Those who would try to convince us about the “benefits” of multiculturalism and diversity never want us to think about the fact that when too-disparate cultures are artificially glommed together, there eventually will come a need for the imposition of some new authority, some arbitrator, some contrived higher power to create culture-neutral rules to enforce tolerance among the “tribes.” In scanning headlines at the Drudge Report this morning, I clicked on the link below because its title made me suspect that some folks were being subjected to more of the joys that come along with artificially-contrived enculturation processes:
Va. School’s No-Contact Rule Is a Touchy Subject - washingtonpost.com
She has seen a poke escalate into a fight and a handshake that is a gang sign. Some students — and these are friends — play “bloody knuckles,” which involves slamming their knuckles together as hard as they can. Counselors have heard from girls who are uncomfortable hugging boys but embarrassed to tell anyone. And in a culturally diverse school, officials say, families might have different views of what is appropriate.
Here we have a microcosmic example of precisely what we can expect must eventually occur if the socialism that underlies “compassionate conservatism” is successfully combined with leftist “cultural Marxism.”
Let me put this as bluntly as I possibly can:
If the Senate Bill is allowed to become law it will lead to this nation becoming a de facto totalitarian state.
I get to the whys and wherefores of that in a bit, but first a little background.
I have said it before in many ways on these pages: the only reason immigration has worked for the United States throughout its history is that our nation never went about intentionally trying to import or invite any significant numbers of “too-different others.” Welcomed immigrants to America, before Ted Kennedy got his hands on the formula in 1965, came here - with few exceptions - entirely from within the family of cultures that make up Western Civilization. As Kennedy’s “reforms” gradually bore their insipid fruit, most Americans, myself included, went about our business not knowing that we’d been placed in a cultural slow-frog-boil kettle.
My first epiphany that my nation had a culture-clash problem came when I was assigned to to a political post in downtown Miami in 1985 after having not been there for 10 years. In a mere decade, the central core of the city had devolved from from the great American outpost I came to love as a child into a third-world mess; sure, the food was sometimes great but everything else around me offended my American-bred sensibilities. I’ve never viewed exchanging my heritage and culture for a bit of exotic cuisine to be a fair trade. I spent the first 10 years of my career at least partially immersed in, and with growing growing distaste for, Miami’s Banana Republicanism. In the 22 years since my first exposure to the multiculturalists new model for my nation, I have yet to find a single redeeming quality in it that makes it seem like a logical, practical, reasonable, or even remotely advisable next step toward making this nation better. Today’s news provides a little glimpse into why this is so.
In the case of the Virginia school’s no-contact rule, at least part of the problem was fomented by the impositions that naturally occur when too disparate cultures are forced artificially to occupy the same space. What is acceptable and natural to one culture is anathema to another culture. What constitutes normal personal space requirements of one culture are deemed unacceptable by another culture. Even subtle differences in facial expressions inhibit full understandings between peoples whose heritage comes from myriad distinct folkways historically separated by great distances. This is the sort of stuff that did not just come up overnight! The problem with multiculturalism is that myriad cultural standards came about over hundreds if not thousands of generations, so people aren’t just going to “get over it” and somehow suddenly get along.
What multiculturalists expect and will have to mandate is the same as expecting a redhead to stop having red hair. Either the redhead is going to voluntarily color it or she will be forced to do so. In the case of the school, ignorant multiculturalists don’t have a problem with making up rules governing human nature that would make no sense at all in a culturally homogenous environment. Because they are either ignorant or because they intentionally ignore human nature, they have come to a sudden realization that the only way they can make the school work is to keep everyone from being the way that they naturally are! Such contrived imposition might might work for a while. It might work even longer in a small setting more easily controlled. But what it amounts to is small-scope totalitarianism. And it should give thinking people pause when our government goes about the process of implementing and enforcing the exact same thing on an exponentially grander scale.
While the proponents of the Senate Bill do not want Americans even talking about the changes they are about to wreak upon our culture, it is incumbent upon Americans who think about stuff in this way to get over their fear of being labeled by one errant epithet or another. After having spent nearly 20 years deeply involved in the business of studying group human behavior, and attempting to use the knowledge to leverage political gains, the Virginia school’s new rules don’t surprise me at all. When you look at historical patterns of groups of people who willingly choose to live in close proximity, their individual behavior more or less models that of their neighbors. Most people, without really ever thinking about it, want their next-door neighbor to be a descendant of the same tribe or clan from which their heritage was made, or at least be a lineal product of a closely neighboring clan. Time and time again when alien cultures force a tipping point for the indigenous culture in a defined geography and government prevents the use of force to repel them, it is the indigenous culture that leaves. “White Flight” is a perfectly rational reaction to government enforcing an artificial proximity between distinct others.
