Painting by: Frederick Rondel (1826 – 1892) |
Opinion by Jim Kittelberger
Thus starts the new year 2011, two hundred and thirty four years after America started it's fight for freedom from England. Upon winning the war it put out a welcome to those wretched masses striving to be free to come to our free shores, to work, to succeed, to contribute. Millions have and through their contributions America has become the leader of the world. But something has changed recently. Our character has changed and it seems apparent that our open welcome proclaimed to the world by that symbol in New York harbor now has exceptions, requirements, small print attached to it.
I truly hope that our character is being put to the test by bad economic times and not the belief that the millions that still flock to our shores are inferior human beings whose only reason for coming here is to take away the standard of life we have become accustomed to. I do not want to believe that America now wants to become a closed society, a society that believes that all immigrants are only here to take what is ours, forgetting from whence we came.
Thus starts the new year 2011, two hundred and thirty four years after America started it's fight for freedom from England. Upon winning the war it put out a welcome to those wretched masses striving to be free to come to our free shores, to work, to succeed, to contribute. Millions have and through their contributions America has become the leader of the world. But something has changed recently. Our character has changed and it seems apparent that our open welcome proclaimed to the world by that symbol in New York harbor now has exceptions, requirements, small print attached to it.
I truly hope that our character is being put to the test by bad economic times and not the belief that the millions that still flock to our shores are inferior human beings whose only reason for coming here is to take away the standard of life we have become accustomed to. I do not want to believe that America now wants to become a closed society, a society that believes that all immigrants are only here to take what is ours, forgetting from whence we came.
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