YEARNING TO BREATHE FREE? Thoughts on Immigration, Islam & Freedom Additional Information
YEARNING TO BREATHE FREE? by DAVID DYKSTRA As I sit down to write, it is with the recent memory of an item featured on National Public Radio in mind. With the Patriot Act about to be made permanent, their discussion centered on one of the provisions of that Act. Apparently, someone with some sense was involved in drafting a provision that now has many Americans upset once again. The provision of the Patriot Act that has them exercised is "the ideological exclusion clause." That provision allows us to refuse a visa to someone whose ideology is deemed to be dangerous to the United States. Quite reasonably, it means that if someone applied for a visa who also supported an ideology like that of militant, expansionist Islam, that is committed to the overthrow of the West, and of the West's "Great Satan" America, we just might say, "No, we don't want you here." The same people who try to stifle Christian or conservative ideas in the public arena across our nation, now are outraged that we might disallow people to enter the U.S. because of their ideas. Disallowing enemies to come to the U.S. to foment their plans is just plain common sense. Common sense however seems to be lacking in too many of our countrymen today. This current study will take us to the Scriptures to focus on how foreigners or aliens were dealt with in the Law of God, and then also to the historical books to study the influence of foreigners in Israel. To make the study more relevant to our times, I also want to take you back in American history, for our American story is the story of immigrants and the society they built here. One of the brightest Presidents to ever reside in the White House was Theodore Roosevelt.[1] Roosevelt became President upon the death of William McKinley. McKinley didn't die a natural death. He fell to an assassin's bullet, and the story of his assassin is linked to immigration. McKinley's killer was one Leon Czolgosz. He was born here in America, but he came under the influence of foreign-born anarchists who emigrated to America. Anarchists, to quote from a 1903 law designed to provide for their deportation, were people who "advocate the overthrow by force of violence the Government of the United States or of all governments or of all forms of law, or the assassination of public officials."[2] Roosevelt understood that the assassin fired bullets not merely at the President, but at America itself. On December 3, 1901, the new President rose to address the Fifty-seventh Congress. To the surprise of everyone, he departed from the usual custom and began his address with these words. "The Congress assembles this year in the shadow of a great calamity." He then went on to demand Federal regulation of immigration. He demanded that politically violent immigrants (like the ones that had influenced Leon Czolgosz) be banned from entering the U.S. Here are his words, "They and those like them should be kept out of this country, and if found here they should be promptly deported to the country whence they came; and far-reaching provision should be made for the punishment of those who stay. The American people are slow to wrath, but when their wrath is kindled, it burns like a consuming fire."[3] This was not the first time Roosevelt had addressed the subject of immigration. Long before he became President, he was asked to speak at a Fourth of July celebration in Dickinson, North Dakota. The year was 1886. In his speech he addressed the issue of immigration. Ponder the wisdom of his words: "All American citizens, whether born here or elsewhere, whether of one creed or another, stand on the same footing: we welcome every honest immigrant no matter from what country he comes, provided only that he leaves off his former nationality and remains neither Celt nor Saxon, neither Frenchmen nor German, but becomes an American, desirous of fulfilling in good faith the duties of American citizenship."[4] Roosevelt believed that it was dangerous to allow immigrants to come to America and retain too much of the customs and ideology of the countries from which they came. Experience with immigrants themselves was the basis for his conclusions. He, of course, was not the only one to express these beliefs. Immigrants to our shores were making demands that most Americans refused to grant. German immigrants, for example, made the following demand in New York City. "Whereas the German language is the natural idiom of a large portion of the population of the United States of America and of the metropolis, thus offering such additional practical advantages as would best recommend that language for adoption as a regular branch of instruction in our public schools, resolved, That we, as citizens and tax-payers, most solemnly protest against any measures looking to the expulsion or curtailment of instruction in German in each of our schools where this study has already been established as a regular branch of instruction."[5] Here were German immigrants in America looking to set up their little German enclaves, and refusing as it were to integrate into American society. The hypocrisy of it all is seen in the fact that at the same time Germany was forcing non-Germans in newly acquired territory to speak only German. One American clergyman, namely Joseph Thompson, pounced on this blatant contradiction. "While the German nation is thus compelling all its members to be of one speech, is it not a pretty impertinence for Germans in the United States to demand that theirs shall be the language of the schools?"[6] Irish immigrants in 19th century New York were making their own demands, which if accepted, would have overturned our First Amendment right to a free press. Here is what occurred. In 1863 the government imposed a draft to provide soldiers for the Federal army as it continued the war against the southern army. The rich could hire a substitute to go in their place, but the poor had no such recourse. New York's poor at the time consisted largely of Irish immigrants. They had been told that if the North won and the slaves were freed, the freed slaves would take their jobs. Pro-southern northerners known as "Copperheads" provided the agitation that stirred up the Irish. The Irish took to the streets and rioted and for five days in July of 1863 the island of Manhattan experienced what was up till then "the greatest civil unrest in American history."[7] As part of the riots, they attempted to shut down The New York Tribune. Horace Greeley, the founder and editor, angered the Irish because of his unstinting advocacy of both abolition and President Lincoln. Their threat was to burn down the Tribune building and hang the editor. New York's police were outnumbered by about 100 to 1, and the New York state militia was away fighting the war. With no one to protect them, the Tribune staff did what Americans do at such a time. They armed themselves and prepared to shoot down anyone who threatened their lives. They recognized that the Irish were striking a blow at a free press, and to allow that to stand, would mean losing one of our five great freedoms provided in the First Amendment to the Constitution. Fast forward to February 2006 and ponder the sad reality of newspaper after newspaper, news network after news network caving in to Islamic radicals, refusing to do anything to offend this violence-threatening population. Think about the messages on the signs carried in London as Muslims protested the Danish cartoons. Here is what they said, "God bless Hitler"; "Slay those who insult Islam"; "Behead those who insult Islam"; "Butcher those who insult Islam"; "Europe, you will pay, your extermination is on its way"; "Massacre those who insult Islam"; "Europe, you will pay. Your 9/11 is on its way"; "Be prepared for the real holocaust"; "Europe, take some lessons from 9/11"; "Freedom go to hell"; "Europe is the cancer, Islam is the answer"; "Islam will dominate the world". Is there anyone who perhaps is beginning to think that this is not the kind of speech protected by our First Amendment? Is there anyone who is beginning to think that our immigration policies have allowed wolves to come in among the sheep? Is there anyone who will begin to think that people who advocate the destruction of the West, and the triumph of the Islamic world-view should perhaps be deported if they are not citizens or charged with sedition if they are. If the people of the West continue to be more concerned about Islamic sensitivities than the preservation of our freedom, then we will lose those freedoms, and our children and grandchildren will curse our timidity. [1] If you have any doubt about that assertion just read pages 358-388 of Theodore Rex by Esmund Morris. |