Steve - Thank you for taking the time to respond in detail. Your remarks are interesting, because we have profoundly different ways of thinking.
While love is every man's responsibility, the Christian belief is that loving to the point of laying down one's life for others is not common, or even possible, for many in their present spiritual state. The Holy Spirit dwelling in us produces this love, and love, by definition, is a personal responsibility. A national community cannot love in this way unless every member is willing voluntarily to lay down his or her life for others. Where this universal love is absent, those who have it can not force it on those who do not—especially if the latter are in the majority.
I do not agree that "
love, by definition, is a personal responsibility." How do you arrive at this definition?
I think groups of people very often - and very naturally - become communal organisms. Such an organism thinks together, emotes together, acts together.
This does not mean that all the constituents of the organism are in total agreement. But utter cohesion is not necessary for the collective identity to be real, or for it to function. Within my individual self, there are varying impulses and mentalities that coexist in tension with each other. If I were to lay down my life for somebody else, I would not be surprised if some of my impulses and mentalities were to push against that choice, inveterately. So my personal identity is complex - and yet I exist and bear responsibilities and take action, all as an individual person.
Likewise, communal organisms exist, bear responsibility, and take action - even though some of their constituents may be out of harmony or out of step.
When some constituents are out of harmony or out of step, their counterparts in the communal organism may not be able to force them to change their minds. But it also is true that their counterparts may force them to change their behavior. And changing behavior can eventually lead to changed hearts and minds.
I've worked with children for many years, much of it in roles that require me to be a disciplinarian. I cannot force any of the children to be kind, respectful, positive, diligent in their deepest souls. But I can force nearly all of them to behave in ways that are consistent with kindness, respectfulness, positivity, diligence. Eventually, many persons grow into the identity demanded of them.
Other persons will not - but having been forced to behave in better ways than they would, at least the people around them have not had to deal with the full dysfunction of their pathologies.
What may be desirable for a "national community" to do is not necessarily the same thing as what a State is supposed to do. A "community" is another name for people. The "State" is another word for laws and institutions. You—and socialists generally—believe that the State can be compassionate. Christianity teaches that only people can have compassion. Compassionate individuals, banding together in community (like the Church), can perform even greater acts of compassion.
While we might agree that to live by Christian standards is the inherent duty of all people made in God's image, Christians cannot force non-Christians to behave like Christians. The language of love is not the language of force. The language of government is that of force. People are forced to refrain from criminal behavior. Unlike human beings, the soulless State is not there for the showing of compassion, but for upholding justice—which, in the case of governmental duties, means protecting the rights of its citizens. The interests of compassion may go beyond the interests of justice, but the State's interests do not.
In a democratic society, the State is a tool, an empowered agent of the national community. There is no universal manual for States - they can take different forms and operate in different fashions. Some States are more people-driven, and some are more structurally-driven. To illustrate: in some States, judges have great personal latitude to render decisions and impose judgments; in other States, judges are tightly circumscribed by statutes. I favor a "people" model, where the essence of the State is not primarily "soulless" structure, but "soulful" public servants.
When the fundamental element of a State is compassionate public servants, then of course the State can be compassionate.
But I also will argue that the "soulless" structure is not so soulless as it might seem. The structure is created by souls, and it is very natural for created things to reflect and be an extension of their creator(s).
There are times when the language of love is the language of force. As discussed above, there is the matter of discipline.
Discipline is not just about negative behavior - getting people to not do bad things. It also is about positive behavior - getting people to do good things. And of course, it is not merely about behavior, but about inculcating deeper modes of being and identity. It is very common for internal character to be shaped by external forces.
On a similar tack - justice is not merely about questions of negative behavior; it also involves questions of positive behavior. Compassion is not extrinsic to justice, but rather intrinsic. Justice demands compassion; and where compassion is not given its due, such is a violation of justice.
From past discussion, I expect we may have profoundly different ways of thinking in this arena. I view all virtue -- all that is right -- as a unity = coinherent and consistent. When properly understood, no virtue will be found to be in tension with, or exclusive from, any other. No aspect of virtue exists in isolation from any other aspect of virtue. All are fully, mutually present - and if it seems that some aspect of virtue is separated from its counterpart(s), in reality one has run into a flawed approximation of virtue.
I expect that you see things differently = a diversity of virtues, some pressing against each other, some sallying apart from each other. Please correct me if I am mistaken.
