Posted on 05/02/2004 5:44:14 AM PDT by don-o
Your new book, ''Who Are We? The Challenges to America's National Identity,'' suggests that Hispanic immigrants are undermining the greatness of the United States.
Over 50 percent of the immigrants coming into the country are Hispanic, from Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America. And about half of the people coming into the country speak a single, non-English language. That is totally unprecedented.
Some of us find it surprising that a man like yourself, a Harvard professor and an eminent political scientist, would see the trend toward bilingualism as such a threat.
There are perfectly decent, responsible, democratic countries, like Canada and Belgium, that are bilingual. But that does create its own distinctive set of problems.
But aren't those problems relatively small? Doesn't America's greatness lie in its ability to assimilate all kinds of people?
The founding fathers were ambivalent about immigration. They invented the word ''immigrant'' in the English language to describe the people coming in who were different than themselves. They did say if immigrants come, they should be dispersed.
Your book implicitly endorses Anglo-Protestant values.
Would America be the country it has been and still is, pretty much today, if in the 17th and 18th centuries it had been settled not by British Protestants but by French, Spanish or Portuguese Catholics? The answer is no. It would not be America. It would be Quebec or Mexico or Brazil.
But we've welcomed waves of immigrants since. Immigration has been central to American development, as well as my personal life. My wife is the daughter of an Armenian immigrant who assimilated totally and successfully, as immigrants should..
How, exactly, would you define the culture that you think immigrants need to embrace? .
We are talking about the core culture of this country, which derives from the founding settlers and includes the work ethic and individualism. It also includes the English language, English legal institutions, social institutions and customs..
What about English food? Wouldn't you rather have pizza or sushi than shepherd's pie?.
I'm not talking about culture in that sense. I am talking about a whole set of values.
Are you an immigrant? I hope you're not one of those Mayflower snobs.
The Huntingtons arrived in Boston in 1633. Almost all Huntingtons in the U.S. are descended from Simon and Margaret Huntington, who were part of a group of settlers from Norwich, England, who founded Norwich, Conn.
Did you grow up in a WASP-y mansion in Connecticut with servants?
WASP yes, servants no. I grew up in an apartment in Astoria, Queens..
Do you think that there is any truth to the stereotypical view of WASP's as emotionally cold people? .
Wait a minute. You're talking about people. I am not talking about people. I am talking about ideas and practices..
What do you say to the fact that about 10 percent of the U.S. soldiers serving in Iraq are Hispanic? .
Again you are talking about people. .
What else is there besides people?
There is what people believe, what their assumptions are. I am concerned about the degree to which people -- whatever their color -- believe in the American creed and accept American values..
What political party do you belong to?
I'm an old-fashioned Democrat. I was dead-set against us going into Iraq. .
Will you vote for Kerry, then?
Oh, yeah. I've met him several times. He lives a few blocks away from me on Beacon Hill..
How can you reconcile being a Democrat with your views on immigration and assimilation?
Actually, both parties are divided on immigration. And as a scholar I have a responsibility to study society and try to call people's attention to things they might not welcome looking at.
What silly questions! I am surprised that he submitted to such.
Can I get in trouble over this?
Mash this. But, I posted the full article.
Last time I exerpted a NYTimes, I got yelled at for that.
Did a Google and found
Looking the World in the Eye
BY ROBERT D. KAPLAN
snip
"And he adds this coda, about the world in which we live:
'It is a dangerous place, in which large numbers of people resent our wealth, power, and culture, and vigorously oppose our efforts to persuade or coerce them to accept our values of human rights, democracy, and capitalism. In this world America must learn to distinguish among our true friends who will be with us and we with them through thick and thin; opportunistic allies with whom we have some but not all interests in common; strategic partner-competitors with whom we have a mixed relationship; antagonists who are rivals but with whom negotiation is possible; and unrelenting enemies who will try to destroy us unless we destroy them first.'" Link
The United States must take this opportunity to accomplish two things: first, to draw the nations of the West more tightly together; and second, to try to understand more realistically how the world looks through the eyes of other people. This is a time for a kind of tough-minded humility in our objectives and for an implacable but measured approach in our methods.
And then Kaplan himself writes:
Real conservatism cannot aspire to lofty principles, because its task is to defend what already exists. The conservative dilemma is that conservatism's legitimacy can come only from being proved right by events, whereas liberals, whenever they are proved wrong, have universal principles to fall back on.
This surely isn't true of todays Democrats. Huntington's party is unable to reconcile universal principles with self interest. For too many of them they cannot coexist.
Major difference - Huntington makes the pragmatic argument based on reality.
The current Democrat argument is based on expediency and an unwillingness (or inability) to accept reality.
Kerry and those he seeks to ally us with, share a fatal delusion about the nature of the enemies that wish to topple us. They do not (cannot allow themselves to) believe that such evil is speading like a cancer.
It's the old Rodney King, "Can't we all just get along?"
Demographics will weaken Americas militaristic approach to the world. Much of Bushs support comes from white fundamentalist Christian men. This, in my opinion, is a social group that is fighting a rearguard battle against the growing social power of women, immigrants and other religions. It is also fighting against secularism, such as the teaching of modern biology and evolutionary theory.The religious rights backward looking agenda and the Manichaean worldview that underlies it is doomed. The US Census Bureau recently found that by 2050, the non-Hispanic white population of the US is likely to be only half of the total US population, down from 69 per cent currently. By 2050, 24 per cent of the population will be Hispanic, 14 per cent will be African-American, and 8 per cent Asian.
The US will look more like the world, especially Latin America.
And my comments on that thread: As I've said on many recent threads on immigration, it is only "conservatives" who pretend that immigration won't alter America, for pretty much the same reason that the 98-pound weakling pretends not to notice the bully peeing on his shoes. Liberals know better. They don't support mass-immigration because they think diversity is our strength, they support it as a form of explicit cultural genocide to bring about certain social and political results, as this author makes clear.
More and more people are waking up to the fact that mass-immigration means the extermination of their country, culture, and people. We're seeing more and more articles that talk about the end of Western civilization. This is easier for Americans, blinded by the "We're a nation of immigrants" chant, to see in Europe. The fact is that no matter how much you tout multiracialism, monolingualism, ending immigrant welfare abuse, etc. countries like, say, Holland are going to end up with a Muslim majority if things keep going the way they are going. And it's becoming increasingly difficult to pretend that doesn't matter. Huntington goes about 90% of the way but will not question his opponents motives.
A point by point on this aritcle later, perhaps.
Well, he is a professor and scholar, after all, not a psychologist. What can one posit for motive of the opponent?
Some sort of self loating and death wish?
Don't know.
Look forward to more. In the meantime, I need to see what Oriana Fallaci is up to. Last I heard, she has a new book.
The Weekly Standard had an interesting article on Huntington. I don't buy their view completely, but the idea was that "culturalism" vs. "creedalism" is a continuum, not an either-or, as it's so often made out to be. The review's author claimed that in past decades, Huntington was very much a "creedalist", maybe too much a believer in "proposition country" America, and now he's gone to the other extreme. Whether one agrees or not, it was a more intelligent view than usual, avoided the empty charges of "racism," and recognized that the answer probably lies somewhere in the middle.
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