Posted on 08/21/2006 9:08:47 AM PDT by churchillbuff
Thanks for noticing that my tagline is a RR quote. It's one of my favorites.
First of all, I am in no way advocating not "looking out for America first." I believe that looking out for America is the purpose of the WOT. It seems to be that many, including Pat Buchanan, fail to understand that very crucial aspect of the reality that is modern day America. We are fighting for our very existence, much like Israel. Second of all, the end of Israel is the end of the USA. Their enemies are our enemies - and make no mistake about it, after the terrorists destroy Israel, they're headed for us.
And we were not "drag[ged]" into wars "in any number of countries." We, the USA, made a concerted and conscious decision to liberate Iraq and Afghanistan for many reasons, namely the security of our own country.
Thirdly, although I respect RR to no end, perhaps his greatest (and one of his only) mistake was allowing the cesspool that is Hizb'Allah to thrive in Lebanon. Terrorism as we know it stemmed from the early 80's when Hizb'Allah's acts of terrorism went mostly unanswered. So, although isolationism sounds good in an editorial or in a speech, the reality is that isolationism is a death sentence for our country. We can chose to ignore our enemies and live a blissful life over here and await another 9/11. Thankfully, however, we have a leader who knows what is best for our safety. Isolationism will only lead to our destruction.
But I'm a little tired of the hysterical demonization of Mexican immigrants by nativists.
And you do make an interesting point about the state of civil society in Mexico - Mexico is exporting more non-Communist voters than Communist voters. Entrepreneurial people come to the US. I'll bet Calderon would have won by a comfortable margin had a million or so Mexicans been in Mexico instead of Texas and California on election day.
--"Fifty years ago, the Protestants of "North European Reformation culture" worried about the influence that the Roman Catholic immigrants from southern and eastern Europe would have on our nation."--
When the great "Second wave" of mostly Catholic and Jewish immigrants from southern and eastern Europe occured, roughly 80-110 years ago, the United States was still a young, robust, fast-growing nation which needed these people. However, nations are living things, and all living things age (as it needed the Irish, Germans and Nordics of the pre-Civil War first wave). Now, the United States is in the autumn of its years, it is slowing down economically, politically, militarily and culturally (not as badly as Old Europe, but we are getting there!), and can no longer absorb large numbers of immigrants. This is perhaps why so many wind up on welfare or in criminal gangs; there is, unlike the case of the european immigrant of 100 years ago, no longer real work for them to do.
We still have room for some immigrants, but they need to be pre-screened. We need to be selective. We need to secure our borders and screen applicants for residency using medical examinations, background checks, psychological profiles, English proficiency, sponsorship by an American citizen that will be held monetarily responsible for the applicant and the possession of useful job skills as entrance criteria.
How long would an American university survive, if they were forced to admit non-English speaking, grammar school dropouts and the criminally insane that they were forced to support forever should they fail to graduate them with a degree and find them gainful employment.
Think about it. That's just what the U.S. Taxpayers are being forced to do.
Non-English speaking, disease ridden, in some cases criminally insane illegal aliens, lacking any useful job skills or education are crossing our borders and we're forced to train and educate them or support them for the rest of their natural lives.
And that's what's wrong with Pat. He is describing something that is already over. If all immigration were to end tonight, at the stroke of midnight, the US would still become a majority Latino country, simply 15 years later.
Pat was right in 1965. But now, he's not offering solutions, just observations about something that already happened. The problem now isn't illegal immigrants, or legal immigrants; it's
without losing our own culture?
Pat has given us a blinding glimpse of the obvious. What do we do about it ?
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