Compassion With Limits: Episcopal Church Shuts Door on White Afrikaner Refugees
“In light of our church’s steadfast commitment to racial justice and reconciliation and our historic ties with the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, we are not able to take this step.”
For nearly 40 years, Episcopal Migration Ministries (EMM), a faith-based organization that leads the Episcopal Church’s refugee resettlement ministry, has partnered with the U.S. government to assist federal refugees. The Most Rev. Sean W. Rowe, the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, announced in a Monday letter addressed to his fellow “people of God,” that its long-time relationship with the government had come to an end.
The reason for the break? Two weeks earlier, the government had asked EMM to help resettle a group of white Afrikaners—a group President Donald Trump had granted refugee status to in a February executive order. Apparently, that’s where they draw the line.
Citing the “church’s steadfast commitment to racial justice and reconciliation and our historic ties with the Anglican Church of Southern Africa,” Rowe indicated, “we are not able to take this step.”
It clearly didn’t matter to him that the first group of 59 refugees would be landing at Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C., in the next several hours.
Yes, women, children, older people, with all their chattels … this is actually what refugee exoduses look like & asylum is meant to protect … not young men of military age. https://t.co/XPGUZvN01e
— Gray Connolly (@GrayConnolly) May 12, 2025
Turns out refugees can come to America waving American flags, not storm the border waving flags of their home countries.
Welcome, Afrikaners, to The United States of America! pic.twitter.com/RpuIWT1PmS
— AbeGreenleaf (@abegreenleaf) May 12, 2025
One X user noted that the group included “Women and children. Fathers who have stable jobs. Not one single gang tattoo. Everyone is waving an American flag. The only refugees the left hates.”
Women and children. Fathers who have stable jobs. Not one single gang tattoo. Everyone is waving an American flag.
The only refugees the left hates. pic.twitter.com/xluqhR43kd
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) May 12, 2025
The openly progressive Rowe is incensed that the Trump administration shut down the U.S. refugee program shortly after taking office—only to later grant refugee status to white Afrikaners, whom Trump’s executive order described as “victims of unjust racial discrimination.”
“It has been painful to watch one group of refugees, selected in a highly unusual manner, receive preferential treatment over many others who have been waiting in refugee camps or dangerous conditions for years,” Rowe writes. “I am saddened and ashamed that many of the refugees who are being denied entrance to the United States are brave people who worked alongside our military in Iraq and Afghanistan and now face danger at home because of their service to our country.”
He notes, “Jesus tells us to care for the poor and vulnerable as we would care for him, and we must follow that command. Right now, what that means is ending our participation in the federal government’s refugee resettlement program and investing our resources in serving migrants in other ways.”
Oh, right. Maybe they can join the Faith Ministers who showed their compassion for the poor and vulnerable gang members currently incarcerated at the ICE Detention Center in New Jersey by forming a line to block the facility’s entrance on Monday.
BREAKING: Faith Ministers are BLOCKING the entrance to the ICE Detention Center, Delaney Hall in New Jersey where Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested last week. pic.twitter.com/T5tzTewO3D
— Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) May 12, 2025
Rowe concludes by saying, “May our faith in the Risen Christ, who draws all people to himself,” — except, apparently, the white Afrikaners — “sustain and guide us through the tumult of these times.”
Virtually every recounting of this story in the legacy media claims that South Africa’s government has “vehemently denied allegations of discriminatory treatment of its white minority residents,” as if that should be the end of that.
In the clip below, MSNBC host Nicole Wallace and her guests deliver a scathing assessment of Trump’s decision to grant refugee status to the Afrikaners. They disingenuously call it a form of white supremacy.
NEW: MSNBC has a five-minute struggle session after President Trump granted white South Africans asylum, say it's a sign of white supremacy.
The panel sounded like they were about to cry at the fact that white people were allowed to seek asylum.
Guest Richard Stengel went so… pic.twitter.com/nCeXpgemWg
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) May 12, 2025
Their narrative doesn’t hold up under scrutiny.
