The Hispanic Challenge (To America) A MUST READ Samuel Huntington (Long But Good)

Foreign Policy ^ | March 2004 | Samuel P. Huntington

[BlackElk]

I think I noted that this "blood and soil" ideology was Bismarckism and rumors are strong that he ran old Germany. My Irish ancestors ran into another form of "blood and soil"ism in the form of Boston Brahmins in the late 19th Century (Jobs available: No Irish Need Apply) and quickly booted their Brahmin backsides to the North Shore well outside of Boston never to rule Boston again. Of course, the Fitzgeralds and Kennedys were almost as bad and should have been thoroughly driven from Boston by James Michael Curley but he failed in that noble mission of candid Shanty Irish against the Lace Curtain poseur variety.

English Prods thought of our country as their colonies (part of their country albeit without voting rights). Our country has little to do with volkism as you call it. Volkism is very much part and parcel of border mania, however. Only those nations who cower in corners fearing the future adopt volkism.

My Church (RCC) has permanent principles. My nation has a constitution allowing for constitutional amendments and a SCOTUS in a seemingly permanent red hot passion for characterizing perversions and child murder as a constitutional right. That is why I am and always will be primarily Catholic and conditionally American (no blank checks to SCOTUS). The Mexicans are far greater allies of Western Civilization than are John Paul Stevens or Ruth Bader Ginsberg or Swish Souter or former disgraces like Sandra Day O'Connor (Unitarian Universalist and not Catholic).

Whatever the artistic talents of John Lennon, he was a miserably obsessed Marxist atheist who did great damage to our nation. I always found it interesting and comforting that his bullet found him on December 8, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.

Lennon was a virtual nihilist. I did not much care for his music either. The day that he and Paul and Ringo arrived at Idlewild was the real "day the music died."

Whatever it may please the border moonbats to imagine, those who favor the arrival of cultural allies from South of the Border are neither nihilists nor Marxists nor obsessive free traders. We may note that the USA's most traditional area, the South, has usually been favorable to free trade (see economic histories comparing the free trader agricultural South and the protectionist manufacturing North in the runup to the late 19th century unpleasantness between the states and Jude Wanniski's The Way the World Works on the question of the abandonment of free trade by Southern Senators directly triggering the 1929 Stock Market crash and worldwide depression).

Not only do I not want a homogenized world, but I celebrate that abortion and other lifestyle evils are less favored than they are here by our neighbors to the south (our reinforcements).

Rurudyne/A. Pole: Which is worse: 15 million "illegal" immigrants or 50 million slaughtered innocent babies with the thorough approval of the Junior League, Muffy and Skipper? Why?

[A. Pole]

English Prods thought of our country as their colonies (part of their country albeit without voting rights). Our country has little to do with volkism as you call it. Volkism is very much part and parcel of border mania, however. Only those nations who cower in corners fearing the future adopt volkism. My Church (RCC) has permanent principles. My nation has a constitution allowing for ...

Yet the Constitution was created by the British Protestants, not by the Catholics. They were informed by the tradition of Common Law and by such Protestant polities like Congregationalism (which departed from Anglican monarchy). Congregationalism is the very opposite of Roman Catholic style of government. The first is intensely democratic, moralistic and individualistic, the second is authoritative, deeply conscious of human weakness (think about the Sacrament of Confession) and communitarian.

You said: "Only those nations who cower in corners fearing the future adopt volkism."

Volkism was a German attempt to provide the substitute for religious spiritual unity - Germany was divided into Lutheran north and Catholic south - in order to unite Germany they invoked race and soil. This was a falsification, as true unity derives from religion and common culture.

United States after absorbing large number on non-Protestants lost the original collective self-understanding. This creates the temptation for the substitutes (other than volkism chosen by Germans), much more likely are Wilsonian global mission, elevating democracy to the new guiding principle etc ...

Well, we cannot reverse the history, the fact you and me would not be here if the other course were chosen in the past, as I said before, should not cloud out thinking.

Now the question is if America can or should conduct two new experiments -

1. bringing a large number of Mexicans/Latin Americans who have strong identity of their own
2. brining a large number of people from non-Christian countries, especially Muslims.

