“GOP and Dem’s switched ideology.”

if I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard this… “GOP and Dem’s switched ideology"... the Democrats want to take credit for everything from Abraham Lincoln to the Civil Rights Era… but facts just are so hard to come by.

but let us consider the recent Syrian refugee crisis… refugees are fleeing from ISIS in the Middle East, and we are supposed to take them without question… after all, that’s what Europe has done, and we ALL want to be more like Europe, don’t we?

well, conservatives (a.k.a. Republicans here in the US) warned that ISIS would use the cover of refugees to infiltrate into countries and enact terrible acts of terrorism in them… liberals decried this as blatant racism against “brown-skinned” and “POC”… it doesn’t matter if the intelligence agencies of multiple countries warned of this very thing… nope, it must be racism.

with the tragedy that was the Paris terrorist attacks, many people (some becoming suddenly conservative) are saying maybe we should hold off on letting Syrian refugees freely into our countries… a clear case of racism, liberals would say.

which brings me back to who is actually racist… the liberals in the US lay claim to President Roosevelt (FDR) for his generous social policies… and rightly so, as a more Democrat president could hardly be found, except perhaps in Jimmy Carter… FDR is held up to the sun as a shining example of liberalism… but, like Icarus, perhaps they hold him a bit too high.

in 1939, the German transatlantic liner St. Louis sailed from Hamburg, Germany, loaded with almost 1000 Jewish passengers… it was bound for Cuba, but Cuba was not willing to take any more refugees from Europe… with the size of Cuba and following the Great Depression, it can hardly be seen as surprising… however, modern liberals insist FDR rescued us from the Great Depression, so the US was more capable of handling a handful of refugees fleeing from the Kristalnacht pogrom… surely a liberal and Democrat hero such as FDR would welcome them to his bosom and rescue them from the scourge of fascism and racism.

not so much… [cue liberal outrage]… “but FDR was only following the immigration quotas imposed on him by those nasty racist Republicans!”… first, those quotas were passed in Congress by a margin of 323 to 71 (House)… by any measure, this was pretty bi-partisan… second, FDR could have issued an Executive Order to supersede the law.

[cue liberal outrage]… “we thought Republicans were against Executive Orders that were extra-Constitutional”… well, yes… however, i point this out to show that Executive Orders were not unknown to FDR, especially in relation to particular groups of people.

to which i’d like to address your attention to Executive Order 9066, issued by FDR in 1942… you might be more familiar with this as the order that caused thousands of people with Japanese ancestry to be taken from their homes in the US and interned in “evacuation” camps… Congress had not forced FDR to take US citizens from their homes by Executive Order… likewise, FDR could have taken in the Jewish refugees.

what is the point of all this, you might ask… at what point in FDR’s presidency did he switch from Democrat savior to Republican racist?