White Afrikaners have faced ongoing persecution and discrimination at the hands of the South African government. In fact, the passage of the Expropriation Act 13 of 2024 served as the catalyst for Trump’s executive order, which states that the Act would:
[E]nable the government of South Africa to seize ethnic minority Afrikaners’ agricultural property without compensation. This Act follows countless government policies designed to dismantle equal opportunity in employment, education, and business, and hateful rhetoric and government actions fueling disproportionate violence against racially disfavored landowners.
Naturally, MSNBC’s Yamiche Alcindor had to weigh in.
So the Trump admin, they’re saying that essentially these white South Africans assimilate better, and they’re also not as much of a security risk. That’s really ah causing a lot of of of people to be appalled, frankly.
And I also should tell people that this violence that they’re talking about that are dealing with these Afrikaners. I’ve been hearing from people that say there is violence in South Africa, but it’s affecting everybody of every single race.
NEW: MSNBC's Yamiche Alcindor hyperventilates over the White South Africans who were granted refugee status by Trump.
"So the Trump admin, they're saying that essentially these white South Africans assimilate better, and they're also not as much of a security risk."
"That's… pic.twitter.com/xfgXJIvLZs
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) May 12, 2025
In a statement to Blaze News, White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly wrote:
The Episcopal Church’s decision to terminate its decades-long partnership with the U.S. government over the resettlement of 59 desperate Afrikaner refugees raises serious questions about its supposed commitment to humanitarian aid.
Any religious group should support the plight of Afrikaners, who have been terrorized, brutalized, and persecuted by the South African government. The Afrikaners have faced unspeakable horrors and are no less deserving of refugee resettlement than the hundreds of thousands of others who were allowed into the United States during the past administration.
President Trump has made it clear: refugee resettlement should be about need, not politics.
Church World Service, one of the ten faith-based refugee agencies that partner with the government to resettle refugees, has agreed to serve the South African arrivals.
However, Rick Santos, the organization’s president and CEO, did not mince words in voicing his strong disapproval of the Trump administration’s actions. He said in a statement:
We are concerned that the U.S. Government has chosen to fast-track the admission of Afrikaners, while actively fighting court orders to provide life-saving resettlement to other refugee populations who are in desperate need of resettlement.
…
Despite the Administration’s actions, CWS remains committed to serving all eligible refugee populations seeking safety in the United States, including Afrikaners who are eligible for services. Our faith compels us to serve each person in our care with dignity and compassion.
At least Santos has stepped up to help the Afrikaners unlike The Most Rev. Sean W. Rowe, who has shown us that, for the Episcopal Church, faith and compassion do indeed have their limits.
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on LinkedIn or X.
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Is the Episcopalian organization even a church anymore, deserving of tax exempt status? These are not economic refugees, but people in fear of their lives because of the color of their skin.
Not much of a church anymore. Since they decided to hop on the woke train they are shedding members at an alarming rate. As for that “Faith Ministers” group. Their largest source of income is grants from The Ford Foundation and The Open Society so guess where their social justice is sourced
Episcopal churches are always trying to glam on to the latest liberal pet cause.
Color me shocked!
Ha. ha. Just kidding.
One of the peculiar sins of the twentieth century which we’ve developed to a very high level is the sin of credulity. It has been said that when human beings stop believing in God they believe in nothing. The truth is much worse: they believe in anything.
~~ Malcolm Muggeridge
Describes many of the liberal, woke religions to a tee. They long ago gave up believing in God and now believe in whatever liberal fads that blows their way.
This exactly.
It’s now the Epic Fools denomination…..
The church-affiliated immigrant aid groups are NGO scams. They get paid for immigrants and abandon them. It’s a business.
More of an open conspiracy/collusion for racketeering than a business but what it ain’t is ‘non-profit’ for the organizations and their management. Tens of billions of tax.dollars flowing to their coffers to advance the globalist open borders agenda.
“Non-profit” means they can spend all their money on salaries.
It’s time to end tax exempt status for all churches/religions.
It’s time to end tax exempt status for colleges and universities, all of them.
It’s time to end tax exempt status for NGOs, all of them, regardless of their mission.
I’d do the opposite – let everyone be their own church/religion, and be tax exempt.
That’s a whole new question. Abolish the IRS.
Let the current tax exempt prove their worth.
Agreed. Shouldn’t impact donations all that much as most taxpayers (85% +/-) don’t itemize opting for the standard deduction.
