In his farewell address, George Washington warned that "history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government" because "a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification" and the opportunities "they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public councils."
Theodore Roosevelt, who was president during a period that saw a large influx of immigrants, had this to say about immigration and assimilation:
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.
But we saw an example of what happens when these warnings are ignored this past weekend in a terror attack in Boulder, Colorado. Briefly, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, an illegal immigrant from Egypt, attacked a weekly scheduled demonstration by a group called Run for Their Lives, "a pro-Israeli group that holds walks in the outdoor pedestrian mall in solidarity with Israeli hostages in Gaza." Soliman shouted "free Palestine" during the attack, in which he used incendiary devices--Molotov cocktails and some sort of pressurized sprayer--on the victims. He injured 8 people, but since authorities are looking at charging him with first-degree murder, one or more victims may have died.
In other words, a group of people demonstrating allegiance to Israel was attacked by someone who was an enemy of Israel, and quite definitely not American in any sense of the word.
Ah, I love the smell of Paris during Riot Season. (This is not an error or unintentional duplicate post)
ReplyDelete"As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
ReplyDeleteThere are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;"
--Rudyard Kipling
The warnings are numerous, but are always ignored.