Hearing the Falconer #32 ~ 12-April-2019 ~ Should We Condemn Trump for Keeping Children in Cages?

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world....
from The Second Coming, William Butler Yeats, 1919

The middle of the road is all of the usable surface.
The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

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12-April-2019: Should We Condemn Trump for "Putting Children in Cages?"
Are They Cages or Chain-Link Enclosures?
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As political moderates we strive to avoid the extremes. Failing to condemn evil is too extreme in one direction. Condemning behavior that is NOT evil is too extreme in the other direction. As political moderates and independent thinkers we need to stay focused on condemning truly evil behavior and not get distracted by other behavior, however dramatic, that is not truly evil.

So let's think about the separation of children from their parents along the Mexican border last year, and the way those children were subsequently held in cages or, as defenders call them, chain-link enclosures.

Trump has ended his policy of separating children from their parents and I hope that policy will not be restarted. As we look back at the terrible time when that policy was in effect, should we criticize Trump more for separating children from their parents, more for holding the children in cages, or both?

In a world increasingly shrill with hyper-partisans trying to persuade us they are right and good and anyone who disagrees with them is wrong and evil, we need to think for ourselves, and think clearly. So let's think about these two issues: separating children from their parents, and holding children in cages.

First, should we criticize Trump for separating children from parents at the border? Since most of us consider the family to be a sacred institution, the vital foundation of any society, an institution uniquely deserving of respect and governmental protection, there seems little doubt the answer is absolutely YES, we SHOULD criticize Trump for separating children from their parents.

There are some extreme cases where parents and children need to be separated, but when families are requesting asylum that is NOT one of those extreme cases. Even if a family crosses the border illegally without requesting asylum we should follow Democrat presidential candidate Julian Castro's suggestion and treat that as a civil violation rather than a crime, and keep the children with their parents.

So, separating children from their parents IS an atrocity and should be condemned. But what about keeping children in cages?

Let's analyze this issue by considering a couple of hypothetical questions.

If Trump separated children from their parents and kept them in 5-star hotels, would that be OK? That would still be an atrocity right? The horrible thing is separating children from their parents. No matter how well you treat the children after that, no matter where you house the children after that, the horrible thing has already happened.

Now let's think about a different hypothetical question: If the administration suddenly had thousands of children to watch over, and keep safe, would it be all right to keep them in cages or chain-link enclosures? If thousands of unaccompanied minors came across the border and we needed safe places to keep them that would prevent them from wandering off and getting lost, stop potentially bad adults from getting easy access to them, and allow us to easily keep an eye on them to make sure they are OK, wouldn't chain-link enclosures, or "cages," make a lot of sense?

By thinking about these hypothetical questions I think we can see that the BIG problem at the border, the REAL atrocity, is separating children from their parents. If we change the subject to how the children were housed after they were separated we are actually letting Trump off the hook for the terrible evil he perpetrated.

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The "Hearing the Falconer" Library

Books for Independent Thinkers

Moderates: The Vital Center of American Politics, from the Founding to Today

The American Political Tradition: And the Men Who Made It

Unapologetically Moderate: My Search for the Rational Center in American Politics

The Deliberate Moderate: Influencing From the Middle

Eisenhower: The White House Years

The Constitutional Convention: A Narrative History from the Notes of James Madison

Lincoln

Reflections of a Radical Moderate

Washington: A Life

The Reluctant Republican: My Fight for the Moderate Majority

Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, From Eisenhower to the Tea Party

Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life

Theodore Roosevelt: A Life

The Three Languages of Politics: Talking Across the Political Divides

Beyond Red and Blue: How Twelve Political Philosophies Shape American Debates

Truman