You’re confusing tax-exemption with tax-deductibility. Those are two different things.
Not-for-profits’ exemption from income tax isn’t all that significant, since by definition they have little net income in a year, and none at all over a longer period. But their exemption from land taxes and sales taxes is extremely significant. Those are exemptions granted by federal law but that mostly affect state and local governments.
Huh, well I can see how my post would lead you to that conclusion. My intent was to add an additional policy change on the donor side of the ledger removing tax deductions to the policy of ending tax exempt status for ‘non profits’/charities/Univ and I certainly didn’t communicate that very effectively. Thanks for the catch to give me the opportunity to clarify.
And you are confusing two different types of non-taxable organizations. It turns out that many (most?) federal 501c3 organizations started as state level non-profits. Thus tax exempt at both levels. But being federally tax exempt does NOT confer tax emotions at the state and local level.
I recall when one of the Bush presidents caved to the people on the right saying let the faith-based groups do this work.
I was a bit slow to realize it but then saw it for the scam it turned out to be. We can thank them for – among other things – the Somali infestation and tons of semi-literate marginally-intelligent welfare-dependent types.
Would you rather go back to the government doing it itself?! However bad some religious charities have been, they have nothing on the government. By definition the government can’t do a better job at welfare than a dedicated charity, especially a religiously-motivated one.
Why can’t these Charities continue to execute their supposedly faith/belief driven mission themselves without the gov’t funding? Either these organizations believe in their mission and enough Citizens believe in their mission to keep it going via private donations or they don’t. Govt shouldn’t be running charity/welfare at all nor providing taxpayer funds. These should be left to private charities and each individual to determine whether/how to donate in support of a given cause. If the private donations don’t show up then the public doesn’t support that particular charitable cause.
That’s a completely different argument. We’re talking about money that the government is committed to spending for welfare, and whether it should run its own programs and spend the money itself or farm it out to religious organizations to run the programs on its behalf. The latter is far better, because private organizations, and in particular religious organizations, are infinitely better suited to do the job better and more efficiently and at lower cost.
Well it is definitely an alternative argument which rejects the underlying premise of your post. You attempt to frame this discussion as a choice where either:
1. The Gov’t spend tax dollars itself on a ‘charity’ effort/program/goal
2. The Gov’t hands over tax dollars to an intermediary NGO or as we have seen from DOGE as.series of intermediary NGO to accomplish the ‘charity’ effort/program/goal
I am simply pointing out that your choice of framing skips over the discussion of WHETHER the Gov’t should be using tax dollars on ‘charity’ efforts/programs/goals at all. IMO the clear answer is Hell No. The individual Citizens can make voluntary donations to support these sorts of ‘charity’ efforts/programs/goals and if they don’t then they don’t view the efforts/programs/goals as sufficiently worthwhile.
@Commochief, Resettlement is a good ‘efforts/programs/goal’ don’t you think? When foreign people arrive for the first time with a few suitcases, helping them find housing/jobs/documentation is a lot more efficient than just leaving them on the street.
tbonesays
Perhaps but you didn’t state any limiting principle for either the number of arrivals or the duration of assistance or even a cap on amount spent per person.
How about this; US Citizens may volunteer to become a Sponsor for a fully vetted ‘refugee’. That Sponsor assumes full financial liability for all costs of the refugee including the consumption of local services like Education. The ‘refugee’ will be housed within the primary residence of the US Citizen, they are fed from his table, clothed with what he provides.
If there’s a sufficient number of US Citizens willing to bear that burden to meet demand for places as refugees then we have no problem. However I think we all realize that the number of volunteers will be insufficient b/c while some folks are willing to spend other people’s money aka taxes they are totally unwilling to bear that burden personally.
Read that the Episcopalian Church made around $53 MILLION supporting and harboring illegals during the four years of the Biden regime. I wonder in light of this revelation they’d be willing to refund all that money.
They didn’t “make” that money. They received it to spend on certain purposes, and they spent all of it and more on those purposes, exactly as they were supposed to. They didn’t retain any of it. What was in it for them, apart from advancing their policy agenda, which was identical with the government’s policy agenda, was the salaries that they earned doing the work that the government wanted them to do. You can’t expect the individual employees to return that. They were employed to do a job and did it exactly as instructed, to the employer’s and funder’s satisfaction.
