Re: When They Tell You Who They Are...

BTR1701 <atropos@mac.com> wrote:

moviePig <nobody@nowhere.com> wrote:

. . .

"...huddled masses yearning to be free..."

Legally.

That's wrong. It's "breathe".

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "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!"

And since when do we base national immigration policy on a schmaltzy
sonnet written by an obscure poet in an era that is vastly different
than that in which we currently find ourselves?

What's even more ironic is that when the pome was written, the United
States actually vetted immigrants, who had to meet standards of
self-sufficiency and showed potential to contribute to society or they
were not allowed in.

So if you really want to use the Lazarus-era as a model for how we
should currently treat immigration, I'm actually cool with that.

. . .