Selwyn Duke
America has lost her will to live
By Selwyn Duke
Perhaps we should have chosen the turkey as our national bird, as Benjamin Franklin suggested. It would certainly be more appropriate for our times. But if any flying creature would do, a moth might be more fitting still – with political correctness playing the role of that devilishly irresistible flame.
America long ago lost her will to live. Historically, trespassing into another people's territory could bring violence. And nations the world over secure their borders, sometimes at the end of a gun fondled by an itchy finger. But not the US. We place water stations in the Arizona desert for thirsty trespassers, offer driver's licenses and in-state tuition for them, and now a Supreme Court justice has opined that calling illegal migrants "criminals" is insulting. I don't know, what do you call someone who broke the law? Legally challenged?
But it's even worse than that. About 20 years ago Japan expelled illegal migrants and made the statement (I'm paraphrasing), "Japan is for Japanese. Others are welcome to come and visit, but they're expected to go home." Under the Mexican constitution, a foreign-born individual perhaps can be naturalized – but he can never enjoy full citizenship rights. And as would be the case if some tribe of "noble savages" were being overwhelmed by a colonizing people, when millions of Chinese flood Tibet and seek to supplant its ancient Buddhism-saturated culture, liberals are the first ones to scream "cultural genocide!" Heck, they don't even like the gentrification of minority neighborhoods or when an adopted black child is raised by white parents and denied bona fide "black" enculturation. Yet millions of unassimilable foreigners violate the US' borders and sovereignty, sometimes commit further crimes and stress our social services, and we're only supposed to discuss secondary issues. Are the illegals a benefit or a liability economically? Do they contribute more in taxes than they take in handouts? Who'll pick the grapes? But with our bones poised to be picked, can we ask about culture? After all, people make the nation, not the other way around. Import enough Mexicans or Muslims into your country, and you no longer have Western civilization. You have Mexico Norte or Iran West.
Yet the very same people who claimed they could orchestrate the health care of 317 million people will insist that "we can't deport" 20 million people. In fact, even though deportation should be reflexive, it isn't even on the radar screen. To suggest it brands you bigot or xenophobe, and the only thing really at issue is the rate of surrender: will it be sudden with full-on amnesty or the slower "path to legal status," the coup de grace or the death by a thousand cuts?
So all we hear instead are ridiculous arguments justifying the illegals' presence, as if they have no country to which to return. We'll hear that they're hard-working people who love their families, which is about as meaningful as saying they're bipeds who breathe air. I'm sure that German soldiers during WWII were generally hard-working people who loved their families, too, but as long as they posed a threat to the US, they had to be dealt with as such.
Particular indignation is exhibited when defending children of illegals, who, we're told, "are here through no fault of their own." This also is meaningless. Countless millions of children throughout the world are poor through no fault of their own, yet we don't propose they all be allowed green cards. And how many children have ended up in foster care through no fault of their own after their parents were imprisoned for committing crimes? Perhaps we should stop enforcing laws, period – "for the children."
Then there's language. Every liberal psychologist will talk about the importance of communication in a family. But what about a national family? India recognized a common language to be such a necessary cultural glue that it actually adopted the tongue of its former colonizer, England, as its co-national language. Meanwhile, Americans stand by while their government prints official documents in foreign tongues and transforms us into a Tower of Babel.
And the surrender and silly arguments never end. I heard a caller on Michael Savage's Tuesday radio show say that he agreed with NYC mayor Bolshevik Bill's plan to make two Muslim religious days and the Lunar New Year official school holidays; his reasoning was that since American culture is made up of so many different things, how can we exclude anything? Interestingly, though, he did agree with Savage that English should be our common language.
But why? English is also made up of so many different things, with Greek and Latin as well as Angle, Saxon, Frisii, Jute and Frankish influences. Hey, press two for Latin, folks.