Tell me you’re a garbage, unChristian-like denomination without telling me you’re a garbage, unChristian-like denomination.
What in God’s name does “racial justice and reconciliation” have to do with Jesus Christ? Are we all not God’s children? Or this there some sort of racial hierarchy in God’s name?
In South Africa, Whites are routinely murdered for being white.
You have no personal control over you own race.
This purported church needs some real reforming ASAP!
It needs their tax-exempt status revoked, as do quite a few others.
Meh, more proof the establishment (and it doesn’t get much more ‘establishment’ than the episcopal church) doesn’t believe their own BS. Instead they selectively apply their criteria and almost always seek to weaponize the good and generous nature of most US Citizens against them to advance the establishment’s globalist policy preferences.
There’s a reason Jesus had 12 male disciples , which I hate to say as a women.
I use to think he chose 12 men because of the time he lived in.
Now I see these Karen ministers, and I have yet to see one that wasn’t full LGBT, antiAmerican
Left winged commie
Just one point of clarification: Jesus had Mary Magdalene who was written about sparsely but was one of his closer confidants in his final days.
There was never an ordainment by God or Jesus to have 12 disciples and only those. He just chose people that upended their lives to follow him. The mythos surrounding the men is a bit overblown in my opinion. There’s also no documented evidence that she was actually a prostitute. She was, however, said to be possessed by demons at the time.
You shouldn’t cast aside all women just like you wouldn’t just accept all men.
There’s no textual evidence for that at all. It’s a myth that developed many centuries later, by people confusing several different women.
The name of the “sinful woman” is never given; given how popular the name Miriam (Mary) was at the time, there’s a good chance that it was her name too, but there’s absolutely no reason to suppose she became a recurring character in the story.
Miriam of Magdala was also not the same person as Miriam of Bethany.
Oh, also there’s no mention of what the woman’s sin was, nor even any clue given. The idea that it was prostitution, or indeed anything at all to do with sex, has no basis. For all we know she may have been guilty of gossip and tale-bearing, or refusing to help others, or perhaps she was a thief. The fact that she sacrificed her perfume may indicate that her sin was indeed stinginess, and by sacrificing it to the cause she showed her repentance.
Mary Magdalene was also the person Jesus chose to deliver the Good News of His resurrection to the apostles.
We have the same thing with female Rabbis in the pretend denomination(s) of Judaism.
I don’t know that the rabbits are more progressive than their male counterparts. On the contrary, at least some rabbits may have gone to the progressive movements only because Orthodoxy offered them no way to achieve their ambitions, while men who are in those movements are there because they like it there, and have no interest in orthodoxy (capitalized or not).
rabbits?
You lost me. Why are you railing against women in ministry? You know the Episcopal PB Sean Rowe is a white guy, right?
Another mainline protestant church that has gone woke. smh
They’ve been woke for years. We had a bishop who wasn’t just gay, but had dumped his wife for his gay lover. At least one person pointed out that we would never have ordained someone who had left his wife for another woman. But because he left her for a guy, its all fine?
And in the last few decades we had an Archbishop of Canterbury who wasn’t sure he believed in God.
The geyser of government money going to ‘non-government’ organizations needs to stop, permanently.
This. They become addicted to government money, leading to corruption and loss of their original purpose. Eventually they are NGOs in name only, in operation they are effectively “GOs”.
The “public/private partnerships” exist for one purpose. They allow the government to push and promote actions which they are prohibited from doing themselves.
When the progs talk about “…racial justice and reconciliation..” what they really mean is “retribution.”
“Jesus tells us to care for the poor and vulnerable as we would care for him, and we must follow that command. Right now, what that means is ending our participation in the federal government’s refugee resettlement program and investing our resources in serving migrants in other ways.”
Jesus also said render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s…
He never said that government should be in the business of taking care of the poor.
I am glad they are no longer in the government business of child endangerment. They are nothing but a bunch of racist hypocrites getting rich off the backs of the taxpayers while importing military aged single men.
Actual refugees, from a country where they’re murdered at random, where one of the major political parties sings “Kill the Boer” at their rallies.
