Immigration, Neighbors, and Enemies
It is like a science-fiction movie from the 1950’s. Mysterious radiation from outer space takes over the brains of Asian men in America, turning them into moral zombies that go on killing sprees: a Buddhist in Texas who tried to beat the demons out of his three-year-old son who had eaten meat; a discharged IBM employee who shot up an immigrant hospitality center in Binghamton, New York; the Vietnamese father in Mobile who threw his three children off a bridge. Simultaneously, from the South, comes an invading force of violent aliens importing toxins that destroy the souls of those who ingest them. And all across the country the familiar cry goes up, “Nothing can stop them!”
It is not surprising that Barack Obama and the other leaders of his Democratic Party of the Left refuse to take measures to protect the American people from mutants and aliens. After all, they hate the people, the country, and its traditions. Just to put a period to his loathing of the old America, President Obama returned a bust of Winston Churchill to the British government. No reason was given for snubbing our wartime ally, but everyone knows the reason: Churchill took steps to suppress the Mau Maus—a gang of terrorists who expressed their protest against British rule by murdering and raping British farmers and their families.
The Grand Old Party of the Center Right is hardly more patriotic than the Democrats. Oh, it is true that a senator here and a congressman there have made speeches about illegal immigration—hardly ever about the real problem, which is legal immigration—but the Republicans are controlled by a libertarian/Wall Street Journal mind-set that has relegated nation-states to the dustbin of history. Here is the one point on which Marxists and libertarians are in complete agreement: Neither nations nor communities nor even families should command the loyalties of free and equal individuals.
Claude Polin, in a brilliant article on fraternité (Catholica 100), has shed some light on this convergence of right and left. He points out that any authentic notion of human brotherhood is excluded by the modern attachment to the other Jacobin articles of faith, liberty and equality, because “a being who conceives himself as totally free and essentially equal to his counterparts (semblables) must experience a natural propensity to treat the other as a means of serving his own ends.” This explains why exchange is the dominant mode of social interaction in the modern world in which “each seeks the society of others only insofar as he finds his own interest in it and through which he makes every effort to maximize it.” When moderns do invoke the concept of human brotherhood, they are either hypocritical egoists who know that to enjoy the right to maximize their own interest they must pretend to grant others a similar right, or else they are members of an officially designated group of victims who, though they are brothers in misfortune, are not brothers to all mankind. Brotherhood requires us to believe we are all the children of God, made in His image, and it is that image—that capacity for virtue—that we must love even in our worst enemy, not his vices or even his membership in the club of privileged victims.
To extend our friend and colleague’s point, we can say that, insofar as parents and children are motivated by liberty and equality, they will regard their relations not as a series of duties and affections arising from ties of blood but as a set of reciprocally profitable exchanges. The ties of common citizenship, being weaker and less natural, will hardly be felt at all by the free and equal. Who would go to war, defend a border, or restrict trade if such exertions were not personally advantageous? Marx hated nations and states, but the doom of historic nations was already pronounced by the classical liberals of the 19th century.
And yet it is Christianity, not Marxism or liberalism, that usually receives the credit or blame for the repudiation of loyalty and patriotism. Pseudochristian leftists—including far too many Catholic bishops in the United States—make the preposterous claim that Christ came to liberate us from the duty to defend borders or respect the law. Antichristian nationalists, following in Nietzsche’s drunken meandering footsteps, complain that Christianity weakened Western man’s resolve to defend his interests against other peoples and races. Paradoxically, many of these neopagans are also followers of Adam Smith, Ludwig von Mises, and Milton Friedman—the liberal gurus who did their best to dissolve all the bonds linking human beings and to replace them with (to use a phrase Marx borrowed from Carlyle) the cash nexus.
If the neopagan nationalists had ever read any history, they would, perhaps, be puzzled by the behavior of Christian warriors like Justinian and Charles Martel, Saint Louis and Saint Joan, but their response would be that Saint Joan was a bad Christian who did not understand Christ’s message as well as they do—ill-read pagans though they are. What else did Jesus mean in His Sermon on the Mount?
Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you . . .
Some pacifists, Christians among them, have construed this passage to imply an express condemnation of all forms of violence and all use of force whether in self-defense or national defense, but neither the context of the passage nor the wider context of the Scriptures and tradition would bear out this interpretation.
Jesus is primarily addressing His followers, the brethren He had assembled from the towns of Galilee. Like most Mediterranean peoples, the Jews were a fractious and litigious lot. In Greek, the enemy He refers to is an echthros, that is, a personal enemy, and not the foreign enemy (polemios) who rides in to slay, rape, and pillage. A personal enemy is someone with whom you are having a dispute over a property line, an inheritance, or insults that may have been exchanged when the two parties were in their cups. Anyone who has lived in a small town, suburban neighborhood, or co-op apartment building knows that man is not just wolf to man but also weasel and jackal, ready to start a lifelong quarrel over a loose dog, an unpainted fence, or a noisy party. What a waste of time and energy this can be, especially among brothers who are told to love one another.