Of course, American culture is the product of many influences. And the Greeks and Etruscans influenced each other, Rome was influenced by Greece and the Etruscans, Western Europe by Rome and by extension the Greeks and Etruscans, and then the rest of the world by...well, you get it. Everyone was influenced by someone except for Adam and Eve, and even they – as we have our liberals – had their serpent. And since our whispering voices tell us that we shouldn't trouble over cultural genocide because culture is a relative thing, let's examine the matter further.
Having been influenced not just by the aforementioned groups but also the Germanic Franks, French culture is an amalgamation of many different elements. But it is also now a specific thing. It's much as how cubed beef, vegetable oil, tomatoes, peppers, paprika and salt, cooked a certain way, become something specific: Beef Goulash. And so it is with many things. Combine iron and carbon and the result is the unique thing called steel; two hydrogen molecules and one oxygen molecule yield water. (And for you warmists, note that CO2 isn't carbon any more than it's oxygen.) Now, would goulash be better if we added other "influences" (ingredients)? That depends – but it might no longer be goulash.
Of course, you may not like Beef Goulash; you may prefer Vegetable Curry, Chicken Cacciatore, Roast Pork Lo Mein or Steak and Ale Pie. Then make your case; explain your vision of a deific diet, a meritorious menu. That's not what we're doing, however. Under the illusion that all ingredients are equal – and equally compatible – we haphazardly throw anything and everything into the mix. Some vanilla syrup in that goulash? Sure, why not? You're not a syrupist, are you? Some cinnamon sticks, limburger cheese, hay from the field, eye of newt, toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog? Now that's diversity! And throw in some foxglove while you're at it – no worries about indigestion afterwards then.
We're no longer a melting pot, but a dish gone to pot. We've forgotten that robust, healthy America was a result of a specific recipe, and we cannot perpetuate that republic unless we remember the recipe. Of course, some say that limiting a land to one recipe is narrow and exclusionary. I say that the road to Heaven is narrow. And all recipes necessarily include only some ingredients and exclude most others, just as definitions limit by defining. If America can mean anything, she means nothing; but if she is something, then she can be defined. And then, by definition, she would have to be exclusionary – like any nation.
Why are many Americans indifferent about their cultural destruction? For one thing, they've been conditioned to feel that Western culture is either nothing special or especially bad. At the same time, however, they've been imbued with moral relativism, which blinds one to danger. After all, different cultures espouse different values, but this won't matter to a person who considers all values equal. And, yes, it is possible to hate the West at one moment while claiming all cultures are equal the next. For a person disconnected from Truth will tend to operate based on emotion, which changes with the wind. Besides, consistency is no better than inconsistency in a relativistic universe.
But reality is an absolutist. And having been fed lies for decades, Americans will soon find out that their tomorrows will only be as great as their appreciation of their yesterdays.
© Selwyn Duke
February 7, 2014
Perhaps we should have chosen the turkey as our national bird, as Benjamin Franklin suggested. It would certainly be more appropriate for our times. But if any flying creature would do, a moth might be more fitting still – with political correctness playing the role of that devilishly irresistible flame.
America long ago lost her will to live. Historically, trespassing into another people's territory could bring violence. And nations the world over secure their borders, sometimes at the end of a gun fondled by an itchy finger. But not the US. We place water stations in the Arizona desert for thirsty trespassers, offer driver's licenses and in-state tuition for them, and now a Supreme Court justice has opined that calling illegal migrants "criminals" is insulting. I don't know, what do you call someone who broke the law? Legally challenged?
But it's even worse than that. About 20 years ago Japan expelled illegal migrants and made the statement (I'm paraphrasing), "Japan is for Japanese. Others are welcome to come and visit, but they're expected to go home." Under the Mexican constitution, a foreign-born individual perhaps can be naturalized – but he can never enjoy full citizenship rights. And as would be the case if some tribe of "noble savages" were being overwhelmed by a colonizing people, when millions of Chinese flood Tibet and seek to supplant its ancient Buddhism-saturated culture, liberals are the first ones to scream "cultural genocide!" Heck, they don't even like the gentrification of minority neighborhoods or when an adopted black child is raised by white parents and denied bona fide "black" enculturation. Yet millions of unassimilable foreigners violate the US' borders and sovereignty, sometimes commit further crimes and stress our social services, and we're only supposed to discuss secondary issues. Are the illegals a benefit or a liability economically? Do they contribute more in taxes than they take in handouts? Who'll pick the grapes? But with our bones poised to be picked, can we ask about culture? After all, people make the nation, not the other way around. Import enough Mexicans or Muslims into your country, and you no longer have Western civilization. You have Mexico Norte or Iran West.