As for these refugees’ being held responsible for apartheid: its been over for 30 years. No one under 48 years old had any influence over the policy, and short of actual prosecution for actual crimes, it’s possible those older worked to end apartheid.
It was much more recent when Democrats were mourning the passing of a high-ranking member of the Klan. They never held Robert Byrd to account for being part of a terrorist organization.
He wasn’t all that high-ranking. Fairly middle-ranking.
And was it a terrorist organization in his day? It certainly was at times, but there were also times and places where it was just the Rotary club with funny costumes. The very obviously Jewish grandfather of a friend of mine, in about the 1920s in Mobile, AL, was invited to join the Klan, and when he pointed out the incongruity their reaction was more or less, “Oh yeah, I guess you’re right, we hadn’t thought of that”.
He was a Grand Cyclops, so a local den leader.
Reading this on Wikipedia made my head hurt. Too many K’s…
The Dens were the basic level of organization for the Reconstruction Klan.[14] In the original prescript, its chief officer was the Grand Cyclops, who appointed two Nighthawks, a Grand Turk, a Grand Sentinel, Grand Magi and a Grand Ensign in addition to his Grand Scribe.[15] The Grand Cyclops, Grand Exchequer, Grand Magi (second officer) and Grand Monk (third officer) were elected by the body politic of the dens, identified as Ghouls.[16] In the second prescript the Grand Ensign is dispensed with, while the Grand Exchequer was appointed by the Grand Cyclops, who was now appointed by the Grand Giant. Only the Grand Magi and Grand Monk were elected by the Ghouls.[17]
Too many K’s in the entire entry. Hurts the eyes.
Hard to believe this was serious stuff at one point
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan_titles_and_vocabulary
The Most Rev. Sean W. Rowe??
You mean The Least Rev. Sean W. Rowe!!!
Burn in your hell Rowe. Burn in your hell!
It is never good to relegate a fellow human to hell. That’s between him and God.
You’re being hyper-sensitive.
The final judgment is up to God. We can still express an opinion on who deserves to go there.
Basic Christian doctrine is that we all deserve to be there, but God has given his son to save us due to his mercy and grace.
All well and good, but, that’s still not a prohibition on people expressing an opinion on who deserves to be sent to Hell. Reading it that way is simply too doctrinaire and extreme.
People are allowed to express opinions about vile and evil actors’ conduct and the reward they deserve.
Rowe sent a letter to members of the Episcopal Church, stating “We are Christians who support the dignity, safety, and equality of women and LGBTQ+ people as an expression of our faith”, adding “I pray that President Trump and his administration will do the same.”[28]
Did he specify what he meant by women?
Tax Exemption = government interference ….no separation of church and state ( yeah I know its not in the constitution ….but the idea is central to freedom from government )
there should be NO SUCH THING AS TAX EXEMPT
that was just another trick put onto the people that now is sooo ingrained that you think its your right
The original intent behind tax exemption for religious groups was that the external work of said groups was charitable and of benefit to our society as a whole.
Sadly, no longer true in many or even most instances.
ACB is smiling with his move to discriminate against whites
ACB? Please spell it out. Thank you.
Amy Coney Barrett?
Amy Coney Barrett
she has that socialist christian agenda when it comes to these matters
Thank you. I thought maybe he mis-spelled ABC (Archbishop of Canterbury).
Can you think of anything more racist? You better let the entire world in an pay for it unless they are are white and in fact oppressed
Not to mention educated, literate, self-sufficient, and pay their own way.
What a contemptible moral disgrace and a brazen display of racism, clearly influenced by leftist/Dhimmi-crat orthodoxies that posit that “white” people cannot be victims and/or worthy of compassion and assistance.
The only socially acceptable racism is anti-white racism.
The Episcopal Church (basically Church of England in America) has fallen on hard times. shrinking membership, financial problems, real estate problems. Now the bad publicity from showing their dislike of white people.
Let’s not forget British treatment of the Afrikaners. Concentration camps starvation. The very atrocities, US governments normally condemn. Considering the history of British behavior towards the Irish, the Jews and others, I’m not favorably disposed towards them. Few Americans know about the Black and Tans, the Boar concentration camps, and now the treatment of their own people as in the tolerance Pakistani rape gangs. Time to stop the special favors we bestow on Britain. We used to test their nuclear weapons for them, and there are British nationals with “Q” clearance. I won’t set foot in Britain any more.