It is true that Tertullian completely rejected the Roman Empire and, consequently, all forms of imperial service, including soldiering, but Tertullian was an extreme rigorist who withdrew, with other Montanists, from the Christian mainstream. Earlier Christian apologists, such as the author of the “Epistle to Diognetus” and Aristides the Athenian, only singled out Christians for their moral purity. Otherwise, “Christians are not distinguished from the rest of mankind by country, speech, or custom,” and, although they are treated as aliens, they shoulder the burdens of citizenship.
Saint Augustine regarded the charge of pacifism as a slander used to discredit Christians as loyal Roman citizens. In a letter to an imperial commissioner, Augustine argued that the admonitions to turn the other cheek and not repay evil with evil have to do with the Christian’s mental disposition and not with the need to correct, with charity, an erring son, a criminal, or an invader. John the Baptist, after all, did not tell the soldiers to lay down their weapons and desert but was content with instructing them to “do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages” (Luke 3:14). The barbs were aimed at soldiers who augmented their incomes by collaborating in the extortions of tax collectors.
When a Christian engages in killing, either as executioner or soldier, it is the ruler and not he who is morally responsible. The soldier is merely the instrument of a ruler whose power comes from God, as Christ informs Pilate during His interrogation. Saint Paul sums up the Christian position succinctly: “Not in vain does he [the ruler] hold the sword” (Romans 13).
Vengeance belongs to God, who then delegates that power to the ruler, who is to protect the innocent from violence by punishing lawbreakers and defending his kingdom or empire against invaders. His subjects or citizens, correspondingly, have a duty to pay their taxes, obey the laws, and defend their country. This reasoning depends on an important premise, that a commonwealth—whether city republic or kingdom or empire—is a legitimate human institution that requires the power to defend itself. In the high Christian Age, Thomas Aquinas would make it clear that Christians owe a primary moral duty to their family and a civic duty to their commonwealth. All other arguments are, quite simply, moral heresy and lead to pernicious consequences. The greatest Catholic moral theologian, St. Alphonsus de Liguori, while laying down conditions for a just war, is careful to explain that a conscripted subject does not sin even by fighting in what turns out to be an unjust war. “I was only following orders” may not be an excuse for a war criminal, but it is a justification even for the citizens of a republican government that has decided to go to war.
To delegitimate nations, some radicals misleadingly cite Paul’s statement that, in baptism, “There is neither Jew nor Greek” (Galatians 3:28), but this statement is aimed at repressing quarrels that broke out between gentile and Jewish Christians. The sentence continues, “there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” And yet, so far from uttering a word against slavery per se, he instructs slaves to obey their masters, and Paul, who has been unfairly stigmatized as a misogynist, can hardly be accused of pursuing a feminist agenda.
Some leftists have pretended that Christians cannot restrict immigration into their country, even if they believe it is harmful to their nation’s security and prosperity. They cite such statements as “Thou shalt neither vex a stranger nor oppress him: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Like most prooftexts taken out of context, these sentences are open to misinterpretation. Did strangers possess the same rights as Jews? Certainly not. A foreigner who approached the tabernacle was put to death (Numbers 1:51). A Jew could charge interest on money loaned to a stranger but not to a Jew (Numbers 23:20), and the Jews’ ethnic first cousins, the Edomites, only gained full rights after three generations of living with the children of Israel (Numbers 23:10). The Torah did prescribe justice and kindness to strangers, but when Solomon conducted a census of the strangers in Israel, he was sufficiently alarmed by their numbers as to send many of them off to do hard labor.
Like most ancient peoples, the Israelites were intensely chauvinistic. By their own (exaggerated) account in Joshua and Judges, they exterminated the populations of Canaan when they entered the Promised Land, and, once installed there, the tribes were forever quarreling with one another, their non-Jewish neighbors, and, more perilously, with the great kingdoms of the Middle East. The prophets warned the kings of Judah and Israel repeatedly, but the Jews did not heed them, and the result was the Assyrian conquest of Israel and the Babylonian captivity of the Judeans.
In an outburst of quite justifiable xenophobia, the Israelites, returning from the Babylonian captivity, separated themselves from non-Jews and made a covenant not to intermarry with them (Nehemiah 10: 28-30). When a Hellenistic kingdom replaced Persian rule, the Maccabees led an uprising against a universal empire that overrode local distinctions. Later, under Roman rule, the Jews refused to accept the fact that Herod had established Greek city-states, and when the emperor did not find in their favor, they staged the rebellion that led to their destruction.
Greeks and Romans wondered, rather unfairly, why Jews could not get along like other conquered peoples, but whatever use we make of the Old Testament as a political inspiration, it is simply disingenuous to argue that the Jews’ undoubted kindness to sojourning strangers constitutes an argument against either defensive war or immigration restriction.
