The WWJD Argument for Immigration Reform

The WWJD Argument for Immigration Reform

 

The other day I was in a business meeting where the moderator of the discussion tried to relate to or impress someone on the other end of a phone conference by mentioning an article on immigration he liked. Then he made it a point to say that there were some “Tea Party people” in the room that needed to read it. I guess I wasn’t paying that much attention. I didn’t realize I had just been condescendingly insulted by a holier than thou “What would Jesus do?” attack.

Upon getting back to my desk I found an email from the moderator. It was the article that myself and a couple of other “Tea Party people” needed to read and learn from. It was entitled, “The Time for Immigration  Reform is Now” http://www.relevantmagazine.com/current/nation/time-immigration-reform-now and it is chock full of PC friendly buzz words and catch phrases and appeals to authority all aimed at ignoring completely that the US has had immigration laws in place for a very long time that already invites foreigners to become Americans lawfully. It also completely ignores that our immigration laws are supposed to guard against admitting criminals, those with disease, the general degradation of our society, and people who never wanted to become Americans in the first place. Worse, it couples a dishonest political policy with misapplied quotes from scripture for justification and self sanctification. The bottom line of the article is, if you are a Christian, you should agree with them because God loves immigrants, He put the president in office, and they even used bible verses to tie it all together and make it sound like God’s divine will.

The immigration system is not broken. It is not outdated. It is not unjust or uncompassionate. The problem is that millions of people (including the federal government) have ignored and defied the law for so long that there are a government-estimated 12-20 million illegal aliens in the country who never went through the process of naturalization. This lawlessness has eroded our standard of living, endangered our citizens to violence and disease, and contributed to political and professional corruption as politicians and businessmen via for votes and new employees from a lawless group of people who are not even supposed to be here to vote or draw a paycheck in the first place. This whole mess is a result of the just and compassionate law not being followed in the first place.

We use to have a name for the place where foreigners could go to become citizens. It was called Immigration and Naturalizations Services. Today the place where that happens has been combined with Customs and is called Immigration and Customs Enforcement. We removed the word “naturalization” from the title and dropped the “enforcement”. Is it any wonder there are millions of illegal aliens who don’t respect the law, don’t speak our language, and don’t even want to be Americans?

So, what would Jesus do? It’s a great question and one we should all reflect on when making important decisions of moral and spiritual significance. Very often Christians rightly site the teachings and actions of Jesus as reason and recipe for how we should treat other people. In Luke 6, Jesus told us to treat other people the way we want to be treated ourselves. It doesn’t get any more simple and straight forward than that. If everybody lived like that the world would be a lot better place to live.

In that world without sin there would be no need for border security guards or fences. There would be no need for locks on doors, or walls and gates around communities. In a perfect world, there would be no need for laws to protect the innocent from the criminal. Trouble is we don’t live in that perfect world. Until Jesus returns to set things right, there will always be a need for basic law and order in any society.

What would Jesus do? Jesus forgave people. Don’t stop reading there though. He also told them to “go and sin no more”. Forgiveness comes through repentance. Show me the illegal alien who wants to become an American citizen by going through the naturalization process and I will show you the correct application of Romans 13 that was misapplied in that article the meeting moderator emailed me.  That illegal alien who genuinely wants to become a legitimate American should also be willing to get in line behind those honorable law abiding people who are already walking the “path to citizenship” that already exists.

What would Jesus do? Jesus rebuked the priests of his day who improperly used the law that was meant to free people to enslave them. Not unlike the politicians of today who call for reform of the very laws that they themselves have purposefully ignored to enable the creation of millions of illegal aliens who are held within view, but just out of reach of the American dream because they were never required to naturalize to our society.

Illegal aliens who are not criminals (other than defying our immigration laws), or diseased, and do not want to remake America in the image of their home country should be (already are) offered the same process of naturalization that other honest people have already undergone. This is not uncompassionate. It is not an undue burden. This is just and fair to those others who have done everything they were supposed to in the first place. If you want to become an American, become an American. If you don’t, leave.

