RUSH: This is how easily we lose the language. Headline from one of my tech blogs: “Apple and Others Pen Open Letter to Trump: ‘We Are a Nation Made Stronger by Immigrants.'” And here is the text. It doesn’t matter which tech blog. I mean, they’re all the same when they start talking politics.
“Last night news broke that a collection of major technology companies, including Apple among them, were prepping an open letter to United States President Donald Trump as a means to voice opposition to the immigration executive order that he signed last Friday.” But then when they quote the letter… I mean, it’s Apple, Alphabet (which is Google) and who else was part…? Was Microsoft part of this? Yeah. Stripe. Facebook.
“Dear President Trump, Since the country’s birth, America has been the land of opportunity — welcoming newcomers and giving them the chance to build families, careers, and businesses in the United States. We are a nation made stronger by immigrants. As entrepreneurs and business leaders, our ability to grow our companies and create jobs depends on” immigrants. Look, I don’t want to dispute that. What really frosts me here is the idea that Donald Trump or anybody else is opposed to immigration!
We’re not. On the other hand, “diversity” is not what built America and immigration is not what built America. You know how I know? Every other country in the world has immigration to one degree or another. Some or more strict than others. Some countries have been very strict and don’t like immigration. But people move to different countries all over the world. There’s only one United States of America. It’s not because of immigration, folks. Immigration is not a factor.
Diversity has nothing to do with it. The United States is not a superpower — it’s not the beacon of freedom, it’s not the wealthiest nation on earth by far — because of the various variations of skin color or the people that live here, or their sexual orientation, or their “gender relatability” or how they do their manicures and pedicures. None of that has the slightest same thing to do with America’s greatness. The greatness of Apple or Google or Facebook has nothing to do with the ethnicity, the skin color, the sexual orientation or gender of its employees. The greatness of America has nothing to do with the external characteristics of the human body, and the greatness of the United States of America has nothing to do… Let me…
Not… It may be a bit far to say “nothing to do.” The greatness of the United States is not due to a policy that lets anybody in the world who wants to come here come, because that’s never been the case. But to listen to these tech CEOs and others, you would think that this country has been open borders from the beginning and that open borders and people who are not… I hate to go here, but I’m telling you what this all means. You have a bunch of leftists who are trying to tell us, “This country didn’t become great until it was also populated by people who were not white and not Christian.”
That’s what they want you to believe.
That’s the subtle message that they’re putting out.
“That’s when America became good! When America stopped being, uh, uh, an exclusionary, white Christian nation.” But they’ll never have the guts to say that outright. Not these people. Other people do. But again, that has nothing to do with the greatness of America, because there are people of all different surface characteristics all over the world. There’s only one the United States of America. So let me put the question to you. Since we’ve never been full-fledged open borders on immigration… The best and brightest from the world get to come here. It’s never been the case. It’s never been the case that if you want to come here, you’re automatically allowed to come here. That’s what the current Democrat left wants to happen in this country.
They want pretty much open borders, let anybody show up. Why? Well, the answers to that question are not very satisfying. Because they are rooted in bigotry. These people try to portray themselves as the open-minded and tolerant non-bigots when in fact I think it’s the other way around. I think bigotry and prejudice against the founding of this country is what makes them espouse their current so-called political beliefs.
Now, I can hear you shouting at the radio, “But, Rush, but, Rush, what about all the immigration from Europe and all the greatness that came in the postwar periods?” I’m not denying, ladies and gentlemen, that there has been immigration. I’m just telling you that immigration, the melting pot, the external characteristics of people, their skin color, the way they like to have sex has nothing to do with why the United States became the United States.
The left wants you to believe that that’s all it is. Such things as diversity and tolerance for alternative lifestyles, and that’s what paves the way for — No, sorry. That’s not what made America great. And it’s why there’s a battle on to reclaim this country, because there is a fervent desire for America to remain great and get greater, to remain strong and get stronger. And to do this, many people know we have to reclaim it from those who actually are presiding over America’s decline with their ill focus on the wrong things.
It all makes them sound wonderfully compassionate. It makes them sound amazingly tolerant and really cool when they talk about a nation of immigrants, and that’s America’s greatness, and we’ve never been intolerant, and we’ve never been restrictive. Bunch of BS. We always have been restrictive. We have always, up until 1986 and maybe a little bit before that, we have always ridden hard on who gets into this country. No, I’ll be happy to answer the question. If it wasn’t diversity — and it isn’t — and if it wasn’t immigration, and if it wasn’t tolerance, and if it wasn’t a bunch of other kooky left-wing liberal cockamamie ideas that made America great, what was it?
Well, you gotta go back to the Constitution and our founding documents, then you have to learn what the word “assimilation” means, and then you have to openly acknowledge that there was and remains in many sectors today a distinct American culture, distinct from any other culture in the world, an American culture that had nothing to do with the external characteristics of human beings. It had nothing to do with their skin color. It had nothing to do with how they like to have sex or with who, had nothing to do with that. It had to do with what became the whole idea of America, following the founding of this country, even preceding it.
The left has sought to misinterpret the founding and its associated ideals, and the whole concept of the American ideal. To them the original America ideal was corrupt ’cause it was discriminatory. It was rooted in slavery and racism and bigotry and all the other homophobic phobias, and they are modernizing and revolutionizing. And as they do, they take America further and further away from what was or what is this distinct American culture.
You can go read the founding documents. You won’t find the term “melting pot” anywhere in it. Don’t misunderstand. I’m not opposed melting pot. I’m opposed to wrong definitions. I’m opposed to people being taught the wrong things about American Greatness and what explains it, what would sustain it. And when I see these clowns upset over an executive order that affects 109 people and claiming there’s something un-American going on, it ticks me off.
Do you realize from 1920-some-odd to 1965 there was zero immigration in the United States of America? Zero? How many of you know that? Legal, 1920-some-odd to 1965, zero legal immigration. Why? Because we had legally allowed millions to immigrate and they needed time to assimilate. They needed time to learn English. They needed time to become accustomed with the distinctive American cultural. As opposed to the culture they all left, the Italians, the Polish, you name it, they all left in the postwar period seeking freedom, seeking liberty. They did not seek to Balkanize this country.
They didn’t seek to set up Poland in Michigan and Italy in New York. They sought to become Americans while maintaining roots to their origins. But they wanted to become Americans. They wanted to learn English. They wanted to learn American customs. They wanted to learn the American track for success. They wanted prosperity and liberty and freedom, religious included.
It took a while to assimilate all those millions. There isn’t any assimilation happening in America today, by design, because the modern American left doesn’t appreciate and doesn’t like what was and always has been the greatness of America. And that’s the battle we’re in, as they try to undo that greatness and redefine it and put this country into a constant, never-ending state of decline.