The lamp of freedom is shining bright

For years misguided intellectuals and social scientists have advised us to abandon the values, principles and work ethic that have made our country great and instead to embrace pacifism, fuzzy science, genocide of the unborn, acceptance of immoral behavior and generational guilt. It is sad that during one of our nation’s greatest celebrations, that we have to be reprimanded for our historical actions and urged as a nation to adopt an apologist marketing strategy to “Reintroduce America”, and sadly supported by the July 2, 2008 Bonanza columnist who has determined that people in other countries “fear” or “disrespect” Americans.

My business and personal experience with people from the Third World and emerging countries (India, Pakistan, Philippines, Latin American and China) is that the United States is the destination of choice for higher education, business, immigration and freedom. They know that there is no other country in the world that does more internationally to fund public and private efforts to improve health care, agriculture, business or to fight religious and political terrorism than the United States of America. Most immigrants don’t want to leave their countries, but they are compelled to leave in order to seek a better life. They don’t need to be “reintroduced” to America; they know and appreciate America perhaps better than we do. My family came through New York from Ireland in the 1850s to escape the worst type of economic, religious and political repression by the English. As Catholics, my family arrived in dire poverty, but with a yearning for freedom and a commitment to never again be under the threat of a foreign bayonet. They fought and died with thousands on behalf of “freedom for all Americans” in the Union Army during the Civil War. They came with a deep religious belief for the sanctity of family and life, often giving names to the unborn that died during pregnancy or at birth. They worked the lowest jobs, suffered all forms of discrimination and yet enlisted in the hundreds of thousands to defend America and England (our historic enemy) in World War I and II. They came home from war and picked up hammers, shovels and plows to earn their right to be Americans and to ensure the destiny of their children in a free country. The country where my family fled to in the 1850s still exists today and the “lamp beside the golden door” found on Ellis Island, N.Y., is still lit for the world to see.

If by adopting insulting foreign policy concepts such as “reintroducing” America is part of the “change” that some propose for our country, then I want nothing to do with it. I thank God for the wisdom of our Founding Fathers and the millions who have fought and died to protect our nation. I know that my tattered, sick and desperate family, who got off the boat in New York over 150 years ago, would be very proud of this country today even with her blemishes and they would not want her to “change.”

J. Michael Gallagher is an Incline Village resident.