New Yorker Cartoon Exposes Bias & Not Historical Realities
It has been observed that often a picture is worth a thousand words. By this, it is meant that often a witty image can more quickly convey an idea than a written exposition.
It has been observed that often a picture is worth a thousand words. By this, it is meant that often a witty image can more quickly convey an idea than a written exposition.
Another truism nearly as classic insists that the only thing we learn from history is that we don't learn anything from history.
A prime example of these working in tandem could be found on the cover of a late 2011 edition of the New Yorker Magazine. Depicted violating the U.S. southern border were migrants adorned not in sombreros but rather in what would be considered traditional Thanksgiving pilgrim garb.
Such doodling, though admittedly humorous, displays a number of questionable assumptions.
For starters, the cartoon assumes that the illegal aliens of today are the equivalent of the Pilgrim settlers.
In addressing this issue, emphasis must be placed upon ILLEGAL.
The migrants coming here today are doing so in violation of the agreed upon governing authorities of the territorial United States.
The English Separatists voyaging here aboard the Mayflower committed no such transgression. In fact, the pioneers making that trek were so eager to see law and order established that among their first acts was to promulgate the Mayflower Compact. They are not to blame if the Indians did not have an as developed sense of property as we have in our own Western tradition or that there was not as much of a need to enforce borders back then as there is today.
The naive will likely respond but, if our Founders were all immigrants, who are we to forbid entrance to those that come here after us?
If that is the case, should those making such a case (especially if they are White) be forced to not only provide shelter to any minority squatter that crawls in through an open window but also cook daily meals and provide laundered sheets for the uninvited house guests? If not, how is amnesty and assorted social welfare benefits going to those that have not earned them any different?
Those fawning all over the border violators of today will gush incessantly how moral and family oriented these blatant criminals are just like the Pilgrim settlers coming here to start a new life. Even the likes of alleged conservatives such as Dr. Dobson of Focus on the Family have at times been duped by this as evidenced by the time he got atop his Colorado high horse and proceeded to castigate Pat Buchanan regarding the syndicated columnist's classic "The Death Of The West".
However, just how moral are these new arrivals when one of their foremost weekend activities is bawdy drunkenness that often results in public urination? It's doubtful many Pilgrims blared music until 3 AM given the solemnity and austerity for which the rigorous Protestants of that era were renowned.
Often leftists like to harp on the decline that befell the American Indians once the historical paths of these people groups intersected with those of the Europeans. Then let's draw on some lessons from that episode as to why the United States of today must curtail the numbers crossing over the nation's frontiers.
If the migrants of today are to be construed through the prism that they are the equivalent of the Pilgrim "foreparnets" (no need to set off radical feminists among fanatic grammarians), it must be pointed out that their famed work ethic wasn't the only thing the early Puritans brought with them. They also brought a number of diseases against which the population already residing here had little immunity.
Sadly, little can be done to prevent the suffering and death from the epidemics that swept across the New World centuries ago. But with the germ theory of disease that has developed since that time, shouldn't we honor those passing in that tragedy by clamping down on our own borders by only granting admittance to those from beyond our borders that adhere to the most rigorous of health standards?
Don't think this is a valid concern? Then why are not only diseases once thought conquered or at least under control such as tuberculosis but even bedbugs as well making a resurgence?
Nation-states exist primarily for the benefit of those already living within the boundaries of a particular delineated territory that have a proper legal basis for being there. Once a culture loses its wherewithal to defend this particular principle, it won't be long until it is swept into the dung heap of history.
Frederick Meekins is an independent theologian and social critic. Frederick holds a BS in Political Science/History, a MA in Apologetics/Christian Philosophy from Trinity Theological Seminary, and a PhD. in Christian Apologetics from Newburgh Theological Seminary.
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