Religion & Geopolitics Review: Saturday, September 9

by Dr. David Pence and A. Joseph Lynch 

WEEKLY BRIEF
AMERICAN IDENTITY AND IMMIGRATION REFORM

The President sent DACA to Congress where it belongs. Immigration status must be determined by laws not presidential dictates. He is clearly signaling he would protect certain classes of illegal immigrants (especially the "dreamers") if he gets a wall and a serious enforcement policy stopping illegal immigration. He has learned that a compromise on immigration will never happen with a Republican-only legislative strategy. Trump did not campaign as a loyal party Republican or a think tank conservative. Those were the groups he overthrew and conquered. Many of them have not forgiven him. President Trump campaigned as a "get it done American" with a Christian heart for his forgotten countrymen. (That patriotic heart as part of the Protestant tradition has been missed by neocons, Catholic intellectuals, the elite media, and Antifa).

Different parts of President Trump's agenda will be carried out by different coalitions. Tax reform could be a Republican-only venture. Immigration reform and infrastructure spending will have to involve a coalition which includes at least 20-25 Democrats. Immigration reform means a real physical and institutional barrier to illegal immigration. Call that part "The Wall". It means setting some specific time (say Jan 20, 2017) when it was obvious to all foreigners that our open policy for immigrants was over. All illegals here before that date with work records and no criminal acts will be given a path to citizenship (green cards). All who have come here illegally since then are shown the door because "a country that cannot determine who is allowed inside is not a country". Even nice people who came illegally after that date must be sent back. Only such enforcement will show others that there really is a new American policy on immigration and citizenship. Is this an amnesty?  Definitely and everyone should know this is not a "right" of the illegals but an act of authority by a national political community. We have granted amnesty because by not enforcing our laws for decades before Mr Trump, we were telling the pre Trump immigrants--"Come over here; we want your labor and do not care about you becoming citizens."  This perpetual illegal status was great for certain employers. It fostered a globalist's paradise in which urban areas are disparate marketplace societies of autonomous consumers and laborers. It was horrible for creating the integrating polity of   democratic cities. The city as republic was swamped by the city as market. The open border policy provided a huge pool of good hearted illegals in which criminal sharks could swim and strike. And so they have. It was an advantage for illegals as wage earners and soul killing for them as public men and citizens.

 For those on the right who object to amnesty, we should see it as national reparation for deciding as a nation to live outside the law. A good deal of the moral argument for the amnesty is in reparation for the one wall which our decayed culture did build against the newcomer--the "feminist as Aztec" policy of child sacrifice known as the abortion regime. As a nation we still owe God for that affront. Let us return to God. Let us live again as a Christian culture. Let us repent and renew. That is the Biblical path for nations under God. The public male form of Christian love of neighbor is the territorial nation. Let us reassert that national bond and invite a defined number of our immigrant brothers into our renewed pact. If there is no limit to that invitation it will be meaningless.

It is necessary to define and significantly restrict entry through our borders so we can absorb those who have worked here as our fellow citizens. Americans do not want to deport the man who shingled our roof 4 years ago and has kids in our grade schools.  Americans do want to gain control of what we had earlier surrendered-our own borders. We can do both. Set a defined date for amnesty leading to citizenship. Use every level of law enforcement to arrest criminals and send home all illegals who have come since that defined date. Build whatever physical barrier is necessary to maintain our integrity as a communal body. In biology that is called a cell membrane and it is necessary for the life of an organism. In political speak it is called The Wall. Neither party alone can effect such a compromise solution to our national problem. Neither pure liberals nor principled conservatives will do what is necessary. This is why the country needed a different kind of President.  Our American President may be able to forge a cross party American coalition that can compromise and govern. If he does, then The Americans will be needed soon after to untie the party knots which are paralyzing our foreign policy as well.

 (One churchman who writes about immigration in terms of the spiritual character of citizenship and national identity is Archbishop Gomez of Los Angeles. Our review of his unique understanding of the spiritual dimensions of immigration and national identity.)

