in jan 2009, 230+ years after the birth of country, 700k muslims lived in the US.
today, SIX years later, there are over 8.5 MILLION.
ask yourself why...
Posted on 10/05/2015 12:22:25 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Wednesday night I wasn’t surprised as candidate Donald Trump, in keeping within his narcissistic, xenophobic character, told an overflow crowd at Keene High School that if he became president he would send all Syrian refugees who had been given sanctuary in the United States, home:
“I’m putting (refugees) on notice that are coming here from Syria as part of this mass migration that if I win, they’re going back,” he said.
However, what both surprised and disappointed me was the boisterous affirmative response to Trump — cheers and hurrahs from the crowd, presumably mostly New Hampshirites, in support of Trump’s xenophobia.
Is this what New Hampshire has become?
Is this because, as Sinclair Lewis wrote in Elmer Gantry, that many of those cheering Donald Trump had, “got everything from the church and Sunday School except, perhaps, any longing whatever for decency and kindness and reason.”?
Is this what’s become of a land nurtured by Native Americans, chiseled from granite ledges by the labor of immigrants, shaped by generations of gnarly-handed sojourners and high-tech innovators, many of whom labor still within our borders?
This summer I bought native corn from an Armenian farm in Salem, ate sweets from a Syrian baker in Concord and had my aging Swedish Volvo 240 maintained by a Palestinian mechanic. I worshiped in a Manchester mosque, listened to Sunday sermons in Peterborough and drove a student to shabbat services in Portsmouth.
This year, too, I embraced, upon their return to New Hampshire for a visit, four Bosnians and their families — four sojourners out of many who came to our Granite State, barely a back-pack between them, 20 years ago during the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina and who were sheltered and fed by local families, educated in local schools and eventually, when they were able, returned home to rebuild their lives and country.
This is my New Hampshire, Donald Trump, a place where a 9-year-old solitary traveler with Syrian travel documents — my father — found a home and never feared being sent away.
America has a mixed record welcoming strangers. We dispossessed and stole the land of Native Americans and we worked and exploited their land with slave labor — all with nary a look back. Today, as we take pride in our diversity, innovation and power, we struggle still to be fully inclusive.
It’s a worthy struggle — and it’s not over.
During World War II America turned away Jews fleeing Nazi Germany and built concentration camps for Japanese Americans. Racism, xenophobia, discrimination and anti-Semitism exist still in some corners and we rightfully struggle to fulfill the promises of our Founding Fathers.
Institutional amnesia allows us to forget America’s complicity in the pre-revolution oppression and exploitation of the Cuban people by regimes and corporations favorable to our interests. Such amnesia allowed us to both hate the repressive Castro regime while welcoming all Cubans who made it to our shores almost without exception — including the families of candidates Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz.
We forget that the father of Apple founder Steve Jobs and his sister, author Mona Simpson, was a Syrian Muslim student who came to America to study; that President Barack Hussein Obama’s father came from Kenya; that Louisiana’s Piyush “Bobby” Jindal’s Hindu parents came from India to America to study; and that South Carolina’s Nimrata Nikki Randhawa Haley’s Sikh parents came from India’s Punjab.
Today, oblivious to the fact that the Middle East is broken in part because of the recklessness of the Bush administration, too many Americans want to turn their back on the human tragedy currently roiling The Levant and Europe — the world’s largest refugee crisis since WWII. Amidst those xenophobes Trump’s exclusionary rhetoric, from the Rio Grande to the Euphrates, sadly finds acceptance.
I believe we’re enjoined to struggle for social justice and dignity:
“Behold, God enjoins justice, and the doing of good, and generosity towards (one’s) fellow-men; and He forbids all that is shameful and all that runs counter to reason, as well as envy; (and) He exhorts you (repeatedly) so that you might bear (all this) in mind.” (Qur’an,16:90)
Amazon Prime won’t be delivering Syrian refugees with a free return policy. They won’t come tagged by FedEx, as advocated by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie so we can track them down and return them to — where? — when The Donald becomes commander-in-chief.
They’ll come as Syrians who are Sunni, Shi’te, Druze, Armenian, Orthodox, Kurd, Circassian and other. They’ll come in part as victims of what Arthur Conolly, a 19th-century British intelligence officer, called “The Great Game” — the struggle for the resources and hegemony over the lands once peopled by prophets and poets.
In 1796, Ona Judge Staines, a slave in George Washington’s household and one of Martha’s favorites, escaped from their Philadelphia home.
