Posted on 08/15/2002 11:23:35 AM PDT by gubamyster
August 15, 2002
As more information from the 2000 Census is released, it's increasingly clear that this is not our parents' country. Ethically, it stopped being their country in the 1960s. Ethnically, it now resembles not a united nation, but a United Nations, with divisions along class, racial, religious, language and ideological lines. Our national motto, E pluribus unum ("out of many, one,") no longer applies.
Census figures show that one out of every nine residents is now foreign-born. The response from politicians? Many are signing up for Spanish lessons. They should be telling immigrants to sign up for English lessons.
Yes, we are a nation of immigrants. There is a difference, however, between the way immigrants were treated a century ago during the Great Wave, and how they are treated today.
Then, they were expected to become part of America, which included speaking our language, knowing our history and respecting our traditions. Now, they are allowed -- indeed, encouraged -- to remain who they are and not bother to learn English or care about American history. Then, we sought to make Americans of immigrants. Today, we hyphenate their citizenship and tell them they may continue to bear allegiance to other countries and causes.
Here are only a few examples of how bad the situation has become: The safety video on the Delta Shuttle between Washington and New York is delivered in both Spanish and English; this November, Denver and several other Colorado counties designated as bilingual counties must print election ballots in English and Spanish; the Department of Justice has ordered Harris County, Texas (which encompasses Houston) to start providing ballots and voting materials in Vietnamese.
Part of the reason for this forming of a less perfect union is that we are no longer sure of ourselves. Embarrassed by our success and riches, we think we're doing the world a favor by engaging in self-flagellation, refusing to repeat for the next generation what was handed to us by the previous one.
A Texas schoolteacher wrote to express his frustration:
"We were raised with 'ultimate consequences' which would dictate punishment when there was no discipline ('When your father gets home...,' 'Your mother wouldn't approve of this...')," he noted. "Now, it's a question of how people can beat the law, rather than uphold it." This especially applies to those immigrants who have seen that if they can get to America illegally, their chances are good of winning amnesty and remaining in this country.
King Solomon warned: "Where there is no vision, the people cast off restraint" (Proverbs 29:18). The casting off of restraint is what characterizes us now, from corporate boardrooms to private bedrooms. If immigrants know only how to get here and do not learn what made America so attractive to them, they will live by their own standards, just as we who were born here are doing in increasing numbers, further undermining our strength and cohesiveness.
In his 1992 book, "The Tyranny of Change: America in the Progressive Era: 1890-1920," John Whiteclay Chambers wrote of the great immigration wave of a century ago, noting that a majority of arrivals in this country never intended to stay. Many hoped that "after a few years of work, they could save enough money to return home to an improved position for themselves and their families."
"Although the majority of new immigrants permanently settled in America, a significant number left (with a departure rate of 35 percent for Croatians, Poles, Serbs and Slovenes; 40 percent for Greeks; and more than 50 percent for Hungarians, Slovaks and Italians; the rate among Asian immigrants was much higher, more than two-thirds)," Chambers wrote. Today the departure rate is only about 15 percent and anyone who gets here, even illegally, can now expect his or relatives to legally follow.
Many of those who stayed a century ago had poor skills and became part of large ghettos in major urban areas, where poverty continues to drain human and financial resources. The 1990 Census indicated that ethnic enclaves were huge and growing. In the city of Miami today, about half of the population speaks English poorly or not at all, new census figures show, and 74 percent of residents speak a language other than English at home.
A source for additional facts about how we have failed to assimilate immigrants can be found on the Web page of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (www.fairus.org/).
It would help if we would re-discover what once was considered "self-evident" truths about America, disdaining relativity. If we can't do that for those already here, we will be of no use to current and future immigrants and cannot sustain ourselves as the United States.
Absolutely unbelievable. This is Frankfurt School dogma at its finest.
That it finds its way on a conservative message board, and is probably agreed with by half of American conservatives, more than anything else, demonstrates the inevitability of the fall of Western culture, at least in the US.
But wait! I shouldn't worry about that. After all, that would be "racist".
Discostu- you forgot one of the first lessons of modern multiCULTuralsim. You forgot to limit your accusations of "racism" to one who would seek to preserve Western/white culture. All other ethnic and cultural preservations are just jim-dandy.
Is it your point to deny that people are different? Since the French Revolution, the Left has been prattling about equality in the groves or academia, and shouting slogans in the streets--and yet in those 213 years of prattling about equality, and shouting against others, they have yet to demonstrate the proposition.
