Just because something seems morally obvious (such as you shouldn't hold children and infants in concentration camps - ripped away violently from their families - for political or any other purposes) doesn't mean that society will naturally bend in that direction. Quite the opposite.
For example, when I attended Calvin Theological Seminary I wrote a lengthy paper about the editorial stance of the Christian Reformed Church's journal, "The Banner of Truth," on the rise of Hitler in Germany. I read every editorial in "The Banner of Truth" from 1932 up until Pearl Harbor in my research. I was shaken, but not overly surprised, to discover that the CRC editorial posture was that while Hitler may not have been a savory character, he was by far and away the best leader in the world (compared to the evil FDR, etc.) and so worthy of Christian support (though not a full throated endorsement). Hitler was, to use today's Christian lingo, 'God's Cyrus'.
Ultimately the editorial board changed their stance. However, there was no argument that persuaded the editorial board otherwise, no moral outrage at Hitler's use of ghettoes (an unsavory but necessary measure in their eyes), but rather a response of self-preservation and fear that changed the editorial response as it was Pearl Harbor that led them to change.
I've been asking myself for close more than two decades: how could it be that the Christian Reformed Church was (albeit reluctantly) pro-Hitler? The longer I ponder the more clear it becomes to me that moral and spiritual myopia are particularly intransigent among people who consider themselves to be good or righteous. One could reasonably argue that the central negative topic Jesus addressed in his life and teachings was the spiritual blindness of religion and the religious. (Recall, Jesus had no problem addressing the religious teachers of his day who were most adamant about conserving religious tradition and purity, 'children of Satan.')
Things don't seem to change much in terms of moral and spiritual myopia. Anyone with the slightest bit of spiritual imagination could see that the crimes against humanity that America is perpetrating today were inevitable in a Trump Presidency. Cruelty towards immigrants and people of color was the central tenet of Trumpism from the onset. What's more, the type of evil we are seeing today is completely of a piece of America's leadership as the primary developer and exporter of racialized prejudice and violence over the past few hundred years. So what's happening now is no historical aberration, it's just jolting to many of us who thought we might be able to live free of these types of moral and spiritual struggles.
The idea of trying to have a dialogue to reasonably come to an agreement together on what is morally and/or spiritually good, and how to then translate that into a peaceable society, at a time when collectively we are clouded in a daze of hatred and divisiveness, is laughable. This is a time for battle. This is a time to stand. Each generation is given the task anew to see the world as it is and to discover and cherish the sacred spark that resides in each one of the oppressed and marginalized people of the world - in our age that means, more than anyone, the refugee and the immigrant.
When you see pictures of those children and those families terrorized, held in cages like animals who do you see? For those with eyes to see each child stripped from his or her mother's arms is Jesus. Each mother is Mary. And who is King Herod? We all are. We all have blood on our hands because it's happening on our watch, in our generation. The question is this: what will you and I do about it?
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