"The Problem with American Men," which is that they are too comfortable letting mouthy women run things, just so they don't have to hear it. I did not publish this because as I was editing it to remove personal details, I began to realize that, although I was being nicer in the way I said it, I was still grumbling almost as much as the mouthy women I don't like. In the end, I was left with one basic thought: I respect a man who gets off his duff to do the right thing. At 60 characters, that is more of a tweet than a blog.
Or this one:
"A Look at Refugee Politics based on 1 Kings 11," which I haven't published because it was getting long and rambling with too many current-event examples. It began with a quote of 1 Kings 11:1, 2, (which you can find now in the footnotes,) and was intended to be a counter argument to these two points:
• "but Christians are supposed to LOVE the foreigner"
• "you're being hypocritical—your own ancestors were migrants"
If I ever go back and re-work my draft, I will make it two separate posts. In the meantime, I will leave you with a summary of that post without the proofs or explanations:
The counter argument to the first one, that we must love the foreigner, pulls a truth so far out of context that it becomes a half-truth. While we are commanded to treat foreigners with decency, there is also a matter of priorities. Failure to properly prioritize is what got King Solomon in trouble. Solomon's love for foreigners surpassed his love for God; he was in full disobedience of the Lord's command, and God was rightfully angered. God, then family— Scripture sets a higher priority for our love on both of these than on foreigners. And next on the list, at equal levels, is to love our neighbor as ourselves. The principle is to take care of our own first without being cruel to others.
My counter arguments to the second one, that I am being a hypocrite if I do not accept foreigners since my own ancestors were migrants, have several facets. (a) While I may be an exception to most Americans, a walloping large percentage of my ancestry was already born on colonial soil before America became a nation, therefore, they were not immigrants. (b) The minority percentage that did immigrate to the United States had to pass much higher immigration standards that those in effect today. They had to pass health standards, have a job or skill, and they already knew the English language. So if I want foreigners to meet some basic standards for legal immigration and not just take anybody that some guy at the United Nations tells us to, that is not being hypocritical. (c) The Bible verse that is frequently used as justification is Leviticus 19:34, "Remember that you were once foreigners living in the land of Egypt." This suffers the same flaw as the first argument: It pulls a truth so far out of context that it becomes a half-truth. The Israelites had been invited to Egypt by the man second in power to the Pharaoh. They did not live off the government dole, but supplied a huge boost to the Egyptian economy; and no, I am not talking about the forced labor toward the end of their time there. Originally they were free herdsmen, not conscripted as construction-worker slaves. Initially, it was a win-win deal for both the Israelites and the Egyptians. Clearly, any analogy comparing today's refugees being forced on a sovereign nation by a multi-national board with the mutually beneficial deal made between two parties back then will fall apart pretty fast.
But I do hope to publish one of the other drafts that I started working on even earlier. My Columbus Day post is one that I began for Independence Day. The original title was: Nationalism and the 4th of July 🦅
That will have to change, of course. I am revising it so that, instead of using the patriotism of the 4th of July as the background, I am using President Trump's proclamation about Columbus Day. When Obama controlled the national narrative, every year we'd hear about how evil the European white guys exploited the indigenous Indians. Yet truthfully, much of the North American continent had not progressed much further than Africa had. The Indians could have built a bigger canoe first and become the discoverers of Europe, no? If anyone dared to point out that the peak of the Inca culture in South America had passed or that the Mezoamerican civilization of the Aztec was also going into decline, he'd be scorned as being racist.
But times have changed. Here is a quote from the Associated Press —
President Donald Trump is proclaiming Monday as Columbus Day — without any of his predecessor's qualms.This praise for Europeans is—I was going to say "a polar opposite," but that's the wrong axis! Anyway, looking at the bravery and accomplishment of a European male is a 180° change from Obama's screed to "acknowledge the pain and suffering" of Native Americans that we were scolded with last year.
The president's proclamation Friday directs the U.S. to celebrate his discovery of the Americas, noting "the permanent arrival of Europeans was a transformative event that undeniably and fundamentally changed the course of human history and set the stage for the development of our great Nation."
FOOTNOTES
Now King Solomon loved many foreign women ... from the nations concerning which the LORD had said to the people of Israel, “You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.” Solomon clung to these in love.
1 Kings 11:1, 2, ESV
This is a link to a Google translation of an article where German Chancellor Merkel tries to make the "We must love the foreigner" argument. She reportedly said that "Herrgott" has "put this task on the table" for Germany. "Herrgott" means "Lord God" in this case, (although it is often used as informal swearing like "Jeez.")
https://translate.google.de/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=de&ie=UTF-8&u=http://deutsche-wirtschafts-nachrichten.de/2015/10/04/merkel-auf-esoterik-trip-der-herrgott-hat-uns-die-fluechtlinge-geschickt/&edit-text=&act=url
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