Upon learning that the fugitive had arrived in Portsmouth, President Washington asked for her arrest and repatriation. Joseph Whipple, the Collector of Customs, defied Washington, choosing not to return Staines to Martha Washington’s service, thus allowing her to live free and die in New Hampshire.
Ona Staines wasn’t returned to bondage because emancipation was the right thing to do.
I believe the Syrian sojourners won’t be forcibly returned anywhere, either, because that is the right thing to do.
“Identity”.... ok.
Anyway, Trump keeps this up and he’ll be prez. By a landslide.
Perhaps an “N” is missing at the start of the author’s last name and it has one too many Z’s.
And by the way, Godwin’s law isn’t a law, it’s only a theory.
in jan 2009, 230+ years after the birth of country, 700k muslims lived in the US.
today, SIX years later, there are over 8.5 MILLION.
ask yourself why...
New Zealand and Australia has smart immigration policies.
Only immigrants allowed are those who have skills needed and have a job offer or can bring $1.5 million US, and pass their English test.
Very few of of those 200,000 Syrian refugees can pass such tests. They have no papers, so they can not be vetted. Why the ultra rich countries in middle-east do not want these people? They speak their language and belong to same religion, Islam.
What is wrong with xenophobia? The protecting of your nation, culture and language, aren’t those the things that bind us together and make us strong?
oooh . . . I think I know why the progressives don’t like it.
[This summer I bought native corn from an Armenian farm in Salem, ate sweets from a Syrian baker in Concord and had my aging Swedish Volvo 240 maintained by a Palestinian mechanic. I worshiped in a Manchester mosque, listened to Sunday sermons in Peterborough and drove a student to shabbat services in Portsmouth.]
Robert Azzi personifies the problem many Americans have with migrant Muslims: an inability or unwillingness to assimilate into the U.S. mainstream. Otherwise he might understand the Trump crowds’ opposition to dumping 100,000 mostly military age Muslim males onto our shores.
Trump’s xenophobia?
You see, if you don’t want millions of muslims pouring in from a war zone, you’re a xenophobe.
How about this? Immigration policy should serve the interest of citizens. Only. First, foremost, only.
How about this? Only people who admire this society and want to be part of it should ever be admitted, and then only in numbers that can be assimilated. And then, only those who have something to offer in terms of skills and training.
How about this? At a time when millions of Americans are standing on street corners, immigration numbers should be at an all time low. There is no reason to be bringing in people while Americans are out of work in record numbers.
And how about this? Muslim refugees should only be resettled in muslim countries. If any refugees are admitted, they should be provably of Christian origin. They are the only ones who will integrate successfully in a constitutional republic.
Looking into this Robert Azzi character is interesting.
two articles about the same 1974 incident involving National Geographic and Azzi:
http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=27409
1974 Nat Geo page image:
https://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/49610887?access_key=key-2f1c6skdhp5unko62tem&allow_share=false&escape=false&show_recommendations=false&view_mode=scroll
Azzi left Phillips Exeter Academy after arguing with Mark Steyn
Azzi has a reputation as a Hamas sympathizer.
I am so sick and tired of the words xenophobe, etc. These hit pieces just keep coming - I hate the media with a passion - almost as much as I loathe the GOPe and Democrats. Maybe I loathe them all equally.
“Robert Azzi is Muslim. He will continue to be a voice for Islam. The very existence of a Jewish state on land that has once been under the domination of Islam is an affront to him, especially the fact that the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque are within territory now controlled by Israel. Allow me to digress a bit: Jerusalem appears in the Quran not even one time, zero; Jerusalem appears in the Bible more than 700 times. So much for equivalence!”
The same people who live in gated communities or have fenced yards to keep the riff-raff out and trash off the lawn can't somehow understand that countries need to do that, too, whoever the riff-raff might be.
And this ?
http://www.phillipsexetermadrasah.com/pea-staff-and-advisors.html
Once in an advisory position at Phillips Exeter Madrasah...
This guy isn’t a freelance photographer. IMO he’s just a terrorist who masquerades as whatever is convenient.....
(us, and the Jews).
Dear Mr. Arzzi...thanks for quoting the quran to us....it makes your argument SO much more relevant.../s
Maybe so...but he is ALSO “A writer of nonsense and BS.”
With this view of America's beginning, how can anyone waste any time with the rest of this tripe.
Hey numbnutz, STFU.
If wanting to send TERRORISTS back home makes me a Xenophobe, then I’ll gladly change my handle here to BobLnazi.
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