Mark Steyn: All men are not equal

The Spectator (U.K.) ^ | 08/13/05 | Mark Steyn

[timsbella]

I take back the extent of the Anglo influence, clearly their food was very good and needed not the influence of all things boiled ;)

[TChris]

‘British’ was the prototype multiethnic nationality: if you were a doctor from Kingston-on-Thames or a nurse from Kingston, Jamaica, or an assistant choreographer from Kingston, Ontario, you were British — and, unlike the Germans, race didn’t come into it. ‘The British,’ wrote Colin Powell of his Jamaican background, ‘told my ancestors that they were now British citizens with all the rights of any subject of the Crown.’ That’s correct: in law, there was no distinction between a British subject in Wales and a British subject in Tobago. Britishness was far more of a genuinely multicultural identity than the yawning we-are-the-world nullity of modern multiculturalism. I’m still a wee young thing but my earliest passports bore in bold print on page three the words ‘A Canadian citizen is a British subject.’ It requires a perverse ahistorical fanaticism to decide that Britishness is some shrivelled Little-Englander thing that should never be passed on to our children. It’s always been the great outward, global, embracing identity.

I realize this is only one theme from the article, and not really even the main one, but here goes:

Oh what I wouldn't give for the US at large to return to this philosophy! Why do so many immigrants come to the USA and seek to import their failed cultures with them? If your way was so terrific, why did you flee to the US? If the US is great, and it is, then why not become an American?

Why isn't it an honor to be American instead of the marginal, because-this-is-where-I-happen-to-live designations of African-American, Hispanic-American, etc.? Why marginalize what is the most successful, powerful, wealthy, liberating nation in the history of the world? Celebrate the timeless principles and virtues that tie all Americans together.

Be proud to be American, above all the rest of your heritage! Yes, your ancestry makes you what you are, but your American citizenship is what gives it potential, opportunity and liberty. That, fellow American, is worth your undying allegience to the United States of America and its Constitution.

[dead]

Bump! Great stuff, as always.

[TChris]

By pretending that all cultures are equal, multiculturalism doesn’t ‘preserve’ traditional cultures so much as sustain them in an artificial state that ensures they’ll develop bizarre pathologies and mutate into some freakish hybrid of the worst of both worlds.

Another priceless truth, well written, from Steyn, the master.

[Colonel_Flagg]

By pretending that all cultures are equal, multiculturalism doesn’t ‘preserve’ traditional cultures so much as sustain them in an artificial state that ensures they’ll develop bizarre pathologies and mutate into some freakish hybrid of the worst of both worlds.

As if we needed any more proof, this is an indication of why Steyn is the best.

[Colonel_Flagg]

We seem to agree. :)

[Rummyfan]

He’s a lawyer, his son was an engineer and qualified pilot (well, except for the landing and take-off part, which he told his flight school he didn’t need to learn). But they’re kookier than the most in-bred backwoods up-country yakherd.

Ha ha! They do suffer from inbreeding BTW!

[untenured]

Even in the dodgier parts of the globe, a good rule of thumb is head for the joint that was under British rule the longest: try doing business in Malaysia and then in Indonesia and you’ll see what I mean.

This is well-supported by research, which indicates that both British colonial heritage and length of colonial heritage are good predictors of post-independence economic performance.

It is an utter tragedy that the looniness of too much of Islamic culture is not a permissible topic of discussion in too much of the educated world. I think the utter disconnect from reality is a bigger problem than the hatred of the other (Buddhists in Thailand, Hindus in Kashmir, Jews in Israel and France, etc.) that we talk about so much.

The journalist Youssef Ibrahim has recently argued that we are rapidly approaching a point at which the West will simply refuse to have any contact with the Islamic world, which will cause them to sink further into corruption, penury and surreality. That is actually not the worst possible outcome. If an Islamic group gets and uses an atomic bomb terrible things are going to happen. The nuttier parts of the Muslim world simply have to be made accountable by sane people across civilizations before these things happen.

India, China and Humanity.

[Rummyfan]

I fell sorry for the children. But anyone who grows up in that culture and manages to maintain a lick of sense should get the hell out of it!!!!

[snarks_when_bored]

It's completely clear that the people behind a 'mass movement' are cold-hearted self-aggrandizing bastards when they recruit little children into their dramas of hatred.

[facedown]

BTTT

[McGavin999]

That article is breathtaking in it's accuracy!

[untenured]

Why do so many immigrants come to the USA and seek to import their failed cultures with them?

It's my view that immigrants don't want that for the most part. Children of immigrants in particular in my experience are often desperate to be as American as they can. It's native multiculturalists who try to impose this model of cultural preservation through the schools, entertainment, etc. I've read that the biggest opponents of bilingual education in CA before it was rolled back were immigrants from Latin America, who desperately wanted their children to learn English. The most troublesome foe is the one closest to home.

India, China and Humanity.

[Tax-chick]

Too true ... generations of first-cousin marriages give you a substantial genetic drift.

[johnb838]

The Anglo-American Alliance will Rule the World. Sleeping Giant, Awake!

[Rummyfan]

The journalist Youssef Ibrahim has recently argued that we are rapidly approaching a point at which the West will simply refuse to have any contact with the Islamic world, which will cause them to sink further into corruption, penury and surreality. That is actually not the worst possible outcome. If an Islamic group gets and uses an atomic bomb terrible things are going to happen. The nuttier parts of the Muslim world simply have to be made accountable by sane people across civilizations before these things happen.

We are trying to get their attention through our efforts in Iraq. But I fear their 'culture' is just too far gone into madness and frankly cockamanie theories (Read: the Evil Zionists did it!) to draw them back. Add the insularity and harshness of Islam, a cult one joins but can never leave, and you have the recipe for cultural disaster. If the nuclear option is unleashed, woe betide the Islamic civilization.

[Mark was here]

In theory all men are created with the same rights, it is just that some are surrounded by those who choose to ignore the concept of rights.

[squarebarb]

I have also seen this first-hand among the Canadian Inuit and Canadian Indians. They live in a total welfare state, cradle to grave.

Everything is supplied for them except hope, independence, self-reliance.

They've learned now for seveeral generations to blame the White Man for everything and beg the White Man for more.

The big bureaucracies that control them are killing them.

It has everything to say about out-of-control bureaucracies that nobody can rein in.

[aculeus]

Great one!

[timsbella]

Yes. The killer is EVERYTHING is free. I have a girlfriend who is - no kidding - one sixteeth Metis (for those who don't know, the Metis were the first natives to marry fur traders, so already they are a diluted nation) . She learned this doing a genealogy search so the first thing she did was get first nations status cards. The upshot? both of her teenagers just got a "go to university free" card. She saved her self literally tens of thousands of dollars.

I suppose somebody has to use the resources productively.