The Presidential Moral Quandary

Spectrum Website
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The equivocation of this nation’s leader in the wake of a march for White supremacy and a terrorist attack in Charlottesville just over a week ago put in stark relief something many of us knew long ago. Donald Trump is a man with a malfunctioning moral compass who for some reason decided to give comfort to the Ku Klux Klan and Neo-Nazis.[1]While many denounced Trump’s flip-flopping last week, and polling showed that the majority of the nation disapproved of his response, one group came to Trump’s defense—White Evangelicals. Several leaders in the past week released statements fully supporting and defending Trump’s response to the tragedy.

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://spectrummagazine.org/article/2017/08/24/presidential-moral-quandary
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I fail to see how ending abortion violates the principles of religious liberty. What religion requires abortion as a sacrament?

The same could be said for same sex “marriage.” Banning same sex “marriage” infringes on no one’s religious rights. I was as free to practice my religion before the Supreme Court’s ruling as I am now. Only if the government tries to force a church to perform same sex “marriages,” would there be an infringement of religious liberty.

Methinks the author’s animosity toward the president has skewed his thinking on this matter.

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Racism resulted in the extermination of six million Jews. Abortion is responsible for the genocide of 60 million innocent unborn children in North America alone since the practice was legalized in 1973.

What is worse, our Adventist leaders embraced elective abortions in our own Adventist hospitals back in 1970. This is a great sin against heaven. We need to repent of this terrible deviation from moral duty. Please watch the following video:

ALL Seventh-day Adventists Support Abortion - Official Documents
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzWgG4VIui8&feature=em-subs_digest

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Thank you Jason. To borrow one of DJT’s own words, his presidency has been a “disaster”! His own words convict him . . . “for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” DJT’s off the cuff, impromptu speeches during the campaign and since becoming president reveal who he is no matter how his staff and others try to explain it away.

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blc,

Thanks for taking the time to read my comment and respond. I normally don’t respond to comments but I sense that you are asking your question in sincerity and so I at least want to address your concern. Religious liberty is not just about whether you can practice your faith. It is also about not attempting to control the freedom of conscience of others based on your religious beliefs. Religious liberty is about protecting the freedom each human being has to chart their own moral course and live that moral course to the fullest possible extent. Under this expanded definition I think it becomes clearer to see how abortion and same-sex marriage become violations of religious liberty. When a Christian seeks to outlaw abortion because they believe (because of their faith) that life begins at conception, that is a violation of religious liberty. When a Christian seeks to outlaw same-sex marriage because God defined marriage as between “one man and one woman” that is a violation of religious liberty as well. It is a violation because it seeks to force the consciences of others to live out positions that they have not come to of their own free will, on questions where there is reasonable debate (the question of when does life begin and the question of whether to people of the same sex can be married by the state). I would argue that such coercion is antithetical to the way of Christ, who wants us to choose to live my his precepts. You may not agree with my definition of religious liberty, but it is by no means idiosyncratic.

One final note - Please check my work on the Spectrum archive sometime. You’ll find that my opinions on these matters long predate the current occupant of the White House.

Thanks again for reading,

Jason

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Every country must have laws to promote the safety and welfare of its citizens. Abortion is a slippery slope. Because the state religion in the US is Darwinian evolution, some are suggesting that undesirable children could ethically be eliminated even after birth. Where does one draw the line? From an evolutionary respective (which is the only one allowed to be taught in government schools), the life of an infant is no more valuable than the life of an animal, especially if the animal in question is on the endangered species list.

No one’s religious rights are violated by a law which protects the most vulnerable among us, namely the baby still in the womb.

It has nothing to do with religion. If it does, then so do the laws against murder. After all, it’s the 6th commandment. But, if we’re all just evolved pond scum, then we shouldn’t have any laws other than those that the majority agree upon. Which means we cannot condemn Hitler (the majority voted for him) or ISIS; and we should have left the cannibals alone, rather than “forcing our religious beliefs” on them.

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Despite my misgivings about even reading the article, I regressed. I was unsurprised.

Jason, when will you write about Mr Obama and his failure in calling out the derangement behind a far more egregious crime-the preplanned, targeted killing of 5 Dallas peace officers by Black supremacist Micah Xavier Johnson?

