Basic Standards (Midweek Message)

 

Courtesy, The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and Time Magazine

Basic Standards

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

July 10, 2019

“The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God” (Lev 19:34).

 “[T]here shall be for both you and the resident alien a single statute, a perpetual statute throughout your generations; you and the alien shall be alike before the Lord” (Num 15:15).

“He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8). 

“Treat others as you would want to be treated” (Matt 7:12). 

In the 1662 Prayer Book, the Holy Communion rite begins with a congregational recitation of the Ten Commandments, each followed by the refrain, “Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law.”    While repetitive and perhaps focusing too much on “keeping commandments” as the be all and end all of a good relationship with God, such regular recitation did have one very salutary effect: it reminded the worshippers that there are bottom line standards and requirements of behavior, and warned us against clever self-justifications of acts that have been shown again and again to harm our relationship with God and our neighbor. 

When I was a U.S. diplomat working in China, I conducted many programs on the U.S. constitution and system of political economy, including our standards of constitutional and civil rights.  Defenders of the Chinese Communist Party would often criticize such informational programs as a sideways effort at promoting what they called “bourgeois liberalism” to subvert their rule.  They said that Chinese culture and history were so different from those of the West that the U.S. experience had little application for the Chinese: arguing for “universal human rights” was in this view an act of imperialism and cultural colonialism and needed to be rejected.  Besides that, U.S. failure to live up to its own stated values meant that the values were nothing more than anti-Chinese propaganda.   

We found that the best way of undoing such a jaundiced view was to openly discuss areas where we Americans had not lived up to our stated values and law, and how and whether we had made progress.  In these programs, we often made reference to the standards of the United Nations:  the 1948 Universal Declaration on Human Rights, the 1976 Convention on Civil and Political Rights, the 1951 Convention and 1967 Protocol on the Status of Refugees, the 1990 Convention on Rights of the Child, and the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women.   Reviewing these documents had a similar effect on my audiences—it reminded us of bottom-line, basic standards and helped short-circuit self-justifying reasoning. 

In recent months, I have heard with disturbing regularity voices echoing those Chinese Communist claims that because their nation is exceptional, international standards should not apply.  But these voices are those of my own fellow Americans.  They often see international law as a violation of U.S. sovereignty and constitutional principles, and point to the imperfections and incongruities of the United Nations as a reason for not feeling constrained by any of its rules.  They argue that America, Winthrop’s “City on a Hill,”  should be making the rules for other nations, not vice versa.  While the unusual exemplary role the U.S. often plays and the hope it has given many through history are undeniable, claiming exceptionalism as a reason for not being bound by universal rules is just plain wrong.   It is a self-deceiving justification of the worst sort.    The U.S. has played an important role in drafting and approving these documents of International Law.  The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights is rightly seen as a gift of Eleanor Roosevelt to the world.  But all these documents were collaborative, and the U.S. has on several occasions availed itself of the same arguments as other nations wanting to get off the hook of abiding by their high-minded standards.  In this, we are not exceptional at all.   

In the recent discussion on how we treat people applying for refugee status on the Southern U.S. border, the U.N. Commissioners for Human Rights and for Refugees have said the U.S. is in gross violation of International Law and the most basic standards of humanity.  One mid-level administration official from the Department of Justice replied by saying that international law allows us to defend our sovereignty and that under U.S. law, we have no obligation to keep children with their parents or to provide basic necessities like soap and toothpaste to those being held against their will.  The performance was reminiscent of the justifications of mid-level German officials at the end of World War II, what Hannah Arendt called “the banality of evil.” 

I repeat here a few of the affirmations made in these documents.  Like repeating the Ten Commandments in Holy Communion, I hope such repetition will disabuse us of self-deception and self-justification.  What is good for the goose is also good for the gander. 

·      [T]he inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world...

·      Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms... without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

·      Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

·      No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. 

·      Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law. 

·      No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

·      Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defense. 

·      No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honor and reputation.

·      Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.

·      Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.

·      No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.

·      No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

·      Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favorable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.

·      Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family.

·      Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

·      Everyone has the right to education.

·      In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.

·      States shall not impose penalties on refugees who entered illegally in search of asylum if they present themselves without delay. 

This matter, as all law, is complicated.  But the intention of these documents when read through a broad lens seems clear.  That intention—treating others as we would want to be treated, paying special attention to those most vulnerable—should be the standard of how we as a nation behave, not self-justifying appeals to our internal law and political opinion.   It is only thus that we can show just how exceptional we are.  It is only by pursuing our better values that we can show our nation’s greatness. 

Grace and Peace, 

Fr. Tony+

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