Our cold civil war is turning towards hot. Let’s hope this trend stops. Protesting legitimate refugees who will likely become good American citizens only makes the situation worse.
Why does their idea of racial justice mean white extermination?
Is it that different from our left’s definition?
Leftists have been dreaming of “white genocide” for decades. When they talk about “ending whiteness” they’re serious.
Fine. They achieve their dream. I am sure they include Asians in their extermination plans. Indian, Thai, especially Koreans, others who earn their way.
When the dream is achieved, who keeps the cell towers running? Who runs the water treatment plants and sewage farms? Who maintains their streets? Look at South Africa today, and compare it do the bad old days pre-1994.
Enjoy, social justice warriors.
I love the act of selective compassion.
May it return to them tenfold.
Racists got to racist. Believe them when they tell you.
“Because Jesus was brown and hates White people, just like us.” — the White women running the “””church”””.
Well, half of that is true. The far less important half.
I remember reading last year about a DC-area Episcopal church that was sending a group over to South Africa on a “mission trip”. Now, in my Protestant experience mission trips usually involve things like vacation Bible schools, construction, programs to support and uplift missionaries, and sharing the Gospel.
One of the two objectives for this group’s trip? Climate justice. The other one was something equally as unrelated to what my view of a what a mission trip would be, although I can’t remember exactly what it was. But flying halfway around the world to a country raft with crime, economic problems, and most certainly a need for Jesus and you’re talking climate justice? Not surprisingly, the group was middle-aged and older white people.
Their religion isn’t Christianity. It’s Marxism. The Episcopal Church has been captured and is being used to advance it.
It may just be white guilt.
It sounds like the American Episcopal church is embracing that whole “sins of the father” thing.
Compassion with limits?
Ha ha. It was never about compassion!
It was about money.
Episcopal church: We it for money. If you pay us more, we will have compassion
Racial justice is just a cutsie way of saying anti-white.
Good thing you’re not a polar bear!
If my fur turns white (and I doubt at this stage that it will) I will tell them I am a Cartesian bear. Same as a polar bear but with different coordinates.
You’re a Cartesian bear?
Not a Care Bear? But a Square Bear?
That’s a near relative of a non-Euclidean Bear.
…that uses an RPN calculator! So there!
RPN? That’s racist!
I am a Baptist but any church that bases it’s views on race is not Christian. This means that the Episcopal Church is not Christian and is no longer a valid church. The Federal Government should remove it from the free tax benefits.
Government benefits cannot possibly depend on whether an organization is Christian. That would blatantly violate the first amendment.
You may not consider Mormons to be Christians even today, but if you do, then consider that there was a time not so long ago when the LDS church was explicitly racist. Do you think it wasn’t Christian then?
And what about Bob Jones University, which until 2000 did not allow interracial dating? In your view was it not Christian until it dropped that policy?
And what of the Southern Baptists? Were they not Christian until they dropped their racism?
Whiskeypalians, living up to their child-molesting reputations.
Don’t they want the Whites to leave South Africa?
If they’re dead, they left.
They do and the ANC always has been a racist bunch. People have been afraid to point it out, though. The big problem outside of the murders and overt racism is that once they appropriate the farms for other black people in the name of reparations none of the people being given the land are interested in farming it or have zero knowledge on how to do it so it just reverts back to scrubland. The ANC has gone all in on this to draw attention away from how they have destroyed South Africa.
There is a reason the Episcopalian Church has dropped to it’s lowest member numbers in almost 100 years. Gay priestesses, gay marriage, advocating for abortion and now outright racism. This is not a religion, it’s social justice wrapped in a robe for respectability. Unfortunately, in their bid for faddish popularity they burned the church down around themselves.
Whites have lived in South Africa for 400 years. South Africa has had a black majority government since 1991. Hey Episcopal Church, when is “racial justice and reconciliation” declared complete?
These folks are farming families, not former government officials. Why punish them??
There is little more pathetic out there than well educated moralists who have tied themselves with Gordian rhetorical knots to a burning political stake with their convoluted justifications of ethical inconsistency. We have a few of those here too, it seems.