It’s a sad fact of man’s nature that we
tend to operate based on emotion more than reason. This comes to mind when
considering how illegal migration, a.k.a. invasion, has now again surged back
to almost Obama-era levels. Some are theorizing why this is so, looking at the
micro, but an important factor is minimized: not enough people care.
Oh, they care about some things: sports, entertainment, money,
sex, bread and circuses. But the familial passion that should characterize a
nation is largely absent.
Passion is the actuator. You don’t become a concert pianist
because of a cold intellectual calculation that you may have some talent and,
well, you could make some good money being on stage. It’s passion that
motivates you to sink your teeth into practicing hours a day. Just consider the
difference between a child forced to engage in an activity and one with
self-motivating passion, or the difference between soldiers fighting simply
because they must and those truly believing in their cause.
When hearing about invaders streaming across our border, often
with a sense of entitlement, we should be filled with righteous anger
motivating us to robustly defend the homeland. We’re not. Or not enough of us
are. In fact, a good percentage of the country works against the common good,
passionate about the wrong things and acting as traitors would. Too many of the
rest are comfortably numb.
This is why invasion has been tolerated (and often encouraged),
why we talk about amnesty for people who should be unceremoniously shipped
south, and why there isn’t yet funding for a border wall despite a record
Republican House majority.
The reason for this, sadly, is that we’re not a nation — properly
understood. A nation is an extension of the tribe, which itself is an extension
of the family; it’s defined by blood, faith, language and culture. For example,
the Sioux Nation wasn’t a “country” or “state”; it was a very large family
sharing the aforementioned elements.
This truth was once recognized and emphasized. It was mentioned
among the Founding Fathers that we enjoyed the benefit of “consanguinity,”
meaning, a relationship based on having the same remote ancestors. This became
less of a reality after the waves of 19th-century immigration, yet
emphasis was still placed on maintaining nationhood. For example, President
Teddy Roosevelt said in
1907 that treating people with “equality” was not a given, but was “predicated
upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an
American.”
He went on to say, “Any man who says he is an American, but
something else also, isn't an American at all.” Now consider how many people
will describe themselves as a/an _________-American or, worse still, will say
“I’m _________” (fill in, Polish, Irish, Greek, Italian, etc.). They may not be
bad people; they may mean well. But they’re unwittingly strengthening the
all-too-prevalent internationalist mentality and are acting contrary to the
cause of nationhood.
Nationhood was defended legislatively in 1921 with the Emergency
Quota Act and in 1924 with the enactment of the National Origins Act, which used
immigration quotas to maintain our country’s demographic balance. This is
called “racist” today, even though some Europeans had greater quotas than other
Europeans (and they’re the same race), but demographic upheaval is precisely
how you destroy a nation. Ask the Tibetans, American Indians or the Ainu in
Japan (if you can find any) about that.
This brings us to the most
significant and disruptive piece of legislation in American history: The
Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. Introduced by Rep. Emanuel Celler
(D-NY), co-sponsored by Sen. Philip Hart (D-MI) and promoted by lady-killer
Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA), it should have earned them the designation
(D-Demographic Destruction).
The act increased immigration levels from a historical annual norm
of approximately 250,000 to more than one million; it also for the first time
limited immigration from the Western Hemisphere. Since it took effect in ’68,
85 percent of immigrants have hailed from the Third World (70 to 90 percent of
them vote Democrat upon being naturalized; this is the real reason leftists
love immigration). America would never be the same again.
Not only did the rate of immigration exceed the rate of
assimilation, but many newcomers are not easily assimilable. Moreover,
assimilation is never a one-way street when at issue are large numbers of
immigrants; for while they may change, they will also change the wider society.
In addition, even a very basic level of assimilation isn’t a given, as the
Amish, Hasidim and some other groups prove.
Couple this with the rise of multiculturalism and what underlies
it, moral relativism/nihilism, where people are essentially told “Hey, it’s all
perspective; whatever works for you (unless that happens to be authentic
Americanism)” and it’s no surprise what we’ve become: a multitude of disparate
peoples trying (not always too hard) to co-exist within the same porous
borders. We’re not divided. We’re fractured — religiously, philosophically,
politically, socially, ideologically and culturally. In fact, what unites us
most today is sin.
Our unofficial motto, once E pluribus unum, has
beome E pluribus plura — out of many, many more. This is why
we fight over everything, from life’s origin to politics to
football to baking cakes to marriage to, even, what boys and girls are. It’s
why everything ends up in court.
As for the end game, people with badly conflicting values trying
to co-exist under the same roof will eventually go their separate ways —
unless, as with bickering children, an iron hand keeps them in line. The large
groups of people known as countries are no different. Unless something
radically alters our cultural trajectory, as a nuclear blast might alter an
asteroid’s, our fate is either dissolution or despotism.
Contact Selwyn
Duke, follow him on Twitter or
log on to SelwynDuke.com
