Solutions: Doctrine for Conflict/War Driven Immigration

What the United States, the European Union and Middle-Eastern nations need both individually and in a correlated manner is a Doctrine of Conflict/War Driven Immigration. It would be even better if the United Nations had a Doctrine for Conflict/War Driven Immigration; but such a doctrine would run afoul of procedural controls that prevents the United Nations from affecting a policy that would disturb one or more of its privileged members. So the proposed doctrine would be a foreign policy lightning rod for those nations and world powers who either benefit from war/conflict situations or who fear the doctrine would interfere with their ability to act on the world stage without consequences beyond their control.

The proposed doctrine is conceived on the principle that non-military citizens of a nation where the societal structure is disintegrating under internal conflict or civil war have a right to safety in their lives, their families’ lives, in their businesses/professions, and in their beliefs. In essence the doctrine asserts that when a nation’s governmental entities cannot ensure the safety of their citizens or is the actual threat to their citizens and thereby results in a portion of their population to attempt emigration to another country. That situation of emigration would constitute a condition for other nations receiving the influx of emigrants to be empowered to act under the doctrine.

When internal conflicts produce massive, large-scale exoduses of their civil population to other nation states’ territories, the consequence is invariably an immigration crisis to those affected nations. The crisis can manifest along any number of dimensions but always includes humanitarian, security and economic problems. Accommodating the influx of people requires that receiving nations’ government agencies have policies, resources and funding to respond to the immigrants. Even if these nations’ had programs in-place to handle nominal levels of immigrants, those programs do not automatically or simply ramp-up to deal with a large rapid increase. Even when extraordinary efforts are made to respond and provide care, the immediate actions and solutions are only temporary. As additional immigrants continue to arrive and as the duration of support extends over time, the impacts on nations can exceed their ability to provide refugee relief and to accommodate and integrate the refugees into their economies and societies.

These crises usually result in border closings and confrontations, isolation camps for refugees, refugee smuggling activities, internal political issues, and of course increasing costs. Regardless of the outcome of the conflict/war within the refugee’s home nation, the receiving nations will not have a means to recover their costs from those nations that caused the crises. Thus providing a haven for citizens of other nations in conflict is a destabilizing force that has few, if any, benefits. It thus become incumbent upon these nations to affect policies and programs to respond more effectively than just struggling with refugees and hoping for an end to the conflict that will allow for repatriation.

The proposed Doctrine for Conflict/War Immigration permits a nation or group of nations to designate a nation undergoing conflict and thereby promoting emigration to their nation as a regional or global stability threat. Based on evoking the doctrine under this circumstance the impacted nation(s) would be within their rights to secure a section of the refugees’ nation for refugee support, settlement and protection. Thus under the doctrine affected nations become governmental representatives for the refugees in the area(s) designated as in-nation refugee havens. Any action taken by any group, in-national military force or any external entity not in-nation against the haven areas would represent an act of war and permit military actions against such without restrictions.

Within the haven area(s) the doctrine’s policies would be to promote the resettlement of refugees into the delivery of local business, healthcare, community and to become the internal security and law enforcement operation for refugee/residents. No accommodation is made for any military group that is actively engaged in the on-going conflict, so the haven is not an area for one side, faction or group to organize or secure their military resources. The haven area(s) create a safe place for civilians until those citizens decide to rejoin with whatever government is recognized as a post-conflict sovereign government or become a separate state. The nation(s) instituting the haven(s) use their resources on constructive solutions that don’t disrupt their own economies and cause internal displacements that add to the problems produced by the immigration events.

This doctrine is intended to make it undesirable and self-destructive to nations that engage militarily in internal conflicts that result in mass migrations of their citizens to other nations. The doctrine does not address or offer a basis for responding to internal national conflicts that do not involve civil migrations.

The Doctrine of Conflict/War Driven Immigrations puts in place an option and a means for nations to respond to the causal agents of the crises rather than just being caught in a responsive position with little to no impact on or influence on the factors that are at the source of the crises. Ignoring the cause through inaction has the predictable outcome of not making any difference.

A Faithful Belief in the Law Of Unintended Consequences

Kentucky may be the Tennessee of the 21^st century. While I doubt that the Kim Davis – Rowan County Clerk’s office incident will spawn a play or motion picture, it may be setting a precedent that has interesting implications. At this writing the situation revolving around the ‘conflict’ between the right to marriage equality versus the right to religious freedom has apparently settled into a proclaimed victory by both sides. Certainly the Constitutional right to equal treatment regarding same-sex marriages is unaltered and required despite the clerk’s refusal to perform the function herself; and the clerk seems satisfied to just not engage in fulfilling that function within her office while allowing other office personnel to process and approve the licenses.

At one level this might be viewed as a form of ‘reasonable accommodation’ for her religious beliefs. Although, to fulfill the spirit of the legal basis for that position it would seem to imply that her religious beliefs are to be considered a disability recognized under another law. This does not seem reasonable since religious beliefs are deemed a normal aspect of our civil lives. So it would seem that the accommodation is made more in alignment with another law that supports and permits social accommodations to individual’s religious beliefs and traditions. However in neither case of making an accommodation does its underlying supportive law allow for a public official to not fulfill their official duties.