Catholic and Orthodox rulers and their subjects had no reluctance to defend their commonwealths against pagans, heretics, and their fellow communicants, and, if they had no other piece of Scripture, the story of the Tower of Babel would have informed them that their Creator had established separate peoples and warned them against any attempt to corral all the nations into a world government. Christians only began to lose their will to defend themselves during the Enlightenment, precisely the period when they began to replace their Christian Faith with the moral absurdities of John Locke and Adam Smith, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Immanuel Kant.
I am not concerned to defend any nationalist policy or any particular immigration law. My object has been to point out the dishonesty and absurdity of “Christian” arguments against waging war and restricting immigration. When pastors and priests, bishops and theologians today defend illegal aliens or invoke the doctrine of “civil disobedience,” they are not speaking as Christians but as Marxists or Hindus. And when supposedly conservative writers try to tell Christians that they have undermined the West, it is time to tell them that they are defending a West to which they do not belong.
This article first appeared in the June 2009 issue of Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture.
Entries(RSS)
Tom,
Great piece. Immigration is something that black people do not like.
http://stuffblackpeopledontlike.blogspot.com/
Back in 1985 Fairfax County (VA) court issued a brochure of the 20 most wanted. There were 3 whites, 3 blacks and the rest were Koreans, Arabs, Vietnamese, and Mestizos. Apparently the children of first generation immigrants go horribly wrong at a greater rate than the native-born population. This leads me to believe that the advocates of unlimited immigration seriously want a breakdown of law, order, and civilized society.
Some of the more unkind websites put it thus, a room with 10 tigers is a dangerous place, but a room with 4 tigers, 3 rhinos, and 3 hippos will fight amongst themselves.
The solution -- flogging for the advocates of destruction delivered by means of a parallel justice system.
Hurrah. This article for the first time in memory mentions the dreaded term 'world government'. Shame you can't discuss who the real powers are that pull strings, and why they do such things.
Dr. Fleming, as a fairly young man who will (hopefully) never have to leave my home country, I have one specific concern about the issue of immigration and liberalism:
Given that liberals have transformed this country in, say, the past 40-50 years, into an almost authentically multicultural state, on what grounds may we appeal to a common culture in the near future? In other words, I am assuming that our European and, more specifically, English heritage is what many true conservatives would like to give primacy in considering immigration policy and in articulating a specifically American identity. What happens, though, when this just is not historically true anymore? Most people now consider being American as being committed to broadly liberal ideals instead of being from a particular place, and it is absolute heresy to say that one cannot come to America unless they at least adopt our historic ways of life. At what point will we actually become an atomized group of individuals with ever dissolving social bonds who have no justification for limiting immigration from anywhere because we ourselves have no common experience as "being American?"
If I could attempt to give an example of what I mean: European countries with heavy Muslim immigration are having to combat these same suicidal tendencies of multiculturalism and liberalism, but what happens, for instance, when Muslims actually do constitute a large enough segment of one of these countries? If, hypothetically, they maintain their Muslim identity while simultaneously growing to a formidable size, what, then, becomes a prudent immigration policy? What becomes of the native European culture as a whole?
Perhaps it is because I live in NYC that my perception of this issue is more pessimistic than most, but if anything in my disjointed question is worth responding to, please do.
To my estimation this is an excellent defense of Christian culture which in fact did exist once upon a time. In times such as our own when the enemy is storming the walls or is both literaly and figuratively cutting wire surrounding our perimeter, the only two alternatives for the defensive leader is to shout, "follow me" or "every man for himself." Knowing Dr. Feming as I do, he surely knows there are not enough Christians left today to form a skirmish line in defense of their country. (Afterall, if there ever was such a thing in America as the "moral majority" it is certainly a minority today.) I doubt he is inviting his rag tag band of readers (like myself) to storm the mountain, but he might be inviting them to "follow him" to a cave within the mountain. If so, it is probably a cave similar to the one Plato speaks of in his famous dialogue, or the hearth of ones own home, or perhaps even that silent "cavity" within a broken and contrite heart which the psalm says is a sacrifice to God, and the Gospels say is smaller than a mustard seed.
Anything more would seem to be rash rhetoric given the current environement accurately described as "Antichristian nationalists, following in Nietzsche’s drunken meandering footsteps, complaining that Christianity weakened Western man’s resolve to defend his interests against other peoples and races," while anything less would be beneath the dignity of a courageous man like Dr. Fleming. "What becomes of the native European culture as a whole?" Humanly speaking it is impossible that it should survive under current circumstances. Yet,only God knows the future.
Excellent article, as usual, Dr. Fleming.
While I believe I understand the Scriptural directive to be kind and hospitable toward the stranger, where pray tell does that morph into allowing him in to disrupt and fundamentally change my household? Yet that is precisely what we are being forced to accept.
Mr. Edward @ 2
What you are experiencing in NYC is also that which we are experiencing down here. There is yet a facade of Southern culture which, in its official "tourist" version, is a "sweet" parody of what once was, including the core Christian aspects of it.