But what will happen down the line if the Senate Bill passes and George Bush gets to leave his lasting imprint so prison-tattooed upon us all? What will happen when there is no place left for Americans of Heritage to go to escape the impositions of unassimilated other cultures with their alien peculiar attachments, languages, and their distinct inherent rules that govern things as deeply ingrained as acceptable personal spaces and facial expressions?
I’ll tell you what will happen if you haven’t figured it out already. Government will take it upon itself to create and enforce new rules in order to manage the multicultural disaster it has created. And the only way to make that work over the long term is through force: totalitarianism.
I’ll go out on a limb and close this out with a prediction. The day after Bush signs this bill into law, one-day gun sales and permit applications will hit an all-time high as Americans feel compelled to start taking their first steps toward self-preservation. It’s only human nature.
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American History, Assimilation, Diversity, Immigration, Multiculturalism, Ted Kennedy
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6 responses so far ↓
1 Scott // Jun 18, 2007 at 2:23 pm
I hope Americans don’t wait to arm themselves. One of the first freedoms Americans have, the right to keep and bear arms, will be one of the first, if not the first, to be done away with under the coming totalitarianism. Then folks will have to make a choice, live free and fight or give up your weapons and become subjects/ slaves.
2 Michael Tams // Jun 22, 2007 at 10:05 pm
KD, man, when you’re right, you’re right. I disagreed with you on something a long time back and I blew it. I had the great fortune of getting Pat Buchanan’s book as a gift and it finally sunk in.
3 Katie's Dad // Jun 22, 2007 at 11:31 pm
Thanks Michael. I don’t recall we disagreed about, but I do know that sometimes I’m just disagreeable to be disagreeable when writing in this space. If I didn’t have this as an outlet for my frustration regarding what’s going on in… what’s being done to… my nation, I don’t know what I’d do to vent. It probably wouldn’t be pretty.
It’s funny, I read your Father’s Day post and made note, I’m sure with a knowing grin, that you and I both celebrated our fourth Father’s Day this year. I almost wrote a comment, but Katie and Katie’s mom had plans for me and I didn’t want to keep them waiting.
I’m glad to see that you’ve been reading Pat Buchanan’s work. I’m in the midst of the last chapter in Russell Kirk’s “The Conservative Mind.” I haven’t spent so much time reading and pondering and reading and pondering since I tackled de Tocqueville for the first time as an adult a few years back. If you really want to get a feel for Western Civilization’s true conservative “source code,” I highly recommend the book.
If you are looking for a taste of what that read might be like, I suggest you Google Russell Kirk and spend some time poking around the Kirk Center’s website.
4 Michael Tams // Jun 23, 2007 at 8:30 pm
KD: I remember the disagreement quite clearly. I mistakenly thought that all people - regardless of background and culture - inherently valued freedom; that this was a human characteristic. I was guilty of the thing that I’m always warning others about: attributing to others things I see in myself. A big no-no, as you know.
What most people don’t get, or maybe are afraid to admit, is that this isn’t a creedal nation. We have an American culture, and it is (God help us… was?) an inheritance from English colonists. Just because I’m Polish and Czech doesn’t mean anything - you see, as a third generation American, I’m the third generation of my family that has adopted that (English) culture.
I’ve been reading a lot of commentary that says we’re a nation of creed, not culture. Pat’s book convinced me that’s a crock. Yes, we value our creed, but that’s just part of the culture we inherited from the English colonists (along with many, many other things).
AdT is one of my very favorites. I have a on-again, off-again relationship with his most famous work; whenever I’m between books, I pick him up and we’re back on again. I don’t know Kirk, thanks for the recommendation.
I’m curious, although it is early, do you have a favorite in the GOP primary?
-MT
P.S. Happy Belated Father’s Day. I have a 2-yo daughter in additon to my 4-yo son; they are both the greatest thing to ever happen to me.
P.P.S. I used to go by the Monarchist until I decided what-the-deuce.
5 Katie's Dad // Jul 6, 2007 at 3:54 pm
Michael,
First, let me apologize. Your response was snagged by my spam filter… I don’t know why. Fortunately I caught it before I emptied the spam folder. There were a couple other messages that I had to let through, so perhaps I have a problem. Time will tell.
Now that you mention your old handle, I do recall our having a bit of a go around awhile back. I think it’s natural that people of this day and age in America are lulled falsely by the notion that all cultures inherently value freedom. And I think it goes much farther than that. I think that most Americans who don’t spend a lot of time thinking about who we are and where we came from have been subliminally sold on the notion that “all cultures are equal,” despite the reams of historical and empirical evidence to the contrary.