People are not equal; they are not the same; and the idea that people wanting to preserve their own kind, in their own culture, is somehow bad, is at best silly. At worst, it reflects the frantic compulsion for uniformity that fueled every truly loathsome movement of the last Century.
I would suggest that you learn something about the traditional concept of a Nation, before you blithely support its destruction. It has always--always until the modern Left started trying to confuse our understanding of the ways of human society--referred to people having both a sense of kinship and a common value system and history. (See for a further discussion of the American Nation, Immigration & The American Future.)
When a Nation becomes so cosmopolitan that it ceases to have such characteristics--as Imperial Rome--its days are numbered. Rome in 400 AD was no longer the Rome of the Republic, not because it had a different Government; but because it had a different population--with different characteristics. A nation is not a game of musical chairs.
It is laughable that there are people who will read a horse or dog's pedigree for understanding of the horse or dog, but feel that it is inappropriate to consider a human pedigree, to understand a human. These people do not elevate man, or any of his subspecies by the compulsive refusal to face our many differences. Rather in their compulsion, they insult all of us. The implication is that the things which make each of us unique really don't matter. But that is no different than saying that we do not matter.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
No, that's not. That's "cultural bigotry"- which I won't deny.
The obvious mistake you make is in assuming that a people need to make an uncomplimentary judgment about others, to simply prefer to associate with their own, at least in their own communities. That is a total non-sequitur. In our already over-crowded country, we do not need to even take in any immigration. But if we choose to, it is only common sense to give preference to those most easily absorbed into our existing societies. The fact that the "Liberals" need to accuse everyone who disagrees with them of being motivated by hatred, rather than love for one's own society, reflects what is sometimes described in the psychological analysis field as "projection." The Leftists are projecting their own hate-based motivation system on the rest of us.
Rome became Imperial because the Senate become embroiled in foolish infighting which caused the people to cry out for an emperor who changed the method of governance. It had nothing to do with immigration rates (Rome had very structured immigration, becoming a citizen wasn't an easy thing, the individual had to prove themselves worthy either through money or military service).
My point was not that there was anything wrong with Rome becoming Imperial, but that the Nation itself was fundamentally different in 400 AD than it had been in say 50 BC. That the change may have been slowed by what you refer to, does not change the fact that it took place. The original race simply did not reproduce themselves, and it has been estimated that the actual Roman stock had declined to less than 10% of the total. People make their culture, not culture people.
As to your comments about animals: We are governed by similar laws of heritability of traits, your prejudice against our four legged friends, notwithstanding. And as for horses and dogs. You will surely not suggest that there is any confusion as to whether you have a great dane or a dachshund, a collie or a poodle; or a Clydsedale or a Thoroughbred. And while betting on a horse because of its sire or dam may not always work, the stud fees commanded by some equestrian greats seem to argue pretty convincingly for the acceptance of inheritance among the experts.
But again, my point is not that we are better than the Mexican Mestizo, or the Asian Caucasian from the Near or Middle East. But we have one heritage, they have another. Why should we not seek to preserve our own? Why should they not seek to preserve their own?
And do you really think that calling other people names is a substitute for an argument?
We are under attack in the West by those who would promote the concept of an undifferentiated humanity. We need to respond with The Big Truth. Conservatives who are intimidated by Leftist name calling need to understand that that is the standard tactic of Socialism. The only way you can escape their name calling is by surrending every characteristic of your society which does not fit the Socialist premises. It is not a game any of us should play.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
Cute, but entirely untrue. The Founding Fathers most certainly did not believe that all men are "inherently equal." The correspondence between Jefferson and Adams discusses the wide range of human ability, and their belief in the inequality of man. You need to read the Declaration Of Independence in context, not quote isolated phrases out of context. The context of the language you are referring to is "created equal," anyhow, not "inherently equal." They were refuting the idea of the "Divine Right" of the King of Great Britain to rule any way he chose. They were defining the duties of Government, in terms of the social compact that underlies Government--or underlies any moral Government.
If you choose to read further, you will find that of the three authors, Franklin strongly urged a very limited immigration policy. Jefferson was more liberal, but clearly--as we show in Immigration & The American Future--favored settlement by those similar to the people already here.
William Flax
I'm about as liberal as you are a man. Sorry about your luck!
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