How to Read

How to Read

With all of the progressive politicians, their propaganda media outlets, and useful idiots out there that are having such a hard time understanding the 2^nd Amendment lately, perhaps it’s time for people to go back to basics and learn how to read. Evidently they have forgotten how. Maybe they weren’t taught how to read properly way back in grade school in the first place. Whatever the reason, it is dumbfounding to watch people who actually swear to uphold and defend the Constitution for the United States trip all over themselves stretching for any possible way to deny that the 2^nd Amendment means what it actually says. It’s only one sentence for crying out loud! Seriously, how hard can it be?  If you’ve gotten this far in the paragraph, there is hope for you, but processing letters into words isn’t quite enough. So without further ado (that means “delay” for you illiterate gun grabbers), lets learn how to read. The key to reading is not only knowing the meaning of individual words, but the context of them within each sentence, paragraph, and work as a whole. Here we go.

The 2^nd Amendment is a part of the Bill of Rights. That is basically the “top ten” list of demands that the states required in order to ratify (that means accept or agree to for you gun grabbers) the Constitution for the United States. The Constitution provided the structure for a federal government. The Bill of Rights was the list of protections against it growing outside of that structure. You see, it was the states that authorized the constitution, not the other way around. Each state was sovereign (that means they each created and enforced their own laws independently). The Bill of Rights and therefore the 2^nd Amendment were put in place to contain the federal government and protect the states and the people from a repeat of what they had just gone through. For a quick refresher on that was, please research the Declaration of Independence and the Revolutionary War. I’ll bottom line it for the gun grabbers who may not have stayed awake in history class and likely will not put forth the effort now either. The King of England was a tyrant and the colonies weren’t going to take it anymore. They “Declared” their independence from the crown on the authority of God’s natural order and the King declared war on them. We won.

So with the context in mind of the 2^nd Amendment being demanded by the states as a means of defense against tyranny, we are ready to read that little sentence that has caused such consternation (that’s a feeling of alarm, confusion, or dismay for the dim witted libtards out there). Here is it. “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” There, was that so hard?

Contextual points of special note:

Because the 2^nd Amendment is a demand from the states not a structure of the federal government, the words “regulate” and “militia” are not directives or structures for the federal government to base laws upon. They are for the states and the people. Furthermore, the definition of the word “militia” is all able bodied people 18 years and older. The word “militia” is not the same as the word “military”. A military is conscripted, commanded, paid, trained, and equipped by government, not to mention specifically authorized in Article I of the Constitution. A military is an official structure within the federal government. A militia is not conscripted, not paid, and is not trained or equipped by the government. The militia is not commanded by the federal government; and not even by the states except in case of emergency when each state governor can call forth the militia as needed.

Since the militia is the people and they are not paid, trained, and most importantly not equipped by any government, it follows that the word “regulate” in the 2^nd Amendment is something the people must out of necessity do for themselves. That is why after that little comma in the sentence, the 2^nd Amendment states that the right is of “the people”. No one else does it for us. We must equip and train; we must regulate ourselves.

This “well regulated militia” is “necessary for the security of a free state”. The most important two words in that last phrase are “free state”. We don’t live in a police state. Well, we aren’t supposed to. Someone should tell that to the TSA. Anyway, the government secures your security in a police state. They are the ones with the guns and you are the helpless little prole. We live in a free state. In a free state you are responsible for your own security.

Because you are responsible for your own security, “the people” is the phrase that is used. It isn’t the military, or the local sheriff, or the weasels in Washington DC. It’s you, the people. Inside our borders, in each state, in our cities towns, and homes, we the people are supposed to provide for our own security.

Thus, the need to keep and bear arms. As simple as it may sound, some people still don’t get even this little phrase. To keep means not just to possess, but to own permanently. To bear means to hold in your hand and or carry on your person. You know, like in a holster on your hip or a sling over your back. You actually have a right to do that. Neat huh?

The word “right” is used to denote from whence said power is derived. It is a condition given by God not granted by government. The Declaration of Independence used the phrase “endowed by their Creator” for a reason. Rights come from God. The 2^nd Amendment is a right and you should not have to ask permission or exception to do something your Creator blessed you with at birth.

So there you have it. If you followed the flow of context from the Declaration of Independence, to the structure of the Constitution, to the Bill of Rights, and read all of the words in that little sentence in context, you now know what the 2^nd Amendment says and means.