Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

The phrase “man’s inhumanity to man” crossed my mind the other day, but I don’t know why, at least not for sure.

Perhaps it was because I thought about Donald Trump and how he handles life or death situations and appears not to care about life.

• Such as going to war in Iran without a rationale for doing so.

• Such as targeting and deporting immigrants and their families out of some kind of “white national” perspective.

• Such as considering live streaming a military execution [Though, in the face of huge opposition on all sides, Trump finally demurred.]

Go ahead, add to the list.

Yet, in the history of mankind, inhumanity has been around for many years.  Here are citations from Goggle, which is important to attribute as the cite as I repeat part of what it says:

Antiquity and the Middle Ages

• The Roman Destruction of Carthage (146 BCE):  Following the Third Punic War, Rome razed the city and systematically killed or enslaved its population.
• Turco-Mongol Conquests (13th–14th Centuries):  The campaigns of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane resulted in the destruction of entire cities, mass executions, and massive depopulation across Eurasia.

Early Modern and Imperial Eras

• The Transatlantic Slave Trade (16th–19th Centuries):  Millions of African men, women, and children were forcefully captured, shipped across the Atlantic in brutal conditions, and subjected to chattel slavery in the Americas.
• Colonial Exterminations:  European colonization in the Americas, Africa, Australia, and the Pacific led to the collapse of indigenous populations through warfare, forced displacement, and disease.

20th-Century World Wars and Totalitarianism

• The Armenian Genocide (1915–1917):  The Ottoman Empire systematically murdered an estimated 1.5 million Armenians during World War I.
• The Holocaust (1941–1945):  Nazi Germany engineered the systematic, industrial-scale murder of 6 million European Jews, alongside millions of Roma, Soviet prisoners, people with disabilities, and political dissidents.
• The Nanjing Massacre (1937–1938):  Imperial Japanese forces murdered at least 200,000 Chinese civilians and disarmed combatants following the capture of Nanjing during the Second Sino-Japanese War.

Post-WWII and Late 20th-Century Atrocities

• The Cambodian Genocide (1975–1979):  The Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, forced mass evacuations of cities and executed an estimated 1.5 to 2 million people through labor, torture, and starvation.
• The Rwandan Genocide (1994):  In roughly 100 days, extremist Hutu militias systematically slaughtered an estimated 500,000 to more than 1 million Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
• The Srebrenica Massacre (1995):  Bosnian Serb forces executed more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys during the Bosnian War, recognized as an act of genocide.

So, how does Trump fit into all this?

Well, it is clear to me – his approach and style fits. 

Look at Trump’s policies – if it could be contended that he has policies or just acts on the spur of the moment when whatever crosses his brain emerges out of his mouth.

Here are examples, again aided by Google:

• Family Separation Policy:  The 2018 “Zero Tolerance” immigration policy, which systematically separated thousands of migrant children from their parents at the southern border without formal tracking systems for reunification.
• Mass Deportation Agenda:  Civil rights organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union argue that his administration’s aggressive use of the military and federal law enforcement for mass immigration arrests and the revocation of legal status.
• Asylum and Refugee Rollbacks:  Human rights advocates point to the effective termination of asylum protections and drastic cuts to refugee admissions as a deliberate rejection of humanitarian obligations.

And this new report from today’s Washington Post: Trump administration has deported nearly one million through July. Yes, nearly one million!

For my part, I cannot countenance Trump’s degrading performance when it comes to human beings.  To himself, he is always the greatest person in the world and he hates immigrants and others who don’t look him or fawn over him. 

And, remember he, too, is the son of immigrants.

I also came across this verse from Collosians chapter 3 this morning and found myself wishing for it to be true of all, not just Christians.

“Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.  Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone.  Forgive as the Lord forgave you.  And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.”

Too much to hope for?  Perhaps.  But I persist.