Ironically, at least in our nook of the once-South, some of the best lived-out and confessed Southern and Christian lives are those of yeomen blacks who still farm the hill country and have intact nuclear families - one biological father, one biological mother and children - along with the intimate extended family.
In the "rural" South, the aliens are not real people but the alien spirit which comes to us via all of the media. Far too many of our youth and young adults are merely clones of Madison Avenue and Hollywood. They live in rural settings but have none of the skills and values associated with people of the land and people of the Faith. Most of them cannot tell you their grandparents names, such is their disconnected with history, even familial history. In my German class, I showed the film Sophie Scholl. I told my students to watch for, among other things, the "Pontius Pilote" scene in the movie. Hands shot up to a student: Who or what was Pontius Pilote? These are kids from a rural Southern setting, supposedly "churched." They claim to be Christians and do not even know the Easter story! Of course, in the villages, towns and cities, one finds the real aliens. Far example, most cross-roads groceries are now owned by Indians as are the little motels in the smaller cities.
Robert @ 3
There are three places of intimacy and sanctuary: the marriage bed rightly related to God, the supper table with the father acting as the priest of the household as modeled by Job, and the Church where we on the Lord's Day gather to commune with the Living God. All three sanctuaries are under attack, from within and from without. Yet, these must be defended by aggressive counterattack. In all three sanctuaries, the enemy from within must first be vanquished before we can foray against the enemy without!
There are two sides to the question that Edward has raised. He raised it from the negative side, that is, what happens to a country where Muslims begin to constitute a significant minority and then a majority. The answer is that sensitivity to Sharia law will increase, e.g., nude bathing will be outlawed, then revealing bathing suits. Fines for public drunkenness will increase, as will penalties for a wife's adultery--and in each case Muslims will point out that they are only doing what Christians should have done all along. They will outlaw alcohol in public places (bars, restaurants) so as to avoid giving offense to the faithful. You get the picture. Step by step--or should I say au fur et en mesure, since France is the most potent example--the more faithful Muslims will try to impose their will. There will be a counter-tendency consisting of feeble liberal resistance to their hedonism and a more serious desire of modernized Muslims to enjoy the good life. Is Islam really strong enough to resist modernization? I doubt it, especially where a well-paid technocratic class emerges, as, for example, in Turkey or Iraq. But whatever happened would not be especially attractive.
The other way to look at it is positive. In Italy and Greece, to take two examples with which I tolerably familiar, there are still vestiges of a national identity and Christian culture. The ruling class works incessantly to destroy it, and the same people are in favor of unlimited Muslim immigration, but outside of the major cities--Athens, Rome, Milan, etc--the visitor knows he is in a country where everyday life is worth living to a degree almost unimaginable in the US. To take a more complex example, that of France, life in France--even in Paris--is much better than life in the US. They eat better, watch less TV, and are less addicted to the mass-delusions that afflict us--jogging, Twitter, video games, etc. I would prefer living 5 years in gritty Marseilles, and then being murdered by Muslim "youths" to 20 years in lovely pastoral Vermont (which I just drove through) where the boring ennervated Yankees are infinitely preferable to the hyphenated urban scum that apes their ways. Eating a horrifyingly bad breakfast in Norwich, VT (the Norwich Inn) I could not help noticing two grotesquely attired professors (probably Dartmouth), dressed in the best imitation WASP country club attire and talking in what they took to be the best of WASP accents. But the woman, despite extensive facial reconstruction, could not disguise her ancestry, nor could the man refrain from sticking his bare legs out straight into the room or from talking loud enough, about his own importance, so that everyone in the room could hear him. In Quebec, where the Marxists are trying their best to ruin the place, I was struck by how fundamentally nice the people are. I would rather be an alien among the Quebecois than a native among the "Vermonters."
"The greatest Catholic moral theologian, St. Alphonsus de Liguori, while laying down conditions for a just war, is careful to explain that a conscripted subject does not sin even by fighting in what turns out to be an unjust war. `I was only following orders' may not be an excuse for a war criminal, but it is a justification even for the citizens of a republican government that has decided to go to war."
Isn't an unjust war, by definition, a criminal enterprise? How does obedience sanctify the actions of of a citizen/subject who participates in a criminal enterprise?
"Isn’t an unjust war, by definition, a criminal enterprise? How does obedience sanctify the actions of of a citizen/subject who participates in a criminal enterprise?"
Yes it is and we have it exactly backwards concerning who should be prosecuted. We always prosecute the sergants and lance corporal for wrong doing when we need to prosecute the folks who led them into the boxed canyon. Obedience and devotion to duty are the soldiers chief vitues and it is ridiculous to think a countrty can have an army of philosophers and or leaders instead of soldiers. In my opinion war is a punishment for sin and those who fight them are heroes. Those who start them are the ones who need hanging when the tides turn and the truth of the matter is manifested. Mr. Cheney seems to instinctively understand this, which is why I believe he is now attempting so desperately to defend the meaningless war he started In Iraq.
