Posted on 02/26/2008 2:39:05 PM PST by neverdem
The US must be a melting pot – not a salad bowl.
Future generations may look back on Iraq and immigration as the two great disasters of the Bush presidency. Ironically, for a conservative administration, both of these policy initiatives were rooted in a multicultural view of the world.
Since the 1960s, multiculturalism has become a dominant feature of the political and intellectual landscape of the West. But multiculturalism rests on a frail foundation: cultural relativism, the notion that no culture is better or worse than any other – it is merely different.
When it comes to democratic continuity, social justice, and prosperity, some cultures do far better than others. Research at Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, summarized in my recent book, "The Central Liberal Truth: How Politics Can Change a Culture and Save It From Itself," makes this clear.
Extensive data suggest that the champions of progress are the Nordic countries – Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden – where, for example, universal literacy was a substantial reality in the 19th century. By contrast, no Arab country today is democratic, and female illiteracy in some Arab countries exceeds 50 percent.
Culture isn't about genes or race; it's about values, beliefs, and attitudes. Culture matters because it influences a society's receptivity to democracy, justice, entrepreneurship, and free-market institutions.
What, then, are the implications for a foreign policy based on the doctrine that "These values of freedom are right and true for every person, in every society"? The Bush administration has staked huge human, financial, diplomatic, and prestige resources on this doctrine's applicability in Iraq. It is now apparent that the doctrine is fallacious...
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
The US must be a melting pot – not a salad bowl.................................bears repeating-—endlessly!
You can’t write any article for any major publication and maintain any credibility unless you find some way to excoriate President Bush and at least one of his policies, no matter how incongruent it is to the topic of the article.
Bttt.
Or an egg crate.
The title of the article usually comes after the article was written.
I recommend “The Return of the Primitive” by Ayn Rand and Peter Schwartz. Published after Rand died, Schwartz uses her speeches and writings to make a scathing critique of multiculturalism.
Yes, they were really off the mark.
Only leftist flakes believe this nonsense.
And they can be convinced otherwise quite easily.
Just let them go live in some of these "equally good" cultures and see how quickly they want to get back to the USA.
A country that loses its culture is doomed and headed for war and instability. Our culture is based on the Common Law, Christian charity, individual rights and protection of property/capitalism. Lose any of these, and the United States will cease to exist.
btt
[Our commitment to democracy is also tested in the Middle East,
which is my focus today, and must be a focus of American policy for
decades to come. In many nations of the Middle East — countries of
great strategic importance — democracy has not yet taken root. And
the questions arise: Are the peoples of the Middle East somehow
beyond the reach of liberty? Are millions of men and women and
children condemned by history or culture to live in despotism? Are
they alone never to know freedom, and never even to have a choice in
the matter? I, for one, do not believe it. I believe every person
has the ability and the right to be free.
Some skeptics of democracy assert that the traditions of Islam are
inhospitable to the representative government. This “cultural
condescension,” as Ronald Reagan termed it, has a long history.
After the Japanese surrender in 1945, a so-called Japan expert
asserted that democracy in that former empire would “never work.”
Another observer declared the prospects for democracy in post-Hitler
Germany are, and I quote, “most uncertain at best” — he made that
claim in 1957. Seventy-four years ago, The Sunday London Times
declared nine-tenths of the population of India to be “illiterates
not caring a fig for politics.” Yet when Indian democracy was
imperiled in the 1970s, the Indian people showed their commitment to
liberty in a national referendum that saved their form of
government.
Time after time, observers have questioned whether this country, or
that people, or this group, are “ready” for democracy — as if
freedom were a prize you win for meeting our own Western standards
of progress. In fact, the daily work of democracy itself is the path
of progress. It teaches cooperation, the free exchange of ideas, and
the peaceful resolution of differences. As men and women are
showing, from Bangladesh to Botswana, to Mongolia, it is the
practice of democracy that makes a nation ready for democracy, and
every nation can start on this path.]- George W. Bush 2003
[While we must be cautious about forcing the pace of change, we must
not hesitate to declare our ultimate objectives and to take concrete
actions to move toward them. We must be staunch in our conviction
that freedom is not the sole prerogative of a lucky few but the
inalienable and universal right of all human beings. So states the
United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which, among
other things, guarantees free elections.
The objective I propose is quite simple to state: to foster the
infrastructure of democracy, the system of a free press, unions,
political parties, universities, which allows a people to choose
their own way to develop their own culture, to reconcile their own
differences through peaceful means.
This is not cultural imperialism; it is providing the means for
genuine self-determination and protection for diversity. Democracy
already flourishes in countries with very different cultures and
historical experiences. It would be cultural condescension, or
worse, to say that any people prefer dictatorship to democracy. Who
would voluntarily choose not to have the right to vote, decide to
purchase government propaganda handouts instead of independent
newspapers, prefer government to worker-controlled unions, opt for
land to be owned by the state instead of those who till it, want
government repression of religious liberty, a single political party
instead of a free choice, a rigid cultural orthodoxy instead of
democratic tolerance and diversity.]- Ronald Reagan 1982
Actually, all those things are intertwined, but I'll cut the guy some slack because he wouldn't have gotten printed if he'd been too forthright.
I’ve been saying this for years.
ping
If you ever get tired of your tag, the above is a great one.
I recall getting called a racist many times by so-called "conservatives" whenever I pointed out that trying to democratize an Islamic Arab country was going to be much more difficult, if not impossible.
I still don't think we're going to leave Iraq a democracy.
I recall getting called a racist many times by so-called "conservatives" whenever I pointed out that trying to democratize an Islamic Arab country was going to be much more difficult, if not impossible.
I still don't think we're going to leave Iraq a democracy.
What was your proposal, our own hand picked despot? IIRC, that was one of Al Qaeda's complaints.
My proposal was to give Allawi a free hand to bring order to the country, much like Attaturk did in Turkey.
History shows it is nearly impossible to bring a backward, tribal society rapidly into modernity without some interim period of benevolent dictatorship.
Every single country that has made this transition successfully in the 20th century has gone through such a period: Chile, Spain, Turkey, South Korea, and Taiwan. There is not a single instance of a country this century doing so without one.
Iran was well on its way, but then we stupidly pulled the plug on the Shah.
History shows it is nearly impossible to bring a backward, tribal society rapidly into modernity without some interim period of benevolent dictatorship.
Iyad Allawi had no legitimacy and fed the Sunni resistance to our defacto occupation. We prefer to think of it as bringing liberty and democracy, but you have to look at it from Sunni's viewpoint. How do you look at the current invasion from Latin America by illegals?
Every single country that has made this transition successfully in the 20th century has gone through such a period: Chile, Spain, Turkey, South Korea, and Taiwan. There is not a single instance of a country this century doing so without one.
All of those examples have a great deal of physical separation from their neighbors by water or mountain ranges. The first three were largely home grown despotisms. The last two had relatively friendly populations with reason to fear the commies.
Iran was well on its way, but then we stupidly pulled the plug on the Shah.
To the extent that the Shah was considered our SOB, I don't know if he could have stopped the Ayatollah and his minions. He was dying of cancer, and didn't have the wherewithal or stomach to put down the revolution. And the Shah wasn't considered a benevolent despot. God knows what the State Dept. of Cyrus Vance told the Shah.
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