Affirming President Trump’s Travel Ban: Sanity Prevails

By Avrohom Gordimer

Although the decision was narrow, the Supreme Court should be applauded for upholding President Trump’s travel ban. The Court’s decision is important for three reasons:

Safety and Security

The prevalence of terror-related activities involving citizens of the seven affected countries compels the United States and all nations to take necessary precautions. If one has reason to believe there is a greater preponderance of citizens from specific countries who are involved in terrorism, there arises a firm obligation to act. The leftists who oppose the travel ban favor politics over human life. If they wish to pursue this path for themselves, let them do so, but to attempt to impose their ideology and imperil the Unites States is outrageous.

Sensibility

The seven affected countries happen to be Muslim-majority nations. The travel ban does not reference Muslims or Islam; to conflate the ban with a “Muslim ban” is quite creative and incorrect. Those with a warped agenda are dishonestly portraying the travel ban as discriminatory.

Imagine routine entry and import bans being evaluated and struck down based on the cultures of the affected countries. We occasionally read things such as:

“People who recently traveled to Country X may not enter the United States for two weeks due to likely exposure to Ebola.”

“Cheese from Country Y may not be imported to the United States due to serious concerns of listeria.”

What if these bans, which are sensible and necessary, were subject to being struck down if it is determined that the affected countries are typically Muslim, black, Hispanic, or whatever else? The United States cannot – no normal nation can – operate with such random and nonsensical limitations. The Court upheld the sensible understanding of the travel ban and affirmed that matters must be judged on the merits, rather than by spin from outside agendists. To rule otherwise would jeopardize the ability to enact basic and necessary safeguards if they somehow relate to other cultures, and would challenge all sensibility and sanity.

Reasonable Limits and Personal Freedom

On a broader level, not too dissimilar from the recent Masterpiece Cakeshop decision, the Court sent the message that reasonable self-protection precautions are not tantamount to discrimination. To restrict one’s right to protect one’s well-being, and to impose barriers to basic measures of self-preservation, would be a grave incursion into personal freedom and the freedom of the government to act for the protection of its citizens. Rather than looking only at who is being banned entry, look at whom is being muzzled and hindered from passive exercise of self-protection. The Court’s decision should be taken in this vein as an affirmation of freedom.

With God’s grace, America is a safe country in large measure because law and order rule, and criminals are removed from society. This would dramatically change as the result of an open borders or only politically correct travel restrictions policy.

The Supreme Court has affirmed that being safe, sensible, and normal is still acceptable in the United States of America, despite the best efforts of leftists to make it otherwise.

Rabbi Gordimer is chairman of the Rabbinic Circle at Coalition for Jewish Values and is a frequent contributor to various publications, including Cross-Currents and Israel National News. He is a member of the New York Bar, and he works for a Jewish communal organization in New York.

This article first appeared at The American Thinker.

{Matzav.com}