I do understand why you might have no compunction to consider such an article. I suspect you might likewise understand that s precisely why some might be loathe to read any more of yours.

In closing, I have a question-you cloak your answer in the lawyerly robes of a juris doctorate with a predilection for religious liberty-which also encompasses democracy and freedom. Set that aside for now-because the real perp in your story is an independent, deranged criminal named James Alex Fields.
Could you-would you defend him?
As you are a lawyer, I find your fear and loathing of Mr Trump misplaced. You agitate for one side-yet there are many sides to the problems which coalesced into the Charlottesville tragedy.

If Donald Trump had singlehandedly piloted airforce One down Main street in Charlottesville and personally shot every single one of the original protesters (their civil liberties aside), would you then laud the presidents moral compass? I apologize for asking several questions-I do not need an answer.

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“So the decision to support Trump takes on a different and more troubling form—selling a political soul to a devil in order to accomplish ends outside the character of God.”

In most ‘political’ arenas a ‘majority vote’ of anywhere from just over 50% to 66.6% can determine the winner of an election. However it takes a far smaller percentage –33% – in the ‘polls’ to start a rebellion . . . even against ‘God, in ‘Heaven’ :

“And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born. . . . And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.” Revelation 12:3,4. . .7,8,9

The U.S. President’s poll approval ratings hover just above 33%.

The question of just how to act, or react – for true Christians – at this time is not a ‘political’, one, but a ‘spiritual’ one, a question of what we will, or desire, most :

“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” Ephesians 6:12

The ‘Christ’ of ‘Christians’ is also that ‘Michael’, Who has already prevailed against Satan and Devils, once before, in ‘Heaven’. And, it is His prayer that ‘Our Father’s’ will be done in each individual here on Earth, as it still is in ‘Heaven’, especially since He prevailed there.

A ‘Christian’s’ citizenship is, first, in ‘Heaven’. First, we ‘render to God’ – the ultimate ‘higher power’ – ‘what is God’s’. And, when ‘Caesar’ abuses the powers that God has blessed him with, we may find more encouragement to rid our hearts of such a ‘Caesar’s’ social, religious and political idols and learn to act and pray as did King Jehoshaphat, when he was publicly overwhelmed and humbled :

“Then Jehoshaphat stood in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem, in the house of the LORD, before the new court,
and said: “O LORD God of our fathers, are You not God in heaven, and do You not rule over all the kingdoms of the nations, and in Your hand is there not power and might, so that no one is able to withstand You?
“Are You not our God, who drove out the inhabitants of this land before Your people Israel, and gave it to the descendants of Abraham Your friend forever?
“And they dwell in it, and have built You a sanctuary in it for Your name, saying,
‘If disaster comes upon us—sword, judgment, pestilence, or famine—we will stand before this temple and in Your presence (for Your name is in this temple), and cry out to You in our affliction, and You will hear and save.’
“And now, here are the people of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir—whom You would not let Israel invade when they came out of the land of Egypt, but they turned from them and did not destroy them—
“here they are, rewarding us by coming to throw us out of Your possession which You have given us to inherit.
“O our God, will You not judge them? For we have no power against this great multitude that is coming against us; nor do we know what to do, but our eyes are upon You.”
II Chronicles 20:5-12 NKJV

. . . the rest of the story is that Judah’s and Jehoshaphat’s enemies destroyed themselves, and it is the privilege of this world’s ‘weak’ to ‘behold’ – and to hide in – God, while the bullies of the world do the same, today. Otherwise, if we ‘behold’, study and fight our enemies, we will inevitably ‘become’ them.

It seems that too many public figures these days are appealing to the ‘rabble’ tendencies of private individuals. It was the ‘rabble’ that cried out, “Crucify Him ! Crucify Him !”

So, we have 2 great examples of the defeat of Satan before us – the ‘war in Heaven’, and the humiliation of the Christ, by crucifixion, on Earth – to warn us away from joining the ‘rabble’, in spirit. . . ‘right’, ‘left’, ‘straight’, ‘gay’ . . . or otherwise. It is not necessary to ‘bundle’ ourselves with ‘rabble’ into a chaotic climax, when the ‘gathering’ of the ‘harvest’ is correspondingly so near, as made evident by all of the wide-spread, last-ditch rabble rousing.

