Before I reply I will point out that this post is not relevant to anything I have said so far.
I don’t judge results as being just or unjust; I judge actions as effective and ineffective. More to the point, we cannot accurately pre-judge proposals in moral terms because we cannot really know the full extent of the results and the morality of an action is not determined by the outcome it produces.
This is incorrect. I simply don’t make moral judgments based on the outcome of policy decisions. It is neither moral nor immoral to (e.g.) raise (or even eliminate) the minimum wage; it is overall either helpful or harmful (as it will surely help some and harm others). It isn’t a moral choice; it is an economic guess.
I acknowledge there are problems with our current system; what I deny is that your (or the bishops’) proposals are any more or less moral than anyone elses.
No one has expressed satisfaction with our current laws; everyone would like to see them improved. The debate is over what actions would lead to “improvement”.
To say that I don’t believe that finding the “best” solution to immigration is a moral problem should in no way imply that I am untroubled by the problems our current laws have caused. I don’t see our search for solutions to immigration any differently than I see the Japanese search for solutions to their problems with the nuclear reactors. What moral issue is involved in finding the right answer to practical problems?Ender
I agree with Tafan here, this seems like one of the strangest stances on basic moral theology I’ve ever heard.
If I take a gun and in anger fire a shot at you, but miss you entirely, I’ve still done something very morally wrong: I’ve tried to kill you. But, the outcome is you get to go home to your family, and I go to prison. If, on the other hand, the bullet hits you square and kills you, I’ve now done something far worse still, by the VERY FACT of the OUTCOME: you are dead and I have murdered you. The outcomes of decisions, whether they are personal or social/political decisions, MATTER.
As for your “arguments”: what arguments? I haven’t seen you make any except that you feel that the Catholic Church has not made any binding pronouncements on the immigration issue. I have not, myself, disputed that expressly anywhere in this thread. I am not an expert in canon law certainly, and not well equipped enough on the issue to really argue the point as to whether the Bishops’ various comments and statements add up to any binding, official church stance or not. I have not said otherwise.
I’m actually still trying to understand what your position is, since, from your earlier posts, you have admitted that you lack understanding of the actual facts about immigration law and our current system, that you, however, apparently automatically distrust anyone’s statements on the issue as being likely to be biased or untrue, but you seem also to be unwilling to learn anything about the issue, about why I or any Catholic Bishop takes the stance they do, and form any decision about it. To the point, when someone earlier posted the comments about IIRIRA from 1996 you basically stated that the comments on the Act were biased hogwash, yet those comments, although using charged terminology admittedly, were absolutely true. That Act DID result in the loss of a number of legal rights and avenues for immigrants (especially those undocumented or in removal proceedings), it instituted the INA 212(a)(9)(B) permanent bars to admissibility for unauthorized entry, and generally only greatly exacerbated the immigration problems in our system. For instance, are you aware that under the laws today, Arnold Schwarzenegger and his buddy Franco Columbo BOTH would have been deported and never allowed back into the U.S. for multiple immigration violations that didn’t exist in the 1970’s? From my perspective, the only argument you seem to have made, apart from stating that officially there is no stance of the Church on solutions to this issue (which I have not said I disagree with, though others who know more about the levels of Church teaching have), is the very bizarre argument about moral theology that I addressed above which divorces outcomes of actions from any consideration of morality or justice.
In your example above about the Japanese reactors: one solution might be for the Japanese to decide to send jets over the area and firebomb the whole plant until it’s buried under hundreds of feet of rubble. Obviously this proposal also would result in the deaths of many, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of innocent lives. That outcome seems, to me, to make that solution an immoral one.
Your perspective seems to be essentially: I don’t know much about the facts, the immigration laws, or our system, I’m not interested in learning about it, and I don’t believe much of anything that anyone says about it. I think maybe changes are needed, but haven’t a clue what they might be, but anyone who brings solutions to the table that call for legalization of those here illegally now and visa avenues for others like them is an open borders loving, commie America hater.
Respectfully, if that is wrong, I do apologize, but it’s the feeling I get from your posts. Maybe you should consider that the Bishops who have spoken similarly to my sentiments on this issue are of like mind because they also know more about the facts and the current system? I find it interesting that no one has yet responded to my hypothetical in post 74. This sort of misery happens needlessly to hundreds of families EVERY DAY because of our current system. Is there anything good or defensible about that?
