It was 140 years ago, on November 2, that Emma Lazarus, a New York poet born to Russian Jewish immigrant parents, wrote a poem titled “The New Colossus,” inspired by the Statue of Liberty, a gift from the France. This statue is the idea of a man named Édouard de Laboulaye. He was a political thinker and expert on the United States Constitution, an abolitionist who believed deeply in the “common law of free peoples,” an ideal that everyone is born with an inalienable and sacred right to liberty.
Throughout his life, he campaigned for the return of democracy to France. He believed that the United States was a story of triumph against all odds and the “natural end product of two centuries of labor and freedom.” He wanted France to learn from the struggles, defeats and triumphs of the United States and bring it closer to the American model of government.
Today he would be what we call an activist. Emma Lazarus too. She campaigned for causes helping refugees who had fled anti-Semitic pogroms in Eastern Europe. She saw the statue as a way to express her empathy for these refugees, and in 1903 a bronze plaque was installed at the base of this iconic symbol of American freedom. It reads:
“Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering members astride one country to another;
Here, at our gates bathed by the sea and at sunset, will stand
A powerful woman with a torch, whose flame
It is the imprisoned lightning, and its name
Mother of exiles. With his leading hand
Shine welcome throughout the world; her gentle eyes command
The airbridge port framed by the twin cities.
“Keep, ancient lands, your legendary splendor! ” she’s crying
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearn to breathe freely,
The miserable detritus of your teeming shore.
Send me these homeless, these storms,
I raise my lamp next to the golden door!
I believe that Laboulaye’s statue and Lazarus’ sonnet exist, grounded in an understanding of repression, oppression, and humanity’s true need for refuge, as well as our promise and unique place as true bastion of security, freedom, hope and opportunity, as well as the ideals of our nation’s founders who inspired them.
I accept these messages. My name is Norwegian from my father; my mother is of Anglo-Norman origin. My family was entirely made up of immigrants. Every American is – even those we define as “indigenous” peoples. Their ancestors came from somewhere before. We are all the happy fruit of these words, of our American melting pot culture, and of the blessings represented by this building in New York Harbor. We are also a nation of laws, not of individual men and whims as to what law they should follow or ignore.
I grew up in California, in Los Angeles County, in a town called La Puente, in the shadow of the San Gabriel Mountains, and around me the places were El Monte, Brea, La Habra. The famous El Camino Real connected us. My neighbors and friends were Rodriguez, Garcia, Espinosa, Yamashita, Boggs, Smith, Nix and O’Malley. Mexican, black, Irish, Japanese, German. You name it. In our Navy, I have worked alongside – and for, and led – Chinese, Puerto Ricans, Samoans, Guamanian Chamorros, Filipinos, people of African descent, Navajos, Cherokees and Aleuts, people of Italian origin, Iranians and Greeks. We were white, black, brown, yellow, red and Scottish. We have all served this country and sworn an oath to its Constitution. I think I have a pretty good idea of how diverse America is. And I’m proud of it too.
Michael Savage, a well-known talk show host and author, is also an activist, the son of a Russian immigrant father and a French-Canadian mother. His 2003 book, “The Savage Nation: Saving America from the Liberal Assault on Our Borders, Language, and Culture,” tells us the contents. Without going any further, he says what we should legitimately know now, 20 years later, if we pay attention and use common sense. It was a New York Times bestseller for 18 weeks; Today it seems a shame that not everyone read it. Maybe we wouldn’t be in the border “crisis” we are experiencing.
In a word, borderless nations are not nations at all, their sovereignty and cultural identity erased, their common language marginalized and supplanted by their invaders. Sounds like a trip to Walmart, huh? Or the biblical Babel. But that’s the goal of the left, isn’t it? America is bad and we need to go. So portraying guys like me, and perhaps you, readers, as racists, bigots, nationalist bigots – calling us cruel and without compassion for the “oppressed” – plays to their advantage. They chose Emma Lazarus’ plea as a scythe of guilt and cut off our legs in wanting to support this great country.
On Saturday, it was reported that more than a quarter of a million illegal immigrants crossed our southern border in September. An unreleased record. Added to this are the 7 to 8 million “encounters” who have come since Biden was installed in the White House, and who knows how many have passed through, each by intention and design. Extrapolate it out for another 15 months. Where will America be in January 2025?
Mississippi’s share, in modest numbers, so far stands at 90,000, but who’s actually counting them? Our local lawmakers are denying the impact of this mess because Biden’s feds won’t help them anyway. The so-called “good” Americans take advantage of their cheap labor to increase their profits. Hospitals are overrun. Children and women victims of sex trafficking, fentanyl overdoses killing 100,000 children, gangs and drug cartels running amok.
How good is that? These invaders do not seek freedom or the desire to be Americans. They fled to where, if they had wanted to, they would have fought for it, but they did not. Here, most of the work has been done. This is what our people did, and this is how we became the nation that we are – or were. What we will be tomorrow, no one knows, because we throw it away.
I would almost be grateful if our destruction came in the form of a “Red Dawn” attack, instead of this. Who knows, maybe this is the next step. God saves us all.
Robin “Buck” Torske of Jones County is a retired Navy Chief Petty Officer and conservative activist currently being pursued by the Thought Police.