Robert, I emphatically agree those who start wars of aggression are criminals. But how can one be regarded as a hero if the cause for which he fights is morally indefensible? An army carrying out a war of aggression is a criminal band, no different in principle from a gang carrying out a home invasion robbery.
If an armed robber is bold and intrepid in carrying out his tasks, we don't consider him "heroic," no matter how risky his occupation may be. And if an armed robber kills a homeowner attempting to defend his home, this act isn't self-defense; it's murder. How do the similar acts of soldiers fighting an unjust war differ in principle?
It also strikes me as dangerous to say that those who lead a country to ruin in an unjust war should confront prosecution "when the tides turn."
A successful war of aggression is the most dangerous kind, and punishing leaders only when their evil designs come to naught will encourage greater official deviousness and ruthlessness, rather than moral reform. That being said, I have no idea how to overcome the practical difficulties that punishing successful aggression would entail.
Will,
You ask excellent questions. It is a dangerous assertion to say that those who lead a country to ruin should be held accountable to their countrymen. In a defensive war such as the South fought, the North wanted desperately to prosecute the confederates after the war. If Cheney and Bush and their advisors had ever served in the armed forces ( I think Cheney receieved something like five or six deferments from service in Vietnam) they would not be so willing and ready to lead as to serve their country, and more willing to accept the consequences of having sacrificed thousands of young Americans for a preventive war that has prevented nothing except stability in the region.
Will, it is good to hear from you after so long. I don't think you received a message of mine some years back inviting you to write for us. Yours is an excellent question because it points to a basic misunderstanding modern man has about doing his duty and matters of right and wrong. In addition to the distinction between actions that are wrong or illegal in themselves and those which may simply be forbidden, one has to distinguish, in such matters, between what is the right decision and who has the power to make it. When the drill sergeant said jump, I believe the correct response was, "How high?" When a father tells a 12-year old to do something, it is not in the child's power or authority to say no. it is also not up to the government and its employees to decide how I should educate my children, particularly if my eccentricities are consistent with long-standing traditions that have only recently fallen out of favor. Thus, it is not up to citizen volunteers, much less conscripts, to second-guess the decisions of their officers or their government. Now, St. Alphonsus does say, in addition, that mercenaries have a moral obligation not to enlist in a war they believe to be unjust and that young citizens or subjects should not join an army, if they believe the rulers are likely to send them unjustly into battle. I think we can debate the fine points here, but I hope we can agree that there are occasions when obedience is required.
"When a Christian engages in killing, either as executioner or soldier, it is the ruler and not he who is morally responsible. The soldier is merely the instrument of a ruler whose power comes from God, as Christ informs Pilate during His interrogation. Saint Paul sums up the Christian position succinctly: “Not in vain does he [the ruler] hold the sword” (Romans 13)."
Regarding this question, at what point can we say that a soldier or underling is morally culpable for an action commanded by a ruler? I know I am asking the wrong question to a certain extent, but it seems as if our century is littered with unjust wars executed by ideological zealots on behalf of numerous causes. The Nazi example may be cliche, but, from a Christian perspective, are we to say that commanding officers (Hitler, etc.) are solely to blame inasmuch as they are the rulers, or can we say that particular soldiers are to blame as well? I hope I am not detracting from the central point of your piece, Dr. Fleming, but traditional Christian morality has been so undermined by liberalism that it is hard to tell the true from the false. Even our bishops are placed under suspicion, something you have pointed out in this piece regarding immigration.
This is an excellent question, and I don't know, offhand, of a sound moralist who has treated it. I think we could begin by distinguishing between a soldier or civil servant who does his ordinary duty but in a bad cause or for an evil regime from the case of a soldier or civil servant who does what his family and national traditions would regard as evil. I think a conscript in the German army or the Red Army is morally guiltless, while a torturer or murderer must be held accountable, even if he felt he had few options. The former leader of the Croatian Peasant Party--an extremely nationalist party--refused to hold office in the Ustase regime, and as a result he was incarcerated in a camp where Serbs were murdered by the hundreds of thousands. From his cell he watched every day as one of the guards went off to do his dirty work and then as he returned spattered with blood. One day he saw the guard saying the Rosary and he shouted to him: "Do you think God hears the prayers of someone like you?" The guard answered, "I know that I am going to Hell for what I have done, but I did it for Croatia." That is a pretty clear case.
What of the German officers and soldiers who were ordered to shoot Ukrainian peasants? Several officers who refused were shot immediately and even then others refused. I do not know of a single case in the American or Soviet armies. Now, what of the officers who carried out orders in this case? On a moral level they are guilty of murder, but can one really regard them as war criminals when, a) they were following orders, and b) would have been killed if they refused to kill? Yes, a good Christian should refuse--as Socrates also instructs us: It is better, he said, to suffer injustice than to commit it. But I do not think we can have a legal system that requires martyrdom of ordinary people.
