And in other news that should surprise no one on earth…
…illegal immigrants are no-showing their court appearances:
Most of the illegal border crossers from Central America who arrived in last year’s surge have skipped out on their hearings, according to immigration court statistics obtained by Fox News. Only about 1 percent of the total have been awarded legal status or relief from deportation by immigration judges, but a significant number (37 percent) of the unaccompanied juvenile arrivals have had their cases closed or terminated, which indicates that they most likely also will be allowed to avoid deportation. In spite of these facts, yesterday the Obama administration announced that it will release the few illegal crossers who were detained, as well as any new arrivals who “state a claim” for asylum.
The immigration court statistics are the latest evidence that the Obama administration’s response to the surge has been an utter failure. Very few of the aliens are cooperating with the generous due process that they have been allowed. Only a small number are qualifying for asylum. Most concerning, it is now clear that very few of the illegal arrivals will ever be repatriated, even if they fail in their request for asylum or other status, and that the administration’s repeated assurances that they would be sent back were insincere and misleading.
I beg to differ with the first sentence of that second paragraph. “Utter failure”? Raging success, rather.
How can people still think that the administration meant for these people to show up, rather than to give them back-door amnesty? How foolish can some people be?
Forgiveness: what did Jesus mean?
First, a disclaimer: I am far from an expert on Jesus, Christianity, or the New Testament. But I’ve long been puzzled by the tendency of Christians to forgive when the person who wronged them has not asked for forgiveness or, more importantly (to me, anyway) has shown no indication of awareness of wrongdoing or change of heart. So the following is offered in the spirit of starting a conversation on the matter—or rather, continuing it.
It came up in yesterday’s thread about turning the other cheek. If you missed the discussion, see “starlord”‘s comment here. An excerpt:
Whether or not you agree with Father Morris, he’s not acting outside what his Savior would expect…
Here’s a few of Jesus’s own words that are probably familiar to the least devout of Christians…
Our Father, which art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy Name…
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive them that trespass against us…And in 14: “14 “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
Seems pretty clear to me why a priest would excuse someone spitting on him…
Father Morris isn’t Jesus, but it seems he tried, imperfectly, to behave in a way that Jesus would have approved…
My response is that it depends what the meaning of “forgive” is. I realize that there’s a lengthy and ancient tradition of discussion on the matter of what Jesus meant by his words on forgiveness, but the following is my own contribution, for what it’s worth.
Bringing up the meaning of the word “forgive” isn’t some sort of sophistry. At the time he was speaking, at least as far as I know, Jesus was a Jew speaking to Jews (I will skip the controversy over whether he spoke Aramaic or Hebrew and say “I don’t know,” and will add that the New Testament was written in a form of Greek and that some scholars think the original was in Aramaic).
I’m not sure when the following distinctions began, but in ancient traditional Judaism there have been at least three different words for forgiveness, only two of which are interpersonal and the last of which (kapparah) is the realm of God only. Of the two human ones, the first is “mekhilah,” required only if the offender has taken steps to correct the wrong: “The principle that mekhilah ought to be granted only if deserved is the core to the Jewish view of forgiveness.” Another Jewish word for (and type of) forgiveness is selikhah, which is basically empathy with the transgressor. In Judiasm, it is considered wrong to withhold forgiveness (mekhilah) if the person has asked for it, shown remorse, and demonstrated the desire to act differently in the future. Short of that, forgiveness is not required, although it is certainly permitted (selikhah). The idea is that mekhilah without the person showing remorse and change just encourages further bad behavior.
I am definitely unfamiliar with all the words of Jesus (or others) on the subject, but “starlord”‘s particular examples can be read in the light of the above paragraph. From the Lord’s Prayer, “As we forgive those that trespass against us” can be seen as the forgiveness we offer someone through mekhilah, and Jesus’ words “if you do not forgive men their trespasses” could be interpreted as referring to “if you don’t offer mekhilah to those who have repented.” None of these passages indicate a requirement for blanket forgiveness to the non-repentant.
