Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Is America’s Melting Pot Becoming a Fragile Mosaic?
Townhall.com ^ | March 14, 2020 | James McCoy

Posted on 03/14/2020 7:32:17 AM PDT by Kaslin

Editor's note: This column was co-authored by Dr. Loyd Pettegrew.

The melting pot metaphor applies to a society where many different types of people blend together as one. A national identity bouillabaisse if you will. It is essentially an environment in which many ideas, religions and races are socially assimilated. Since its inception America has prided itself in being a melting pot. While some countries are composed of people who are almost all the same in terms of race, religion, and culture (Scandinavia, the Middle East, Asia and India come to mind), the United States is a nation of many different types of people.

This concept was recognized with the gift of the Statue of Liberty to America back in 1886. In recent years, however, it seems that the assimilation of peoples and cultures has become more of a distant memory than a present reality

After the close of the Civil War, Frederic Auguste Bartholdi was commissioned by the French government to create a statue that would commemorate the allegiance between the two countries in honor of America’s first centennial celebration of the Declaration of Independence in 1876. Work was begun by Bartholdi a year earlier and officially titled “The Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World.”

In 1892, the U.S. government opened a federal immigration station on Ellis Island, located near Bedloe’s Island in Upper New York Bay. Immigrants were greeted by the Statue of Liberty as they arrived in Ellis Island for processing. Between 1892 and 1954, some 12 million immigrants were processed on Ellis Island before receiving permission to enter the United States. Lady Liberty carries the saying: “Give me your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free/The wretched refuse of your teeming shore/Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me/I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Now some 124 years later, many Americans are wondering if we remain a melting pot or if we have become simply an incoherent mosaic of difference. If we have departed from our early melting pot ambition and identity, it is because many of our most prominent politicians have promoted societal, cultural and religious division to advance their own political careers over the best interest of the nation. Bi-lingual K-12 education is but an example.

This purposeful fracturing of American society for political gain was plainly evident in the Democratic Presidential Primary in South Carolina on February 25, 2020, as presidential candidates groveled for the black vote before Super Tuesday. Tom Steyer even went so far as to claim he was the only candidate on stage in favor of reparations for the black population. He also proposed the establishment of a race commission to retell the story of discrimination and injustice towards African-Americans. It is hard to imagine the political, social and cultural chaos that would surround efforts to enact such legislation. Nonetheless, each candidate seized their opportunity to convince the listening audience why they were the best candidate to represent the black population despite South Carolina being a melting pot, like America.

Each candidate similarly courted the Hispanic vote in Nevada. The identity of an American electorate seems to be blindly lost in the fervor for tribal voting blocs. The two largest minority voting blocs are firmly rooted in race and culture. Consequently, you have the political promises and pandering. Since the civil rights movement in the 1960s, democrats and the left have perpetuated a social tension between minority groups, which are quickly approaching a majority level, and Caucasian populations as a political lever to garner support for federal social programs which disproportionately benefit those minority groups. This in turn increases their appeal to those same groups. The loser in these divisive tactics are the American middle class taxpayers. The one candidate who seems to advocate most often for an all-inclusive American electorate is President Donald Trump. He believes that the best way to realize the benefits of a true blending melting pot is a prosperous economy for all groups.

Many citizens and the MSM like to spin the narrative that the 2016 election was stolen from former secretary of state Hillary Clinton by a coarse, pugnacious and decidedly unpresidential Donald Trump. On the other hand, others believed that Hillary and the Clinton Family Foundation would represent the creation of a Clinton political royalty, even a new type of monarchy, a form of government we freed ourselves from during the Revolutionary War. Never mind the fact that she had committed felonious acts like lying to the government about her private email server kept in her home, her bleach-biting government files from said server and lying about the attack on and death of America’s Ambassador in Benghazi. Worse, the Clinton Foundation’s ties to unsavory foreign actors was anathema to our federalist form of government and idea of a true American melting pot.

Pew Research documents that there are nearly 11 million illegal immigrants in our country. Unlike previous years, many are actual family units, not individuals. Some believe this is good for America and support open borders. Others believe America has both a right and obligation to control who enters our borders and that our safety is at risk with unbridled illegal immigration. The reality of the immigration issue is that the United States economy simply cannot afford open borders. The flood of immigrants from Latin and South America, and quite possibly elsewhere, will overwhelm the social safety network programs that the Democrats and the left are so willing to extend to them to further expand and consolidate their political base.

At the heart of this issue is whether America continues to be a melting pot or becomes a mosaic dystopia. These diametrical views are not insignificant and are critical for our nation’s continued success.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: americans; statueofliberty
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041 next last

1 posted on 03/14/2020 7:32:17 AM PDT by Kaslin
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Kaslin
Yes.

Next Question.

2 posted on 03/14/2020 7:34:01 AM PDT by KC_Lion (Me and my homies woulda been stackin' bodies by now- G. Washington.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

As Michael Savage sez: a chamber pot. All colors of the toilet...


