Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, in June, seven American heroes died on a dark night when a ship collided with an American destroyer, the USS Fitzgerald. Among the dead were immigrants from Vietnam and the Philippines, as well as sons of workers who journeyed north from Guatemala. As one of the sailors who survived explained: You are crammed in with all sorts of cultures on the ship, but when you are on the Fitzgerald, you are family. Just like the Fitzgerald, my unit in Iraq included men of many races and religions. We were a family, too, and it made us stronger. Madam Speaker, what is true of our military is also true of our country. Lots of nations have democratic institutions, plenty of countries have good schools, and all too many, as we know, wield powerful weapons; but what makes America great, what makes America powerful, and what makes America America is that, since our founding, we have thrown our doors open to the world, and we have kept them open to the strivers and the dreamers from every corner of the globe. We didn't become the greatest, most powerful country in the world because we let in a certain group of people and then slammed the door behind them. No, Madam Speaker, we built this country by making America the only country in the world where anyone from anywhere can accomplish anything. President Reagan may have summed it up best when he explained that: You can go to Japan to live but you cannot become Japanese. You can go to France to live and not become a Frenchman.…”