The ‘war in Heaven’ began at the Throne of God, in the proud heart of a ‘president’ – a ‘Lucifer’, one who presided over the giving of ‘light’, of ‘news’, from the Throne . . . and it would be well for all to learn that such ‘presidents’ – whether of corporations, of church conferences, or of nations – are very capable of rebelling against God, still, and that they too often selfishly do so.

Not so ironically, the history of ‘sin’, of rebellion against God’s truth, is ending just as it began – over the questions, ‘What is Truth ?’, and, ‘Who can we get to believe our part-true lie ?’.

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Ex Senator Danforth ® from Missouri compares Trump to George Wallace in op-ed:

“Trump is not the first to promote self above party,…The fundamental reason Trump isn’t a Republican is far bigger than words or policies. He stands in opposition to the founding principle of our party — that of a united country.”

The Republican Party has a long history of standing for a united country,… Our record hasn’t been perfect. When we have pushed the agenda of the Christian right, we have seemed to exclude people who don’t share our religious beliefs. We have seemed unfriendly to gay Americans. But our long history has been to uphold the dignity of all of God’s people and to build a country welcoming to all.

Now comes Trump, who is exactly what Republicans are not, who is exactly what we have opposed in our 160-year history. We are the party of the Union, and he is the most divisive president in our history. There hasn’t been a more divisive person in national politics since George Wallace,…invoking the Alabama governor who declared at his 1963 inauguration, “In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.”

Danforth went on to write, “It isn’t a matter of occasional asides, or indiscreet slips of the tongue uttered at unguarded moments. Trump is always eager to tell people that they don’t belong here, whether it’s Mexicans, Muslims, transgender people or another group. His message is, ‘You are not one of us, the opposite of ‘e pluribus unum.’ And when he has the opportunity to unite Americans, to inspire us, to call out the most hateful among us, the KKK and the neo-Nazis, he refuses.”

The former senator concluded by imploring fellow Republicans to turn their backs on Trump.

“In honor of our past and in belief in our future, for the sake of our party and our nation, we Republicans must disassociate ourselves from Trump by expressing our opposition to his divisive tactics and by clearly and strongly insisting that he does not represent what it means to be a Republican,” he concluded."
WASHINGTON POST

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Timo,

Thanks for overcoming your reticence and deciding to read and comment on my post. Although you said you didn’t need a response I decided to give one, because I think your questions reflect some interesting thought processes that should be addressed. Forgive me if I number your questions and answer them in order.

Jason, when will you write about Mr Obama and his failure in calling out the derangement behind a far more egregious crime-the preplanned, targeted killing of 5 Dallas peace officers by Black supremacist Micah Xavier Johnson?

-First off, I write a blog post which by nature is about recent events. I probably won’t write about something that took place last year. This month I was planning to write about something that happened last month and I scrapped it because something more current was worthy of discussion. So you could change the question to why I didn’t write about it last year. I probably didn’t write about it because President Obama did call it out as a “vicious…despicable” act. (http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/08/politics/obama-dallas-police-shootings/index.html) Or maybe we can discuss his statements at their memorial service, where he was welcomed by the families of those slain officers. (http://time.com/4403543/president-obama-dallas-shooting-memorial-service-speech-transcript/) I’m sure Trump’s comments from Heather Heyer’s funeral were full of the same level of respect and gravitas. Oh you mean he didn’t go? How interesting… As an aside, I hope this assuages your loathing at continuing to read my work.

Could you-would you defend [James Alex Fields]?

-Quick note: We actually don’t know if he is an independent, deranged person. But to answer your question - I don’t know that I would defend him. If I decided to, I would probably seek a plea bargain and not waste time on a trial for a guilty man. In any event, whether I decided to defend him or not, I would not disparage any lawyer who did. Defendants need attorneys just like anyone else.

If Donald Trump had singlehandedly piloted airforce One down Main street in Charlottesville and personally shot every single one of the original protesters (their civil liberties aside), would you then laud the presidents moral compass?

