In his latest rant, Pope Francis declared that immigrants are modern-day “pilgrims,” and he also lectured that Americans would do well to learn from their “diversity.”
Twittering twits everywhere applaud and like these remarks. “What a compassionate man this Pope is,” they say. And they make sure that their friends know they think it, because then their friends will think they’re compassionate too.
Such is the mentality often fostered by today’s social media technology. The root of such a mentality is far older. It’s the desire to be part of the pack, rather than to think for oneself, which means to think rationally and objectively whether the herd or the pack seems to be doing so, or not. This particular Pope does a great job of articulating for the mindless herd; but almost nothing he utters makes any rational sense in the confines of any individual, thinking mind.
Here’s the problem with the Pope’s comments about immigration: Today’s immigrants are not the same as previous ones.
Those original colonists were greeted by a vast wilderness. They faced total responsibility in a state of complete freedom. Today’s “pilgrims” are greeted by billions of dollars in welfare, free education, free health care and all kinds of government services.
Am I saying that today’s immigrants have it easier? No, not necessarily. Being embraced by a welfare state is not all it’s cracked up to be. First of all, there’s the mindless and dehumanizing red tape and bureaucracy. Government aid makes you reliant on external authorities — bureaucratic and stifling ones, at that. It takes away the requirement to focus first and foremost on your own well-being, your own survival and your own development over time.
By hooking immigrants on government at the front door, we’re denying them the ability to make their own lives, through their own efforts and in their own way. It’s the same thing we’re doing to more and more Americans who are now dependent on government checks (in some form or another). We never attempt to quantify the impact of such policies by discovering what’s lost.
Am I blaming today’s immigrants for the welfare state that exists in America? Of course not. I blame it on the elected leaders, intellectual elites, spiritual leaders — including socialist Popes — who insist that the welfare state is for the “good of society,” and therefore is automatically and always good for the individuals we’re training and conditioning to cash in on it.
Am I assuming that all of today’s immigrants are drawn here by the welfare state? No. I cannot say that, because I honestly do not know that. What I do know for sure is that the welfare state is here, upon entry. I know that this must in some way change their attitudes, their thinking, their priorities and incentives. It changes everything, from the nature of the immigrants we attract to the experiences and mindsets of immigrants once they are here.
America was the land of opportunity. Now it’s still somewhat that, but it’s more and more the land of government aid, government programs, government guarantees and government entitlements.
The welfare state appeals to the worst within us. It appeals to fear, negative thinking and unearned entitlement. Remember that the welfare state is not voluntary, benevolent charity — which (when nonsacrificial) always has its place in human affairs, and is perfectly legitimate. The welfare state is based on the assumption that you should not have to ask for help — that it should be given to you because you (by some incomprehensible government formula) need it. At the root of the welfare state is the communistic idea that man is his brother’s keeper, and government will ensure (via coercion) that it stays that way.
That’s really what the immigration issue is mostly about. I don’t think Donald Trump and his supporters understand that, but on some level many of them sense it. When they rail against immigration, they are really (in many cases) going against the growing welfare state. But even Donald Trump stops short of challenging the welfare state.
It’s not about immigration so much as piling the country with more would-be/want-to-be or actual dependents on the government. The government is already broke — just read the U.S. Treasury Department’s own projections for Social Security and Medicare in the coming few decades. Are you in your 20s and 30s? Those programs will be long gone for you. Think hard before voting for candidates who claim to care about you.
The government is likewise morally bankrupt. Can anyone look at the people running both the White House and Congress and really think these characters have the stuff of Ben Franklin, James Madison, Thomas Paine, George Washington or Thomas Jefferson? Nobody would ever claim that. Partisan bickering simply focuses on which side is worse; not who’s any good. America’s founders had their flaws, but they also had character and principles. Today’s politicians, by and large, have neither.
America is falling apart and nobody seems to know what to do about it. It’s not because the solutions require rocket science. It’s because nobody wants to name the real roots of the issue, like I’m doing now. They’re scared to death of somehow being rejected by the pack, of being seen as unkind or improper.
Pope Francis provides an absurd, and at times hilarious foil to the elements of reason, rationality, self-reliance, independence and individual rights that more or less formed the basis for America at its founding, and kept us going for a couple of centuries.
When you look at the things Pope Francis says, you get a caricature of everything that’s wrong with the world at this point in time. Does he make any sense at all, when he goes off about the evils of capitalism, the glory of poverty, the imminent end of the world due to global warming, the moral superiority of the homeless, and the comparison of modern day entitled immigrants with the fearless Pilgrims (and their contemporaries) who risked life and limb to settle in the New World?
Of course not. But he’s the Pope. You cannot question the Pope, right?
That’s the kind of thinking that’s killing us. You have to be willing to question what’s illogical, untenable and just plain wrong. It does not matter who’s saying it.
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