01/29/2017
Lately, one gets the disturbing sense many leftists really do believe Emma Lazarus’s dishwatery pabulum on the Statue of Liberty really does constitute some kind of binding law. To the modern Open Borders activist, the Zeroth Amendment is real.Finally, at least some mainstream conservative sources are pushing back against this insane cult. Scott Greer at The Daily Caller, author of the upcoming book "No Campus For White Men," points out Lazarus’s poem wasn’t some decree from a Founding Father or even a particularly important figure, but just "some 19th century New Yorker."
More importantly, he identifies the deep anti-American hatred behind the Lazarus Cult.
For liberals who gush over “The New Colossus” sonnet, America is only great because of its newcomers. Implied in all the hysteria around Trump’s executive orders is that immigration is the core principle of the United States. Any restrictions placed on it is an affront to American values, which happen to be best expressed by one Emma Lazarus.The desire of the modern leftists to replace what we at VDARE.com call the "Historic American Nation" does not get enough attention. Any normal immigration policy has to be begin with the assumption that it is designed to serve the interests of the country’s existing citizens. But for Open Borders activists, the fact that mass immigration punishes existing Americans isn’t a bug, but a feature.There is no real culture for immigrants to assimilate to either, contrary to Roosevelt’s demands. America is just about abstract principles that the whole world can subscribe to — no matter their allegiances or willingness to speak English.
What is most concerning about the recitation of the Lazarus poem as the final word of immigration is how it imagines America as defined by the eternal outsider. We can only be truly America if we welcome the stranger in our midst with no hesitation. The new arrivals are needed to replace the bad-old citizens, who are apparently less American than the immigrants who just arrived.
[Statue of Liberty Poem Is Now A Weapon In America’s Culture War, January 26, 2017]
Indeed, America’s only redeeming feature, in their eyes, is that our country somehow defined by a vague egalitarianism. Ultimately, America has to abolish itself through mass immigration in order to somehow be true to its supposed founding ideals.
This is all nonsense. And it’s about time at least some Beltway Right conservatives are seeing through it.
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.