Richard Lamm’s Plan to Destroy America (Mexifornia)

Richard Lamm, a Democrat and former governor of Colorada (1975-1987), gave the following speech before a 2004 immigration-overpopulation conference. It is worth quoting, in its entirety:

I HAVE A SECRET PLAN TO DESTROY AMERICA. IF YOU BELIEVE, AS MANY DO, THAT AMERICA IS TOO SMUG, TOO WHITE BREAD, TOO SELF-SATISFIED, TOO RICH, LETS DESTROY AMERICA. IT IS NOT THAT HARD TO DO. HISTORY SHOWS THAT NATIONS ARE MORE FRAGILE THAN THEIR CITIZENS THINK. NO NATION IN HISTORY HAS SURVIVED THE RAVAGES OF TIME. ARNOLD TOYNBEE OBSERVED THAT ALL GREAT CIVILIZATIONS RISE AND THEY ALL FALL, AND THAT “AN AUTOPSY OF HISTORY WOULD SHOW THAT ALL GREAT NATIONS COMMIT SUICIDE.” HERE IS MY PLAN:

I. WE MUST FIRST MAKE AMERICA A BILINGUAL-BICULTURAL COUNTRY. HISTORY SHOWS, IN MY OPINION, THAT NO NATION CAN SURVIVE THE TENSION, CONFLICT, AND ANTAGONISM OF TWO COMPETING LANGUAGES AND CULTURES. IT IS A BLESSING FOR AN INDIVIDUAL TO BE BILINGUAL; IT IS A CURSE FOR A SOCIETY TO BE BILINGUAL. ONE SCHOLAR, SEYMOUR MARTIN LIPSET, PUT IT THIS WAY:

THE HISTORIES OF BILINGUAL AND BICULTURAL SOCIETIES THAT DO NOT ASSIMILATE ARE HISTORIES OF TURMOIL, TENSION, AND TRAGEDY. CANADA, BELGIUM, MALAYSIA, LEBANON-ALL FACE CRISES OF NATIONAL EXISTENCE IN WHICH MINORITIES PRESS FOR AUTONOMY, IF NOT INDEPENDENCE. PAKISTAN AND CYPRUS HAVE DIVIDED. NIGERIA SUPPRESSED AN ETHNIC REBELLION. FRANCE FACES DIFFICULTIES WITH ITS BASQUES, BRETONS, AND CORSICANS.

II. I WOULD THEN INVENT “MULTICULTURALISM” AND ENCOURAGE IMMIGRANTS TO MAINTAIN THEIR OWN CULTURE. I WOULD MAKE IT AN ARTICLE OF BELIEF THAT ALL CULTURES ARE EQUAL: THAT THERE ARE NO CULTURAL DIFFERENCES THAT ARE IMPORTANT. I WOULD DECLARE IT AN ARTICLE OF FAITH THAT THE BLACK AND HISPANIC DROPOUT RATE IS ONLY DUE TO PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION BY THE MAJORITY. EVERY OTHER EXPLANATION IS OUT-OF-BOUNDS.

III. WE CAN MAKE THE UNITED STATES A “HISPANIC QUEBEC” WITHOUT MUCH EFFORT. THE KEY IS TO CELEBRATE DIVERSITY RATHER THAN UNITY. AS BENJAMIN SCHWARZ SAID IN THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY RECENTLY: …THE APPARENT SUCCESS OF OUR OWN MULTIETHNIC AND MULTICULTURAL EXPERIMENT MIGHT HAVE BEEN ACHIEVED NOT BY TOLERANCE BUT BY HEGEMONY. WITHOUT THE DOMINANCE THAT ONCE DICTATED ETHNOCENTRICALLY, AND WHAT IT MEANT TO BE AN AMERICAN, WE ARE LEFT WITH ONLY TOLERANCE AND PLURALISM TO HOLD US TOGETHER.

I WOULD ENCOURAGE ALL IMMIGRANTS TO KEEP THEIR OWN LANGUAGE AND CULTURE. I WOULD REPLACE THE MELTING POT METAPHOR WITH A SALAD BOWL METAPHOR. IT IS IMPORTANT TO INSURE THAT WE HAVE VARIOUS CULTURAL SUB-GROUPS LIVING IN AMERICA REINFORCING THEIR DIFFERENCES RATHER THAN AMERICANS, EMPHASIZING THEIR SIMILARITIES.

