I am learning that many people like the current administration’s goals, but dislike the methods used to achieve those goals. David French of the New York Times caught that surprising factoid from a CBS/YouGov poll. That shouldn’t surprise us but it does. Consider how many people love a steak. We are trained to love that wonderful barbecued treat, but it doesn’t occur to most of us to follow a steer from the field to the processing plant for a close look at how the living creature becomes a slab of red meat inside cellophane packaging properly cooled so the stench of death doesn’t reach our delicate sensitivities. In fact we have been trained not to look too closely at any process for fear of what we will have to know. Let’s face it in this democracy when you vote for the product without closely considering the process you have almost missed the whole point. There is no product without a process. To think there so is a unique form of immorality. To assume no responsibility for the process is dangerous magical thinking and I sure hope no one brings the word ‘faith’ into this right now.

This is particularly true for the immigration issues. What a majority of American’s want is something they can’t have. We seem to want to live in the frosting layer of a wonderful cake without being responsible for the cake’s shape. The good decision requires you examine both product and process and if the process is immoral so is the product.

A modest proposal for Good

Congress must design a fair and just immigration process subject to genuine public hearings. We the citizens must be treated as adults and hear the good and the bad news about the process. Our voices and votes must marinate in moral nuance and complexity. We cannot live in a pure sugar environment that doesn’t acknowledge the death of the animals that keep us alive or the pain and suffering of immigrant men, women, children, and generations on. I love an occasional steak and some creature was sacrificed and bled out that I can enjoy that pleasure. That is the shape of my cake. If I cannot live with that whole reality it is up to me to do something about my values. If this country doesn’t like process of our goals, we have to grow up and act like a democracy.