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Category: Ethics

‘If giving water to someone dying of thirst is illegal, what humanity is left in the law of this country?’

‘If giving water to someone dying of thirst is illegal, what humanity is left in the law of this country?’

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The Washington Post reports: During the summer of 2017, when temperatures reached triple digits in Arizona, four women drove to a vast desert wilderness along the southwestern border with Mexico. They brought water jugs and canned food — items they later said they were leaving for dehydrated migrants crossing the unfriendly terrain to get to the United States. The women were later charged with misdemeanor crimes. Prosecutors said they violated federal law by entering Cabeza Prieta, a protected 860,000-acre refuge,…

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Mollie Tibbetts’ father: Don’t distort her death to advance the racism she opposed

Mollie Tibbetts’ father: Don’t distort her death to advance the racism she opposed

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Rob Tibbetts writes: As I write this, I am watching Sen. John McCain lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda and know that evil will succeed only if good people do nothing. Both Mollie and Senator McCain were good people. I know that both would stand up now and do something. The person who is accused of taking Mollie’s life is no more a reflection of the Hispanic community as white supremacists are of all white people. To suggest otherwise…

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Everyone and everything Trump touches rots

Everyone and everything Trump touches rots

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Peter Wehner writes: There’s never been any confusion about the character defects of Donald Trump. The question has always been just how far he would go and whether other individuals and institutions would stand up to him or become complicit in his corruption. When I first took to these pages three summers ago to write about Mr. Trump, I warned my fellow Republicans to just say no both to him and his candidacy. One of my concerns was that if…

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Catholics call for mass resignation of U.S. bishops

Catholics call for mass resignation of U.S. bishops

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Following the release of the Pennsylvania grand jury report on the sexual abuse of over 1,000 children by 301 priests, and following a similar scandal earlier this year in Chile that led to its Catholic bishops’ collective resignation, a statement by Catholic theologians, educators, parishioners, and lay leaders says: After years of suppressed truth, the unreserved decisiveness of the Chilean bishops’ resignations communicated to the faithful a message that Catholics in the United States have yet to hear, with an…

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According to the Aztecs, improvement doesn’t come from the self

According to the Aztecs, improvement doesn’t come from the self

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Sebastian Purcell writes: When Halloween rolled around last year, my wife and I were prepared to be greeted by scores of eager trick-or-treaters. Guided by the thought that too much candy was better than too little, we bought entirely too much, and simply poured the excess on to a platter in our living room. The problem is: I have a sweet-tooth. ‘I can’t stop eating these!’ I said to my wife, peevishly, a few days later. Nearly every time I…

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We need Jimmy Carter now more than ever

We need Jimmy Carter now more than ever

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Michael Paterniti writes: Among ex-presidents, Mr. Jimmy blazes on. Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan, both men who sandwiched him in office, are dead; George senior teeters; Bill Clinton tremors when tired and, at 71, has begun to fade before our eyes. (Meanwhile, Bill and Hillary have pocketed over $150 million from speeches.) George W. has retreated to a more low-profile, patrician life of painting and occasional aid trips to Africa, while Obama is just beginning a post-presidency that some have…

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What’s going on at the border is horrifying, but we can’t go numb and turn away

What’s going on at the border is horrifying, but we can’t go numb and turn away

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Dahlia Lithwick writes: As a purely descriptive matter, it’s surely true: We are all going numb. As Donald Trump makes war with Canada and peace with dictators and human rights abusers, the narrative is that everyone’s lost all feeling. Polls show the public believes that Trump paid off a porn star, and they don’t care. They believe that he lies habitually, and they also don’t care. A Pew poll released last week showed that nearly 7 in 10 Americans “feel…

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Laura Bush: Separating children from their parents at the border ‘breaks my heart’

Laura Bush: Separating children from their parents at the border ‘breaks my heart’