What type of unity can be worked out for so diverse people? What type of coercion (less or more formal like Political Correctness or stronger central government) will be applied? Will the original British concept of informal consensus and liberties survive this new phase?

[tacticalogic]

IMHO, historical reference may not map to the Hispanic situation very well. European immigrants coming to this country had to do so with at least some sense of "leaving behind" where they came from that Hispanic immigrants do not experience. Being able to go back and forth more or less with impunity makes it a very different psychological exercise.

[A. Pole]

European immigrants coming to this country had to do so with at least some sense of "leaving behind" where they came from that Hispanic immigrants do not experience. Being able to go back and forth more or less with impunity makes it a very different psychological exercise.

There is another thing. British settlers were very independent people, even in England kings were forced to accept the extensive code of liberties. Puritanism enforced this independence and American Revolution sealed it.

On the other hand, if we look at Mexico - the Spanish settlers were in part impoverished nobility looking for the serfs, the majority of population there derives from Indians subjugated earlier by despotic civilization, the Aztec one being the chief example. Spanish conquest was a LIBERATION by their standards a true gift offered by the strangers.

The main civilizing power was conservative and monarchical Church hostile to Reformation.

The society evolved into oligarchy ruling over disfranchised, the political system oscillating between populist uprisings and reactionary dictatorships.

The center of Mexican life is family, church and informal networks. The corruption is a method of survival.

[tacticalogic]

There is another thing. British settlers were very independent people, even in England kings were forced to accept the extensive code of liberties.

Maybe. My ancestors came here from Scotland, by the available information most likely traveling light and fast in the dead of night, with the British not far behind.

[livius]

You are confusing language, culture, religion, law and the political system and intellectual structure and rolling them up into one big ball. The latter two were drawn from European thought - not only British, but Continental. The legal system was based on the British common law system, although with modifications (except for Louisiana, which has a system based on Roman law, among other things).

Religion can be anything within the Judeo Christian sphere; Maryland was founded by Catholics and had a much more tolerant system than any of the other colonies that eventually became states. In addition, many low-church Protestants did not consider even the Anglicans to be Christians, so there was division even in what you are loosely calling the "Protestant" world. Congregationalism, which in our day is so liberal they are all just barely deists, was very rigid, authoritarian and theocratic, and our intellectual authors, such as Jefferson and others, were not part of it.

As for language, while the language of the US came very close to being German at one point, as the US consolidated and added states in the 19th century, the English language was always seen by any immigrant group as the way to get ahead and has always been learned by them. This doesn't mean they become English, though. Where would we be without such folks as the Eastern European Jewish immigrant kids who were the song writers of the 30s? But they didn't become WASPs - they simply wrote their songs in English, and wrote in a way that would appeal to the great majority of their fellow American citizens (who were by no means all WASPs).

I used to teach ESL for adults in New York and we had to turn people away from the classes. Some groups, such as Poles (the largest single group of illegals in NYC was for some time - and may still be - Poles, btw), lived very much in their own communities and would take a few classes and never return. But others, particularly Hispanics, were determined to get ahead and move beyond being hotel maids. So the secret with English is to make it more available, on the one hand, and more mandatory, on the other - no more "bilingual" ed (which means no education, actually), no more ballots in other languages, etc. The encouragement of the learning of English was actually part of Bush's immigration plan, which nobody here at FR liked and which, as a result, is being replaced by one that is much more "liberal."

As for culture, again, if the left had not been so aggressive at driving our shared holidays and traditions out of our schools, we would be much more integrated. But don't blame the immigrants. Put that energy into trying to get the schools to change their curricula and dump the five chapters on the glories of the Mayan calendar and instead put in a little bit about actual American history. It may interest you to know that North American Christmas customs are spreading throughout Latin America; at the same time, I don't see anything wrong with Americans taking some of the Latin American traditions, such as the Posadas, or the custom of building little replicas of Bethlehem or of bringing out the Niño for adoration after Christmas Mass. Many of the things that you probably think of as English in any case are actually German, and probably German Catholic, at that, since the Congregationalists and many other groups did not approve of religious imagery or celebrations and even Irish Catholics, because of centuries of persecution in their homeland, were a little weak on the colorful customs.

