{"id":3292,"date":"2015-11-23T08:42:22","date_gmt":"2015-11-23T14:42:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=3292"},"modified":"2016-08-14T12:44:17","modified_gmt":"2016-08-14T18:44:17","slug":"refugee-related-hypothetical-question-of-the-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/11\/refugee-related-hypothetical-question-of-the-day.html","title":{"rendered":"Refugee-related hypothetical question of the day"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"StLouisPorthole\". Licensed under Public Domain via Commons - https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:StLouisPorthole.jpg#\/media\/File:StLouisPorthole.jpg<\/a>
\u201cStLouisPorthole\u201d. Licensed under Public Domain via Commons \u2013 https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:StLouisPorthole.jpg#\/media\/File:StLouisPorthole.jpg<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

We\u2019re being told repeatedly that our failure to take in Jews from Germany seeking to immigrate in the years prior to World War II \u201cproves\u201d that we should now be taking Syrians in. \u00a0It\u2019s not actually as simple as that: \u00a0the Syrians we\u2019re talking about are not presently in mortal danger, but waiting in refugee camps. \u00a0Many of these, too, were not fleeing ISIS specifically, but Assad and the civil war in general. \u00a0The ones in mortal danger are in need of military rescue from ISIS-held territory \u2014 or in other parts of the world, such as the Rohingya in Myanmar.<\/p>\n

But let\u2019s imagine that, in the years leading up to WWII, we in America were able to truly understand that the Nazis were not just mistreating the Jews, but would in short order, go from banning them from their professions and from public parks, to systematically killing them, and would do so not just in Germany but throughout the whole of Europe. \u00a0Let\u2019s say a time-traveller with conclusive evidence testified before the president and top congressional leaders in a top-secret session, and they believed him. \u00a0Perhaps said time-traveller had some secret mind-control technology to convince them of this, and had accepted that he would vanish once the timeline was disrupted, to serve the greater good of saving Jews.<\/p>\n

What should the United States have done?<\/p>\n

Should those Congressional leaders have launched a \u201crescue mission\u201d of issuing visas to every European Jew, perhaps even sending over ships, to fully relocate the population to safety here? \u00a0Or should they have used that knowledge to declare war on Hitler and remove him from power?<\/p>\n

By the way, the image is from the Wikipedia article<\/a> on the MS St Louis, the ship on which 900 German Jews travelled to Cuba and were unable to land. \u00a0What I had understood of the story \u2014 that, America having rejected them, they all were forced to return to Germany, and to their deaths \u2014 turns out not to have been correct. \u00a0The passengers were taken in by Great Britain, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, which would have seemed at the time to have been an equitable resolution to the problem. \u00a0It is only now, knowing that France, Belgium, and the Netherlands would fall under Nazi control, that we see this an an indictment of America\u2019s failure.<\/p>\n

(Yes, I touched on this briefly in a prior post, but I think it\u2019s worth discussing more.)<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re being told repeatedly that our failure to take in Jews from Germany seeking to immigrate in the years prior to World War II \u201cproves\u201d that we should now be taking Syrians in. \u00a0It\u2019s not actually as simple as that: \u00a0the Syrians we\u2019re talking about are not presently in mortal danger, but waiting in refugee […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":3295,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[449],"class_list":["post-3292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-refugees"],"yoast_head":"\nRefugee-related hypothetical question of the day<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We're being told repeatedly that our failure to take in Jews from Germany seeking to immigrate in the years prior to World War II "proves" that we should\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/11\/refugee-related-hypothetical-question-of-the-day.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Refugee-related hypothetical question of the day\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We're being told repeatedly that our failure to take in Jews from Germany seeking to immigrate in the years prior to World War II "proves" that we should\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/11\/refugee-related-hypothetical-question-of-the-day.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jane the Actuary\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-11-23T14:42:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-08-14T18:44:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/533\/2015\/11\/StLouisPorthole.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"245\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"370\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jane the Actuary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jane the Actuary\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/11\/refugee-related-hypothetical-question-of-the-day.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/11\/refugee-related-hypothetical-question-of-the-day.html\",\"name\":\"Refugee-related hypothetical question of the day\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2015-11-23T14:42:22+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-08-14T18:44:17+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/ed9b99e0bd58c5eeeebae6b82fa5a77a\"},\"description\":\"We're being told repeatedly that our failure to take in Jews from Germany seeking to immigrate in the years prior to World War II \\\"proves\\\" that we should\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/11\/refugee-related-hypothetical-question-of-the-day.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/11\/refugee-related-hypothetical-question-of-the-day.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/11\/refugee-related-hypothetical-question-of-the-day.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Refugee-related hypothetical question of the day\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/\",\"name\":\"Jane the Actuary\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/ed9b99e0bd58c5eeeebae6b82fa5a77a\",\"name\":\"Jane the Actuary\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8d6a493d380e87d49599d5487691c9fc?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8d6a493d380e87d49599d5487691c9fc?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Jane the Actuary\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/author\/actuaryjane\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Refugee-related hypothetical question of the day","description":"We're being told repeatedly that our failure to take in Jews from Germany seeking to immigrate in the years prior to World War II \"proves\" that we should","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/11\/refugee-related-hypothetical-question-of-the-day.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Refugee-related hypothetical question of the day","og_description":"We're being told repeatedly that our failure to take in Jews from Germany seeking to immigrate in the years prior to World War II \"proves\" that we should","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/11\/refugee-related-hypothetical-question-of-the-day.html","og_site_name":"Jane the Actuary","article_published_time":"2015-11-23T14:42:22+00:00","article_modified_time":"2016-08-14T18:44:17+00:00","og_image":[{"width":245,"height":370,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/533\/2015\/11\/StLouisPorthole.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Jane the Actuary","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Jane the Actuary","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/11\/refugee-related-hypothetical-question-of-the-day.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/11\/refugee-related-hypothetical-question-of-the-day.html","name":"Refugee-related hypothetical question of the day","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#website"},"datePublished":"2015-11-23T14:42:22+00:00","dateModified":"2016-08-14T18:44:17+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/ed9b99e0bd58c5eeeebae6b82fa5a77a"},"description":"We're being told repeatedly that our failure to take in Jews from Germany seeking to immigrate in the years prior to World War II \"proves\" that we should","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/11\/refugee-related-hypothetical-question-of-the-day.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/11\/refugee-related-hypothetical-question-of-the-day.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/11\/refugee-related-hypothetical-question-of-the-day.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Refugee-related hypothetical question of the day"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/","name":"Jane the Actuary","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/ed9b99e0bd58c5eeeebae6b82fa5a77a","name":"Jane the Actuary","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8d6a493d380e87d49599d5487691c9fc?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8d6a493d380e87d49599d5487691c9fc?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Jane the Actuary"},"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/author\/actuaryjane"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2209"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3292\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}