-No, for all the obvious reasons. I’m not sure what the point of this question was (and I don’t really need to know), and I certainly don’t condone violence truly initiated by those who came to stand against the racism, hate, and division promoted by the KKK, fascists, and Neo-Nazis. (Based on the eye witness accounts I have read, most of the violence was started by the Neo-Nazis who were then met with violent resistance.) However, the fact that I don’t agree with their tactics does not mean I am willing to say that they are in any way equal to the evil they came there to confront. Because despite the fact that I don’t agree with violent resistance I am still morally nuanced enough to realize that they would not have been there violently resisting if not for the fact that they came to confront real evil. Those things are not equal. There aren’t many sides to that comparison. I wish that were more obvious to everyone, including our chief executive.

Thanks again for reading. Respond if you wish, but I have no more to say on the matter and I will not be returning to this conversation.

Jason

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He gave no comfort to these folks. He condemned them along with those agitators on the left. He condemned BOTH groups. that is not mean equivocation. He was speaking of lawlessness, and both were. The KKK has a right to protest. Are you denying that? The ACLU went to bat for these folk, so unless you are saying they have no right to protest, there was no equivalence.

We all view things differently. You are very sensitive to racial issues, almost hypersensitive. He may have a different moral compass than yours, but just as functional. Are you saying his is defective as well? if he thinks abortion is murder, he thinks racism is a pretty bad thing. Try to see it from his perspective.

First of all, Trump has not put into law any racist policy, or even tried. The travel ban was a safety issue, not a racist one despite the hype, and the courts have pretty much agreed.

So a vote for Trump was not a vote for racist policy.

Second, the laws of a country that allow for an action are just as important as those that determine an action. To allow for abortion is to allow for elimination of the one with the least ability to protect himself, the fetus. Sanger, the original advocate of abortion, and a darling of the left, was interested in limiting the black population, a group that could not protect itself at the time. Might be well to consider that.

[quote=“spectrumbot, post:1, topic:14102”]
Third and finally, choosing the political opportunity to end abortion and same-sex marriage also violates the principles of religious liberty… Each of us gets to decide what we believe and act on those sincerely held beliefs, unencumbered by the potential for punishment from the government… Several religions differ as to when human life begins. The same freedom that allows us to choose to be Adventist and follow the idiosyncratic tenets of the faith gives others the ability to follow the tenets of their beliefs, marry whom they choose, or make the difficult decision to terminate a pregnancy. So the decision to support Trump takes on a different and more troubling form –selling a political soul to a devil in order to accomplish ends outside the character of God.[/quote]

  1. “Abortion and same sex marriage are issues of belief, not issues of fact”. Female genital mutilation is then also an issue of belief as is child sacrifice (they did it in the OT). So I am not sure that this is good logic. One cold look on abortion as a type of child sacrifice after all, as it is done for convenience sake. Infanticide was practiced in Rome, and was legal. Almost no cultures allowed for gay marriage, so it may be that this is also a bad idea.

  2. “Freedom of conscience and the ability to choose are the bedrock of religious liberty.” But I am not free to do some things forbidden by law. So these are not absolute freedoms.

  3. “The marriage contract that two consenting adults make, in accordance with the state and their God, is nobody else’s business.” This is patently false. There are laws about marriage, and gay marriage had to pass as a law before it could be recognized. There are certain marriages that are forbidden, such as between sibs. And the state is very much interested in marriage for it is the best way to propagate itself. Gays can’t have kids, though they can raise them. So, the state is very much interested in the sexual relationship.

  4. “Selling the soul to the devil” You see him as the devil, your privilege. That does not make it so. Most folk voted for him for financial or cultural reasons, that is, he would oppose political correctness. These are not sinful motives. You judge your fellow Adventists on the basis of your view, again your privilege, but not necessary a reason to condemn those as immoral who disagree with your ideas.

Hillary was a terrible candidate, and was for late term abortion, a thing that is close to infanticide if not that in essence. It was not an easy choice for many, and you have to take the bad with the good. For you to think that because your friend made a decision that has not 100%, and to write to condemn him for a things that he could not foresee seems to smack of a certain amount of hubris to me. He did not sell his soul: he made the best informed decision he could at the time. Perhaps understanding rather than such an article as this would have been in order.