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Former first lady of the United States, Laura Bush, writes: On Sunday, a day we as a nation set aside to honor fathers and the bonds of family, I was among the millions of Americans who watched images of children who have been torn from their parents. In the six weeks between April 19 and May 31, the Department of Homeland Security has sent nearly 2,000 children to mass detention centers or foster care. More than 100 of these children…

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Child abuse is now part of America’s official immigration policy

Child abuse is now part of America’s official immigration policy

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Michael Paarlberg writes: It’s impossible to look at the Trump administration’s practice of migrant family separation and see it as anything other than what it is: institutionalized child abuse. By now, there have been real horror stories: parents hearing their children screaming in the next room; a man who committed suicide when his three-year-old was taken from him; children kept in what Oregon senator Jeff Merkley described as a “dog kennel”; a woman being told by a border patrol agent:…

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Aristotle’s lessons on happiness

Aristotle’s lessons on happiness

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Edith Hall writes: In the Western world, only since the mid-18th century has it been possible to discuss ethical questions publicly without referring to Christianity. Modern thinking about morality, which assumes that gods do not exist, or at least do not intervene, is in its infancy. But the ancient Greeks and Romans elaborated robust philosophical schools of ethical thought for more than a millennium, from the first professed agnostics such as Protagoras (fifth century BCE) to the last pagan thinkers….

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Americans least likely to think we have a responsibility to accept refugees? So-called ‘Christian’ evangelicals

Americans least likely to think we have a responsibility to accept refugees? So-called ‘Christian’ evangelicals

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The Washington Post reports: In February 2017, as debate raged nationally over President Trump’s decision to curtail immigration to the United States, the conservative Christian Broadcasting Network dipped into the Bible to share what that sacred text said about refugees. “Treat refugees the way you want to be treated,” it said, quoting Leviticus. “Invite the stranger in” (Matthew) and “Open your door to the traveler” (Job). The first comment in reply to the article captures the tone of the rest…

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Rev William Barber and the Poor People’s Campaign

Rev William Barber and the Poor People’s Campaign

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The Guardian reports: In his prayer at the opening of the US embassy in Jerusalem last week, a prayer delivered against a backdrop of violence in Gaza, the evangelical pastor Robert Jeffress said Donald Trump was a moral leader who stood “on the right side of you, O God”. Half a world away, outside the Capitol in Washington, the Rev William Barber led a moment of silence for the 60 Palestinians killed by Israeli soldiers. As one group of faith…

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In rebuke of Trump, Tillerson says lies are a threat to democracy

In rebuke of Trump, Tillerson says lies are a threat to democracy

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The New York Times reports: In a veiled but powerful rebuke of President Trump, former Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson warned on Wednesday that American democracy is threatened by a “growing crisis in ethics and integrity.” “If our leaders seek to conceal the truth, or we as people become accepting of alternative realities that are no longer grounded in facts, then we as American citizens are on a pathway to relinquishing our freedom,” he said in a commencement address…

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How ‘evangelical’ became synonymous with ‘hypocrite’

How ‘evangelical’ became synonymous with ‘hypocrite’

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Michael Gerson writes: One of the most extraordinary things about our current politics—really, one of the most extraordinary developments of recent political history—is the loyal adherence of religious conservatives to Donald Trump. The president won four-fifths of the votes of white evangelical Christians. This was a higher level of support than either Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush, an outspoken evangelical himself, ever received. Trump’s background and beliefs could hardly be more incompatible with traditional Christian models of life and…

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Why Trump wouldn’t get a security clearance to work in the White House

Why Trump wouldn’t get a security clearance to work in the White House

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Richard Painter and Norman Eisen write: Every day brings a new reason why President Trump cannot meet the standards expected of every single person who works for him (except for the vice president). Take recent reports about the payment Trump attorney Michael Cohen “facilitated” for porn actress Stormy Daniels to help Trump in the waning days of the 2016 campaign. Despite Cohen’s carefully worded denials that he was not reimbursed by the Trump Organization or the Trump campaign, this week…

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