In other words, you are cutting your divisions too fine when you attempt to decide on what is a common culture. We already have a common culture that is not WASP culture. However, it is all essentially European culture, and the ideas that are behind it are European ideas, and the religion that shaped it is a Christianity that transmitted both the religion of the Jews and the philosophical understandings of Greece and Rome, shaped by the egalitarian revolution of Jesus Christ, where all were one and equal in Him.

The only question to me is whether we could survive without this, that is, under Islam, and my answer is no. For one thing, Islam is a theocracy (which is fundamentally anti-Christian and which even the Congregationalists finally rejected) and it has a legal system which has nothing to do with either common law or Roman law. In addition, it rejects the principle of equality under the law (which even the US has had to fight for) and in fact rejects the value of reason in any aspect of life. Not to mention the fact that it rejects figurative art, most music and dance, and just about anything we like in this society.

I'm all in favor of more Mexican immigrants, more Polish immigrants, more immigrants from any place that shares our essentially European philosophical background or is willing to respect it. Asian immigrants - who do not share it - respect it and have adapted very well. Muslims do not share it and do not respect it, and even those who have been born here and brought up in it despise it. So I think we have to cease worrying about things that are non-essential and have in fact already changed considerably over the centuries and have even varied from place to place and decide what is really essential. And then get the powers that be, such as the schools, to accept this.

While people here are sitting around hating Catholics and Hispanics, the Muslims are getting "prayer rooms" in the public schools and having the "call to prayer" broadcast on streets where the ACLU has tried to stop church bells.

[Tax-chick]

As for culture, again, if the left had not been so aggressive at driving our shared holidays and traditions out of our schools, we would be much more integrated. But don't blame the immigrants.

I would add, don't blame the immigrants for the welfare system, the free medical care, the repeat felons back out on the streets, or the general failure to promote literacy and moral character. All of these outrages are perpetrated by the United States governments (federal, state, and local), whose officials are elected by the United States' citizens.

Illegal immigrants didn't elect the pack of thieves in Raleigh. (Maybe Yankees did ...)

[Rurudyne]

Rurudyne/A. Pole: Which is worse: 15 million "illegal" immigrants or 50 million slaughtered innocent babies with the thorough approval of the Junior League, Muffy and Skipper? Why?

I think I have consistently argued that abortion is theologically evil, morally wrong, legally perverse, nationally suicidal and socially stupid.

I have also opined that we have an Illegal Alien problem in no small part because of all the holes in our nation where Citizens should be.

However, even if the two are not comparable in the degree of wrongness, nevertheless I will strongly oppose both since they stem from the same lawless wrongheadedness that infects the entire human race to one degree or another (but which is especially prevalent among those who have abandoned even goal oriented progress for a "progressivism" that only measures progress by what it no longer is––and like a plow team led by a blind farmer only tears up the landscape to no good effect).

[adam_smith_76]

My wife is from Panama, so I'm sort of an Hispanic by proxy and have some clout to comment... :)

That said, I've found that the educated Latinos assimilate very quickly because they work around mainstream Americans and they are mostly like us anyway. I've worked with lots of Mexican professionals here, and they fit right in. The poor, uneducated ones don't fit in. For instance: I called the Humane Society to ask a question, and I listened to the message in English, then Spanish. The English message was generic, but the Spanish message immediately told how to report dog fights. I know a vet at the H.S., and I asked her if dog fights were a problem. She said it's huge, and those responsible are almost always from Latin America. They bring a lot of the ugly aspects of Latin America right into the US, and I hate that.

But that is what happens when a Democratic Congress, weasel Republicans, and a willing president allow illegals to flood across the border. We don't get assimilation; we get Balkanizaion.

Oh, well, if we get overrun, I'm ahead of many of you people because I already speak Spanish. ;)

[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

Bump for reference again.

