Editorial Roundup: Recent editorials in Arkansas newspapers

Here are excerpts from recent editorials in Arkansas newspapers:

Texarkana Gazette, Dec. 28, 2017

Twitter is a popular platform for online comments. Its users run the gamut of our society and that around the world.

You might see a Tweet from an average working stiff show up on your feed one minute, and the next might bring the latest from President Donald Trump.

The site was founded just over a decade ago. Now, it boasts more than 300 million active users and is, according to the ranking service Alexa, the 13th most popular site on the Internet. That’s nothing new to most users, but there is something you might not know.

In 2010, the Library of Congress cut a deal with Twitter and has been archiving every public post made on the site.

Every single one. That means anything you posted publicly on your Twitter feed is there. And probably forever.

Why?

Well, it seems the government didn’t quite understand the impact of social media in 2010, but they knew something big was happening. So it was decided the LOC would make a deal with Twitter to archive those millions and millions of Tweets.

The Tweets aren’t available to the public, but that’s probably little comfort for privacy advocates or those who worry about just what the government might do with all that information.

Things are going to change a bit, though. This week, the LOC announced it would no longer collect all Tweets, but just those that are “thematic and event-based, including events such as elections, or themes of ongoing national interest, e.g. public policy,” according to a report from the LOC, though exactly how that will be determined was not explained.

But while all Tweets will no longer be archived after the end of the year, the LOC is going to hold onto what it already has.

One thing we are sure of, though, is that President Trump’s Tweets will still be collected, and that’s a good thing.

In the past, letters, diaries and the like were the main sources for biographers who wanted to really know what made their subjects tick. President Trump isn’t big on that sort of thing, so future chroniclers will have a place to go to research this administration.

One day, next to “The Letters of Thomas Jefferson” on your bookshelf, there might be a copy of “The Tweets of Donald Trump.”

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Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Dec. 26, 2017

The collaboration of 100-plus clergy in Arkansas last week to decry the end of U.S. protections for immigrants illegally brought into the country as children didn’t cover new ground. In gatherings in Little Rock and in Fayetteville, it was the same cast of pastors and immigrant rights advocates calling for action to replace the Obama-era program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals that President Trump has committed to ending by March.

And in Washington, some lawmakers pushed for a vote for the DREAM Act before the end of 2017. That’s the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors legislation advocates hope will restore protections for people who have spent practically their entire lives in the United States, but who have no lasting legal status with the government.

Uncertainty has become their way of life, and neither Republicans nor Democrats in recent days have managed to remove any questions about their future.

Several local pastors also criticized the Trump administration’s reduction of refugee admissions into the United States in the midst of “global refugee crisis.” They’re using their voices, as they should, to advocate for government policies that match their personal viewpoints and their considered evaluations of how their personal faith should inform such policies. If only all Americans devoted themselves to a deeper understanding of government policies and a level of activism intended to influence our local, state and national leaders, perhaps things would be going a little more smoothly in the country.

“Walling out immigrants and refugees is not consistent with Kingdom assurance of security in Jesus, and placates the more racist and xenophobic elements of our communities,” the pastors’ statement said. “We resolve to preach, teach and advocate against the sins of oppressing the immigrants and sojourners in our midst, and excluding the millions of refugees abroad in need of refuge.”

One of the pastors appearing in Little Rock noted the immigrant ancestry of most Americans and described the difference between countries as “an imaginary line drawn on a map.”

At the risk of being accused of xenophobia or nationalism, we embrace those little imaginary lines a bit more than our pastor friend. Such tiny dashes on a map can mean the difference between a group of pastors having every right to peaceably assemble to advocate and even criticize their government, and a group of pastors being thrown into a cell for such audacity.

We understand the philosophical notions that we are all citizens of the planet, that being born on one side of a border vs. the other does not diminish or enhance one’s value as a human being. One can hardly argue against the point. But not everyone applies such truths to their behaviors.

