"My own immigrant grandfathers came to the United States a little over a hundred years ago. Like most immigrants then and now, they were not drawn here by any abstract belief in the superiority of the American political system. My father's father came from Syria, fleeing oppression visited upon him and his family as members of a relatively small ethnic and religious minority group in that troubled country. My mother’s father came to escape the poverty of southern Italy. They both worked on the railroads and in the mines. ... Although both my grandfathers encountered ethnic prejudice, they viewed this as an aberration—a failure of some Americans to live up to the nation's ideals. It did not dawn on them to blame the bad behavior of some Americans on America itself. On the contrary, America in their eyes was a land of unsurpassed blessing. It was a nation of which they were proud and happy to become citizens. And even before they became citizens they had become patriots—men who deeply appreciated what America is and what she stands for."
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Academics from the United StatesPhilosophers from the United StatesLawyers from the United StatesCatholics from the United StatesPeople from West Virginia
Original Language: English
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Sources
Pt. 1, ch. 7, pp. 62-63
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_P._George
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Robert P. George
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