Posted on 01/02/2024 8:48:20 AM PST by ChicagoConservative27
It was Jan. 19, 1989. Ronald Reagan was in his final full day as president of the United States and was making remarks at a Presidential Medal of Freedom presentation. As he finished celebrating the achievements of the honorees, he turned to another subject that was on his mind:
“Since this is the last speech I will give as president, I think it’s fitting to leave one final thought, an observation about a country which I love.”
What followed is remembered as Reagan’s most majestic description of America as a welcoming harbor for immigrants. Here is just some of what he said:
“You can go to live in France but cannot become a Frenchman,” he said, quoting a letter he’d received during his tenure. “You can go to live in Germany, Turkey or Japan but you cannot become a German, Turk or Japanese. But anyone from any corner of the earth can come to live in America and become an American.
(Excerpt) Read more at ajc.com ...
> Reagan got rolled by Congress <
Absolutely correct. But in Reagan’s defense, he was talking about orderly and legal immigration here. I’m sure he could not imagine what a huge free-for-all illegal immigration would be.
No checking for criminal backgrounds. No checking for diseases. No checking whatsoever.
He was right. Back then, the Nation and its institutions supported and required assimilation. You could be a recent immigrant and be greeted with a unanimous influence to drop old legion es and adopt. new one. Keep your religion and your folk dances and even your language at home, but your life was oriented to a new loyalty. None of that happens anymore.
We all got rolled by an education system that doesn’t manage to teach Americans to be Americans, let alone illegal immigrants.
Keep your religion and your folk dances and even your language at home, but your life was oriented to a new loyalty. None of that happens anymore.
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I agree with you, but this was only possible up to a point. When a nation begins to have large numbers of people whose culture and values DO NOT mesh with the the prevailing culture, then balkanization and disintegration are inevitable. It’s unclear to me if this process is irreversible, but I have a bad feeling that it isn’t.
Let's don't forget: American citizens who don't teach their children ...
Reagan on scammed by congress and to quote his favorite president Coolidge “ New arrivals should be limited to our capacity to absorb them into the ranks of good citizenship. America must be kept American. For this purpose, it is necessary to continue a policy of restricted immigration”
And Calvin Coolidge was definitely not a racist or anything , he knew that you can’t let in more people than you could Americanized
Now we have Americans who don’t even believe in America anymore so how can we hope foreigners to care?
Reagan was naive.
Between 1900 and 1915, more than 15 million immigrants arrived in the United States. That was about equal to the number of immigrants who had arrived in the previous 40 years combined.
Library of Congress.
My father’s mom and her 4 Swedish siblings were in this group. They were processed and went to work or raised families. Only one got rich and he was the most charitable. A little before 1900 his grand parents came from Sweden and settled in a coal mine town.
This country is built on a house of cards that will only remain standing as long as we keep adding more cards to it.
Divide the national debt by the working population in this country, and you'll find that your average married couple with a family is carrying something like $408,000 in Federal debt. That's like carrying a mortgage without having a place to live.
We've reached the point where we have opened the immigration floodgates because we desperately need more people who are dumb enough to sign up for that deal.
There’s a difference between a country carefully metering immigration, and protecting its borders which is its right, versus a veritable tidal wave of illegal aliens, their home countries wish to be rid of, breaking the border over years and years and substantially eroding the demographics of a nation, in order to be provided benefits paid for by citizens whose lives this tidal wave is negatively affecting. A government which allows the latter has lost complete legitimacy. Yet the sharp distinction between these two scenarios continues to be lost on almost everyone elected to public office.
This is from the scummy Atlanta-Journal Constitution. The only reason we don’t mention them in the same breath as the NYT or WaPo is because they don’t have the subscription numbers.
These are the same turds who set up Richard Jewell for the Olympic Centennial Park bombing in Atlanta. Completely innocent man.
And the posters on here are correct-Reagan was talking about people who want to come to America to be Americans. Legal immigrants. People of ANY color or creed who we welcome through a legal process.
Reagan didn’t have these people in mind, coming up here to sponge off the country’s largesse. These people at this newspaper were the kind who were thrilled to hear Reagan had Alzheimer’s, but relishing trying to use his rhetoric to somehow portray that conservatives have betrayed Reagan’s principles.
Reagan’s “enthusiasm” for immigration back in the late Eighties relates to the illegal immigration taking place today in the same way to Alexander Hamilton’s enthusiasm for Federal Government back in the 1790’s relates to the “Federal Government” we have today.
That is, it DOESN’T relate.
In the 1790’s what passed for a Federal Government is NOTHING like the monstrous, tyrannical Federal Government we have today.
Likewise, Reagan’s vision of Immigration in 1988 is NOTHING like the ILLEGAL Charlie Foxtrot we have today.
His dream fell flat on day one. He had a Utopian idea about the efficacy of immigration w/o consideration for the character of the new arrivals.
You’re right rlmorel.. thanks for sharing.
“Likewise, Reagan’s vision of Immigration in 1988 is NOTHING like the ILLEGAL Charlie Foxtrot we have today. “
Total nonsense. Reagan’s view of how immigration should operate is the same as open borders / no wall RINO Republican.
Because that is what it was.
Here he is in his own words in 1980.
https://youtu.be/YsmgPp_nlok?t=92
Back then, our Nation and it's institutions supported morality. (Well most did.)
Those days seem over.
I have long argued that we owe our success as a nation primarily to two things: the remarkable quality of our immigrants and a Constitution that gave them the freedom to succeed.
For most of our history, until the middle of the 20th century when commercial airlines began, most people who immigrated to the U.S. were forced to say goodbye to everyone and everything that they had ever known, to take a long journey to somewhere that they had never been, just for the opportunity to work themselves to death for the rest of their lives and hopefully provide better lives for their children.
Average people don’t do that. Normal people don’t do that. Only extraordinary people do that. It was a form of Darwinian selection with only the most extraordinary people choosing to come here.
We still need immigrants, but we must be selective. There are 8 billion people in the world today. Half of them would come to the U S. tomorrow if they could. That is not nationalistic bravado but simple recognition of the fact that over half the world lives in conditions that are far worse than the worst imaginable poverty in the U.S., living on a few dollars a day without access to clean water or sanitation.
I like to ask liberals how many of the world’s 8 billion people we should allow in tomorrow. Unless their answer is “all of them” then that raises the questions of how many and which ones. IMHO a game of “Whoever makes it across the border alive first wins” is not a good way to answer either question.
BTW, I have a funny story involving Nigut when I interacted with him during a FReep. He was the political reporter for WSB-TV at that time. Let me see if I can find it.
Shoot, can’t find it. I know I’d posted this before.
Here’s the FReep report. Realize, I’m dressed like a devil. Full head mask. In Atlanta, in August.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/962203/posts?page=1
Nigut and a cameraman come towards the FReep group, I recognize him, say “Hi Bill!” from under the mask as he walks up. He blows right past me and gives me a look that says “They don’t pay me enough for this.”
So he approaches Apple Pan Dowdy, asks if we have a spokesperson. She immediately points right back at me! He rolls his eyes, I tear off my mask, and we start talking.
Pretty quickly, he realizes that while I may be soaked in sweat and have just removed a devil mask, I visibly have all my teeth, I’m speaking in complete sentences, and whaddaya know, I’m even giving him pretty good sound bites. I think I even got a look of amazement in there somewhere. I wish I had video of him interviewing me.
Anyway, that’s a 20 year old story of my interaction with Nigut.
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