3 posted on 03/14/2020 7:35:05 AM PDT by Captainpaintball
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin
This guy is WAY late.

The destruction of the US was planned way back under Hart-Celler in 1965.

4 posted on 03/14/2020 7:36:13 AM PDT by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change with out notice.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

This stupid cuck should straighten his bowtie.


5 posted on 03/14/2020 7:36:49 AM PDT by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change with out notice.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

There is no such thing exist today as “The American Melting Pot”. We are not blending in as immigrants used to. Today it is always some other country or continent first and American second. The people coming here for the most part do not want to learn English or assimilate


6 posted on 03/14/2020 7:38:43 AM PDT by okie 54
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

it’s called Balkanization, which has been going on for many years now.

The poem on the Statue of Liberty wasn’t added until 1903. It was written by Emma Lazarus, a well-known Socialist who would fit right in with a legion of America hating urinalists and assorted democrats.


7 posted on 03/14/2020 7:41:31 AM PDT by euram
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

It all distills down to this: if Liberals abort their children then they must import a new dependent voter class. Liberals are far more interested in rescuing dogs than in having children. If the population growth is negative among the indigenous liberal population, then they must import a dependent voter base through immigration and open borders to maintain their power.

They absolutely know this and are acting upon this known fact.


8 posted on 03/14/2020 7:41:34 AM PDT by Obadiah (Kill the deep state or lose the Republic.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

I believe all the illegals and most of the legal immigrants are not coming here to be Americans. Their countries are crapholes and they bring the corruption and violence with them.


9 posted on 03/14/2020 7:42:09 AM PDT by dynachrome (Build the wall, deport them all. And send her back!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: grey_whiskers
"The destruction of the US was planned way back under Hart-Celler in 1965. "

That's the one that did it. Opened the floodgates to the third world economic 'refugees.'

The Muslims are the most worthless/damaging to come to our nation.

10 posted on 03/14/2020 7:43:07 AM PDT by blam
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: okie 54

Ask Ihlan “BroFo” Omar.


11 posted on 03/14/2020 7:45:17 AM PDT by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change with out notice.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

“Give me your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free/The wretched refuse of your teeming shore/Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me/I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

What could possibly go wrong? Wretched refuse is wretched. The woman who wrote that poem is a good example.


12 posted on 03/14/2020 7:48:18 AM PDT by cdcdawg (Cornpop was a pony soldier!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

I wonder how things would go for the Democrat politician who stood up and said “I am not going to pander to the individual tribes. I will not offer lucre to each voting bloc that will vote for me. We are all Americans and we will prosper and enjoy liberty and freedom as ONE PEOPLE.”


13 posted on 03/14/2020 7:49:25 AM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

So the Middle East and Asia are “countries” that are “composed of people who are almost all the same in terms of race, religion, and culture”? News to me.


14 posted on 03/14/2020 7:52:41 AM PDT by HartleyMBaldwin
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: dynachrome

“Their countries are crapholes and they bring the corruption and violence with them.”

They can’t move away from themselves. Wherever ______s move in great numbers, it starts to look like ______. Swedes, Somalians, Czechs, Puerto Ricans, etc ...


15 posted on 03/14/2020 7:53:59 AM PDT by cdcdawg (Cornpop was a pony soldier!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: ProtectOurFreedom
I wonder how things would go for the Democrat politician who stood up and said “I am not going to pander to the individual tribes. I will not offer lucre to each voting bloc that will vote for me. We are all Americans and we will prosper and enjoy liberty and freedom as ONE PEOPLE.”

They would be changing jerseys tout suite, and the press would deem them a hateful, racist, bigoted xenophobic (etc, etc) monster until they had no support left from anyone.

16 posted on 03/14/2020 7:59:38 AM PDT by niteowl77
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin
AMERICA IS STRONG ! !

The phony infiltraitors have no allegiance to us and because there are so many, it APPEARS to be America .... but it isn't

17 posted on 03/14/2020 8:00:12 AM PDT by knarf
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

It was a melting pot of various Europeans

That’s not what’s happened since 1965

It’s a racially divided and victim exploited mess

Most new immigrants baring many of those from oppressive regimes are here purely for the money


18 posted on 03/14/2020 8:01:13 AM PDT by wardaddy (I applaud Jim Robinson for his comments on the Southern Monuments decision ...thank you)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: niteowl77

The press reaction is very predictable. But I think the reaction of the people would probably not be as predictable as we think. That might be a most welcome and uplifting message to the very people who have heard nothing but “special interest” pandering for decades.

It would an interesting experiment, to say the least.


19 posted on 03/14/2020 8:03:42 AM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

The left turned off the heat decades ago.


20 posted on 03/14/2020 8:15:14 AM PDT by MortMan (Shouldn't "palindrome" read the same forward and backward?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson