Action Trumps Talk
Source: Trump’s Immigration Order Tests Limits of Law and Executive Power – The New York Times
Donald Trump has officially been in office just over one week. In that time, he has produced a virtual avalanche of directives that have his detractors feel as if they were drinking from a firehose in attempting to react to them. Who could have known that he would: approve the building of a wall at the Mexico border, move to redact and repeal Obamacare, move to reduce burdens of over regulation, restrain the EPA, approve the Keystone pipeline and now restrict the movement of individuals from areas of the world where terrorism is endemic?
Actually, if anyone was paying attention, everyone should have known! For well over a year, his entire campaign platform had all these planks firmly front and center without apology or reservation. Now that he’s acting with the blessing of the recent vote, detractors are ‘shocked’. Imagine that; a political executive doing what he promised. It’s not as if his campaign rhetoric included promises to lower the oceans and heal the earth. You may not like the guy, but a liar and a slacker, he ain’t.
The most current uproar surrounds the “sudden” restrictions imposed on persons travelling from areas of the world known to be terrorist hot spots. Again, no one was paying attention to his campaign rhetoric if they think this was ‘sudden’. Predictably, a collective howl has arisen from all corners of the usual leftist world, invoking racism, Nazism, etc etc. On the very next day of the travel restrictions, headlines were already screaming about how Trump has impeded the progress of science.
We are not in the lawyer racket, (and amen to that), but claims of Trump’s actions being illegal and unconstitutional are as valid as Michael Moore beauty products. The primary mandate of the president of the nation is to keep the nation safe.
No doubt, many innocents will be caught up by this policy, but a logical question arises. Why do refugees and immigrants need to come to the US, or for that matter, any country. Nations have the right to restrict people from entering their borders, or else, why have borders? But a more logical question may be framed this way: If a person was being persecuted for religious or personal safety reasons, why would they board a plane and make the onerous trip all the way around the world when there are presumably options in the immediate vicinity? Why not Germany or Sweden or even Canada, all known for their expansive immigration policies. Or how about any of the nation states within a 4 hour drive, such as Saudi Arabia? Oddly, most Muslim dominant nations have been quiet so far on this.
One of the more kooky critiques of the new policy is that this will serve to further inflame anti-American sentiment among certain nations and that this will be another recruitment incentive for radicals to join ISIS. Really? There’s yet another notch of hatred above what we’ve seen? How far does this scale go?
To be clear, the new policy is not a permanent ban. It is a temporary measure to allow more scrutiny of people from dangerous areas of the world. If this is irrational, then so are security lines at airports, so are travel restrictions upon persons travelling from disease infected locales; recall the SARS outbreak of many years ago. But as we’ve seen, almost half of the population are not known for any ability to think rationally.