Amerika, du hast es besser

We have a bunch of children on our border that understand Goethe's famous poem - "America, you've got it better."  The line comes from Den Vereinigten Staten ("To the United States").  Just as German Jews in the middle decades of the nineteenth century turned their backs on their home country and looked to America - - a country founded upon the proposition that equality of all men and the inalienability of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness were self-evident truths - - to find the freedom and equality that they had failed to achieve in Germany.

America has been the refuge from discrimination and prejudice since our founding, but also the national embodiment of Enlightenment ideals.  When Goethe wrote his poem in 1827, he was reflecting upon the advantages that youthful America had over Europe in having no tradition, no "decaying castles," - - a country waiting to have its history written upon it.

Those individuals protesting on the bridges over Dallas and Fort Worth are the embodiment of a old class of people hoping to protect "decaying castles" - - they could care less about our collective history of encouraging migration to the United States and publicizing the financial, social, and political advantages of the "New World."  They have no interest in providing hope and support to those prepared to make what has been an alarming and exciting fresh start.

We are losing the image of America as "the common man's utopia" to the rest of the world.  We will all be poorer for it.