Posted on 06/04/2007 9:24:52 PM PDT by bd476
As Congress takes another pass at immigration, its supporters hail it as an all-American phenomenon. President George W. Bush calls it therapeutic: "Immigration helps renew our soul...
Snip
The bigotry of immigration opponents is a familiar shadow in our civic myth, like the devils and tempters in a medieval morality play. In 1798 John Adams signed the Alien Act, which gave the President the power to expel "dangerous" foreigners.
Harrison Gray Otis, an Adams supporter in Congress, singled out "hordes of wild Irishmen" as particularly unwelcome. Other Congressmen mocked the French accent of Representative Albert Gallatin, who was born in Geneva, Switzerland. Adams was rewarded for his harshness on this issue and others by losing the election of 1800 to Thomas Jefferson, who understood Gallatin well enough to make him Treasury Secretary.
The next wave of anti-immigrant feeling targeted Irish and German Catholics. In 1844 anti-immigrant rioters in Philadelphia burned two Catholic churches. By the mid-1850s, an anti-immigrant political movement, the Know-Nothings (so-called because their organization was secret), seemed poised for national success. Abraham Lincoln disdained them: "How can any one who abhors the oppression of Negroes be in favor of degrading classes of white people?"
The onset of the Civil War threw the Know-Nothings into the shade; the U.S. had enough homegrown trouble without worryings about immigrants.
In the early 1920s, Congress created a system of immigration quotas based on countries of origin, weighted toward northwestern Europe. "The races from Southern and Eastern Europe," a lobbyist argued, had no experience of government other than "paternal autocracy."
The great immigration contraction coincided with a nationwide revival of the Ku Klux Klan, which, in this incarnation, was as much anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish as antiblack.
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, bigots, blah, blah, blah, racists, woof, woof.
Lets be honest here. America doesn’t feel like these 12-20 million illegals are a net benefit to America. It’s not because we’re racists or bigots. It’s because they are 3rd world immigrants and they’re here in too large of numbers. This bill will not only make these folks legal, it will allow most of them to bring in their relatives and this could be tens of millions more 3rd world immigrants. Also don’t forget, many of these folks will have more anchor babies and to top it all off, we don’t believe the gov’t will stop more illegals either.
To be blunt, if we’re not happy with these 12-20 million, what makes gov’t think we’d be happy with tens of millions more?
They can try to cloud the issue by confusing legal with illegal immigration.
Since they have the metal acumen of a very slow 2-year-old, I shall illustrate the difference in terms that Time and Congress members can understand.
LEGAL immigration - good.
ILLEGAL immigration - bad.
If I said what I think about Brookhiser, my post would be deleted at a minimum.
We don’t have “immigrants” much any more. Just illegal lowlifes who give us the finger, and take our money and benefits!
What happened to this drooling fool??
Has there been any other time in U.S. history:
Seems to me that many in our government have decided that by calling us racist, they absolve themselves of any responsibility to we the people. I don’t believe that’s how it works. Their responsibility to us is the same whether we’re racists or not.
If they don’t want to serve us “racists” they’re free to resign at any time.
I don’t know. Maybe he took too much LSD or something.
*yawn*
The race card is getting played far too much, to the point where people aren’t even phased by it anymore.
Legal Good.
Illegal Bad.
Jeez folks. If you can’t distinguish that part of our argument and insist on equating us to the KKK, then:
TIME Magazine is written by idiots!
(That at least is proved.)
LOL!!
I saw “Time Magazine”, and I saw “Brookhiser”, and cruised on.
Brookshire is late to the attack. The President and many Senators and Representatives, began demonizing us several weeks ago.
How many feel a real sense of respect and gratitude?
How many speak English or ever want to learn to speak English?
How many are truly loyal to the USA and what it stands for?
The old legal immigrants couldn’t just hop across the border to visit “home”? In the old days of the Ellis Island immigrants, you couldn’t just pop over to Europe for a week. It took more than a week just to get there and another long voyage back. You didn’t return to “the old country” casually.
