With all the rhetoric about Dreamers, racists, and walls, has the public even heard the real problem with runaway immigration?
Sure, there are all kinds of secondary problems relating to logistics, government services, jobs, security and crime. Those are the ones we keep rehashing. But there is a deeper problem — related, but different — than these lesser issues.
As substantial as this problem is, it somehow does not get the attention it warrants.
Those who have pledged to “Fundamentally Transform” America know that one of the big obstacles to their goal is the American people themselves. There is a continuity of history, there is a shared culture.
In the same way that someone can be distinctly Japanese, Mexican, or Greek, there is a distinctive historical American culture. It was first shaped by people willing to risk an ocean voyage, arrive at a new land, and be personally responsible for their own success or starvation. It involved risk taking, long days, self-reliance and strong communities. It involved ingenuity and courage.
America challenged an empire and won her independence. Her people did that. In the midst of hardship and impossible odds. That became her legacy and her story. America spilled her own blood in a war that ended slavery. America’s values, and the potential to own your own success launched the Industrial Revolution. (And a great many other advances since.)
All of these things shaped the people, produced an optimism, an identity. It created the passion that makes American fans stand out at international events with their boisterous chants of “U-S-A!”
It is fundamentally different to be American than it is to be something else. I can say this as a Canadian. There is much to be admired about America as she has existed.
This American ethos is what makes it difficult to undercut or “transform” America. You are not easily separated from your own history. Your heroes. The legacy of those who have passed their torch to you.
For their plan to work, they have a few strategies.
First, attack the shared history. Neglect history, and it will fade away, and will lose its power to motivate, unite and inspire. Demonize the heroes that unite, and many will reject the national identity that flows from their accomplishments.
Next, tribalize the people. Turn attention away from what unites people as a whole, and encourage them to be aggrieved, and separated into easily manipulated identity groups separated by age, race, sex, or causes. These can be turned one against the other. If an American’s enemy is American, you have shattered unity, neither you, nor your opponent is viewed as American, but as the tribe you are cheering for or against.
Next, dilute the existing culture.
There was a time when immigration was predicated upon a Melting Mot. Leave behind the problems of the country you leave behind. Adopt and adapt to a proven, successful American way.
Not so any longer. Between unenforced Immigration laws, porous borders, and political flunkies driven to flood America with masses of humanity, we have forgotten basic math.
In order for a group to be integrated into the whole, we must first have a desire to be integrated, and also a population sufficient to receive it without itself being transformed.
Dropping an ice cube into a coffee cup is much different than dropping it into a bathtub. It’s all about proportions. And this where the red flags come in. Today’s proportions are all wrong. (See this article for details.)
With the massive influx of immigrants, legal and otherwise, we are looking at one out of every 5 citizens (their word, not mine) being either an immigrant, or the child of one. With those numbers it is possible we are already past the tipping point. If not, we are certainly approaching a point where the people we draw will redefine the nation.
Immigration is not — in itself — a bad thing. Uncontrolled immigration of those who do not wish to adopt and adapt to the model America was founded on, however, is. It will erode the traditional American culture, and morph it into something else, something pan-national, something distinctly un-American. (Fundamental Transformation)
If America, her freedoms, and her values are worth defending, then there is absolutely nothing immoral about taking steps to preserve that national character. We need only look around the world to see where those values are not prized.
Ultimately, the point of differentiating between legal and illegal immigration is to distinguish between those who would embrace the American model (the system is tilted against such people) and those who just want to game the system or refashion America into the countries they left behind.