In addition, this is in the New Testament:
5. Luke 17:3-4 NIV
So watch yourselves. “If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says , ”˜I repent,’ forgive him.”
“If he repents forgive him” is exactly the sort of thing I’m talking about. This statement in Luke 17:3-4 is pretty much the same as the Jewish teaching on forgiveness.
It seems even more explicit in Matthew 18:15-17:
15 Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.
16 But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.
17 And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican.
Lastly, on the Cross Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” Notice that he is quoted as asking God (the Father) to forgive them (kapparah, in other words). He does not say that he himself forgives them; I leave it up to you to decide why. I certainly don’t know, but I think it’s an interesting omission in the New Testament.
I realize I’m probably treading on a lot of toes here. Let me reiterate very strongly that I’m not saying I know better than Christians about what Jesus said or thought about forgiveness, or even that I know at all. But even within Christianity it’s my impression that there’s quite a bit of disagreement on this. I’m merely offering my own speculations and a somewhat different perspective.
[NOTE: See this for a more complete explanation of the Jewish attitude towards forgiveness and repentance.]
Greece crisis intensifies
Sunday is referendum day for Greece. The leftist Prime Minister Alex Tsipras thought the country would reject the terms the EU has proposed for a bailout, but indications are that the country will vote “yes” (accepting the terms) instead. A “no” would mean:
…near-certain departure from the euro, followed by years of further financial pain as Greece reintroduces its old drachma currency, which is likely to start at a low value.
Doesn’t sound like a happy prospect to me, nor apparently to most Greeks—that is, if the polls are right, and polls haven’t had a great track record lately. Tsipras claims “that the terms of the EU-bail out deal are simply too harsh for the country to bear.” The question is, compared to what? Tsipras can’t seem to understand that Greece may be close to running out of other people’s money. That’s a hard thing for socialists to accept, I know.
Here’s a more in-depth article about how Greece and the EU got to this sorry state of affairs. I’ve often said that economics isn’t my strong suit, and I can’t say whether the Business Insider article is correct, but it has a lot of interesting background information in it, such as the fact that Greece got into the EU under false pretenses, having fudged the figures on its budget deficit. And it wasn’t the last time it misrepresented its deficit figures, either.
Here’s the situation on austerity measures for Greece:
Many economists were sympathetic to Greece’s position. They argued that debt payments were onerous, the creditors would never receive full payment, and the programmes were restricting Greek economic growth. It quickly became clear that few finance ministers inside the Eurogroup, if any, agreed.
Unlike during the euro crisis, most other peripheral countries were *finally* making economic progress by the end of 2014, and they weren’t natural allies for Greece. What’s more, every European nation has its own anti-austerity parties (particularly Podemos in Spain) ”Žthat would be emboldened by any concessions given…
Initially there was a gulf between Athens and the creditors on almost everything. Athens asked for outright debt relief, an end to privatisation, stimulus funding from the ECB, and the rolling back of many economic reforms (such as lower minimum wages) made in previous years. The rest of Europe was not impressed.
Over months of tortuous negotiation, there did appear to be genuine progress at times. By early June, the Greek government had conceded on large parts of its initial programme. Issues such as privatisation had been sidelined. It became clear that the major issues that could sink the deal were labour-market regulations, fiscal austerity, and the pension system.
Things were looking up. And then…and then…:
On Sunday, just when it looked as if a deal may be done, Tsipras shocked the country by calling a referendum on the bailout. Having negotiated the deal, he said it wasn’t good enough and didn’t fit with his party’s mandate. So [Tsipras’ party] Syriza is now campaigning against the deal it reached, offering up the decision to the Greek people.
I guess it will be up to the demos.
Christie’s in
I’m not sure anyone cares at this point, but Chris Christie has joined the crowded Republican field.
Pretty soon we’ll just have to list the Republicans who aren’t running for president.
I don’t think Christie’s going to be much of a factor. The bloom is off that rose, for the most part.
