This is one of the finest commentaries by Buchanan I’ve ever seen. As usual The many things that float around inside my mind often come out in the writings of others. I can only wish that I had the talent to express myself so well. The following truely is all that needs to be said about the problems facing the US today. Problems that in their entirity are the fault of Libs.
by Patrick J. Buchanan
On the Great Seal of the United States, first suggested by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, there was to be emblazoned a new motto: “E Pluribus Unum” – “Out of many, one.”
It was in their unity, not their diversity, that the strength of the colonies resided. So Patrick Henry believed, as he declared, “The distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers and New Englanders are no more. I am not a Virginian, but an American.”
National identity must supersede state identity for America to survive.
Yet it has lately become fashionable to say that America is great not because she is united, but because she is diverse. It is because America is a multicultural, multiracial, multiethnic, multilingual nation that she is a great nation. A corollary is that the more diverse America becomes, the better and greater she becomes.
After the Los Angeles riot of 1992, Vice President Dan Quayle was asked by his Japanese hosts if perhaps America did not suffer from too much diversity. “I begged to differ with my hosts,” Quayle retorted. “I explained that our diversity is our strength.”
And so our rulers, marinated in the myths that we “are a nation of immigrants” and “our diversity is our strength,” continue to embrace mass immigration – the more the better. But are the myths true?
America was settled by colonists from the British Isles. In 1789, two centuries after Jamestown and Plymouth Rock, we were 99 percent Protestant. Until the Irish came in 1845, there was almost no immigration. Even during the Great Wave of 1890-1920, the number of immigrants was a fraction of the 38 million here today. And all had come from Europe. By 1960, we were almost 90 percent European and more than 90 percent Christian – of one nationality, American, one language, English, and one culture.
That America is gone forever.
Last week, we learned that in the last seven years 10.3 million people, almost all from the Third World, entered the United States, more than half illegally. The nation that was one-tenth minority in 1960 is now one-third minority. European-Americans will soon be a minority in the nation, as they are today in California, Texas and most large American cities.
And when that day comes, what then will unite us as a people?
Certainly not religious faith, for the last 40 years have seen a large influx of Muslims, the rise of a rabid secularism and the break-up of Christian churches – the Episcopalians most recently – over issues of morality: abortion, civil unions, homosexual bishops, assisted suicide, stem cell research, Darwin, creationism. No longer are we united by a common language, as the fastest growing radio and TV stations are Hispanic. And certainly not culture, as we are in a cultural war over history, heroes and holidays.
And how can we say diversity is a strength, when the most diverse nations of Europe, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, shattered into 22 nations as soon as they became free, and Slovaks and Czechs divorced? Ethnic and linguistic diversity is now pulling Belgium apart, as they tore Cyprus in two.
Since World War II, diversity – racial, religious, ethnic, cultural – has pulled Malaysia, the Indian subcontinent, Pakistan, Indonesia and Ethiopia apart, and is today pulling Iraq, Turkey and Lebanon apart. How, when tribalism is everywhere ascendant, is diversity a strength?
When Islam arose in the 7th century, our world became more diverse. Fourteen centuries of war followed. When Catholic Europe became more diverse with the Protestant Reformation, a century of war followed, ending in a Thirty Years War that carried away a third of all the German people.
There came a new diversity when the English came to the Red Man’s continent in 1607 and Africans were brought as slaves in 1619. From that diversity came the near annihilation of American Indians and a racial divide that led to the American Civil War, bloodiest in the West in the 19th century.
Our racial diversity has ever been the most divisive issue in America – and remains so, as we see daily from Jena, the Imus affair and the Duke rape case.
Britain is more diverse than in the time of Victoria and Churchill. Is Britain a better, stronger nation now that London is Londonistan, madrassas defend the London bombers and race riots are common in the industrial north? If diversity is a strength, why do Scots wish to follow the Irish and secede?
Has Germany been strengthened by the diversity the Turks brought? Is France a stronger nation for the 5 million to 8 million Muslims concentrated in the banlieus? How have the Japanese suffered from their lack of diversity?
The Melting Pot – language, law, culture – worked to make us one nation and one people. But that Melting Pot, cracked and broken, is rejected by multiculturalists as an instrument of cultural genocide, crafted by white Europeans to annihilate native cultures.
This generation is witnessing the Deconstruction of America. Out of one, many.
The historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. once said that the United States has “too much pluribus and not enough unum.”
As the grandson of immigrants, I’d be the last one to say that immigration in and of itself is a bad thing. Each ethnic group that has come to this country has contributed, to a greater or lesser extent, to the unique phenomenon of the American culture. Without that infusion of new ideas and perspectives, this country would stagnate.
But in order for our unique culture to survive, immigration can’t run rampant. No ethnic or racial group should be denied entry into this country, but orderly assimilation should be the ultimate goal. And to facilitate that assimilation, the pace of immigration should be proportionate to the cultural distance between that group and the existent American culture, not because one culture is necessarily better than another, but because otherwise social upheaval ensues.
This is not to say that all vestiges of the heritage culture should be eradicated; it’s the amalgam of many cultures that makes this country great. But when the “pluribus” refuses to join the “unum,” balkanization takes place, and we’re left with a Disunited States of America.
But there are other reasons that immigration should be regulated, not the least of which is national security. There are many people who enter this country wanting only to partake in the American dream and make this country an even better place than before they arrived. But there are others who come here with the sole purpose of plundering or destroying this country, either through crime or acts of terrorism. The number of the former far exceeds the number of the latter, but as we learned a little over six years ago, it doesn’t take many of the latter to wreak havoc on America. Knowing who’s here from abroad, where they are, and what their intentions are is essential for a secure America.