Heck, even among so called “native” Americans on the left, how many of them feel any loyalty much less love for their own country?
The number of leftists who hate their own country today is shocking, scandalous and extremely depressing.
CALL! CALL! CALL! CALL! AND KEEP CALLING TILL THE LINES FRY!
WRITE! WRITE! WRITE! WRITE! TILL YOU RUN OUT OF INK IN YOUR PEN!
Bombard the Democrats as well, especially the ones that ran on an anti illegal immigration plank and the ones in marginal districts who could be vulnerable. keep pounding on them. This is a bipartisan issue not a Conservative or Liberal issue BUT AN AMERICAN issue.
America is our home. We get to decide who we invite to live with us.
In many WWII films, an army squad would typically—or stereotypically—be identified as Smith, Lopez, Kowalski, Scheider, Fontaine, O’Reilly, Mancusco, etc. The were all indentified as “American,” even when their buddies would call them Kike or Dago, Kraut, Mick etc. These men grew up after immigration was restricted, and there is a theory that this integration was made possible by the effective end of immigration.
Dick’s a racist. Doesn’t care about the jobs that illegals will steal from AMERICAN minorities.
Their is no comparison. TIME’s argument is pathetic.
Everybody who doesn’t fall in line is a racist. We have an agenda and will attempt to browbeat and insult to get our way. It is the ONLY ammunition we have.
If they are trying to deepen the divide they are doing a great job.
TIME and the NYT are the outsiders. There is nothing racist about securing our borders. There is nothing improper about securing our culture.
He is one of 4 Senior Editors at National Review and has been there since 1977.
http://www.richardbrookhiser.com/about/
I have been writing about politicians, living and dead, for most of my life. My first article, on antiwar protests in my high school, was a cover story in National Review in 1970, when I was 15. I went to work for the magazine full time in 1977, and have been there ever since. In 1987, I began writing a column for The New York Observer. I have written for many other magazines, from The Atlantic Monthly to Cosmopolitan, covering everything from the fall of Communism to Monica Lewinsky.
In 1996, I published my first biography, Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington. Joseph J. Ellis, reviewing it for The New York Times Book Review, said it belonged “on the same shelf with Plutarch.” Four more books on the founders followed (see Books). I wrote and hosted Rediscovering George Washington, a film by Michael Pack, which aired on PBS on July 4, 2002. I was historian curator of “Alexander Hamilton: The Man Who Made Modern America,” an exhibition at The New-York Historical Society (2004-5). In 2005 I was named a Doctor of Letters, honoris causa, by Washington College. Most recently, I wrote What Would the Founders Do? Our Questions, Their Answers (Basic Books)—a perfect topic, considering how well we know each other. Buy the book, and the T-shirt.
And there are reasons to be afraid.
1. When “outsiders” sneak into your home at night.
2. When “outsiders” want to change your way of life.
3. When “outsiders” want you to support them.
4. When “outsiders” bring in diseases.
5. When “outsiders” seize and occupy your territory.
6. When “outsiders” are criminals and terrorists.
7. When “outsiders” are illegal aliens who are bringing down your country.
8. Add your own.
Time Magazine? What’s that? Funny name. I think I saw it once at my dentist’s office. Somebody should start a companion magazine called Life, yeah, that’s the ticket.
Hugh Hetitt a Know-Nothing? Riiiight.
Pattern here
Bwahahahahahaha! Good catch.
Which ones?
They disagreed a lot, you know.
there are freepers who use KKK and nazi to describe other freepers who oppose this amnesty sell-out.
I can’t say I’ve seen KKK or nazi on FR, but there are certainly plenty willing to throw out “bigot” or “racist”. Of course, now those types have the prez to justify their slurs.
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I could name names but the freeper who uses those words got spanked pretty hard the other day so...
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