You know the story, or part of it: born amid poverty and violence in a third world nation, shuffled to a refugee camp in another country, then emigration to the United States, a home for the family, school, college education, elected office, then elected to Congress and national prominence.
Then, there’s this:
Born in third world poverty, surrounded by violence, a fearful emigration to the US, a new home, then a struggle to get an education, surrounded by injustice, but struggling to be a voice for the down-trodden.
Both are the rough bios of the same Congresswoman; the first is how it might look from the outside; the second how her office – and the mainstream media – report it.
It’s a fact that her family and she fled their native country and came to the US. Presumably, they thought it would be a better future here. Now the same Congresswoman speaks quite vociferously about the injustices inherent in the US.
Setting aside what might be the Congresswoman’s motivations for telling her tale as she does, why is the bulk of the media not pointing out that even as she bemoans the injustices of the United States, she is in fact the very embodiment of the argument that the US is, indeed, the “shining city on a hill?”
This is a strange country, one willing to accept anyone if they’re willing to work hard. (In fact, we accept far more than that, but that’s a subject for another day.) I know a fellow who was born in England, still speaks with an accent. Came to the United States after college, enlisted in the US military, rose to the rank of Colonel and commanded a combat force of several thousand men. I had a professor a number of years ago who was born in Italy; he came to the US and through hard work rose to be an advisor to a president on intelligence matters, with access to our nation’s most sensitive secrets. Both underscore something: there is no other nation on earth – with the possible exception of Israel – where someone might emigrate into the country and then rise up through the system to virtually any office short of President.
Alternatively, spend a few minutes “surfing” the internet; find someone in the government in Beijing who was born outside of China.
The number of people who’ve come to this country just in the last few decades, received an education, found work, built a life – lived the American Dream – literally runs in the millions.
Yet, be that as it may, the bulk of the media, and many politicians, particularly on the left, seem to spend a great deal of time talking about how the United States is a terrible place, massively flawed, has, in fact always been a terrible place, and is in need of wrenching, fundamental reform, to include abandonment of the past, in order to make it a decent place to live.
The question really comes down to whether the media buys into that argument. There’s the obvious question: if it’s so bad here, why is everyone trying to get in? (Asked differently, if it’s so bad here, why do people who can afford to live anywhere, choose to remain here?)
But there’s a more fundamental issue. G.K. Chesterton pointed out in his masterpiece “Orthodoxy” that if you like something (or someone) you simply accept them as they are, flaws and all. But if you love the place or person, you’ll do anything in your power to fix their flaws. And you do it from a position of love.
So, Does the media – and all the caterwauling politicians who remonstrate endlessly against the Founding Fathers, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution – really love the nation, and wish to build the “more perfect union” mentioned in the Constitution’s Preamble? Or do they secretly loath this nation, and its origins, and wish to tear it down and replace it with something else altogether?
Consider the two countries in the Congresswoman’s bio: her country of birth versus the Unites States. One is the wealthiest – and arguably most free – country on the planet, the other is wracked by violence and poverty, in a continent rife with violence and poverty.
It would seem to me that you should love the one that gave you a future, that gave you freedom…
Copyright 2019 Arrias
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