Borders provide organization, which the world needs. A border plays as pivotal a role in creating safe havens where natural law can be heralded as it does by despots who fuel the movement of peoples seeking to escape oppressive regimes. Can the United States do better as a rescuer of refugees? Undoubtedly, but it can afford to do so because those imaginary dotted lines matter a great deal.

As far as the so-called DACA, it appears people in both parties see no value in sending young people back to native lands they don’t know. There are a lot of pledges from Democrats and Republicans that their future in the United States will be worked out. But at the moment, those people have become part of the bargaining in Washington, D.C., over broader immigration policies. One can lament that all day long, but ignoring the reality is pointless.

Of all people involved in the immigration debate, DACA recipients deserve to have their futures settled. If that’s a priority for Democrats, they’re going to have to give Trump and his Republicans some movement on other issues that may not taste so great for other constituents to chew. More border protection, which Democrats voted for under Obama, can’t be attacked as evil under Trump.

Republicans understandably want to use this leverage to advance a few other policies, but they should also want to be viewed as partners in rescuing DACA program participants from uncertainty.

We’re told January will be the month to resolve this situation, and let’s hope more certainty for the future can be a late Christmas present for the 800,000 or so people affected by DACA’s scheduled end. Arkansas lawmakers such as Sen. Tom Cotton, who hailed Trump’s decision on DACA because such policy matters belong to the legislative rather than executive branch, now owe their constituents a serious effort to settle this matter clearly and decisively.

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Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Dec. 28, 2017

The message came directly from this country’s ambassador to the (dis)United Nations, and it was unmistakable: We the People of the United States have had it with being kicked around at the UN and aren’t having any more of it. Certain countries certainly want our money and our troops when trouble strikes, but then refuse to recognize our right to decide where and when we will choose to locate an embassy abroad.

In this case, in Jerusalem, Israel’s capital. This land of the free and home of the brave hasn’t been used to taking orders from tyrants, at least since George III was giving them, and Americans aren’t going to start bowing the knee to foreign dictators at this late day.

Not since Daniel Patrick Moynihan stood before the UN’s mock parliament, the General Assembly, and denounced a resolution that would have made the United States an accomplice to the world’s anti-Semitism has this country had so impassioned a defender of its rights. Her name is Nikki Haley, her title American ambassador to the United Nations, and this is what she said: “The United States will remember this day in which it was singled out in this assembly for the very act of exercising our right as a sovereign nation. We will remember it when, once again, we are called upon to make the world’s largest contribution to the UN, and we will remember it when many countries come calling on us to pay even more and to use our influence for their benefit.”

The foreign minister of Turkey, Mevlut Cavusoglu, took to the floor to express medium dudgeon when his country was called to account by Ambassador Haley. It’s unethical, he complained. “The votes and dignity of member states are not for sale,” he said. “We will not be intimidated! You can be strong but this doesn’t make you right!”

The day on which this nation has to take lessons in democracy from Turkey - Turkey! - has not yet arrived and will never arrive, God willing and inshallah.

There is a select group of countries at the United Nations that compose an honor roll. And they will not be forgotten when they need America’s friendship and financial support. Joining the United States and embattled Israel to oppose this UN resolution were Guatemala, Honduras, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Togo and Palau. Not a great power among them. No, their greatness lies in their loyal friendship to an old ally like the United States.

Let the record show that other countries abstained from this vote rather than condemn the United States, like Canada, Hungary and the Czech Republic. Even when our old “friends” in Europe were willing to stab us in the back when it came to this contentious issue. Canada explained that it was objecting to the resolution’s one-sided language. And there’s no doubt its language was as prejudiced as the diplomatic mob that rushed to pass it.

As the new year approaches, let us remember old friends and auld lang syne. There are intangible bounds of history, memory, and language that hold nations as well as people together. So let us hold fast to all those special relationships we Americans are privileged to share with others. And never, ever forget them.