A lot has happened in the US over the past week-and-a-half, including the signing of an executive order closing the borders of the US to all refugees and suspending entry of anyone from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somolia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
Over the weekend this executive order resulted in protests at major US airports. It also resulted in confusion among those detained, those responsible for enforcing it, and, in the US, travelers who were affected by the slow down of routine flight checking.
In conjunction with the executive order, the President has called for "extreme vetting measures" to permanently keep "radical Islamic" terrorists out of the US.
The current vetting process is lengthy and comprehensive, involving 20 steps that include the United Nations, the US State Department, US Immigration and US Homeland Security before anyone is cleared for entry. Here's the vetting process details. Conservatively it can take up to two or more years to be cleared for admittance to the US.
On a purely practical level, the executive order does not include Saudi Arabia, Pakistan or Egypt - whose citizens have launched terrorist attacks. None of the nineteen hijackers involved in 9/11 came from a country targeted by the President's executive order.
The Washington Post reported that, according to a senior US counter-terrorism official that the executive order was created without the normal inter-agency reviews that happened under the Bush and Obama administrations. "Nobody in the counter-terrorism community pushed for this," said the official. "None of us asked for it."
So, who did ask for the ban?
Over the past week, Stephen Bannon, the President's senior strategist, was promoted to attend meetings of the National Security Council. Meaning he sits next to the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense. This is unprecedented. Meanwhile the office of the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Director of National Intelligence have been downgraded. Meaning that Bannon's opinions now hold much more weight in the eyes of the President.
Bannon helped pen the President's infamous "American Carnage" address and who told the news media "to keep its mouth shut."
The President also signed an executive order to obtain funding to build a "great wall" across the Mexican border. This act was seen as a slap in the face by Enrique Pena Nieto, Mexico's President.
To the point that Nieto canceled his scheduled visit to meet with the US President, although they did speak by phone.
Similarly, another executive order of the current administration involves re-starting work on the Keystone XL/Dakota pipeline. It has earned the concern of Justin Trudeau, the President of Canada.
To sum up, within a week of being in office our President has managed to upset the leaders of both of our bordering North American neighbor nations as well as major allies like Germany, France and England. And this week Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was added to the list.
On a purely moral level, the current US President's actions do not bode well.
"Make America Great Again," seems to be translating into a very selfish, isolationist and faithless way of looking at the world.
All major religions attempt to promote peace and goodwill. Judeo-Christianity, and the Buddhist and Muslim faiths, in particular, place a premium on looking out for the stranger among us. Jesus said that we are to consider everyone our neighbor. (I refer to the parable of the Good Samaritan.) He also said blessed are the peacemakers (Check out the Beatitudes). It's a global view of the world and admittedly challenging.
The Bible is full of wisdom regarding how to treat the poor - and warnings for those who engage in self-centered behavior.
Over the weekend I had an opportunity to re-visit former President Jimmy Carter's "Crisis of Confidence" speech, given on July 15, 1979.
Although the speech was given during the Energy Crisis, what President Carter had to say bears repeating.
"We're confronted with a moral and spiritual crisis... all the legislation in the world can't fix what's wrong with America," he said.
President Carter went on to say that the fundamental threat to democracy wasn't political or economic, but rather "the threat is nearly invisible... it's a crisis of confidence."
He defined that crisis to be a loss of purpose, "the erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and political fabric of America."
President Carter said that, until recently we "always had a faith that the lives of our children will be better than our lives."
The hope rings familiar today.
But President Carter also went on to warn that "too many of us tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does but by what one owns. But we've discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning."
He gave some sobering facts: For the first time in history, the majority of adults living in the US believed that the next five years would be worse than the past five. That two-thirds of those eligible to vote don't.
President Carter said that Washington, DC was "knotted up" in gridlock and that "anything that demands a sacrifice from all of us is abandoned like an orphan."
Towards the end of his speech, President Carter warned that we are a crossroads, with two possible roads to take. One road was that of fragmentation and self-interest. "That path would be one of constant conflict between narrow self-interests, chaos and immobility." The other path involves realizing we have "a common purpose" that can unite us towards a better future.
The same two paths remain in front of us today. We can choose to act in fear, or faith.
P.S. Here's an excellent opinion peace by Nicholas Kristof that speaks to this issue.
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