Each case has to be looked at in detail. For example, I think the British terror bombings of German towns and the US fire-bombing in Japan were war crimes. But I am not at all sure that the airmen who carried out the raids were morally culpabale. They were told they were saving lives, defending their country, etc. etc. Most of them were dumb kids. Also, it is far easier to kill from a distance when you do not see the blood or hear the screams. I have a chapter on this in The Morality of Everyday Life. In it, I discuss an American colonel (Dave Grossmith, I think) who did research on long-distance killing. He could not find a single example of remorse--a sharp contrast with regular combat infantrymen who are often haunted by the memory of what they did. I did find one exception, a terrifying poem by James Dickey. Dickey was a terrible liar about his life, but he did fly on fire-bombing missions in Japan.
So, we can distinguish between those who set policies and those who obey, those who simply do their duty and those who commit criminal acts, and between those who actually understand what they are doing and those who do not. This is very rough, but moral casuistry is an untidy business, which is what makes St. Alphonsus a really indispensable theologian.
Dr. Fleming, I appreciate your kind words and typically thoughtful replies to my questions and those posed by Edward.
I emphatically agree that there are circumstances in which obedience is required, particularly in the context of patriarchal authority (which, to be candid, strikes me as the ONLY innately legitimate form, parents being manifestly NOT the equals of their children and having a clear divine mandate to protect, provide for, and educate their young).
As someone who is a relatively new convert to traditional Christianity, I'm wrestling rather late in life with some fundamental questions about obedience.
The religion in which I was raised teaches a doctrine of unqualified obedience to leaders, coupled with a promise that God will reward those who obey their leaders even if this involves doing something that is objectively wrong in a moral sense. That struck me as a form of idolatry in that it assumed that human leaders have the authority to bind God to reward immoral behavior.
As I said, I'm young in the faith and doing a lot of make-up work, and I greatly appreciate the help you and others provide. God bless.
Dr. Fleming, I would have to look at your book to confirm, but I think you are referring to Dave Grossman. Readers who are interested in learning more about him can google his name or "killology" and thus find his website.
Yes, I realized after posting my response that I had misremembered the name.
For the 2nd year in a row, our priest gave a sermon in which he indicated that the events of Pentecost "undo" what was done at Babel. A kind of an anti-Babel story of unity.
Where is the Inquisition, when you need it?
Now that "moral casuistry" wrt war and soldiering has entered into a piece originally devoted to immigration, here's a moral hypothetical attempting to tie everything together, in the form of several questions.
1. Do European governments have the moral right to require their domestic Muslims to return to their ancestral homelands? Incidentally, upon what would this moral right be based?
2. Assume the Muslims refuse to return home voluntarily, or were actually born in Europe. Do European governments have the moral right forcibly to repatriate them (ie physically place them on boats, planes, etc, bound for the traditional Muslim lands)?
3. Assume the Muslims not only refuse to leave, but pick up weapons to resist their deportation. May European soldiers shoot the resisters? May European civilians also shoot the resisters?
4. Suppose the broader domestic Muslim communities in Europe widely support the armed resisters, morally, but also physically (sheltering, feeding, bandaging them, etc). May European governments declare war on their Muslim communities, and begin indiscriminately shooting at ALL Muslims, bombing Muslim neighborhoods, etc?
5. Suppose European governments continue to be comprised of racial/religious/civilizational traitors, who actively seek to dispossess their own subject nations/peoples of their historic cultures, folkways and very nations, through the primary mechanism of imposing a Muslim demographic conquest upon their own peoples. At what point may the European peoples rebel against their dispossessor governments, and start assassinating political figures?
6. Finally, at what point can European Christians launch a "preventive war" against their state-imposed Muslim immigrant neighbors (recall young Russell Crowe in ROMPER STOMPER slapping a Vietnamese immigrant to Australia, while saying over and over,"This is not your country"), to foreclose the possibility of living under dhimmitude in the future?
Incidentally, the "excellent" questions of "Will" above in fact are rather sophomoric (and the responses from Dr. Fleming wise and hard to improve upon). A soldier does not have a right or an obligation to pick and choose his fights according to his own conscience. He cannot, however, before God, anyway, use the excuse of war to justify what would be ordinarily considered simple criminality. Hence, the Christian soldier may shoot, stab, burn, bomb, etc the enemy in the course of mutual fighting. If the enemy lays down his weapons, then killing him, if hardly tantamount to civilian murder in peacetime, must still be accounted wrong, because the Christian is no longer threatened.
Of course, other types of ordinary crime, like theft and especially rape, or torture of POWs (unless for vital informational purposes), are not excused merely by hostilities, though "theft" must be distinguished from relieving the enemy of weapons, foodstuffs, medical supplies, etc. It would be stealing for a Christian soldier to take an enemy's wedding band, at least if it were for personal gain (if for the war effort, the situation becomes murkier). It would not be theft to take the enemy's woolen coat, even if the enemy were to freeze without it, provided the Christian or one of his men in turn would freeze without it. On the other hand, taking the enemy's coat, causing him to freeze, when it is not needed by one of the Christians, is immoral cruelty.