So the question to be considered is what are the ramifications of the current accommodation or ‘stand-off’? Just because this case may be considered settled, as long as no one attempts to introduce yet another lawsuit related to a subordinate issue like: challenging the legitimacy of the issued licenses, or creating a hostile work environment if the issue were to surface in her office; there can be subsequent effects for the precedent that is being accepted. In other words, what are the Law of Untended Consequences that follow from this state?

If one elected official can decide individually based on a religious belief what governmental functions and duties they are permitted to refuse to perform, how wide ranging is that individual’s discretion in ignoring the law? No one can say that this objection only applies to this one duty but no others because how would anyone know? With the precedent that it’s permissible to reject a function that offends your beliefs then at any time another law might be just as offensive or even more so to one’s beliefs. In some cases this would become apparent immediately upon refusal such as when the Clerk’s office refused to issue marriage licenses; however, not all deviations from adhering to the law need be so obvious. If the Clerk determined that following a procedure wasn’t proper and allowed a filing to be approved that would have been rejected is procedures were followed, who would know or perhaps complain? The unintended consequence, we have a precedent that approves of a public servant not following the law.

Next effect that can follow from this precedent: does the right to not have to follow the responsibilities of one’s office extend to all levels of government? Can the Clerk’s staff operate independently of the Clerk’s positions on policy because of their religious belief? This would mean that there is no equality of the law since it now depends upon the whims of those public servants who are paid to follow their interpretations of religion and not the fundamental principles of our American system of government. Now if you think that having a horde of public servants running wild with our laws is disturbing, imagine the consequences on the other end of the public servant spectrum; let’s think state and federal legislators, executive department heads, state governors or the president.

Why an opportunistic politician might even deduce that they could justify any decision, policy or action simply by citing their religious belief that compels them to follow the ‘laws of God’ which have supremacy over the ‘laws of the land’. Now I know that no one would think any of our politicians would ever do such a clearly unconstitutional act since they took an oath of office sworn before their respective deity of choice. But now there is a precedent that says there really isn’t any requirement to follow the Constitution not even if you are a strict interpretationist.

I keep wondering if this was the reason that the Founding Fathers were so insistent that the government must avoid putting a governmental stamp upon civil enforcement of a religion’s view upon the public. Allowing a public servant to use a religious belief to negate a law is effectively recognizing that religion at the exclusion of others. So a consequence of the reasonable accommodation becomes a crack in our American principle of religious freedom. It cannot be possible for the government to support one religious view that contradicts another religious view on the same question without overtly ‘establishing one religion’ within the context of the law.

There might be a motion picture concept in this notion after all, but it’s not a story about the self-appointed clerk of the law but about the willful forfeiture of a sacred American principle and the slow corrosive impacts that can proceed from there. 

Biden, To Run or Not To Run?: The Logic of In or Out Decision

VP Biden has been struggling with his decision to run for President. This can’t be a new issue or even a recent issue that he has had to contemplate over the last year or two. There can be many factors that he has been juggling and evaluating in striving to arrive at his decision.

This isn’t an unusual situation for anyone involved in a complex situation where there are many factors that can be considered as relevant to the decision. It happens with business and corporate leaders facing issues in their industries that require a direction from the executive(s). In many ways the abundance of issues, factors, questions, alternatives and a constantly changing environment that impacts the decision often leads to ‘analysis paralyses’.

So here’s a perspective that might help VP Biden in his decision.

There are three questions that should allow a perspective candidate to reach their decision.

1.       What is in the ‘best interest of the country’?

2.       Would running be ‘right for him’?

3.       Would it be ‘right for his family’?

The first question is asking if he thinks he has a ‘better vision of the policies and approaches for leading the nation than other candidates’? If not then he should look to whomever he thinks has a better vision and support them. If he does believe that his leadership would best serve the nation then what would be the rationale for not running?

Would the second question cause him to decide not to run? There really isn’t much logic that would lead to such a conclusion. If his candidacy would be better for the nation, then how is his not running right for him? Will he be better off if the nation is served less well? Will he feel he has done his duty to the nation he has served up to now and then allow less than the best vision guide the country? If he thinks his view is what the nation needs then there is no conclusion that running isn’t also right for him.

The same assessment applies to the third question. What is best for the nation is best for his family also. That’s one of the basic tenets of a “government by the people, for the people and of the people”. WIt hat is best for the nation serves the individual themselves best and serves their family best; else on what basis would his vision, his policies, his leadership be ‘best for the nation’?

So VP Biden really has one question to answer. Is there another candidate who has a better approach to leading the nation? Because that is the only reason to run, whether you think you can do a better job than other candidates.

This doesn’t make the other issues, problems, risks and obstacles that will still exist once you decide to run go away; but it puts them into the proper perspective of deciding to run or not. They are not the reason not to run, they are the challenges to be overcome because running is the best thing for the country and that makes these challenges worth the effort.