[Rurudyne]

Yet the Constitution was created by the British Protestants, not by the Catholics. They were informed by the tradition of Common Law and by such Protestant polities like Congregationalism (which departed from Anglican monarchy). Congregationalism is the very opposite of Roman Catholic style of government. The first is intensely democratic, moralistic and individualistic, the second is authoritative, deeply conscious of human weakness (think about the Sacrament of Confession) and communitarian.

I would go one further: because of the misdeeds of Randy Henry VIII the course of religious liberty in England, Wales and Scotland (but not Ireland for various reasons) took a different way than on the continent. A third way.

In the Catholic south, the struggle was for the State to have some measure of independence from the Church. Thus monarchs sought to expand their secular power as far as they dared. The ultimate expression of this was seen in the tumult of the French Revolution which was largely predicated on the desire to produce a purely secular State where "religious liberty" became something in a private box that people carried around with them.

In the Protestant north the struggle for religious liberty was very different. Even though the kings were ordinary parishioners one day a week––albeit with a really nice private pew––the rest of the week they were the king, and it's good to be the king. This gave rise to the birth of notions that these "Christian nations" were not such because of the Church per se but because of the People in the pews. This notion was skillfully woven into the notions which gave us modern nationalism as well as simpler creeds like volk. In such an environment there was tolerance of difference provided that in the end everyone was a "good" German (or whatever).

Aside: pity the people who weren't proverbial "good Germans" (or whatever).

But because of what Henry did in England the struggle was for the Church to have independence and autonomy from the State. The importance of this difference cannot be stressed enough.

Whereas in the Catholic south there arose a notion that the State should be free of the Church––with the logical inference that it should have some say in moral matters––in England (and especially Scotland) there arose an opposite and yet equal notion that the Church should be free from the State (something the Crown fought long and hard)––again with the logical inference that the People should have something to say about the affairs of the State ... even if they were religiously motivated. At issue is the logical absurdity of the notion of separation of Church AND State: two coexisting institutions with claims for the hearts and loyalties of the People cannot be mutually exclusive. Either the People will be free first and foremost in their duty to the State or they shall be first and foremost free in their duty to God. The French chose the former after we Americans chose the latter; however, either "choice" was predicated by a long history of social and legal development.

As for the contrast between England (but not especially Scotland –.^ ) and the Protestant north: the struggle for an independent Church clearly drew distinctions between Church and State that were blurred on the continent. As a result, I would suggest that English nationalism (and American) differed from the rest because it was not so tightly bound up with the alliance of Crown and Church. Thus before the rise of Social Theory someone could be a "good Englishman" and not necessarily be Christian at all. Indeed, it can clearly seen that nowadays one can be a "good Anglican" in England and be everything but Christian (especially if one is a clergyman).

Thus I would argue that the nature of religious liberty in America is constitutionally different than elsewhere: People are free first and foremost in their consciences towards God (and the State can settle for whatever crumbs remain) but there is a strong inhibition against setting up any specific doctrine or religious truth as a prerequisite for participation in society and its government so that no one is forced away from the table, so to speak.

My two cents.

[A. Pole]

You are confusing language, culture, religion, law and the political system and intellectual structure and rolling them up into one big ball.

All those things we try to separate in our mind. But in the actual reality they are entangled in one big ball.

The latter two were drawn from European thought - not only British, but Continental

"Drawing from [someone else] thought" usually not just replace what already is there. Rather some type of combination takes place underneath, with the deceiving appearance of likeness. When Japanese put on Western suits and ties, adopt Western institutions, you might think that they became same as West, just because they look the same.

[BlackElk]

You were asked to prioritize and choose which is worse: 15 million "illegal" immigrants or 50 million slaughtered innocent babies with the thorough approval of the Junior League, Muffy and Skipper and why.

You chose not to prioritize. I do. The lives of the babies are far more important than the social calcification of our country by measures rooted in fear of those who will renew our civilization.

You seem to suggest that there might be some sort of "moral" equivalence based upon the oft-cited but long dead rule of law. There is not.

If you plan on actively opposing abortion, what is your practical plan to bring about its end without the influx of substantial numbers of people who will also oppose abortion, have many children per family and vote?

