Todays post covers the important topic of immigration. The United States was built on immigrants. Individuals fleeing oppression and rising up together to defeat tyranny and come together to live the American Dream. We want this, and it is a sign of strength to have some varying opinions and perspectives. Those different perspectives should all point to the same goal however, and when you invite different opinions and different perspectives AND have different goals, well then you become divided. This example is well suited in the simple question of “whose flag do you fly?” Too often we see images in the news of hundreds of migrants flying the flag of the country they fled from. If that country is so amazing, why do you show allegiance to it still? If you want to become an American and receive its freedoms, then BECOME an American. Fly our flag. Learn our ways. Speak our language. Give to our communities. Assist your neighbors. You of course can still have your pride in your culture and share your traditions and food and various customs, but don’t try and break down ours and change our way of life. They call it the American Dream for a reason, not the Latin American Dream or the Somalian American Dream. Changing our culture to where you came from is not becoming an American.
We want good people to become Americans. Your past, birthplace, gender or financial situation should not matter as long as you are going to be a good American. A good society is lawful, and we need trustworthy people that will only better us and not bring us down. A perfect example of whether you are this type is how you get to our country. We have lawful immigration and a process for that, and we also have a major problem with illegal immigration. If an immigrant comes to our country illegally, we already know they break laws and rules. They have cut in front of 1000s that are trying to do this the right way. Lets put the illustration this way. You are looking for a roommate for your apartment. One applicant paid their application fee and their background checked out. The other though, you find out they stole the application fee in order to pay it and they lied on their application and didn’t pass the background check. Only a fool would choose the liar as their roommate. Living in America is a privilege, not a right. In order to maintain its quality, we need laws and standards to go by.
I will leave you with a quote that explains the matter better than I ever could. “In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person’s becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American…There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag… We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language… and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.” – Theodore Roosevelt