0 comment Friday, September 19, 2014 | admin
We have heard so often, in what passes for discussion on the illegal immigration issue, that sending the invaders back to their home country would be impossible. Not just logistically impossible (although they claim that, too) but morally unthinkable. Sending them back? You mean deporting them? That would be inhumane; it would be fascist-like, Nazi-like. Inevitably, at that point in the 'discussion', the bleeding-heart opponent (whether Republican or Democrat, they come in both varieties) will bring up words like 'cattle-cars' and 'Gestapo.' What, all of these horrific loaded words in response to sending the illegals home?
Here's Joe Guzzardi's take on that subject from VDare.com. Joe has a way of getting to the heart of things.
The whole question of why it is seen as cruel not just to repatriate the illegals, but indeed, to stop anybody who wants to come to America is a complex one, but a big part of it is the myth we have created around our country. Somehow America has been reduced to just a set of ideas and ideals, basically to an abstract notion of 'freedom'. Freedom, of course, is interpreted very differently by different people from various cultures. But somehow the phrase 'a free country' has come to mean 'free' as in: having no restrictions, no limitations, no standards for admission, no settled culture or character. It has also, thanks to the welfare state, come to mean 'free' as in 'gratis' -- we are supposed to provide materially for the destitute or the just plain greedy who come here. The old national personification of America, Uncle Sam, is now apparently mutated into just Santa Claus's lanky brother, the dispenser of goodies to one and all. And whereas old Saint Nick gave presents only to 'good girls and boys', Uncle Sam has no such discriminatory standards; he will pony up for anybody who succeeds in getting into our country, by fair means or foul.
So since America is said to mean nothing more than 'freedom', and that freedom is supposed to be equally available to all, we in America have no right to restrict entry, because doing so is depriving them of their 'freedom'.
Now I have a deep gratitude to our Founding Fathers, and to my own ancestors who helped make this country. I don't mean they 'built it' as everyone now says 'immigrants built America'; no, they came as colonists and built from the ground up. At least two in my family signed the Declaration of Independence; several were original Minutemen in colonial times; many fought in the Revolution and in all wars since. Many gave the ultimate sacrifice, and I bless them all. But did America invent freedom, and do we have a monopoly on it? Are we the only repository of freedom in the whole world? If so, then I suppose we are morally obligated to let everybody in the world enter our country. After all, how can we hoard such a precious thing as 'freedom' especially if it only exists in our country?
It may be true, sadly, that today more than ever, freedom is a scarce commodity. And even more sadly, it is growing scarcer in our troubled and divided country. But I think it is possible for people to live satisfactory lives in many places in the world; this is not the only livable country in existence, and if we let in tens of millions more, it will surely not be the great, open country it was.
And as Guzzardi points out, Mexico is not a country without potential.
America has been a great and unique country, but it is not the only country where freedom can exist. And can freedom flourish in a polyglot, balkanized, crowded country of half a billion?
And is it our responsibility to take care of the world, either by welcoming them willy-nilly to our country, or is it up to us to 'fix' their own countries for them? Did anyone 'fix' America for us, or bestow our freedom on us? No; we had to do it for ourselves, and ultimately every people has to be responsible for themselves; help from outside can't do it all.
We have responsibilities to our own people; our families and neighbors in America. We can't be the saviors of the entire world.
Here's Joe Guzzardi's take on that subject from VDare.com. Joe has a way of getting to the heart of things.
The whole question of why it is seen as cruel not just to repatriate the illegals, but indeed, to stop anybody who wants to come to America is a complex one, but a big part of it is the myth we have created around our country. Somehow America has been reduced to just a set of ideas and ideals, basically to an abstract notion of 'freedom'. Freedom, of course, is interpreted very differently by different people from various cultures. But somehow the phrase 'a free country' has come to mean 'free' as in: having no restrictions, no limitations, no standards for admission, no settled culture or character. It has also, thanks to the welfare state, come to mean 'free' as in 'gratis' -- we are supposed to provide materially for the destitute or the just plain greedy who come here. The old national personification of America, Uncle Sam, is now apparently mutated into just Santa Claus's lanky brother, the dispenser of goodies to one and all. And whereas old Saint Nick gave presents only to 'good girls and boys', Uncle Sam has no such discriminatory standards; he will pony up for anybody who succeeds in getting into our country, by fair means or foul.
So since America is said to mean nothing more than 'freedom', and that freedom is supposed to be equally available to all, we in America have no right to restrict entry, because doing so is depriving them of their 'freedom'.
Now I have a deep gratitude to our Founding Fathers, and to my own ancestors who helped make this country. I don't mean they 'built it' as everyone now says 'immigrants built America'; no, they came as colonists and built from the ground up. At least two in my family signed the Declaration of Independence; several were original Minutemen in colonial times; many fought in the Revolution and in all wars since. Many gave the ultimate sacrifice, and I bless them all. But did America invent freedom, and do we have a monopoly on it? Are we the only repository of freedom in the whole world? If so, then I suppose we are morally obligated to let everybody in the world enter our country. After all, how can we hoard such a precious thing as 'freedom' especially if it only exists in our country?
It may be true, sadly, that today more than ever, freedom is a scarce commodity. And even more sadly, it is growing scarcer in our troubled and divided country. But I think it is possible for people to live satisfactory lives in many places in the world; this is not the only livable country in existence, and if we let in tens of millions more, it will surely not be the great, open country it was.
And as Guzzardi points out, Mexico is not a country without potential.
America has been a great and unique country, but it is not the only country where freedom can exist. And can freedom flourish in a polyglot, balkanized, crowded country of half a billion?
And is it our responsibility to take care of the world, either by welcoming them willy-nilly to our country, or is it up to us to 'fix' their own countries for them? Did anyone 'fix' America for us, or bestow our freedom on us? No; we had to do it for ourselves, and ultimately every people has to be responsible for themselves; help from outside can't do it all.
We have responsibilities to our own people; our families and neighbors in America. We can't be the saviors of the entire world.
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