Archive for the ‘Immigration’ Category

Can Diversity Destroy Us?

Thursday, December 6th, 2007
 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.

Memoirs of a Guest Worker

Sunday, June 24th, 2007

In the midst of all this debate about how we’re to handle immigration, it suddenly occurred to me that I was once a guest worker myself – in Poland.  This was back in 1992 and 1993, right after I had retired from the Army.

At the time, Poland was emerging from over forty years of communism and, in trying to integrate into the economy of the West, had the foresight to set up a network of Teachers Colleges of Foreign Languages (Nauczycielskie Kolegium Języków Obcych – NKJO), primarily for English, but also for other Western languages, such as German and French.  After applying to several NKJO’s, I was invited to be a lecturer at the NKJO located at the University of Szczecin, in nortwestern Poland.  Shortly after arriving in Szczecin, I filled out a form that was registered with the local police (and, I assume, was forwarded to the appropriate national authorities).

I didn’t go there for the money (I earned less than $300 a month), or to escape economic or political oppression (I’m a native-born citzen of the United States).  I didn’t go with the intention of bringing my family later (I was single at the time, and after I got engaged to a lovely lady from Amarillo, she didn’t want to live in Poland).  I didn’t go to change the Polish culture or to commit acts of terror (I had learned to love Poland and the Polish people during my first visit the summer before).  I came with credentials that were sorely needed and in short supply in Poland at the time – I was a native speaker of English with five years of experience in postsecondary foreign language teaching experience and a Master’s degree in teaching foreign language.  I stayed for one academic year, and I’d like to think contributed something positive to integrating post-communist Poland into a reunited Europe by training English teachers who then taught more and more Poles English.

So what does all this have to do with immigration to the United States in 2007?  Aren’t my experiences in Poland and the experiences of today’s immigrants to our country apples and oranges?  In many ways, yes.  But here are some lessons to be applied to today:

1)  I asked if I could work in my adopted country and didn’t arrive until I had a invitation to do so;

2)  I learned the language of my hosts before I arrived and made no demands that they accommodate me linguistically;

3)  My talents were matched with a specific need before I left;

4)  I crossed the border at a designated customs point and submitted my passport to the proper authorities;

5)  I registered with the authorities after I settled in and made no attempt to conceal my whereabouts; and

6)  I acknowledged that my presence was at the pleasure of my adopted country and was ready to leave if that status were to change at any time.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable that the U.S. immigration policy firmly establish these six points (i.e. for two to five years) before anyone already here is awarded indefinite legal status.  We all saw what happened when amnesty was granted in 1986 with only a vague promise of border enforement.  If enforcement isn’t established first, we’ll have another repeat of amnesty 20 years down the road when another cohort of millions sneaks across the border.

Border enforcement first – after that, everything else is on the table.