Courtesy of wikipedia.org
“Not my problem,” said Homeland Security Secretary Christie Noam about Andry Hernandez Romero. He’s the gay hairdresser from Venezuela she sent to a prison in El Salvador without due process, and the same woman who shot her dog because the pup was difficult to train. Nope. We’d be fools to look for empathy or compassion from her.
For the record, empathy and compassion are different qualities, though people use the words interchangeably. Empathy means to feel a connection with someone. Compassion adds a commitment to action. As might be expected, each emotion operates in a different part of the brain, though some overlap exists.
Studies show that non-religious people are more compassionate than the devout. Hitler, a Catholic, considered joining the priesthood before moving to politics. Many in his ranks were also religious. Herman Goering followed his Führer, believing he was sent by God to save Germany. (“Nazi leaders all ad religiousupbringing,” FFR Free Thought Today, May 2025, pg. 21.)
Journalist Michael Gerson records some of the atrocities that righteous members of the White Supremacists committed against African Americans in the 19th Century. Among them was the habit of hanging black women from trees and burning them alive. He called those actions the worst stain, the greatest crime, of U. S. history. As a woman, it is easy for me to feel empathy. The Catholic Church burned women at the stake for 400 years.
I’m not saying religion causes cruelty, merely that it is no deterrent. The evil humans do is prompted by desire, as I discussed in an earlier blog. The justification, always cloaked in a good purpose, comes afterwards. Trump has an excuse for snatching people like Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia off the street and sending them to a foreign prison without writs of habeas corpus, for example. He complains that the process would be too unwieldy. We would need hundreds of thousands of trials for hundreds of thousands of illegals we are sending out of the Country.
People of sound mind would never accept that Inconvenience should supersede the rule of law. Even Trump gives the argument no weight in his proposal to eliminate natural birthright citizenship. Case in point, Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan pointed out that his plan would require thousands of people to file lawsuits to retain their citizenship or cause those without funds to lose their birthright. Hearing the objection, his attorney shrugged. That is a bipartisan problem that exceeds judicial authority.
Of course, Trump frequently exceeds his authority with the use of his Sharpie. The number of suits filed against his Presidential orders is record-breaking. And rightly so. Citizens are not obliged to accept his edicts as a substitute for due process. A few may bend to his will for personal gain, corrupting our democracy as a consequence, but a majority, I am certain, will listen to their better angels.
Dr. Peter Marks stood by his angels recently. A hematologist and oncologist who served as the director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, he resigned his position rather than falsify reports to say vaccines were dangerous. One hopes his replacement will be as principled. If not, more children may die of measles.
A free society asks the best of us. Times may occur when we must set aside personal advantage for the good of the many. Soldiers make that sacrifice without question.
At this moment in our history, we stand at a crossroads. We can close our eyes and pretend we do not see the corrupt government that holds freedom in its throes. Or, we can listen to our better angels and resist evil. If we choose the latter, not only do we extend compassion to ourselves, our children, and our neighbors, but we also keep a sacred trust with those who defended our democracy in the past, a promise that they will not have died in vain–and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth?
BOYCOTT TESLA