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Allen,

Thanks for taking the time to read this post and respond. I must be a glutton for punishment because I have been responding to this post and I am doing so again, despite what I already know is a futile gesture. I think I am responding to you because you have a series of factual errors that I would like to dispel and I might as well talk about all the other stuff along the way. Here we go (forgive what will likely be an inordinately long response) –

  • I can’t believe I have to explain how Trump’s first response, and his third, are of cold comfort. In his first response, Trump made no mention of the hate groups that were there. He did not call out the KKK, white nationalists, and Neo-Nazis by name. To do so is to act like people who hate and people who stand against hate are the same. Despite his claim to have watched the footage, based on both footage and eye witness accounts, it is clear who the aggressors were on both Friday night and Saturday. The aggression was not equal, and to not account for the purposes for which the people were there is a stunning lack of analysis from the leader of this country. And that has nothing to do with whether the protest itself was lawful. Put another way – even if we assume that the violence was equal on both sides (and it wasn’t – the KKK and the Neo-Nazis struck first and inflicted more harm to human beings) one group was marching in support of white supremacy and the other marched against them in defense of the equality of all humanity. That is not an “egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides.” That’s egregious on one very obvious side with a small, relatively insignificant counterbalance on the other side. OK I’ll try one more way – if one side displays more hatred, bigotry, and violence than the other (and I mean it’s not even close when you consider the purpose for which the two groups came to Charlottesville) then you should point that out, and not make it sound like both sides did the same thing. His second statement was what he should’ve said first, and I would’ve given him credit for it, except I already knew how he felt about it based on what he said Saturday. Then to defend the original statement 24 hours after the second one let me further know I was right the first time.

  • You seem to prove my point. I didn’t say his moral compass was defective. I fully understand how he came to his decision, and I say so in the post. My problem is with saying you equally care about those things but then vote one over the other. That makes me think you don’t care about them equally. You even allude to this yourself when you say “he thinks abortion is murder, he thinks racism is a pretty bad thing” Is murder “a pretty bad thing?” Because those things don’t seem equal to me even in the way you described them. I do think he should’ve made a different calculation and I said so to him. He took my criticism a lot better than you did I must say.

  • Actually he has. He has threatened to remove funding from HBCUs. He has removed the government’s support from violations of the VRA that have had a disproportionate effect on people of color. He has severely defunded HUD, which also has a disproportionate effect on people of color. I didn’t mention the travel ban. And if you thought Trump wouldn’t enact racist policies then you weren’t paying attention to his rhetoric.

  • It seems you missed my point about permissive legislation. The whole point is that allowing for something is not as important as determinative actions. Allowing for something to happen doesn’t even mean you want that thing to happen. It’s the whole reason why direct causes and attenuated causes are different things. Why don’t we throw gun manufacturers in jail when someone shoots up a school? If not for selling that gun the person wouldn’t have murdered all those people. I assume you also speak out in support of assault weapons bans whenever a mass shooting happens. After all, allowing the sale of assault weapons allows for these mass shootings to happen. I find it odd that personal responsibility goes out of the window when we talk about these moral issues.

  • Here’s where you engage in your first major factual error. I understand it though because it is a rumor that has spread around recently and a lot of people believe it even though it’s not true. Margaret Sanger was not for the particular limiting of the Black population, and interestingly enough, did not support abortion as many believe. Here are some links - http://www.politifact.com/new-hampshire/statements/2015/oct/05/ben-carson/did-margaret-sanger-believe-african-americans-shou/ http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/08/14/432080520/fact-check-was-planned-parenthood-started-to-control-the-black-population

  • No, one does not have to look at abortion as child sacrifice. There is disagreement amongst the Judeo-Christian faiths on when life begins. As such, those that don’t believe life begins at conception would not agree that abortion is child sacrifice. Which is the whole point. When the very issue is the unknowable question of “when does human life begin,” we cannot decide for everyone that our answer is the right one.

