Human Rights
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* R. Thomas Berner’s Aug. 18 commentary criticizing the U.S. State Department for its report on religious persecution and human rights atrocities, particularly as it relates to China, is a sad example of a morally bankrupt view of foreign affairs. Would Berner be as ambivalent were he a visiting scholar in Nazi Germany of the late 1930s, or South Africa in the 1960s? Would he cling to such moral low ground if an observer in Cambodia during the Pol Pot regime of the 1970s or a resident of Burma during the past decade? Thankfully, the State Department is doing the right thing by meddling in the internal affairs of other countries.
The U.S. government’s position is not just advocacy for persecuted Christians, but a stand for basic human rights that should apply, despite Berner’s prejudice, to all humanity when it comes to matters of faith and conscience.
SAM F. METCALF
Fullerton
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