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Pat Buchanan is both wrong and factually incorrect, however, to attribute these facts --- as disturbing as they are --- to some intrinsic inability of some peoples. Not original either; this has been said so many times before --- about Irish, Italians, Jews, Vietnamese. And, time after time, this position has been proven wrong.

If you insist on attacking Buchanan, at least attack what he said, not what you thought he said. If you read the quote from Buchanan in the thread, to which your statement refers, he did not suggest an intrinsic inability in some peoples, but an inability in our Society to as easily assimilate them. That idea has not been disproven, "time after time." Indeed the evidence of its validity is all around you. Open your eyes.

There are, of course, Irish, Italians and Jews, who fit in very well with the American mainstream, with which they are fully immersed. There are also Irish, Italian and Jewish neighborhoods in larger cities, where those who do not fit in so easily remain. If you wanted to establish an index, you would find that all groups do not assimilate with the same ease, as evidenced by the greater percentage of some groups that do not really assimilate at all.

And in the above, we are talking about Caucasian immigrants from a European background. The further you get from the basic backgrounds that helped define America, the greater the problem will be.

And you do not refute these problems by pointing to people at the top of the intelligence scale, who do very well indeed, and are able to use material success to protect themselves from some of the problems in adjustment that others have. (Private schools can adjust to the cultural idiosyncrasies, whether rooted in innate traits or social environment, a lot easier than can the public.) And to return to the point that Pat actually made, our ability to assimilate them; we don't have to worry if they live on large lots, and privately educate their children. But it is not the same with the larger groups now pouring in from the Third World.

It has become something of a fashion, lately, to bash Pat. And while, I have to distance myself from his views on World Trade, and from his opposition to the War to liberate Kuwait, I find this very unfortunate. Pat still has a lot to add on our side of the general ideological debate, even if he occasionally strays.

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site