Robert Knight
TURNER, MAINE -- They say the South is the
friendliest place in America, and they’re
probably right. The Midwest isn’t far behind,
but the civility line defies latitudes or
longitudes.
It comes down roughly to the difference
between city and country folk – although
exceptions abound. Across the USA and
Canada, I’ve found that people outside core
metropolitan areas are much more likely to
initiate or respond to friendly entreaties.
On my family’s recent trip back to the D.C.
area from Western Maine, we stopped at a
supermarket in Turner (population: 5,700) to
get a case of Moxie, but became stranded with
a dead battery.
Within 45 minutes, with our hood up, we were
approached six times by people who offered to
help, including an angel named Tammy who
operated a café a couple of miles away. She
not only gave us phone numbers for three
mechanics, but offered to come back and
personally bring us and two dogs to her café
to spend the day if the car problem was a
lengthy event.
A woman who worked at the supermarket
tried unsuccessfully to jump start us. Others
came by after she left and offered the same.
This doesn’t count those who passed by and
gave inquiring looks that said, “we’re here to
help if you need it.” In Maine, there’s an
understanding that it’s best not to talk unless
you can improve on silence. A sound idea, that.
I thought about the overarching concept of
how you treat strangers while we waited for
AAA to get us back on the road. The Bible is
clear about caring for strangers, the poor,
orphans and widows. It is not a mandate for
mass migration over an unsecured border.
Using my smartphone, I read the latest
accounts of the Texas border crisis. Some well-
meaning folks have, I believe, misapplied the
biblical idea of hospitality to justify the lawless
surge of tens of thousands of illegal aliens,
mostly young Central Americans.
It’s creating a massive headache for an
overwhelmed system and is costing lives.
Heart-wrenching tales of rape, crime and
death in the desert are seeping through the
media’s rose-colored lens.
Instead of securing the border and
repatriation, President Obama is asking
Congress for a quick $3.7 billion in taxpayer
money for lawyers and schooling to “ease the
crisis” that he manufactured by suspending
deportation of “dreamers” in 2012. He also
sent a powerful signal by turning loose the
Justice Department on states like Arizona that
are trying to do what the feds won’t – enforce
the law.
Although drug smugglers, criminals and
perhaps terrorists are taking advantage of the
legal anarchy, the vast majority are poor
people seeking a better life. Only a heart of
stone would feel no twinge of compassion.
But, as with legal precedents, hard cases make
bad laws. Without concern for consequences,
seemingly compassionate actions can harm
more than help.
A friend who goes to Africa to assist
missionaries in relieving poverty and sharing
the Gospel told me that some actions by the
U.S. government and even private
philanthropic groups make things worse. A
case in point is dumping food into drought-
stricken areas dotted with hardscrabble
farmers. If it isn’t handled right, the farmers
go out of business, and famine returns with a
vengeance.
It’s not enough to feel good about doing good;
we’re responsible for seeing that we help
more than hurt. The late, great Michael
Schwartz, a conservative, pro-life activist,
gave me a lesson in this one day as we walked
to lunch from the Heritage Foundation, where
I worked at the time.
Although we had a narrow window, Mike
stopped when a homeless man approached us
to panhandle. Instead of rushing by, Mike
patiently talked with him, but turned down
repeated requests for money. It was obvious
the man wanted to buy another bottle. Mike
took him to a nearby café and bought him
some food.
As we walked back from our own lunch, Mike
railed at the inhumanity of the welfare system;
how it robs people of their charitable impulses
and hurts the poor at the same time. Jesus, he
explained, cared enough to set people on the
right path, not lead them astray to make
Himself feel good. Mike had let the homeless
man know that he, the sandwich buyer, was
merely a vehicle for the love of God. Mike
hoped the man would realize his own worth
and perhaps find the strength to take a
different path.
Kindness is catching. The sheer decency of the
people in that Maine parking lot left us feeling
blessed instead of delayed. They wanted to
help us get back on the road, not keep us
dependent on their largesse.
The obvious, though not easy, answer to the
man-made disaster unfolding in Texas is to
secure the border and ship back the illegal
immigrants as humanely as possible. It begins
with re-establishing the rule of law, without
which more misery will flourish.
We can’t solve all the world’s problems, but
we can surely make them worse with
misguided compassion.
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