Free Republic

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...

We can all benefit from immigration, but the deal is not unconditional - incomers must subscribe to the British 'rules of the game' Now, the challenge for Labour, which we are addressing, is that around the world, it is not the left but the right that's seizing this debate. The conservative argument is simple: shared values, argue the neocons, are best preserved in tradition. And tradition is best pickled in "traditional institutions". So, roll back the state and let what de Tocqueville called "the art of association" flourish. But the right is wrong. Traditional institutions alone are just not enough...

As Ward Connerly prepares initiatives to abolish race-based affirmative action in five more states, New America Foundation fellow Gregory Rodriguez, no fan of Connerly's movement, has published an eye-opening book that nonetheless reinforces deep questions about the nation's racial assumptions and categories. Connerly is the Sacramento businessman and ex-regent of the University of California who drove the successful campaigns overturning race-based preference policies in public education, employment and contracting in California, Washington and Michigan. He's now planning similar campaigns in Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma. Connerly's most notable failure was the overwhelming defeat of California's Proposition 54 in 2003,...

Georgie Anne Geyer is a widely respected and well-known liberal columnist whose articles focus on foreign affairs issues and appear in approximately 120 newspapers in North and Latin America. She is the author of several books, including a biography of Fidel Castro. Ms. Geyer devotes much of her attention to criticizing conservative presidents – particularly with respect to their Central American and South American policies. My regular readers are well aware that I devote this weblog often to the dangers multiculturalism poses to the future of the United States and to its role as a beneficent, functioning republic – the...

This song is sung about immigration by a "Mexican" named "Pedro". It's quite funny. Just click on the link and click song. It took like two minutes for me to download with dial up. I had a good laugh. :)

Typical questions on the US citizenship test include: “How many states are there in the United States?”; “Where is the White House located?”; and “What are the 49th and 50th states of the Union?” The US government is scrapping this test, which requires nothing more than rote memorization of facts, in favor of a new 10-question oral exam conducted in English that tests an immigrant’s grasp of the principles of American democracy, including the freedoms guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. The change is meant to counteract a 20-30 year retreat from emphasizing Americanization in favor of...

It's said that a picture is worth a thousand words. I only have room for about 700 here so let me be more concise. Just the other day, an editorial cartoon, set in the 1600s, depicted a rowboat full of Pilgrims coming ashore in the New World and encountering a group of Indians constructing a log wall to keep them out. Standing next to a boulder marked "Plymouth Rock" (in case you didn't get it) on the shoreline, one of the Indians, with his arms folded in an unwelcoming position and a disapproving frown on his face, blocked their way....

If only the Muslims in Europe -- with their hearts focused on the Islamic world and their carry-on liquids poised for destruction in the West -- could behave like the well-educated, secular and Americanizing Muslims in the United States, no one would have to worry. So runs the comforting media narrative that has developed around the approximately 6 million Muslims in the United States, who are often portrayed as well-assimilated and willing to leave their religion and culture behind in pursuit of American values and lifestyle. But over the past two years, I have traveled the country, visiting mosques, interviewing...

How right wing the left sounds after its moment of racial truth Rod Liddle Quick, somebody buy a wreath. Last week marked the passing of multiculturalism as official government doctrine. No longer will opponents of this corrosive and divisive creed be silenced simply by the massed Pavlovian ovine accusation: “Racist!” Better still, the very people who foisted multiculturalism upon the country are the ones who have decided that it has now outlived its usefulness — that is, the political left. It is amazing how a few by-election shocks and some madmen with explosive backpacks can concentrate the mind. At any...

President Bush has outlined what sounds like a middle ground for immigration. (I know I may have lost half of you, but give me a chance.) In my (not so humble) opinion, here's the pluses" 1. There's an immediate move to plug the holes. 2. The National Guard will be more likely to check the drug cartels in Mexican Army uniforms that the local police and even the Border Patrol. 3. There's a promise to end to the "catch and release" debacle 4. There's a tiered system of settling who stays and who goes and under what circumstances. 5. The...

American society has often been described as a melting pot but in recent years, it has also attracted other definitions such as "tomato soup" and "tossed salad". For centuries, the US has attracted people in search of a share of "the American dream" from all corners of the world. In fact, US history is one of immigration. In 1620, about 100 English colonists, so-called "Mayflower Pilgrims" left for America seeking religious freedom. They landed near Plymouth, Massachusetts, marking the start of the first successful European migration to North America, which had been inhabited by Amerindian people for more than 16,000...