[bornacatholic]

Yeah, and he neglected to point out that if it wasn't for the Spanish, we'd never have gained out independence. However, because the Spanish were, uh, Catholic, that doesn't make it into our history books.

[bornacatholic]

I could bore you with the details of the other branches of my family and their entrances to the US very likely "without papers. P>*Sounds like my Irish Grandfather who just moved from Canada to Vermont and bought some land and started farming, al without permission; 'cept from the old farmer who sold him the land

He was an illegal immigrant and my family are Corkies - radicals...

I think we Catholics who view immigrants through the prism of the Holy Family - they were, essentially, illegal immigrants in Egypt, and ought not have been rounded-up and deported, - are not exactly alone in our ideas...

[bornacatholic]

Congregationalism is the very opposite of Roman Catholic style of government. The first is intensely democratic, moralistic and individualistic, the second is authoritative, deeply conscious of human weakness (think about the Sacrament of Confession) and communitarian.

*You are conflating church and laity. Congregationalism is a lay community.

In any event, The Rule of St Benedict long predated the Congregationalists - who used to arrest Christians in Masachusettes for NOT working on Christmas - and the Great Saint and Doctor of the Church, Bellarmine, among others, was a major proponent of Democracy.

In fact, were it not the the Catholic Church, the Congregationalists would never had a Europe Civilisation from which to pilfer the few good ideas they had

[A. Pole]

In fact, were it not the the Catholic Church, the Congregationalists would never had a Europe Civilization from which to pilfer the few good ideas they had

True, but were it not for the Congregationalists and other Protestants we would not have Constitution and USA as it is. Maybe something like Canada mixed with Mexico ruled by a king.

[Rurudyne]

If your position is that I must choose which evil I would rather endure then you have completely missed a nuance in what I wrote. I do not desire the presence of Illegal Aliens––whose presence is both a violation of our laws and a violation of that privilege which the Citizens should have to decide for themselves the state of immigration.

I have not ever written that I oppose lawful immigration on any principal, so your assertion that I'm somehow for the "calcification" of the nation is so much sophistry (and in a bad way).

If I'm to oppose lawlessness then I will do so.

As for abortion, it is sustained by a cancerous form of lawlessness that I've decried and presented sound constitutional reasonings against here at FR and elsewhere. Not to bore you but here is a short characterization of one position which may be used against abortion:

One of the principal reasons for the 14th Amendment was to enumerate to Congress the power to respect politically sourced civil rights which the several States could not disparage (the "privileges or immunities" clause).

Article 3:Section 2 of the Constitution defines the enumerated authority of the Court. It should be stressed that the article does not describe the Court as it now operats, but rather describes a Court that is only "supreme" within a limited sphere of enumerated jurisdictions (please also note that the Constitution does not capitalize "supreme" as if to say that the Court is the definitive article ... maybe it is past time we stopped doing so ourselves). The supreme Court is not even the "Supreme Court" over the several States except for these enumerated authorities––which are relatively narrow even considering the 14th Amendment.

At no time prior to 1973 did Congress ever seek to respect a civil right to an abortion that the several States could not disparage, so no "Laws of the United States" were in anyway involved nor has the 9th Amendment ever been extended to cover the several States––a specific point in the debates about the 14th Amendment. Even if it were, the Common Laws that are the subject of the 9th Amendment are quite clear: abortion is indefensible.

Therefore, the Court was utterly out of place to even accept the Roe case, much less render an opinion on it. It is fully within the rights of any State, its own Supreme Court or its Legislature, to rebuke and revoke such a lawless measure as is the pretend authority of sCOTUS to rule on such a matter as they did.

In short, I am trying to convince people of the plain truth that not only was Roe a bad opinion and ruling, but it is one that they utterly had no privilege to attempt and that they can be countermanded by any entity with superior local authority over their own laws who is willing to stick to their guns ... not some imagined international law but rather the several States themselves.

Naturally, such a tactic will not prevent abortions in all States nor could it ever return one murdered child to life; however, this is one constitutionally based logic to oppose abortion that makes no appeal to anything but law.

As I said, I will oppose lawlessness no matter if it is a great evil or comparatively minor one.