Can diversity destroy us? It can, but it doesn’t have to.
It’s funny you mention Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. in relation to immigration. I was really hoping you would comment on his connection to Ted Kennedy and Chappaquiddick:
http://www.ivorydome.us/2007/11/09/not-yours-to-give/#comments – 4th comment.
This is not to say that all vestiges of the heritage culture should be eradicated; it’s the amalgam of many cultures that makes this country great.
It has never been the amalgam of culture that made America great, it was the amalgam of idea’s. Idea’s are the driving force of the advancement of technology. Technology itself drives American culture. In the past poor technology or culture was kicked to the curb. Now progressives celebrate and legislate the equality of poor culture and it’s technology or lack of.
Your analogy in your question about evolution reminds me that regardless of subject, things are rarely horizontal or vetical. Most often things are inclined. Evolution for example is niether horizontal or verticle. It is both.
The evolution of American culture is the same. It is also predominately Greco-Roman at the base and inclined to around 1965. IT’s not African-Eskimo, or Chinese/Phillipino.
THe US is/was great because it took the best and dumped the rest. We are in decline because we now pretend that all is equal. The only diff between men and women is between the legs. The only diff between black and white is color of skin. The only diff between Uganda and Texas is the geophysical location.
Outstanding examples of people regardless of culture or race have always been excepted in the US. Fact is outstanding examples of people and culture can’t be stopped. The good always rises to the top, the rest sinks (unless protected by law). That’s what we need to get back to. If in the end only White, Greco-Roman culture and technology are at the top then that is what should be be. Phony laws that force equality will be death for us all.
This was defeated today but only by the skin of your teeth. http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/20071206-1423-congress-hatecrimes.html This is just another step in the relentless tearing down of America Buchannan wrote of. Soon Kennedy will have his way here also, as he did with the change in immigration law. A change pushed by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. as pay back for getting off a murder rap.
It’s funny you mention Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. in relation to immigration. I was really hoping you would comment on his connection to Ted Kennedy and Chappaquiddick
It’s ironic that Schlesinger, a critic of multiculturalism, was also a big supporter of the Kennedys, but I don’t think that’s relevant to the topic at hand. I often quote people who make my point even though they I may disagree with them on others. Two great examples are Tammy Bruce (a pro-choice lesbian) and Christopher Hitchens (an atheistic socialist). Both are articulate supporters of the Global War on Terror.
The evolution of American culture is the same. It is also predominately Greco-Roman at the base and inclined to around 1965. IT’s not African-Eskimo, or Chinese/Phillipino.
1965 was a critical year in the evolution of immigration. That was the year that Ted Kennedy’s Immigration Reform Act, which essentially did away with immigration quotas, became law. Quotas were the mechanism that insured what I recommended above: “[T]he pace of immigration should be proportionate to the cultural distance between that group and the existent American culture.”
It has never been the amalgam of culture that made America great, it was the amalgam of idea’s.
I think we agree, but I was a little vague in my use of the word “culture.” I was referring to culture in the broader sense – not just music, arts, literature, cuisine, etc. The culture (little c) in which we grow up shapes the way we think, and hence our ideas. Even language can have an influence on how we think. I’ll never forget this quote from a book by a Polish woman who immigrated to the States:
“I asked myself in English, ‘Do I love him?,’ and the answer was yes. I asked myself in Polish ‘Do I love him?,’ and the answer was no.”
When I visited the Gutenberg Museum in Germany years ago, it was pointed out that Gutenberg got the idea for the printing press mechanism from the wine presses he observed in the wine country where he grew up.
THe US is/was great because it took the best and dumped the rest. We are in decline because we now pretend that all is equal.
I agree. I just happen to think that the best can come from the most unlikely of places.
It’s ironic that Schlesinger, a critic of multiculturalism, was also a big supporter of the Kennedys
Schlesinger was many things but he did not become an opponent or more accurately did not begin to reconsider his attitude about multiculturalism until around 1990. He was a driving force behind Roosevelt and the New deal and also much of fiasco that was the Kennedy presidency. He was perhaps the architect of the first showcase for American liberal dishonesty.
1965 was a critical year in the evolution of immigration. That was the year that Ted Kennedy’s Immigration Reform Act, which essentially did away with immigration quotas,
The 1965 act is complicated. It didn’t exactly do away with quotas. It’s main effect was to give preference to non whites. During debate on the Senate floor, Senator Kennedy, speaking of the effects of the act, said, “…our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually…. Secondly, the ethnic mix of this country will not be upset….” Prior to the act, the United States was overwhelmingly composed of whites of European descent (89% in 1965), with the only minority group of significant size being blacks (10%).
Spanish-speaking, blacks, indigenous tribes, and those of mixed ancestry have replaced English-speaking African Americans as the largest minority in the U.S. There has also been enormous growth of immigration from Asian countries. All due mostly to the family reunification act set in 1968 which was unlimited and led to chain immigration. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_Nationality_Act_of_1965
The act’s supporters (mainly Emanuel Celler with Schlesinger working quietly in the back ground thru a deep in debt Kennedy) not only claimed the law would not change America’s ethnic makeup, but that such a change was not desirable. However, in the end, this act dramatically changed the face of American society by making it a multicultural, multiethnic nation.
I feel this needs to be a seperate post so I think I’ll stop here. Stay tuned for more.