      

I. POPE FRANCIS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

MARY AND THE AMERICAS: The unique and compelling vision of Bishop Gomez. Mary as our model by RR Reno. Marian femininity vs. modern feminism. Patriarchal Fraternity can only be understood when balanced by the Virgin Mother. See the video series on Mary and the full argument.
Our book review of Bishop Gomez on immigration. He does understand both man as citizen and the importance of nation as a spiritual relationship which must be defined to be meaningful.

THE POPE AND HIS TOP MAN AT CDF: Interesting insights from a German Protestant.

A VATICAN CONFERENCE RETHINKING JUST WAR THEORY: What is missing in Catholic thought is a much fuller understanding of the nation, political authority, and the civic fraternity that animates public life. Blessed are the Peacemakers for they shall be called the Sons of God is not a beatitude about hippies singing "no more war". It is a command for adult men to enter into the public communal relations of parish, diocese and Church as well as nation, city, and state to create the tranquility which comes from civic order.  The maturation of men involves our submission to the larger identities and duties of religion and politics, of church and nation. Legal civic authority by its nature administers the sword of justice. Declarations of nonviolence in a violent world are an intellectual distraction and moral retreat from the practical work of constructing and fortifying political community. As Pope Francis says, "Reality is more important than ideas." One of the great tragedies of the Western effeminacy in the Church is the inability to understand the masculine institutions of nation and State. The masculine obligations of kingship, ruling and exercising authority against criminals and predators seems to have been extracted from the very personality structures of modern Christian males. This leaves African bishops especially naked in their confrontations with radical Islam and the attempts of their people to forge an authoritative state capable of transcending tribal animosities. It renders Catholic public men in South America unarmed and mute before their atheist opponents willing to use force.  Politics is about forging masculine communal territorial bonds, not intellectuals making globalist pronouncements about nonviolence in the name of religion. (Noah, his sons and the natural law of political communities). The Conference at the Vatican: Catholics becoming Mennonites doesn't help.

THREE POPES ON WORK AND WORKERS: "Work is a form of civic love."

POPE JOHN XXIII, THE EUCHARIST, AND ITALY: A young priest at a Eucharistic Conference in 1920's as Communists and Fascists battle for the soul of Italy.

II. ISLAM AND THE MIDDLE EAST

ON YEMEN: by Bruce Reidel.              AOA on Yemen.

IRAN, AFGHANISTAN, AND INDIA: All wary of Salafist elements in Pakistan.
 A talk to U.S. Army College setting context - indispensable display of "realism" in foreign policy toward Afghanistan.
 AOA on Pakistan Map on Monday and Review of four books

ON SAUDI ARABIA: The Hajj - an expression of Saudi power.            AOA on Saudi Arabia.

JEWS AND MUSLIMS: Can Isaac and Ishmael reconcile?

DUNKIRK IN REVERSE: Christians return to Nineveh in Iraq. A great drama much more important than taking refugees in is letting people go back home.

III. AROUND THE WORLD R&G ROUND UP

CULTURAL REVOLUTIONS: COMPARING VIOLENCE IN CHINA AND AMERICA: By Helen Raleigh. The American cultural revolution did not begin with the violence of ANTIFA, but the intolerance on US campuses is certainly mindful of China's cultural revolution. Eventually the adults took back China. In the US we have not yet repudiated the atheism and sexual anarchy at the heart of the baby boomers' revolution against nature and authority. Cultural restoration in America will involve a return to the sacred and fostering a sense of filial piety toward legitimate authority. The social order will reflect the sacral order - hierarchical communion. Lessons from the Chinese Cultural Revolution - Trump vs. Clinton.

NORTH KOREANS INSIDE JAPAN: A sizable minority not hiding their loyalty to both Japan and North Korea.

CHINA AND NORTH KOREA: Views of Chinese scholars. Pat Buchanan on Japan and South Korea going nuclear.

MUST SEE WORLD MAPS: Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps has posted some important world maps that do a tremendous job of helping to give visualization and geographic context to matters both military and economic. We recommend reading the following map posts: National Top Exports, Top Militaries by Bases, and Mapping World's Top Weapons Exporters.