This week, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights announced its opposition to S. 147, the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act of 2005, which it found to “discriminate on the basis of race.” It is possible the Senate will be asked in the next few weeks to consider this legislation, and I hope my colleagues will agree with the Civil Rights Commission and oppose this legislation. Here is what the commission had to say: The Commission recommends against passage of the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act of 2005, (S. 147) as reported out of committee on May 16, 2005, or any...

Though most opponents of immigration are loath to admit it, at least publicly, they're worried that the huge influx of Hispanics will somehow change America for the worse. And who can blame them for wondering whether the tremendous demographic shift that has taken place over the last few years won't have unintended consequences? In 1970, there were fewer than 10 million Hispanics in the United States; today, there are more than 40 million, thanks largely to the ever-increasing influx of Latin American immigrants. And some estimates predict that by mid-century one out of every three Americans will be of Hispanic...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 22 (Xinhuanet) -- The foreign-born population in the United States numbered 34.2 million in 2004, accounting for 12 percent of the country's total population, figures released by the Census Bureau on Tuesday showed. The number of foreign-born population was 2.3 percent higher than that in 2003. Of the foreign-born population, 53 percent were born in Latin America, 25 percent in Asia, 14 percent in Europe and the remaining 8 percent in other regions of the world, such as Africa and Oceania. Second-generation Americans, which are natives with one or both parents born in a foreign country, numbered 30.4...

<p>She is dizzy, almost wobbly. Her head aches, her coughing won't stop, and because she doesn't have enough money she has not filled her four prescriptions nor seen a doctor recently.</p> <p>But that doesn't stop her.</p> <p>Soon it will be midnight, and Ipifania Dominguez will be back at work cleaning up blood, bone and fat in the world's largest pork slaughterhouse. She'll be back in the "head room," as she calls it, where meat is cut from pigs' heads.</p>

ANNAPOLIS -- Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. rejected calls to apologize for his remarks last week describing multiculturalism as "crap" and "bunk." Ehrlich defended his comments on talk radio as "common sense" and declined to apologize Tuesday. "We celebrate our ethnicities quite appropriately," he said, noting that he was once named "German of the Year" for Maryland. But he said multiculturalism, which he defined as separating people into different groups, was wrong. "In America we have a singular culture, common values and a common language," he said. "It's a common history, it's a common culture. ... We should not separate...

Mexamerica, here we come Posted: January 14, 2004 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2004 Creators Syndicate, Inc. Have Americans, one wonders, fully reflected on what the Bush amnesty portends for the country their children will grow up in? Consider what Bush is saying with this amnesty for 8 million to 12 million illegal aliens and his "guest workers" program to allow employers to go overseas and hire people anywhere in the world for jobs Americans will not, or cannot take at the wages offered. He is saying: I cannot defend our border. I will not enforce the laws. I will not...

As I looked out my window at the promise of some rain, I kept looking back and forth to two major events that occurred in Phoenix this week. Both were front page news in Phoenix and hold enormous implications for each one of us individually and for the state and nation. Mexico's president, Vicente Fox, met with state leaders and with large numbers of his countrymen while in Phoenix. Some of the of those from Mexico were actually in Arizona legally. I suspect some had become United States citizens. Yet, Fox talked to them like they were citizens of Mexico....

Rabbi Yaakov Y. Horowitz's version of American History 101 runs something like this: When the colonies were settled, the shochet, or kosher slaughterer, was not far behind. When gold prospectors flocked to California, so did the kosher inspectors. When Passover arrived at Army camps during the Civil War, so did the matzo. The founder of American Jewish Legacy, a nonprofit historical organization, Rabbi Horowitz has created an exhibit of kosher practices that offers glimpses of how Jewish dietary laws were followed from the earliest arrivals of Jews in the mid-17th century into the last century. "The development of Judaism was...

<p>BRISBANE, Australia (AP) -- The Australian descendants of a Christian missionary eaten by cannibals 136 years ago will travel to Fiji this week, hoping to help lift a curse on the village where he was killed.</p> <p>Rev. Thomas Baker was murdered in 1867 at Nubutautau, a remote community high in the hills of the South Pacific island of Viti Levu.</p>