Today's Washington Post features Annabel Park and Eric Byler, the brilliant and courageous filmmakers responsible for the YouTube 9500 Liberty "'Interactive Documentary' about the politicization of the immigration issue." First, here's Annabel on what's happened in Prince William county, Virginia, over the past few months (bolding added for emphasis):
...people did not come together in Prince William County. The county supervisors passed the illegal-immigration resolution. I believe the process was not democratic. One organized interest group dominated it by bullying, spreading misinformation and inciting intolerance.
America is not just a country, not just a particular place in space and time, but a promise to live according to our highest ideals. If we succumb to intolerance and fear now, at this critical time in America's story, we will all have failed.
I couldn't agree more. I would add that what America most certainly IS NOT is a nation founded on one particular race, religion, or nationality. Instead, what America was founded on was the universal believe that ALL men are created equal, that we are a beacon of liberty to people all over the world. Have we always lived up to those ideals? Of course not. Should we strive to do so? Of course.
America is also what Ronald Reagan called a "shining city on a hill:"
..a tall proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace, a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity, and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here.
Does that sound like the kind of "city" (or county) the Corey Stewarts and Eugene Delgaudios of the world envision? Obviously not, which is why Ronald Reagan was a great leader and these guys are...well, not. Or, to put it another way: Corey Stewart, you're no Ronald Reagan!
Now, here's Eric:
The next night, a vandal tries to burn down Liberty Wall. Soon after, another will succeed in destroying the sign, ripping it to shreds.
These are the questions facing our society. Who is American? And who gets to speak? I am reintroduced to the Chinese American boy I was in 1981 at Kings Park Elementary. I hear the word "chink." I see my classmates tugging at their eyes.
The bullies are not as distant as I remembered them. I may see the world through a lens, but my eyes are open, and my heart is where the bottles shatter, on the Liberty side of the fence.
I would argue that Ronald Reagan's heart was strongly on the "Liberty side of the fence" as well. Unfortunately, the Corey Stewarts of the world appear to be on a different side -- the fearful side, the angry side, the ugly side of that fence. Fortunately, we've also got the Annabel Parks and Eric Bylers (and Father Creedons and Rev. Boykins and...) of the world on the liberty side -- the American side -- of the fence.
P.S. Meanwhile, "Loudoun Looks Past Immigration".