Certainly, all cultures do have value but it only makes sense that after so much time being cultivated as separate entities, some differentiation has surely occurred between them. Some cultures must have become better at some things and some cultures are better at other things. And, thanks to this differentiation, we can indeed place a set of hierarchal values upon each culture. Perhaps, and only perhaps, our nation’s traditional culture can be found at at the top of a world hierarchy scale if “freedom” is the measure of value used.
I’m glad to see you’ve come to the understanding that enculturation in this nation, or any other for that matter, requires far more than merely a subscription to some “creed.” It does indeed take more than that. For if merely subscribing to a creed is all we require of an American, then anyone, anywhere, anytime could become American simply by reading one or a couple of books. If we strip away all of our indoctrination we should intuitively know that it has to take more than that. Admittedly, I probably err more on the side of extreme caution than most on this issue, but I really believe that there are a lot of people who consider themselves to be American citizens these days who aren’t really Americans at all, at least not of any sort that my ancestors would recognize.
This “for instance” is probably going to sound very harsh: I do not consider someone who is even a third-generation Cuban-American if they have lived their entire life in and around Miami, never once spending significant quality time (particularly while young) with anyone whose ancestors had a hand in crafting this nation, to really be a complete American. For by this definition, they have almost certainly learned what “being American” means from their Cuban ancestors who aren’t really qualified to “hand down” Americanism. They can only pass along the artifacts of Diaspora, with perhaps a few bits and pieces of America’s pop-culture thrown in. Thus, in some American communities we’re now experiencing the fourth generation of technically “American citizens” who really aren’t that at all.
Maybe it’s because I read too much. I’ve taken the time to understand that people born into different cultural traditions carry with them in their genes certain common traits that may actually be co-artifacts of culture. There are plenty of published genetic studies that show the various comparative levels of shared gene sequences across various cultures. Not surprisingly, America’s original core ethnic stock has far more in common genetically with people from nations that are the descendants of tribes with whom England’s tribal ancestors had relationships with in the past. We should at least consider that genetic similarity makes it easier for someone to become “American” while genetic disparity makes it more difficult — perhaps impossible for some.
I think it was way back in my college days that I read in a sociology book about how people of different cultures inherently exhibit from birth some aspects of the accepted social norms of their birth culture. It affects the way they communicate with each other. Since we haven’t quite figured out how to read each other’s minds, who knows what all is going on as we communicate with people from different cultures? Do we really understand each other across cultural divides that well at all? Really?
I consider it strongly advisable that we at least acknowledge that there is a lot that we don’t understand about cross-cultural human interaction. We don’t know what is learned and what is inherited. While we’ve pretty much shown capable as a culture of bringing in and getting along with people who come to us from nations within what is commonly called Western Civilization, we have no idea what will result if we make this nation 30% Mestizo or 30% Chinese or 30% Somali Bantu. But based upon what we can glean from genetic research alone, we probably ought not try it.
As far as the GOP primary is concerned, I do not yet have a favorite. Of course, I like Tom Tancredo. But I also like Ron Paul. I will take a hard look at Fred Thompson and I believe that Newt Gingrich has a lot to offer in the primary even if he just gets it and drops out after a while. I heard Sean Hannity suggest that it was time for some of the lower percentage candidates to bow out and let the big boys have free reign of the GOP stage. That’s absurd! I want Tom Tancredo and Ron Paul in there for as long as possible to keep the heat on the issues that I hold dear and force folks like Giuliani and Mitt Romney to show their true hands. When it comes to preserving my culture I don’t trust Rudy Giuliani as far as I can throw him and I’m not convinced that Romney is any good for the cause of conservatism at all.
6 Michael Tams // Jul 6, 2007 at 8:41 pm
Agreed on your example. If all you know of “America” is what you see around you in Little Havana, you’re clueless about what it means to be an American. Same goes for Little Village in Chicago, or any other ethnic neighborhood. My grandfather was born on a farm in central Illinois, so while he was a first-generation American, he wasn’t isolated from, well, America.
I’d be happy with Tancredo or Hunter. The maddening thing about the process is that the primary might serve to knock out the most conservative candidate. This is what happened in the governor’s primary in Illinois before the last general election. JBT took the primary with about 38% of the vote, followed by Jim Oberweis with maybe 31% and Sen. Brady with about 19%. Since they were essentially the same candidate, Judy then got hammered by Blagojevich, and here I am stuck in Blue State Hell.
Spam filters. Interesting how much our language has changed in the last 5 years, isn’t it?
-MT
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