp_1202390869926.shtm.
"Mexico is the source of by far the largest number of unauthorized immigrants, accounting for 7 million of the 11.9 million unauthorized immigrants in 2008." Pg31 (http://pewhispanic.org/files/reports/107.pdf )
6.72% on the high side
5.04% on the low side
3. "Did it ever occur to you" that day laborers do not pay income tax?
4. "Did it ever occur to you" that 1099 contractors using fraudulent identification do not pay income tax? or FUTA or SUTA or FICA or Workmen's Comp or Etc.?
5. "Did it ever occur to you" that any illegal alien working for the drug cartels do not pay sales taxes on the sale of their merchandise? They do not pay income tax either.
or FUTA or SUTA or FICA or Workmen's Comp or Etc?
6. "Did it ever occur to you" that every jurisdiction refusing to use the S.A.V.E. USCIS program is giving out welfare to illegal aliens that are not likely paying taxes?
7. "Did it ever occur to you" that Aunt Zeituni Onyango was living in public housing?
"And after this is done, this same coalition of religious Americans, inspired by their success and empowered by their faith, can turn their attention to the other crises of American life."
Thus was born the infant Theocracy.
If there's no consensus between, say, Baptists and Pagans, nothing happens. But there are a lot of things I think we can all agree on that simply don't get done because our differences seem to just take over everything. Maybe we can't all agree on who gets to make reproductive decisions, in the 'Abortion divide,' but I bet we can all get behind supporting other options.
I've got C-span on right now, and people are talking about the human-trafficking problem. I can't think of *any* religion out there (or lack of religion out there) now who couldn't get together on *that.*
Just cause we can't agree on *everything* doesn't mean we can't agree on *anything.*
Maybe we should find out what those anythings are.
Fanned for your thoughtful response.
I live in a county where there are plenty of illegal immigrants. They work like hell, and actually produce.
I contrast them with right-wing blowhards, gasbags, and fearmongers.
What the hell do THEY produce, besides methane and hate?
I contrast them with Wall Street manipulators. What the hell do THEY produce, besides disaster and misery for everyone else?
I say -- KEEP the producers and kick the vermin, parasites and leeches out.
It oughta equal out quite nicely.
You will not find ANYONE in prison who is there because they are and ILLEGAL ALIEN (why do you have to keep using uppercase). Do you know why?
Think about it...
Leviticus 19:11 – “Do not steal. Do not lie. Do not deceive one another.”
Leviticus 19:15 – “Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly.”
Leviticus 19:17 – “Rebuke your neighbor frankly so you will not share in his guilt.”
And in the New Testament, according to Matthew 5:17-20 "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.”
You have to ask yourself "what would Jesus do?" Would he steal someone's identity? Would he lie to an employer or a prospective spouse about his legal status? Would he refuse to repent his transgressions and demand amnesty?
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1. BKP said "priority to"
(a) "law breaking" Vs. (b) "meekly law abiding"
SilverWolfSigil is shifting from what BKP posted, that is not appropriate.
2. For myself, not BKP,
Not likely Jesus would be pleased with violations of the 10 Commandments, versus those that are obeying the 10 Commandments.
Some illegal aliens that cross the very real, and not "imaginary," line in the desert, have actually taken lives in the USA. 6th Commandment [There is plenty of accounts, it does not have to be 1 million either. If you cannot come up with a means to filter, then they must enter through the legal BACKGROUND SCREENING process.]
Some that enter illegally from OTHER ports of entry, violate the 1stCommandment intentionally
DHS statistics for deported illegal aliens that violate the 7th & 8th Commandment
Leading Crime Categories of Criminal Aliens Removed:
(2008)
1)
2)
3) Burglary
4) Larceny
5) SexualAssault
6) FamilyOffenses
7) FraudulentActivities
8)
Pg4
http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/publications/enforcement_ar_08.pdf
Overwhelming majority of illegal aliens that knowingly are displacing Americans from their jobs are violating the 10thCommandment, claiming THEIR right to the AmericanDream trumps Americans, AND that it is irrelevant how many Americans are becoming homeless in the process.
Many illegal aliens posting here violate the 9thComandment constantly through calling people names tied to stereotype when they do not know the person, and it cannot be justified through the person's posts.
(Cont'd)