IV. HAVING DONE ALL THIS, I WOULD MAKE OUR FASTEST GROWING DEMOGRAPHIC GROUP THE LEAST EDUCATED - I WOULD ADD A SECOND UNDERCLASS, UNASSIMILATED, UNDEREDUCATED, AND ANTAGONISTIC TO OUR POPULATION. I WOULD HAVE THIS SECOND UNDERCLASS HAVE A 50% DROP OUT RATE FROM SCHOOL.

V. I WOULD THEN GET THE BIG FOUNDATIONS AND BIG BUSINESS TO GIVE THESE EFFORTS LOTS OF MONEY. I WOULD INVEST IN ETHNIC IDENTITY, AND I WOULD ESTABLISH THE CULT OF VICTIMOLOGY. I WOULD GET ALL MINORITIES TO THINK THEIR LACK OF SUCCESS WAS ALL THE FAULT OF THE MAJORITY - I WOULD START A GRIEVANCE INDUSTRY BLAMING ALL MINORITY FAILURE ON THE MAJORITY POPULATION.

VI. I WOULD ESTABLISH DUAL CITIZENSHIP AND PROMOTE DIVIDED LOYALTIES. I WOULD “CELEBRATE DIVERSITY.” “DIVERSITY” IS A WONDERFULLY SEDUCTIVE WORD. IT STRESSES DIFFERENCES RATHER THAN COMMONALITIES. DIVERSE PEOPLE WORLDWIDE ARE MOSTLY ENGAGED IN HATING EACH OTHER-THAT IS, WHEN THEY ARE NOT KILLING EACH OTHER. A DIVERSE,” PEACEFUL, OR STABLE SOCIETY IS AGAINST MOST HISTORICAL PRECEDENT. PEOPLE UNDERVALUE THE UNITY IT TAKES TO KEEP A NATION TOGETHER, AND WE CAN TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS MYOPIA. LOOK AT THE ANCIENT GREEKS. DORF’S WORLD HISTORY TELLS US:

THE GREEKS BELIEVED THAT THEY BELONGED TO THE SAME RACE; THEY POSSESSED A COMMON LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE; AND THEY WORSHIPED THE SAME GODS. ALL GREECE TOOK PART IN THE OLYMPIC GAMES IN HONOR OF ZEUS AND ALL GREEKS VENERATED THE SHRINE OF APOLLO AT DELPHI. A COMMON ENEMY PERSIA THREATENED THEIR LIBERTY. YET, ALL OF THESE BONDS TOGETHER WERE NOT STRONG ENOUGH TO OVERCOME TWO FACTORS . . . (LOCAL PATRIOTISM AND GEOGRAPHICAL CONDITIONS THAT NURTURED POLITICAL DIVISIONS . . .)

IF WE CAN PUT THE EMPHASIS ON THE “PLURIBUS,” INSTEAD OF THE “UNUM,” WE CAN BALKANIZE AMERICA AS SURELY AS KOSOVO.

VII. THEN I WOULD PLACE ALL THESE SUBJECTS OFF LIMITS - MAKE IT TABOO TO TALK ABOUT. I WOULD FIND A WORD SIMILAR TO “HERETIC” IN THE 16TH CENTURY - THAT STOPPED DISCUSSION AND PARALYZED THINKING. WORDS LIKE “RACIST”, “XENOPHOBE” THAT HALTS ARGUMENT AND CONVERSATION.

HAVING MADE AMERICA A BILINGUAL-BICULTURAL COUNTRY, HAVING ESTABLISHED MULTICULTURALISM, HAVING THE LARGE FOUNDATIONS FUND THE DOCTRINE OF “VICTIMOLOGY”, I WOULD NEXT MAKE IT IMPOSSIBLE TO ENFORCE OUR IMMIGRATION LAWS. I WOULD DEVELOP A MANTRA - “THAT BECAUSE IMMIGRATION HAS BEEN GOOD FOR AMERICA, IT MUST ALWAYS BE GOOD.” I WOULD MAKE EVERY INDIVIDUAL IMMIGRANT SYMPATRIC AND IGNORE THE CUMULATIVE IMPACT.

VIII. LASTLY, I WOULD CENSOR VICTOR HANSON DAVIS’S [Correction: the author is Victor Davis Hanson - ed.] BOOK MEXIFORNIA — THIS BOOK IS DANGEROUS — IT EXPOSES MY PLAN TO DESTROY AMERICA. SO PLEASE, PLEASE — IF YOU FEEL THAT AMERICA DESERVES TO BE DESTROYED — PLEASE, PLEASE — DON’T BUY THIS BOOK! THIS GUY IS ON TO MY PLAN.

