“[A]dd to your faith virtue, and to your virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity.” 2 Peter 5:7 King James Version

Since faith is one of the theological virtues (faith, hope, and charity), “adding” virtue must mean virtue of a certain type, or virtue in sync with reason and experience. Both reason and experience tell us that tempting human nature can be very dangerous. And yet this is exactly the political policy of the current executive branch of the federal government – a stress test on brotherly kindness – a stress test on loving one’s neighbor as oneself. The political gamble is that human “deficient inclinations”, as St. Thomas Aquinas defines them, will prevail over patience and charity resulting in a cultural meltdown into chaos, violence, and baseness. Human nature, in other words, at its worst.

Miss Constitution thinks this is no accident. Having made the decision to end the nation-state of the United States of America by allowing an international invasion, the guess is that the normally rule-conscious and big-hearted American citizen will eventually break down into indiscriminate loathing that will then be labeled “racist” and “un-Christian” – the opposite of St. Peter’s admonition above. If deliberate, this is a clever and wicked plan. It is a plan only the clever and wicked could devise.

Add to your virtue, knowledge. . .

Our society is in the current fad of seeing all through the prism of race. Thousands of years ago Asians crossed a now non-existent land mass to come to North America and divided into distinct tribes. Some writers like to call these tribes First Peoples. One might call them aboriginal, like the forests some of them inhabited. With the invention of the compass, explorers began to take dangerous journeys by sea, and these tribes were discovered. The French, the Spanish, the Dutch, the Swedes, the Danish, the British, and others were some of the first to emigrate from Europe to the west. Sometimes they were welcomed, sometimes they were not. Some of the peoples already here were “virtuous”, some were not. Some who emigrated here were “virtuous”, some were not.

And yet, the issue of immigration emphasizes the group, not the individual, and this distorts the discussion. American law on immigration has always been reactive of the times and that is why when one looks at the history of that law there are no real anchors or principles that undergird the statutes or the enforcement of those statutes. Other aspects of America’s Rule of Law are anchored in the timeless, in individual unalienable rights, in the existence of the soul, in man’s quest for liberty, in duty to God, country, and neighbor, in the very definition of citizen and republic.

Immigration, on the other hand, based on nationalities, religions, and races not persons, sways in the political wind of the “now.” When the British failed to re-conquer America in the War of 1812, Irish Catholics and Lutheran Germans came to America in droves. Catholicism in a Protestant country was seen by many as abhorrent. With the rise of industrialism after the Civil War, labor unions saw Chinese immigration as a threat to wages and the Chinese were excluded. Woodrow Wilson wanted to convince the nation that all Germans are blood-thirsty rapists so he could justify entering WWI.

And on and on it goes – immigration as a reaction to current events. The rise of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960’s created the perfect environment for national self-loathing and a change in immigration policy. From the concept that those who emigrate to America must learn our system and assimilate into a giant melting pot of stability to the concept of punishing “whiteness” by systematically eliminating the white majority was established by Congress in 1965 and signed into law by Lyndon Johnson. Chain migration (anchoring one family member so all are allowed to come) and virtually eliminating British and other founding nationalities, sealed the deal. The white American majority will be gone by mid-century. Senator Ted Kennedy proclaimed the dramatic change “will not upset the ethnic mix in our society. It will not relax the standards of admission.” Really? The United Nations and other globalist organizations are piling on relentlessly with notions of the elimination of nation-states and free international immigration.

And to knowledge, patience and brotherly kindness. . .

What had been the practice of emphasizing the group as a reaction to the political winds of the day, but screening the individual in that group, has been deliberately abandoned. Instead of the individually virtuous from many ethnic groups, it is assumed that race itself is a marker of the good. Nothing could be further from the truth. No notion could be more damaging to any society. And so, America is experiencing a stress test in brotherly kindness. Groups have invaded without screening individuals in these groups and Americans are asked to be patient and to be kind – a tempting of human nature.

And to brotherly kindness, charity. . .

How, then, are Americans to react to this obvious dismantling of our society? The US Constitution specifically prohibits, in Article IV, section 4, this current national policy of open borders. The Constitution, unfortunately, is not in play. What is in play is the individual American citizen. Tempted or not, impatient or not, temperate or not, it is not antithetical to St. Peter’s reminder for the individual American to feel righteous anger. Righteous anger translated into a demand for personal scrutiny of every person who has bypassed examination and entered the United States illegally. This anger is not tied to race, it is tied to reason, experience, and necessity.

It is in this midst of faulty ideology, of gross incompetence, of clever and wicked plans, of the abandonment of ancient and trusted principles, that the individual response must remain firm but humane. It is how the inappropriate are removed that is the measure of brotherly love. Of whatever race wanting to emigrate to America, whether tired or poor, whether yearning to be free, the American people have a right to ask that each person be virtuous.

Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing. 1 Peter 3:9

In a Constitutional Republic we repay evil and wickedness through free and fair elections. For those elections to have meaning, a virtuous people must have knowledge. Miss Constitution, again, calls for vigorous Civics Education, K-12, philosophy, authentic American history, Western Civilization, theology, the ancient languages, and ethics. Knowledge is the shield against the worst in human nature, charity the goal – in the firm hope that America may again obtain God’s blessing.