But in my way of thinking, justice that ranges beyond compassion is not justice, and compassion that ranges beyond justice is not compassion.
Accordingly, to differentiate between justice and compassion as a duty or non-duty of the State is folly - a flawed pattern of thought that leads to betraying both justice and compassion.
Compassion can be shown to one person only at the expense of someone else's rights. If you help a poor person, you are voluntarily sacrificing your right to keep what you have earned. If you share your home with someone, you are voluntarily surrendering your right to your property and your privacy. If you die in order to rescue someone, you are sacrificing your right to your life—a very noble thing, and most loving. You can sacrifice your rights without becoming guilty of an injustice, because your rights are yours to surrender, if you wish. The State cannot surrender your rights out of compassion to others, without committing an injustice against you. The State can thus only become an agency of compassion by compromising its mission of upholding justice. The protection of one man's rights does not violate the rights of another man. The State should do its job, and people can then do theirs.
I do not agree that "
Compassion can be shown to one person only at the expense of someone else's rights." How do you arrive at this conclusion?
To my mind, your remarks here reveal a flawed understanding of rights. In my way of thinking, "rights" adhere to what is right. If I am in a situation where the right thing is to give my coat to a shivering man, then I do not have a right to the coat. I have no property right, in that scenario, to be sacrificed. Again, if I am in a situation where the right thing is to invite a displaced person into my home, then I do not have a right to refuse them. I have no property or privacy right to be surrendered.
Nobody has a right to do what is wrong. Else how could anybody be held accountable for neglecting the leper at their gate? They could simply plead their property or their privacy "right" and be dismissed from the dock.
Nobody has a right to deny the requirements of compassion; and in fulfilling those requirements, nobody sacrifices or surrenders any true rights.
Accordingly, it is possible for the State to force persons to surrender a coat - or privacy, or even a life - without compromising justice.
Allowing persons to withhold from those who rightly should receive --
that would be compromising justice, for the sake of "rights" that are not right.
Other nations' governments also possess the duty to protect the rights of their citizens. However, if Syria, or other nations, refuse to protect the rights of their own citizens, that duty does not automatically transfer to the governments of other States. If a woman has to flee from her own home for safety from an abusive husband, I may be compassionate enough to let her stay in my home. However, her husband's abusive behavior does not translate into her inherent right to live in my home, whether I invite her or not.
A country (e.g., America) is a home. It is the home of people who have rights. It is not the home of the State. The State is there to protect the interests of the people who call its land "home."
In my way of thinking, a national community is not only responsible for its self-interest. It is also responsible for the interests of its neighbors.
The national community, and its constituents, do not have the right to deny that responsibility.
The State should be available to facilitate the fulfillment of that responsibility. It should not be complicit in the betrayal of that responsibility.
But there is a fine line between diffusion and infiltration.
There are plenty of ways to infiltrate the United States, whether or not we accept refugees. The question is whether accepting refugees poses a compelling threat to the United States.
When weighing this out, I think it is worthwhile to compare the potential threat posed by refugees with the parallel threats posed by persons who are natural-born citizens. Natural-born citizens plant bombs, conduct biological attacks, shoot up public arenas, rape, thieve,
etc.
As far as I am aware, refugees who have gone through our extended process of legal admission do not end up posing a more compelling threat than our natural-born citizenry, which has its own share of fanatics and criminals.
Exotic populations who come here because they believe in the values and institutions of this country have always been a boon to our growth and progress. However, populations that do not believe in the Bill of Rights, in the Constitution, or in the fundamentals of American culture, but who wish to overthrow it and replace it with Sharia law, are not in the same category. There has never been (and should never be) any requirement that immigrants adopt "Western" religion. However, if they are determined to overthrow "Western" religious and cultural norms, then, arguably, they belong elsewhere than in the West.
Even if we accepted several million refugees, distaste for Western norms would not pose a serious threat to American culture. For one thing, the influx would still only amount to a very small fraction of the population. And for another, refugees generally are people who prioritize safety, family, and the opportunity to prosper. They generally are not looking to revisit ideological fanaticism - they have seen its fruits in the land they have fled from.
Of course, some among the first generation may never be deeply sold on certain aspects of American culture. This is not necessarily a bad thing - American culture is a behemoth that could benefit from some minority reports. But in any event, we may expect that the second and third generations will be largely on board with the evolving American tradition.
)