The discussions on the fourth of July and and being proud to be an American remind me of the trip my father made to America. Though the whole story of how he ended up coming would take pages and is fascinating, it is the trip over that summerizes what America is to me. He came over on a ship full of hungarian freedom fighters in the 1950's. The passengers were not all hungarian, but rather a mix of Germans, Hungarians, Russians, and other Europeans. While they had different heritages, they all had several things in common. Almost everyone was between 20 and 40 years old and single. They had lost almost everything they had (including their war), and had no place to go. They were bitter, angry, visionaries, freedom fighters, rebellious young men, losers, criminals, traitors to their country, the exact description depending on who you talked to.
As they entered the middle of the Alantic ocean, one of the men looked around and said "Do realize that on this ship are 2000 of Europe's biggest problems?" They had all been wondering why anyone would take them, and suddenly became very worried that the whole idea was to sink the ship. But when they got to New York City, A U.S. spokesman came on the ship to address them. Sitting in view of the Statue of Libery he told them "We welcome you to the United States of America. There is one thing we ask of each of you as you enter our country. You have all fought hard, and lost. You fought for great ideals and reasons and for some less than great ideals and reasons. America asks that you take these great ideals and visions with you as you start anew here, and to never leave them behind, but to work to use them to make America an even better place. At the same time we ask that you take this oportunity to leave behind all the negative and less than ideal traits and motives behind."

I think that this is the reason America is great. What the rest of the world thought was rubbish, has been used to create the idealistic dream of what America is and can be. Personally, the more I talk to immigrants and how they made their way to the U.S., the more impressed I become of them as a whole. (lets not talk about Mexican Immigrants as they are a different breed in large from the Immigrants I am thinking of)

Krijack, you pose a very interesting question. The low hanging fruit answer is "Of course the immigrants make America better!" We are, after all, a nation of immigrants - even the Natives came here from somewhere else. The rub comes when we talk about the illegal immigrants. Do the vast majority work very hard? Absolutely. Do they embody "family values"? No question. However, when a lot of the money that they earn leaves the country, it is a net loss for us. I have not made up my mind as to how to solve the problem, Lord knows there are plenty of options being kicked around, but we have let the problem grow so big, most of our options are limited and not very effective. I am probably closer to Bush's position that any other, although he seems quite reluctant to impose the stiff penalties on those that are making the big bucks off the illegal immigrants. But your question is a good one and it got me thinking.

Thanks

My wife's grandmother, a fine old Czech lady, sponsored many of the Hungarian political refugees on that boat. They came to Twin Falls an Buhl, Idaho in search of a life, she helped them find one.
My main grumble is not with immigrants of any ethnicity. It is with illegal aliens and the system that fosters them. It's only taxpayer money after all. Why should accepting the social problems of Senor Fox be any less disgusting that accepting the crap Fidel dumped on us a few years ago?