For the land of the Free and the home of the Brave! I believe these two proclamations of our National Anthem are singing a song to us in this hour! A song that resounds with the questions: Will we choose to remain the Land of the FREE? Will we choose to stand up for the Home of the BRAVE?
We have to ask ourselves what true freedom and bravery look like? Does it look like the America we have known that offers hope, opportunity, freedom, and destiny for all who call it home? Is it the home of Patriotism that many of us grew up understanding? Or does it look like people who demand their rights without the responsibilities? Does it look like opening up our borders to all without scrutiny? Or, does it look like giving a pass to rioters, looters, and anarchists under the guise of justice? So many undertones of both sorrow and hope, that “she” (our Anthem) is crying out and asking us today as Americans!
For today, I want to wade into the immigration battle! People say our nation was founded by immigrants, but that immigrants are no longer welcome. That is SO FAR from the truth! There is one word that changes the entire conversation and that is the word, LEGAL immigrants!
Anyone can change a narrative by simply adding or subtracting one small word meant to actually define the entire conversation. I have been a legal immigrant in several other countries! I could not just show up and do what I wanted to do! I could not show up and expect to have all the benefits that their citizens and other legal immigrants had … just because they owed it to me! NO! We had to follow all the laws, paperwork, and disciplines in order to be approved as legal residents! It required that we pay attorneys with our own money to act on our behalf as they walked with us through the process! It wasn’t free and it wasn’t always an easy process. Those countries did not see it as their duty to allow us to just show up and demand our right to be there! They did not see that they ‘owed it to us’. We had to prove that we could financially support ourselves and would not be a drain on their economy or system! Then, even as legal residents, we had no right to vote, protest, or engage in political affairs … absolutely NONE! That was reserved for the citizens of that nation and, well, it should be! We were always free to live our lives under their rules, or free to leave if we didn’t like their rules. They were not about to change them to accommodate us!
Why should it be any different for those who are entering our borders? Why? Why should we give away our rights, our benefits, our votes, and our futures to those who are not here legally, much less, citizens? I’m all for legal immigration – yes, sir, and yes, ma’am! Come for the opportunity, come for a better life, come to pursue and fulfill your dreams, but come legally and follow our rules! I had to do it in other countries, so why should we offer a different set of rules to open our borders to droves who want to come illegally?
Please don’t buy the party-line rhetoric of how terrible we are as a nation because we want to control our borders and have say-so over those who we accept to live amongst us! Let’s don’t give up our freedom as the land of opportunity! Let’s preserve her and defend her from being invaded by those looking only for hand-outs and/or to change our ways of life! The sovereignty of our nation is a huge issue at stake right now! Patriots want to retain the right to preserve our history, our laws, our rights, and our freedoms. Globalists have the vision to tear down our borders and nullify our American way of life so that we will no longer stand in the way of ‘no borders, no boundaries, and no freedoms for the people retaining the right to decide our own rules of law’! It is not time to kneel (except in prayer), but it is time to STAND!
As our Anthem sings and calls out to us … let us take a stand to retain our freedom. We must do it with the bravery required in the midst of this ‘civil war’ in order that we might do our part to truly Make America Great Again! God bless you and God bless America – my home sweet home!
[…] On a plaque at the entrance to the statue’s pedestal is engraved a sonnet called “The New Colossus,” written in 1883 by Emma Lazarus as part of a fundraising contest. Its most famous passage speaks to the statue’s role as a welcoming symbol of freedom and democracy for the millions of immigrants who came to America seeking a new and better life: “Give me your tired, your poor. Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” Think about these things through the lens of your spiritual eyes – not the natural perception. (Lest I be misunderstood about immigration, you can read my post entitled: Do You Hear the Anthem). […]
Love this!