I don't see why these issues should be thought so difficult, at least in theory. Where they do become difficult nay impossible, however, is on the evidentiary side of the ledger. Was it really right of me to shoot that last soldier, or was he trying to surrender? Was it really necessary to bomb Hiroshima (Nagasaki was absolutely immoral, even if understandable, after the cruelties that the filthy Japs had inflicted upon many American and British POWs, not to mention the horrors they perpetrated upon civilians throughout Asia)? Only God will ever know with certainty the morality of those kinds of situations.
The example Fleming offers @17 of the German soldiers and Ukrainian peasants is an excellent one, though his conclusion that someone ordered to kill the innocent on pain of death is morally guilty of murder strikes me as wrong. I do not believe the Christian tradition to hold that a man must sacrifice his own life for that of another, although doing so would certainly be saintly. Moreover, one cannot overlook the context; specifically, that if I were ordered to do the evil act, but did not do it and were executed, that would not prevent the act's occurrence, as another could be expected to take my place. Murder involves initiation of an abomination. The German officers alluded to are simply following orders, and are therefore morally like automatons or tools.
Of course, if the punishment for disobedience were something other than certain execution, then very likely the Christian would have to refuse to obey. But this is all a long way from some contemporary creep thinking he could burn his draft card because "Vietnam [or Iraq] was immoral".
"Incidentally, the “excellent” questions of “Will” above in fact are rather sophomoric (and the responses from Dr. Fleming wise and hard to improve upon). A soldier does not have a right or an obligation to pick and choose his fights according to his own conscience."
Oh, for heaven's sake. Where do you folks grow at night? In a volunteer military as it exists today, sophomore age men pick and choose to serve or not to serve in the armed forces. The rest of your post reminds me of those inane engaement briefings we had in the Marine Corps where everyone said afterwards, "Ok, laminate it and we'll take it to the field with us."
I have no idea what "Robert" is talking about. Most men who have served in wars in history were conscripted. But even a volunteer, once signed up, "does not have a right or an obligation to pick and choose his fights according to his own conscience.”
Cato,
"even a volunteer, once signed up, “does not have a right or an obligation to pick and choose his fights according to his own conscience.”
I agree with this statement but Will's questions, which I thought were honest, had several parts. You thought they were sophomoric and rather simple. Perhaps it was a misunderstanding. To do ones duty and obey is honorable conduct. (General Lee thought we could ask no more of a man.) To ask an honest question about something one does not understand or to seek light amidst darkness is not sophomoric (acting as a sophisticated-moron)so I resented your caricature of his questions as such and responded with short condescending remarks of my own. My apology. I feel much better this morning.
"though his conclusion that someone ordered to kill the innocent on pain of death is morally guilty of murder strikes me as wrong. I do not believe the Christian tradition to hold that a man must sacrifice his own life for that of another, although doing so would certainly be saintly."
Though hardly a world-class scholar of Just War doctrine myself, I would say that Cato seems to have neglected a rather important aspect of it -- i.e., the principle of discrimination.
To kill the innocent as a means to one's end (in this case, survival) is always murder.
Naturally I would not jump on a high horse to condemn someone who failed such an abominable test, but it is important to call a spade a spade.
Moreover,
"Moreover, one cannot overlook the context; specifically, that if I were ordered to do the evil act, but did not do it and were executed, that would not prevent the act’s occurrence, as another could be expected to take my place."
strikes me as flawed reasoning, in that it takes for granted that we can somehow peer into the future and know exactly how things will turn out and what the consequences of our choices will be. As just one possible counterexample -- somebody, after all, will be the last victim to get murdered just prior to the cavalry showing up.
That was a good article for sure, but the cold hard fact is that there is no more Charles Martels or John Sobieski's out there anymore Dr Fleming!!!! It is like the Mishkin article in Pravda almost 3 weeks ago in where he tells it like it is in that the mega preachers, etc are on the take in their quest for power, so they bow to the Marxists. The great Christian author/apologist Josh Mc Dowell once gave a talk when I was involved with Campus Crusade in the late 80's early 90's where he was bold enough to state that he thought 90% of Christians were frauds and he is probably right. Like your column about faith without works is dead, so to is mainstream Christianity. It is nothing more than a Potemkin village, a delusion or lie to show others that one is a deep spiritual person, when in fact they have totally bought into the crass materialism of the gangster capitalist/Marxist worldview. Vatican II killed off the Catholic Church once and for all as the Church clergy in the Third World hold on to the Marxist dependency theory to justify liberation theology. Protestant churches in America worship the God/State relationship(American exceptionalism) and are bombarded with messages of how God wants them to be wealthy and have no trials in life. In essence Christianity has been so subverted/perverted that it is actually being used as a tool by the Marxists to weaken "believers". Christianity has been rendered an impotent force in combatting the Marxist storm that is coming. Only thing that can restore the balance is indeed a new Martel, Charlemagne, Joan of Arc, Sobieski figure that has the fortitude to stand up to this coming storm. Not too sure he/she is out there though.