Turning the other cheek—to spit on
In line with the post below, we have this story:
Fr. Jonathan Morris is likely a familiar face to readers of TheBlaze ”” the Catholic priest based in the Bronx also has been a longtime analyst for Fox News.
Morris said he was walking Sunday in the vicinity of Broadway and 22nd Street in Manhattan and happened upon a gay pride parade. Two men spat on him as they walked by, he said.
Morris’ response? “Oh well”¦ I deserve worse.”
But Morris went even further:
He noted that the men who spat on him are likely “very good” individuals who were probably “caught up in excitement and past resentment. Most in that parade would not do that.”
Well, it’s true that most in that parade didn’t do it, although I’m not sure there weren’t some others who would have if they’d seen him. I am almost positive that most gay people wouldn’t do it, either, nor would most liberals.
But so what? A great deal of hatred is there, and what’s up with Morris’ response? Is it merely Christian of him? It reminds me most of all of the response of Robert Fisk to his own beating in Afghanistan, a response which as far as I know originated in his leftism rather than Christianity. You can find the story here.
There is a Jewish saying, and it goes like this:
The Medrash teaches us that “Whoever is kind to the cruel will end up being cruel to the kind.”
A priest who would turn the other cheek, even rhetorically, to those who would spit on him in the street is being kind to the cruel.
The religious war: against Christians, among Christians
If you had asked me twenty years ago what the 21st century would hold in store, “religious wars” probably wouldn’t have been tops on my list.
But it should have been.
There are many forms of it. The most obvious one until now has been between radical Islam and everybody else. Yes, radical Muslims are somewhat of a minority, but they’re a huge, activist, vocal, violent, determined, and ruthless minority, and they’ve been fighting the fight for the better part of a century (centuries, that is) and have really stepped it up since their victory in Iran in 1979. During the Obama administration the threat has grown both in numbers, in strength, and in barbarity.
I wrote that it’s a war “between radical Islam and everybody else.” The war against the Jews has been going on for a long time, with Israel/Palestine as the epicenter (that war isn’t just a religious one, but it certainly is a religious one as well as a political one). The war against the Hindus also is of great antiquity. The ancient war against Christians took a breather after the Siege of Vienna. In recent years, however, radical Islam’s revived war against Christians has reached a new violent fever pitch.
The West could fight that war and win it, if it chose to do so. But radical Islam is aware of, and takes advantage of, another war—an internal one within Christianity that weakens the response immeasurably. Christians are divided into two camps, one of which is what for want of a better term I would call leftist Christianity (revisionist Christianity? non-traditional Christianity?), which rests on social justice warrioring, embrace of same-sex marriage and related causes, and intense devotion to third-world problems. This is the “bleeding-heart liberal” wing of Christianity, and its numbers are strong.
Traditional, or fundamentalist, or socially conservative Christianity is opposed. The recent SCOTUS decision in Obergefell on same-sex marriage pits that group against the latest trends in the law. The same is true of orthodox Jews and Muslims, of course, but somehow I don’t think the left will make them their next target—they’ll begin with legal attacks on dissenting Christians because they are seen as weakest and most numerous. And they are weakest because of the fact that their fellow-Christians have abandoned them, and because there has been a campaign for a long long time to stir up hatred against them.
I’ve seen this myself among many liberals I know. I’m not talking about leftists, who tend to hate religion in general (unless they’re members of one of the aforementioned leftist-oriented churches, or unless the religion is Islam). For decades I’ve heard casual comments about how awful fundamentalist Christians are, and this is from liberal Christians themselves, or at least liberals who were born Christian. Conservative Christians now equal hatemongers in many people’s eyes, and so whatever is done against them legally will not, I predict, ruffle many feathers.
I’m not a Christian. I’m not even especially socially conservative. But it will ruffle my feathers if it happens, and I believe it will happen.
Perilous times.
A blow against proof of citizenship in federal elections
SCOTUS refused to hear a case (Kobach v. U.S. Election Assistance Commission) in which Kansas and Arizona were endeavoring to require proof of citizenship in federal elections.
