The Holiday Gift of Community That Immigration-Reductionists

[kathyet]

From NumbersUSA

The Holiday Gift of Community That Immigration-Reductionists Work For



By Roy Beck, Updated Thursday, December 24, 2009, 6:27 AM EST - posted on NumbersUSA

Please allow me to bring a Christmas Eve greeting about the the ethics of community and about the GIFT OF COMMUNITY that I believe you so selflessly offer yearlong through your work with NumbersUSA in seeking U.S. immigration levels that are conducive to economic justice, individual freedom and environmental sustainability.

I'll be honoring my Missouri Ozarks roots tonight by accompanying Christmas caroling at my church on a banjo! I trust that you are finding equally harmonious ways to celebrate this week.

Of course for those of us who are attending religious services in our faith traditions during the holidays, our roots are a little deeper than a banjo as we will be reminded of bedrock values and soaring aspirations.

Sadly, many of us will be confronted in our places of worship over the next days and weeks by post-card-signing campaigns and messages from national religious agencies that supporting immigration limits that benefit your local and national communities are out of step with the spirit of this season. They will try to make you feel selfish about supporting limits on immigration.

While local congregations model the joys of family and community during the season, the national agencies of the following religious groups are waging a holiday postcard-signing campaign that attacks the idea of community responsibility and lobbies for permanent work visas for an estimated 7 million illegal foreign workers now holding U.S. jobs being sought by unemployed Americans, plus large increases in new foreign workers. Signed on to this holiday open-borders campaign are Jewish, Unitarian, Quaker, Catholic, Presbyterian USA, United Methodist, ELCA Lutheran, United Church of Christ, Episcopal, Disciples of Christ and Mennonite agencies. Among others publicly supporting these goals are national leaders of Assemblies of God, Christian Reformed, Vinyard and Nazarene denominations.

IS IT REALLY CHARITABLE TO GIVE AWAY OTHER PEOPLE'S JOBS?

Most Americans who attend churches and synogogues oppose amnesty and increases in immigration.

But that attitude is selfish, according to most of our national religious leaders.

These national leaders call for giving the gift of employment to new immigrants and to illegal foreign workers. That would be true charity, according to them. To give preference to the unemployed of our own communities would be uncharitable.

But is abandoning one's own community truly charity?

And are they really being that selfless in giving preference to people of other national communities? After all, hardly any of them are offering to give up their own job to a new immigrant. Rather, the "selfless" open-border advocates are exceptionally generous by giving away the jobs of OTHER members of their community.

While most of these religious leaders live relatively modest economic lifestyles, they nonetheless are far better off than most of the 15 million unemployed Americans who are the ones whose potential jobs are being so "selflessly" offered to the foreign workers.

I have trouble seeing the righteousness of this kind of charity.

OPEN IMMIGRATION IS INCOMPATIBLE TO A CHARITABLE SOCIETY

Back in the 1990s, I attended an ethics conference in Los Angeles where I heard Philosopher John Lachs of Vanderbilt University reflect on these issues. He concluded that there is a near universal standard that people's moral obligations generally are heaviest toward people who are the most connected, although that is not to say that one should have no concern for people in other lands.

"Morality would be vastly simplified if we could assert that all human beings are equally worthy of respect and leave the matter at that," he said. "Of course, this would place vast duties on us, for we would end up owing everybody everything."

Since such a moral standard of obligation to everybody would be impossible to honor, it could lead to people taking no responsibility at all for others. Because of that, Prof. Lachs said, civilizations have assumed a hierarchy of responsibility not unlike that of Epictetus, the ancient Greek, who said, "I ought not to be unfeeling like a statue but should fulfill both my natural and artificial relations, as a worshipper, a son, a brother, a father and a citizen."

Prof. Lachs noted: "One's own children cannot be told to get in line with all those needing to be fed; the fact that they are ours gives them priority and imposes overriding obligations on us.

"Similarly, citizens of a nation stand in a special relation to one another, and that relation is the source of special duties.

"The mutuality of our burdens and benefits as citizens is what justifies the duty to pay taxes and to contribute to the national defense . . . Open immigration is incompatible with the welfare and educational benefits offered in this (or any other) country . . . The moral course does not consist of following high-minded principles wherever they may lead but of doing what good we can, given the costs and consequences of available actions."

OBLIGATION TO ONE'S OWN COMMUNITY HAS LONG ETHICAL TRADITION

Some of the signs of a long tradition of ethical obligations to one's own community can be found in Christian scriptures such as:

If any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith.

-- Christian: 1 Timothy 5:8

The Hebrew Bible, while calling on the just treatment of foreign sojourners, is full of special obligations of the Hebrew people for their own community. Many Jews have told me teachings developed over the last two thousand years that follow in the line of "the general rule is that the poor of your town come before the poor of any other town." I can't place my hands on the exact references this morning, so would appreciate those of you who might have specific teachings to send to me.

The Roman Cicero was typical of ancient philosophers of all religions, said Prof. Lachs, when he noted: "The union and fellowhip of men will be best preserved if each receives from us the more kindness in proportion as he is more closely connected with us."

I do not intend this Christmas Eve blog to be an exhaustive treatise on all the ethical issues involved in the immigration debate, nor do I attempt here a battle of scriptural references with the bishops of so many denominations who cite scripture to justify lobbying for higher U.S. immigration (although I believe they are wrong on this matter and that the vast majority of their congregations who disagree with them are right).

I really prefer to keep the immigration debate out of our religious celebrations and worship of this season.

But for those of you unlucky enough to have a priest, pastor or rabbi interject the denominational amnesty advocacy into the season, I do want you to be forearmed with the confidence that your pro-community stance is on solid ethical, moral, practical and religious ground.

I salute all of you who are participating in charities with worldwide outreach while giving special attention the poor and hurting who are in your own communities.

ROY BECK is Founder & CEO of NumbersUSA
Views and opinions expressed in blogs on this website are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect official policies of NumbersUSA.

http://www.numbersusa.com/content/nusab ... tid=807766


Kathyet

[ShockedinCalifornia]

Merry Christmas Roy and God Bless Numbers USA.

They all do such vital important work for the citizens of our country and help keep us united.

What more decent organization is there for individuals to streamline to our elected officials in Washington? We are very fortunate to have them.