To me, the most powerful words spoken at the Republican National Convention came from Sen. Marco Rubio when he said the Democrats’ agenda represents “ideas people come to America to get away from.”
My parents came to Americas as German immigrants in 1961. During his six years as a sailor in the German merchant marines, my father visited America and many other countries. After marrying my mother he decided that it was America, not Germany, that offered the freedom he sought. Europe, he believed, offered too much government and too few opportunities.
Choosing to leave your native country is not easy, especially when your new home is so far away, transportation is not nearly as affordable as it is today, and people speak a different language. I remember my mother telling me that she and my father, who spoke no English on arrival, learned the language in part by watching cartoons on television.
The same belief in individual liberty that led my father to this country also led him to become a Republican, because it is our party, not the alternative, that best protects the freedom that distinguishes us from the Europe he left behind.
So when Senator Rubio put it so succinctly on Wednesday night, that the left seeks to impose the ideas immigrants come to America to get away from, it struck a special chord with me. If my father were still with us, he would have been watching every moment of the convention, and at those words he would have stood up and applauded.
Immigrants like my parents, and Sen. Rubio’s parents, came to this country not in search of more government, but to get away from too much of it. They don’t come to enroll in a government program, but to control their own destiny.
Our friends on the left offer to make America more like the countries our immigrants came from. Republicans want to advance the causes of political and economic freedom that will make the rest of the world more like America. Sen. Rubio made these points with clarity and eloquence — well done.