To Robert: glad you're feeling better, one hopes, today as well as yesterday. But my skin is thick everyday. No apology was needed, or necessary. The blogosphere is "rough and tumble"; we venture into it with our self-esteem in constant peril ...
'Will's' inquiry re whether it is immoral to serve in an (allegedly) unjust war does not seem to me to be an 'excellent' one, as both you and TJF described it. There is much less absolute morality than people commonly think; most moral questions are context-dependent. Admittedly, I can't see how rape could ever be justified. But that might be it. Even killing a child could be justified, if he's shooting a gun at you, and you're trapped. Of course, murder by definition is wrong. But that doesn't solve anything, because one must differentiate between homicide and murder, and that can be difficult.
There are deep but basic errors is 'Will's' positions. Here is his core question:
"Isn’t an unjust war, by definition, a criminal enterprise? How does obedience sanctify the actions of of a citizen/subject who participates in a criminal enterprise?"
My annoyance with this question stems from its implicit conflation of those who start wars with those who fight them. He seems to imply that if a war is unjust, then ALL involved must be unjust. "Criminal enterprise" implies to me voluntary entry into an organization dedicated to immoral pursuits. But there is nothing inherently immoral about militaries per se, though they have often been put to evil ends. If a man embarks upon an honorable career in the US Army, that is obviously morally different from someone embarking upon a career in the Mafia. The former organization MAY be used evilly, but the latter is inherently evil. There is almost no excuse for joining the Mafia (I suppose one could be wrongly imprisoned, and feel the need for Mafia protection, if the possibility exists). But a man wishing to defend his country does not need a moral justification for doing so.
So what Will is really implying is that a soldier has a right (duty?) to pass moral judgment on the policies of his superiors. Then, if he judges some particular military campaign (Vietnam, Iraq) to be unjust, he must leave the military, or else he shall have been transformed, merely by doing his job, the job for which he signed up, has been trained and paid, perhaps swore an oath to perform, into a member of a criminal enterprise - even though his intention had been to sign up to defend his country. In other words, the soldier did not have criminal intent when he was inducted into the service, but by doing his job he becomes a criminal?
No. If there are criminals, that is, if the war was truly unjust, it is the leaders who must be called to account. The soldier is simply their tool. Unless he behaves in a criminal manner (ie commits ordinary crimes under cover of war), he cannot be held to account for his superiors' sins.
I'm going to think about this some more tonight. But I'm quite sure I'm correct in what I have argued, both here and earlier in the thread.
Let me suggest one or two things. First, though we are in the blogosphere, by force, it is as aliens. We are not of the blogosphere. "Will" is a hard-hitting journalist and asked an honest question that troubles many people. Asking questions is not sophomoric, and it simply wrong to say that it is. It is also wrong, on first dealing with a stranger, to assume that one knows what the other is saying. In such a case it is unsafe and impolite to speak of "implicit conflation. Otherwise, I should have to speak of the implicit conflation of "the Mafia"--an ancient and not always dishonorable organization--with organized crime per se. I might also be tempted to speak of the conflation of Cato's argument with the morally obtuse arguments for passive obedience. A soldier is only a tool, in the absolute sense, if he abrogates his moral conscience, he is morally obliged--even under the most difficult circumstances--to refrain from acts he knows to be criminal. Cato brought his up before and was adequately refuted by others. As for being "quite sure," I am reminded of the way my father used to trick me by asking if I was sure about something, adding "Are you positive?" And when I said yes, he invariably replied, "Only fools are positive." Thinking about these matters by one's self is not going to lead anywhere. I cited the best authority I know of for my position, and I shall let it rest with St. Alphonsus.
The question of the duties of the Christian soldier in an unjust war have been well dealt with in the dialogue above. I have another question - whether Christian pacifism is really a problem. There are always a certain number of Christian pacifist sects, but these are of marginal importance. Christians are always willing to fight - against other Christians and non-Christians alike, and for the sake of whatever regime or ruling ideology they live under. The Theban legion (probably a much smaller unit) and Blessed Franz Jaggerstatter are rare exceptions.
In the US, it is not at all unusual to meet people who are practicing Christians, even devout members of their church, who loathe the ideology and practices of the US regime, but think it is morally permissible, even mandatory, to use violence to spread "our values" to other countries. I know many anti-feminist Christians who hold it the duty of the US to use violence to impose "women's rights" on Moslem countries. The Church is responsible for at least part of this Orwellian mentality by its equivocal use of such terms as democracy and feminism, but the result of this has hardly been pacifism.
And I am a little bit puzzled by the suggestion that what we need are leaders like Martel, Charlemagne, Joan of Arc and Sobieski. These were all military leaders; assuming they were to re-appear, whose armies would they lead and against whom? Presumably their primary target would be the "Christian" US armed forces, the powerful spearhead of world revolution. But in truth our problems are spiritual, not military.