  • I knew someone would bring up the fact that freedom of conscience is not absolute. That’s why I didn’t say that it was, and did not imply anything of the sort either. :wink:

  • Forgive me for being loose with my language. You’re right that the marriage contract is other people’s business. It is the state’s as it will recognize the union. It is the business of any persons the couple may involve in their lives. My point was that if you weren’t invited, it’s not your business. Don’t be obtuse.

  • I didn’t say Trump was the devil. Articles are important. I did not condemn anyone as immoral except Trump and I stand by that analysis. I believe voting for Trump was an immoral act, but I don’t think that makes anyone an immoral person. If that were the case than there are no moral people as we all have done something immoral in the course of our lives. I realize that people voted for him for other reasons, but by definition that means they looked past clearly racist, xenophobic, misogynistic, narcissistic rhetoric and decided financial and other cultural reasons were more important. That is the very thing I find problematic. I just want the Trump voter to see it from my perspective. Wait, where did I hear that before? I wish you were as critical of Trump voters as you are of me. (Maybe you are. Maybe you’re somewhere else on social media defending someone like me from someone like the person I talk about in the piece. If you aren’t ask yourself why.)

  • From the hodgepodge of your final paragraph – Hillary Clinton was not for late term abortion, at least not how the term is generally defined (http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/trump-clinton-late-term-abortion). I did not say he sold his soul. I said he sold his political soul, adjectives are important. But it could be that you’re upset about that description too which is fine. The problem is that he could’ve foreseen it, and in my opinion he did not make the best informed decision at the time. There were enough people warning us of exactly the issues and concerns that my friend and many other conservatives are having a problem with now. You know who one of the people warning us was – Hillary Clinton.

Thanks again for reading. Respond if you wish, but I have no more to say on the matter and I will not be returning to this conversation.
Jason

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From WP, August 18, 2015: “Ben Carsons’s focus on black abortions, Margaret Sanger and eugenics explained.”:

But there’s also evidence that Sanger was probably more than an opportunist who aligned with eugenicists for practical purposes. She was, in fact, an enthusiastic supporter of the idea that blacks were inferior and that their reproduction should be limited, said Nicole Rousseau, a sociologist at Kent State University who wrote the 2009 book “Black Woman’s Burden: Commodifying Black Reproduction.”

Once during a radio interview, Sanger said blacks, the disabled and other groups should be marooned and left to die on an island, Rousseau told me.

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Jason Hines wrote:
“So the decision to support Trump takes on a different and more troubling form –selling a political soul to a devil in order to accomplish ends outside the character of God. I guess it does make sense after all.”

There are so many reasons why any Christian should hesitate before supporting our President, if morality is your criteria.

In July of this year the Associated Press (July 31, 2017) published the results of a very detailed study on Former Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who had just been convicted of a misdemeanor for refusing to heed a judge’s order to stop traffic patrols that targeted immigrants. His 24 years as sheriff of metro Phoenix were defined by a series of tough-on-crime tactics and legal problems that cost the area millions of dollars. Read this list that covers five general areas where laws were violated repeatedly, and then answer the question at the end.
“1 JAILS Sheriff Arpaio won points with voters for making jail inmates wear pink underwear and housing them in canvas tents during Phoenix’s triple-digit summer heat. His get-tough approach proved popular with voters who believed jail was supposed to be difficult, but it led to lawsuits. He opened the Tent City jail complex in 1993 to ease overcrowding. But it was criticized for serving as a media promotion tool for Sheriff Arpaio and contributing to a culture of cruelty within the jails. He also said his office started dyeing the jail-issued underwear in the 1990s as a way to discourage inmates from taking home the undergarments after they were released from custody. Critics say the change in underwear colors was intended to humiliate men serving time. Arpaio’s successor, Sheriff Paul Penzone, is in the process of closing Tent City and phasing out pink underwear.
2. IMMIGRATION He spent nine of his 24 years in office enforcing federal immigration law. Unlike other local police leaders who left it to U.S. authorities, he made hundreds of arrests in traffic patrols that sought out immigrants and business raids in which his officers targeted immigrants who used fraudulent IDs to get jobs. His immigration powers were eventually stripped away by the courts and federal government, culminating with a judge ruling in 2013 that Arpaio’s officers racially profiled Latinos. His refusal to stop his immigration patrols ultimately led to a criminal case that contributed significantly to his re-election loss late last year.
3. ALLEGATIONS OF POLITICAL RETALIATION Arpaio was accused at various points in his career of retaliating against political enemies.He was dogged for years by claims that he launched investigations of judges, politicians and others who were at odds with him in political and legal disputes.His office arrested two county officials and a judge on corruption charges that quickly collapsed in court. Maricopa County agreed to pay $8.7 million to settle lawsuits by people who said they were investigated on trumped-up allegations. Arpaio contended he was trying to root out corruption in county government. He was later accused of investigating the judge who presided over a racial profiling case against the sheriff’s office and whose order he had ignored, leading to his conviction. The sheriff vigorously denied the allegation.
4. BOTCHED SEX-CRIMES INVESTIGATIONS Arpaio’s reputation for being tough on crime was undermined by his failure to adequately investigate more than 400 sex-crimes cases, including dozens of child molestation reports, over a three-year period ending in 2007.The sheriff offered a qualified apology in December 2011 for the bungled cases, and his office has since said it moved to clear up the cases and took steps to prevent the problem from happening again. Officials agreed in 2015 to pay $3.5 million to settle a lawsuit that alleged Arpaio botched the investigation into the rape of a 13-year-old girl and failed to arrest the suspect who then went on to attack her again.
5. LEGAL COSTS Maricopa County spent $141 million defending Arpaio against lawsuits. That includes $54 million in the racial profiling case alone and $82 million in judgments, settlements and legal fees for the sheriff’s office, covering issues such as lawsuits over deaths in his jails and the lawman’s failed investigations of political enemies.”

This (Sheriff Arpaio) is the person our President just pardoned. What is the “moral quandary” being discussed? Would you have pardoned Sheriff Arpaio if you were the President?

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I am not saying Trump is racist. But I would like to point out that he has responded more forcefully and clearly to many other groups who don’t support him (and there is no denying that white supremacists LOVE him). He has also chosen to not respond in some instances to violence against Muslims. My bigger issue is with his supporters who enable him by defending everything he does. If you agree with his policies, why not be intellectually honest and at least acknowledge that he’s a petty man? Okay, you don’t think he’s racist. Fine. But why would he call George Stephanopoulos"Little George" to mock his height? Does nothing that he does bother you?

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Sam, thanks for providing details regarding Arpaio’s actions, which DJT publicly approved while he was running for office and since becoming POTUS. The truth of the matter is, DJT depended on the support of racists, bigots, neo-Nazis and White Supremacists to get elected. David Duke reminded POTUS of this after Charlottesville.

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There is a difference between abortion and SS marriage that most so-called conservatives fail to see. Abortion, especially in the late months, is not a woman’s right. She is carrying a human being with rights that share her body. It is not just her body at that point. Abortion is the taking of a life. There are certain circumstances, of course, where the mother’s life and future could be at stake, including, I believe, severe deformity or retardation. I am pro-life as well with capitol punishment and the unlimited use of assault weapons by the public such as that which caused the death of 8 policeman and other killings.

However, in SS marriage, we have some constitutional rights involved in banning them. It can even be called religious liberty since these individuals do not hold the same beliefs as those who oppose them. It would seem like passing a Sunday law that everyone hold that day sacred. On the other hand, those who do hold a religious belief against said marriages should have the right not to participate in them without losing their businesses. This is also a religious liberty decision.

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Thanks for your response, Jason.

I’ll only remark, that as a lawyer, I would expect you to be able to defend even Fields, but that evidences its difficult to engage you. I had a sense of this from my brief initial personal encounter with you at church. I would ask you to try understand the other views-this can enrich your community and your own perspective. Difficult to do usually, and far easier to dismiss them. But I must forgive you for your apparent ethnocentric cecity, for I am unimmune to it as well. I do understand where you are coming from.

Second, a scab that is continually picked at will bleed and hurt for a long time.
Just as BLM and Antifa employ hate to further their agenda, so does my impression of your article(s).
Problems remain unsolved, and in fact increase when the selfsame tactics, biases, and beliefs wich created it are the only ones tried.

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Quite simply, it is forcing your religious beliefs on others who may not share those beliefs.

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