A standard form known as the federal form is required in federal elections, although states can use their own forms for state elections. States are allowed to require proof of citizenship for state elections, but the federal form does not require it. When Arizona and Kansas requested that the U.S. Election Assistance Commission change the federal from to require citizen proof, the agency told them what they could do with that request (nothing), saying that swearing under penalty of perjury was enough. In other words, it’s the honor system, and of course no one is going to have the ability to separate out the liars and pursue them; that’s why requiring proof would act as a screen.
A refusal to hear a case leaves lower court decisions intact, but it doesn’t rule definitively on the legal issue itself.
Obviously, this is another victory for the left. As William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection points out, this is not a small issue:
In spite of substantial public controversy, very little reliable data exists concerning the frequency with which non-citizen immigrants participate in United States elections. Although such participation is a violation of election laws in most parts of the United States, enforcement depends principally on disclosure of citizenship status at the time of voter registration. This study examines participation rates by non-citizens using a nationally representative sample that includes non-citizen immigrants. We find that some non-citizens participate in U.S. elections, and that this participation has been large enough to change meaningful election outcomes including Electoral College votes, and Congressional elections. Non-citizen votes likely gave Senate Democrats the pivotal 60th vote needed to overcome filibusters in order to pass health care reform and other Obama administration priorities in the 111th Congress.
What’s going on? The decision was 7-2, which means that at least one of the three very reliably conservative justices (Scalia, Thomas, Alito) voted against hearing this case (against granting certiorari). I can’t discover who it was, but to me that aspect of the vote means that there might be something I’m missing about this. On what basis did that justice think that SCOTUS shouldn’t hear this case? I’d like to know, but I don’t think that information is out there anywhere. If you can find a link, please post it in the comments section.
These animals say…
…”Opposable thumbs? Who needs ’em?”:
Still, these could use a longer reach:
Terror in Tunisia
Yesterday there were three terrorist attacks, the worst of which in terms of loss of life (38 people) occurred on a beach in Sousse, Tunisia that is popular with European tourists. You can read many chilling accounts in the British papers (including the one I linked), because the majority of the victims were British people relaxing on holiday.
The goal: to frighten the West and to harm the Tunisian tourist industry. Mission accomplished. The site was almost certainly chosen for its peaceful-seeming nature (the message being “you are not not safe anywhere”), and also for the extreme unlikelihood that anyone there would be armed, except the gunman, who had arrived in a small inflatable boat and acted like a fellow-tourist until he opened fire with an automatic weapon he’d hidden in or behind a beach umbrella.
The cinematic nature of the scene is evident, but would that it were only a film:
Eyewitnesses say the gunman was was seen laughing and joking among the midday bathers and sunseekers, looking like any other tourist.
But it was claimed he was carefully selecting the victims he would murder with a Kalashnikov hidden in his parasol…
In another chilling account, Ibrahim el-Ghoul revealed how the killer had been smiling.
The trainee mechanic, who works part-time at hotel nearby, said the gunman told him ‘I don’t want to kill you; I want to hit tourists,’ according to The Independent…
A hotel worker said a shoeless Rezgui, who arrived on the beach by inflatable boat, had tried to blend in with the crowd. He added: ‘He opened fire with a Kalashnikov. He was a young guy dressed in shorts ”“ like he was a tourist himself.’
Rafik Chelli, Tunisia’s secretary of state for national security, said the gunman ”“ named locally as Rezgui ”“ entered the Marhaba complex through the pool area.
‘He entered by the beach, dressed like someone who was going to swim, and he had a beach umbrella with his gun in it. Then when he came to the beach he used his weapon,’ Mr Chelli said. Rezgui was shot dead by the security forces.
Because of the Ramadan religious period, there were few Tunisians on the beach and few children because most schools have yet to break up.
Houcine Jenayah, a businessman, said the gunman arrived at speed on an inflatable Zodiac boat.
‘He opened fire and had grenades with him,’ said Mr Jenayah. ‘He hid his Kalashnikov behind a parasol that he had in his hand.’
I’m old enough to remember a few things, and this incident reminds me very very much of the 1997 Luxor massacre in Egypt. In certain ways those were “better” days, because there were fewer terrorists (or seemed to have been, anyway), the internet wasn’t really yet a factor in helping them organize, and some of the strongmen leaders (such as in Egypt) seemed better able to crack down on them.
But the Luxor attack was even more barbaric and horrifying than yesterday’s on the Tunisian beach, if possible, and it took more victims as well. The intent was to depress tourism and the victims were almost all Europeans, as in Tunisia. Unlike in Tunisia, there were two armed guards there, but the guards were outnumbered and they were shot first:
In the mid-morning attack, six gunmen massacred 58 foreign nationals and four Egyptians. The six assailants were armed with automatic firearms and knives, and disguised as members of the security forces. They descended on the Temple of Hatshepsut at around 08:45. They killed two armed guards at the site. With the tourists trapped inside the temple, the killing went on systematically for 45 minutes, during which many bodies, especially of women, were mutilated with machetes. They used both guns and butcher knives. A note praising Islam was found inside a disemboweled body. The dead included a five-year-old British child and four Japanese couples on honeymoon.
The attackers then hijacked a bus, but ran into a checkpoint of armed Egyptian tourist police and military forces. One of the terrorists was wounded in the shootout and the rest fled into the hills where their bodies were found in a cave, apparently having committed suicide together.
Four Egyptians were killed, including three police officers and a tour guide. Of the 58 foreign tourists killed, 36 were Swiss, ten were Japanese, six were from the United Kingdom, four from Germany, and two were from Colombia.
Back then ISIS didn’t exist—but there’s a strong resemblance, isn’t there? And if you’re old enough to remember this one but don’t, do you wonder why? Did it receive less coverage? Was our sensibility not attuned to it because it was over there, and we thought it wouldn’t happen here?
Tourism in Egypt was depressed for many years after that, but it also put the terrorists’ support within Egypt into decline. Realizing that the horrific massacre had not been a good PR move, the group tried to backtrack and, of course, blamed the Jews (among others):
Organizers and supporters of the attack quickly realised that the strike had been a massive miscalculation and reacted with denials of involvement. The day after the attack, al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya leader Refa’i Ahmed Taha claimed the attackers intended only to take the tourists hostage, despite the immediate and systematic nature of the slaughter. Others denied Islamist involvement completely. Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman blamed Israelis for the killings, and Ayman Zawahiri maintained the attack was the work of the Egyptian police.
This contemperaneous article in the NY Times mentions that the terrorists said their original goal was to take hostages in order to negotiate for the release of Abdel-Rahman, imprisoned in New York for the 1993 WTC bombing. And this article mentioned beheadings. So the connection is quite clear; not much has changed except the scope of the problem, and perhaps (perhaps) the extent of our awareness of it.
Escaped convict Richard Matt has been killed by authorities
But unfortunately his accomplice Sweat is still at large.
I actually didn’t think they’d ever find the pair, but I guess the search was massive and they got some tips. There is little question that these men were/are extremely dangerous psychopaths. Here is the way it went down at the end for Matt:
According to officials, dogs picked up a scent around 2 a.m. Sen. Chuck Schumer, who said he was briefed on the incident, said that law enforcement were contacted by a woman who got a knock at her door, he told ABC station WABC-TV.
She didn’t answer the door, but instead called police, Schumer said. That’s when dogs picked up the scent and began to close in from the north and west.
Some time before 2 p.m. Friday, a person pulling a camper near Duane, N.Y., heard a sound and later discovered after pulling into a campsite that there was a bullet hole in it, state police said.
After that, a tactical team was deployed to a nearby cabin.
Inside, they noticed the smell of gun powder. While searching the grounds, investigators noticed movement and heard coughing, state police said.
Customs and Border Protection agents “verbally challenged him [Matt] and told him to put up his hands,” but he “didn’t comply,” State Police Superintendent Joseph D’Amico said at a Friday evening news conference.
He was shot and a 20 gauge shotgun was recovered from him.
Reading that story, it’s a reflection on news events of the last year or so that one of my thoughts was good thing he wasn’t black, or they’d be arresting the border patrol guy who shot him. I’m not being facetious, either.
Thoughts on the rapidity of the same-sex marriage sea change
One of the most distinctive things about yesterday’s same-sex marriage ruling was the rapidity with which such a huge change came about. It’s something Justice Scalia remarked upon in his scathing dissent:
The five Justices who compose today’s majority are entirely comfortable concluding that every State violated the Constitution for all of the 135 years between the Fourteenth Amendment’s ratification and Massachusetts’ permitting of same-sex marriages in 2003. They have discovered in the Fourteenth Amendment a “fundamental right” overlooked by every person alive at the time of ratification, and almost everyone else in the time since. They see what lesser legal minds”” minds like Thomas Cooley, John Marshall Harlan, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Learned Hand, Louis Brandeis, William Howard Taft, Benjamin Cardozo, Hugo Black, Felix Frankfurter, Robert Jackson, and Henry Friendly”” could not. They are certain that the People ratified the Fourteenth Amendment to bestow on them the power to remove questions from the democratic process when that is called for by their “reasoned judgment.” These Justices know that limiting marriage to one man and one woman is contrary to reason; they know that an institution as old as government itself, and accepted by every nation in history until 15 years ago, cannot possibly be supported by anything other than ignorance or bigotry. And they are willing to say that any citizen who does not agree with that, who adheres to what was, until 15 years ago, the unanimous judgment of all generations and all societies, stands against the Constitution.
Comparisons to slavery don’t work, not the least because slavery was never as widespread as the prohibition on same-sex marriages, and because even as far back as the Founding Fathers—who allowed slavery to be part of the republic—they did so with reluctance and for practical reasons, and most of them considered it wrong and fervently hoped it would die out over time of its own accord.
One can observe the enormous rapidity of the change of attitude towards same-sex marriage by contemplating that Congress passed DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act, in 1996, and President Clinton signed it. Not only did it pass, but the margin was a whole lot greater than the ratio of 5-4 by which SCOTUS ruled on the issue yesterday:
Passed the House on July 12, 1996 (Yeas: 342; Nays: 67)
Passed the Senate on September 10, 1996 (Yeas: 85; Nays: 14)
You can also amuse yourself, if you care to, by watching videos of prominent liberals intoning their support for traditional marriage only a few very short years ago. One of them, of course, was President Obama. Another was Hillary Clinton, whose failure to “evolve” lasted until 2013.
One thing that strikes me is not only the rapidity of the change, but the lack of acknowledgement of the flip-flop on the part of the liberal politicians. I would ask whether they were lying then or whether they are lying now, or whether they really suddenly Saw the Light, but I’m pretty sure of the answer, and it’s that they were lying then in order to get votes. Now they don’t have to lie anymore, at least about that (they lie about plenty else, of course).
I don’t see that a lot of people care, either. What I see on the liberal side is applause for their newly evolved state and/or approval of the cleverness with which they lied in order to get votes and gain power.
I read somewhere (don’t remember where, or I’d cite it) that now opponents of same-sex marriage can all relax and go on to other things because the fight is over—the left has gotten what it wants. Would that it were so! As I’ve written several times before, the left does not relax, and it never has gotten what it wants, which is total control and total capitulation from the other side. The persecution of the religious opponents to gay marriage is continuing apace and will pick up speed.
But more importantly, it’s not about same-sex marriage. As I’ve written several times, I don’t have a problem with a states’ citizens voting to legalize same-sex marriage if they so desire. I do have a problem with finding a right in the Constitution that doesn’t exist there, because that gives activists the green light for almost anything they desire, as long as they can get five liberal justices in there to bypass the Constitution and the will of the people.