“THE SMART WAY TO KEEP PEOPLE PASSIVE AND OBEDIENT IS TO STRICTLY LIMIT THE SPECTRUM OF ACCEPTABLE OPINION, BUT ALLOW VERY LIVELY DEBATE WITHIN THAT SPECTRUM.” — NOAM CHOMSKY, AMERICAN LINGUIST AND US MEDIA AND FOREIGN POLICY CRITIC.

How about this method of destroying the United States?:

First, ensure that no-one within the United States knows how to speak any language other than English. Let's leave those piles of Arabic and Farsi intelligence transcripts untranslated. All American ambassadors, diplomats and intelligence agents should conduct their business exclusively in English. Tourists should, of course, speak only English, preferably VERY LOUDLY. Attempts to understand or appreciate other languages will be prosecuted; foreign language teachers will be shot. The international hatred this will produce will speedily bring attacks from foreign nations and a cessation of international trade.

Second, to destroy America, we should propound a myth of history whereby enlightened white people took possession of an empty land because God told them to make a new Israel. Suppress, ignore, distort or lampoon anyone who suggests that American Indians were killed unjustly, that black people were unhappy in slavery, or that any person of any ethnic minority has experienced discrimination or abuse. Suggest that as this is God's nation, and God's nation is perfect, any experience people have of such discrimination or abuse is their fault or their imagination. The disjunction between this myth and the day-to-day experiences of nonwhite Americans will create racial violence on an unheard of scale.

Third, we could ignore the contributions to American history of anyone descended from black people, American Indians, Indian Indians, Asians, Irish, Polish, Italians, Greeks, or in fact anyone other than English people. One non-English ancestor will suffice for exclusion. This will neatly exclude the 20th-century contributions of both Roosevelts (Dutch), Eisenhower (German), Kennedy (Irish) and Reagan (Irish). If our schoolchildren learn nothing of the achievements of these presidents, they will live in invincible ignorance of their history and the history of other nations, and there's no easier way to destroy a nation than that.

Fourth, I would overturn Brown v. Board of Education and cease all efforts to educate nonwhite people immediately. It obviously hasn't worked, they're not capable of it, and they are better off returning to whatever germ-infested rathole they came from. Well, I'll be better off anyway, and my children won't have to sit next to them and listen to them struggle. This will force America to support an ageing white population on the back of a rapidly diminishing number of workers, leading to a high-tax and low-productivity economy.

My fifth point for destroying America would be to enlist businesses and big conservative foundations in pushing for a theocratic, whites-only vision of America, grounded in a cult of Manifest Destiny. I would get poor whites to believe that their lack of success was the fault of the immigrants and the blacks. I would start organizations with silly names and costumes dedicated to preventing minorities from succeeding, and institute laws to segregate them from any occupation or neighborhood that might enable them to participate in the American Dream. After all, it worked so well last time around that we should really bring it back.

My sixth plan for America's downfall would be to forbid any expression of pride in one's ancestry that is not purely American or English (see above). St. Patrick's day, pizza and tchotchkes would all be outlawed. Instead of "E Pluribus Unum", we can have "Ex Unus Cruor, Unum" - From One Blood, One. Fallacies concerning the ancient Greeks would be compulsory reading. American consumers would be required to eat boiled cabbage, boiled potatoes and overcooked beef for every meal. The anger created by mandatory English cooking would create rebellion in every city outside Georgia, for whom it would probably be an improvement.

Next to last, I would place any discussion of racial or class divisions in today's America off-limits. Racism, sexism and classism are dead, so any expression of racist, sexist or classist opinions must really be something else - say, an obvious misunderstanding by a humorless black b*tch. There's no better way to sharpen divisions than to pretend they don't exist. I would furthermore introduce a healthy climate of informing and suspicion by requiring all patriotic Americans to report any illegal immigrants to the authorities. Once you get people in the habit of informing on the illegal activities of their neighbors, it's easy to extend it to non-immigration-related activities. We can have a file on everyone, and attain unchecked executive power - at which point "America" as we knew it will be dead.

Lastly, in the manner of Mao's Little Red Book and the novels of Saddam Hussein, I would make it compulsory to purchase, read and memorize Victor Hanson Davis's book Mexifornia. The space freed up in libraries by removing un-American books can be filled up by numberless copies of his book. His royalties will make him the richest man in America, and with luck I will get to be his Groom of the Stool.

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