By David Limbaugh
Friday, May 03, 2013
I think the current controversy over immigration reform
points to a larger issue in America today, which is that Americans are
essentially split on the very idea of what America is and should be.
It used to be that Americans mostly agreed that in order
to attain citizenship, immigrants had to not only come to this country legally
but also demonstrate, after training and study in the American system, that
they believed in the unique United States Constitution and embraced what it
means to be an American. Though that still occurs in the naturalization
process, we seem to have abandoned it altogether in connection with the
immigration debate.
What sense does it make that we seek to instill a love of
America in those earnestly seeking to acquire legal citizenship through the
proper procedures but ignore it altogether in our rush to legalize 11 million
illegals?
One major difficulty is that the hard but extremely
influential American left, by and large, doesn't seem to have any special
affinity for the American idea, the gloriousness of the U.S. Constitution or
even the notion of national identity at all, which they associate with
intolerance, cultural chauvinism and anti-globalism.
Indeed, hard-leftists don't just disagree with many of
America's founding ideals; they believe that it's somehow backward even to have
such ideals, because to them, it reflects a prejudice against other systems,
cultures and values.
So, you see, this is not really a debate over whether the
American system and the ideas and values undergirding it produced the greatest
nation in world history and thus should be preserved. It is a core disagreement
about whether it's even proper and desirable to endorse a unique set of
founding ideals as being superior to any other.
But I ask you: What nation has ever survived, much less
thrived, when it lost its national identity?
But just as the left blocks proposals to reduce federal
spending and entitlement reform while claiming to support them, it is doing
everything it can to block border enforcement. Barbarians aren't at the gate;
they are inside and blocking the erection of the gate.
Why would any American citizen want to encourage
immigrants to come to this country and not embrace America? Yet how can we
doubt that leftists want that result when they flood our universities with
like-minded colleagues who are indoctrinating their students against embracing
it and when President Obama identifies with La Raza, the militant Mexican
nationalist group?
It's not the right wing that is constantly berating the
United States before the United Nations. It is not originalist Supreme Court
justices refusing to recommend the U.S. Constitution as a model for Egypt. It
is not right-wing university professors (to the extent that this species is not
wholly extinct) loading up their curricula with courses denouncing everything
imaginable about the United States. It is not a conservative presidential
candidate who vowed to fundamentally change America and then proceeded to do so
once in office.
But what does being American or supporting American
ideals even mean anymore? Let's take one example. Can we all agree that
promoting a strong work ethic was something almost all Americans once agreed
on? Weren't self-reliance and rugged individualism -- a can-do attitude --
admired traits that were understood not to conflict with Christian charity and
compassion?
Yet today our leftist ruling class is making it noble to
be on government assistance and ignoble to work and produce. Call that
hyperbole if you choose, but I hear a president who is constantly berating
capitalism, the free market, business and those who have been successful. He
has incentivized states to expand their food stamp rolls, reversed welfare
reforms, extended unemployment benefits to the point that it exacerbates
unemployment, and fiercely opposed entitlement reform. How can this agenda
possibly be good for America, much less in the long-term interests of those
targeted for government dependency?
Are reports that the Obama administration doesn't require
applicants to declare their immigration status to qualify for food stamps true?
Is the Department of Agriculture really actively working with the Mexican
government to promote food stamps for illegal aliens? I don't know, but these
types of outrages are certainly believable with this administration. What
self-respecting nation engages in such insanity?
Call me harsh for suggesting the hard left, which
controls much of our government, is at war with the American idea. But today
the left paints those who support traditional values as bigoted, those who
support traditional marriage as homophobes and bigots, and those who support
welfare reform, school choice, voter identification laws and securing the
borders, as well as those who oppose punitive taxes on the "wealthy,"
as racists.
No, we just aspire to colorblindness and promote equal
opportunity and equal protection of the laws for all Americans. We have pride
in America and its founding ideals and unapologetically assert that they are
responsible for the greatest experiment in constitutional governance in history
and therefore want to preserve them.
Liberals are always paying lip service to consensus
building. How about we start by agreeing to embrace America? Or is national
pride truly a dirty term?
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