It is your position that we must endure these people who impose themselves on us simply because they may have some positive benefit that is unjustifiable.

No benefit they can ever render can annul the fact that they truthfully have no right to even make a difference simply because they chose to be here outside of our laws.

[BlackElk]

While we have been arguing that the SCOTUS acted beyond its authority and unconstitutionally, 50 million innocents have been slaughtered with no end in sight. We argue. They ignore. They kill many more than a million per year by surgical abortions alone.

The 14th Amendment makes a distinction between a smaller group "citizens" and a larger group "persons." "Persons" has been held to include corporations. "Persons" also includes those natural persons who are NOT citizens but are present within our borders. The constitution says what it says and not what the border types wish it said. For example, any court would make short work of dismissing a governmental claim that police officers are able to wantonly beat non-citizens but not to so beat citizens. Equal protection extends to non-citizens who are persons.

If the non-citizens render the service of forcing a return to the recognition of the right to life, I'll take it. The rule of law died a very long time ago in the USA. Some of us prefer to deny that but it is true nonetheless. 50 million innocent dead is far MORE than enough.

[Rurudyne]

Actually, the phrase is "nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

An unborn baby (especially one concieved here) is under both the jurisdiction of our civil and our criminal laws, so abortion violates this principal in spades. This is why the effort is to define "persons" in such a way as to exclude the unborn (a lawlessly legal trick used to sidestep their humanity).

However, Illegal Aliens––not having entered legally––are not properly under the jurisdiction of our civil laws because the "terms" of their entry short circuit the process by which they might enter into our social contract.

Or to paraphrase something said earlier: the rule of law is dead for them because they have killed it.

This is also why people who entered legally but overstayed their visas are in a somewhat different situation from anyone who just imposed themselves in the first place.

That doesn't mean they are not under the jurisdiction of our criminal laws; but, aside from the commission of some specific crime these don't come into play.

This is why Illegal Aliens are not called Criminal Aliens––their presence is a violation of the civil social contract more than anything else. These do not properly have any right to expect equal protection of our civil laws as the only nominal legal recourse is to summarily deport them.

Also, I would question that their presence would even have a positive effect on abortion issue as you seem to think it may. One thing about Mexico that I've observed is that its political culture, the social theories that are deeply interwoven into her people's mindsets, are very different from those of Americans.

In Mexico some years ago there was a push by the government to promote an ownership mentality and private enterprise; however, the socialist mindset is so deeply ingrained in the people that they had to do so in language more at home in discussions about social theory rather than private ownership. Really, Monty Python's erudite peasants going on and on about social theory to a divine right king is not far from the mark even if it would be over the top if applied literally.

In contrast, the purveyors of socialism in America have historically found that unless they present their poison pill wrapped in some sweet meat––such as a language of personal entitlement, rhetorically blurring the distinctions between the "American Dream" and the welfare state––they will not be widely accepted.

I would challenge you that a demographic group––Illegal Aliens as a group––who have already proven an ability to compartmentalize their ethical standards (they came here knowing it was illegal to do so the way they did) would feel right at home in the socialist Democratic Party––which is a master at managing compartmentalized ethics.

So yes, they may well be "Pro-Life" leaning right now ... but the thing about political big tents is that most people end up in the darkened bleachers passively watching the clowns and showmen in the three rings under the lights.

As long as their section hears the rhetoric they like they can ignore or tolerate what is being preached to the folks in the other bleachers (please note that the DNC keeps folks divided up this way to help keep them manageable).

Then there is your contention about the rule of law, if it has died then are we right to pat more dirt on the grave or would it not be better to do what we can to revitalize it?

Is "social justice" rendered to artificial entities and groups so very lovely a thing that we must completely abandon Justice rendered to Persons forevermore?

By such lights if a person feels they should not have to obey our laws they are excused from doing so. It really doesn't matter if they are stealing their residency, stealing something off the shelf (shoplifting) or even stealing back their wombs.

You are actually siding with the mindset that has done so much harm to the rule of law and made abortion legal in the first place: my reasons justify my actions no matter how morally, ethically, or legally problematic these are.