Should the Statue of Liberty be dismantled?
Posted on Wednesday, April 20, 2011 at 09:54 AM
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It was, too, for a long time, a universal symbol of hope and promise for immigrants coming to America.
On the inner walls of the statue there's a bronze plaque that to this day includes the following lines:
"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-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
But nowadays, of course, the golden door has been wedged shut by people who believe liberty really means the liberty to exclude.
We are a suspicious, threatened and divided culture now and we'd really prefer it if you tired, poor, huddled masses would just stay home.
And in the minds of the main players in the Republican Party we are also now a Christian nation, in stark contradiction to the founders' original intent. Just ask Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, John McCain or George W Bush.
For decades now this fake history has paved the way for an insular Christian Nationalism. It's ongoing project. It's no accident that a 2007 poll from the First Amendment Center showed that 65% of Americans now believe the founders intended the US to be a Christian nation and 55% thought the US Constitution establishes the US as a Christian nation.
So perhaps, in keeping with views of a significant number of us, we should dismantle the Statue of Liberty and build a Statue of Exclusivity. With a bible in one hand and a sword in the other, perhaps.
It would be more honest about the kind of welcome that immigrants can expect to receive these days. It would be more honest about the false narrative of Christian nationalism the GOP has been crafting for decades - and its increasing hostility to anything different from itself.
We used to like liberty in America, but nowadays we just like the liberty to exclude.
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edmicca | Apr 25, 2011, 09:17 AM EDT
So-called gay couples ought to be glad they weren't around during the first years of this nation. Let's just say such an arrangement wouldn't have flown with the colonists. In the USA there are more women than men, something like 52% to 48%. I guess that qualifies men as a minority group.
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edmicca | Apr 25, 2011, 09:11 AM EDT
Allentown, I'll ask you again - let's hear all about Christian brutality during the Inquisition.
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hancock | Apr 23, 2011, 07:03 PM EDT
No.
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allentown | Apr 21, 2011, 10:33 PM EDT
Edmicca, either I write poorly, or reading comprehension wasn't one of your better courses.
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hollabackgurl | Apr 21, 2011, 03:42 PM EDT
The best way to argue your point of view is to be as condescending as possible. It demonstrates that you have a superior grasp of the issue at hand and it dazzles your supporters and opponents. The whole world wide web loves drive by anonymous abuse. Telling a person they're stupid is a much better way to defend your views than - you know - debating them.
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edmicca | Apr 21, 2011, 03:41 PM EDT
allentown... let's hear you pontificate on the Inquisition. Odds are very good that anyone who trots out the Inquisition in order to mock the Church doesn't know what the hell he is talking about. I bet off the top of your head you can't talk more than 11 seconds on the Inquisition, and the one or two statements you manage to squeak out will be false.
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elektros | Apr 21, 2011, 02:46 PM EDT
Open immigration to the US ended in 1840, so the inscription ceased to be true at that point, no matter whatever else anyone says. It is also true that the 1st amendment separates church and state, period. It does appear that the GOP have spread a false narrative to the contrary. Is any of that anti-American? No, because last time I checked the Democrats were Americans too.
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DanCinTX | Apr 21, 2011, 02:19 PM EDT
FYI O'D - "In 2010, the total number of persons naturalizing was 619,913" . 600K is slamming the door? Are you a real estate developer, home builder or some other type of gravy sucker that just can't get enough of cheap illegal labor? Give me a break.
http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/publications/natz_fr_2010.pdf
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hancock | Apr 21, 2011, 01:51 PM EDT
Go back to Ireland you whiner.
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allentown | Apr 21, 2011, 01:51 PM EDT
Cahir, your article is an aberration to mask the brutality of a religion that has now only caught up with the Christian behavior of the Inquisition.
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casualMBA | Apr 21, 2011, 01:31 PM EDT
Glad to see, Cahir, the column has the skewer it deserves. May I exercise my "liberty to exclude" enough to "exclude" the(your) LEAP FROM perceptions (and essence)of an America founded by Christians tolerant of pluralist beliefs TO an America dismantling its past, its sacrifices, its initiatives and, instead, extolling its intolerance? I choose to "exclude" such a leap.
Has Silicon Valley been working America's "Exclusivity"? Must the Exchange of Ideas and Communication always, or also, include Bodies (i.e., and e.g., Inundating Immigrants?)
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carlow98 | Apr 21, 2011, 12:09 PM EDT
Cahir, in reading some of the other comments regarding your story, you apparently were not born in the U.S. It is obvious from your comments that you were either a)not educated in the U.S. or b) studied progressive revisionist history.
I suggest to you that before writing anything else regarding U.S. history, you get yourself a general U.S. history book, printed before 1980; and take a good read.
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bigjoe226 | Apr 21, 2011, 10:01 AM EDT
if it would help to keep the ILLEGAL immigrants out, I'd be all for it. I didn't realize that only Republicans wanted immmigration laws enforced.
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seagreen | Apr 21, 2011, 12:21 AM EDT
The Statue of Liberty should have been dismantled or blown up years ago. It has just become a lightening rod for every one that is bailing out of the places that have failed them. We have enough problems. WE have full cemetary's of 19 and 20 yr olds , acres of house trailers,half a population with bad teeth,and 9 million that cannot make living. You should have shown up fifty years ago. save your wise ass second guessing, and give Brazil a try...
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