Yet the very same people who claimed they could orchestrate the health care of 317 million people will insist that "we can't deport" 20 million people. In fact, even though deportation should be reflexive, it isn't even on the radar screen. To suggest it brands you bigot or xenophobe, and the only thing really at issue is the rate of surrender: will it be sudden with full-on amnesty or the slower "path to legal status," the coup de grace or the death by a thousand cuts?
So all we hear instead are ridiculous arguments justifying the illegals' presence, as if they have no country to which to return. We'll hear that they're hard-working people who love their families, which is about as meaningful as saying they're bipeds who breathe air. I'm sure that German soldiers during WWII were generally hard-working people who loved their families, too, but as long as they posed a threat to the US, they had to be dealt with as such.
Particular indignation is exhibited when defending children of illegals, who, we're told, "are here through no fault of their own." This also is meaningless. Countless millions of children throughout the world are poor through no fault of their own, yet we don't propose they all be allowed green cards. And how many children have ended up in foster care through no fault of their own after their parents were imprisoned for committing crimes? Perhaps we should stop enforcing laws, period – "for the children."
Then there's language. Every liberal psychologist will talk about the importance of communication in a family. But what about a national family? India recognized a common language to be such a necessary cultural glue that it actually adopted the tongue of its former colonizer, England, as its co-national language. Meanwhile, Americans stand by while their government prints official documents in foreign tongues and transforms us into a Tower of Babel.
And the surrender and silly arguments never end. I heard a caller on Michael Savage's Tuesday radio show say that he agreed with NYC mayor Bolshevik Bill's plan to make two Muslim religious days and the Lunar New Year official school holidays; his reasoning was that since American culture is made up of so many different things, how can we exclude anything? Interestingly, though, he did agree with Savage that English should be our common language.
But why? English is also made up of so many different things, with Greek and Latin as well as Angle, Saxon, Frisii, Jute and Frankish influences. Hey, press two for Latin, folks.
Of course, American culture is the product of many influences. And the Greeks and Etruscans influenced each other, Rome was influenced by Greece and the Etruscans, Western Europe by Rome and by extension the Greeks and Etruscans, and then the rest of the world by...well, you get it. Everyone was influenced by someone except for Adam and Eve, and even they – as we have our liberals – had their serpent. And since our whispering voices tell us that we shouldn't trouble over cultural genocide because culture is a relative thing, let's examine the matter further.
Having been influenced not just by the aforementioned groups but also the Germanic Franks, French culture is an amalgamation of many different elements. But it is also now a specific thing. It's much as how cubed beef, vegetable oil, tomatoes, peppers, paprika and salt, cooked a certain way, become something specific: Beef Goulash. And so it is with many things. Combine iron and carbon and the result is the unique thing called steel; two hydrogen molecules and one oxygen molecule yield water. (And for you warmists, note that CO2 isn't carbon any more than it's oxygen.) Now, would goulash be better if we added other "influences" (ingredients)? That depends – but it might no longer be goulash.
Of course, you may not like Beef Goulash; you may prefer Vegetable Curry, Chicken Cacciatore, Roast Pork Lo Mein or Steak and Ale Pie. Then make your case; explain your vision of a deific diet, a meritorious menu. That's not what we're doing, however. Under the illusion that all ingredients are equal – and equally compatible – we haphazardly throw anything and everything into the mix. Some vanilla syrup in that goulash? Sure, why not? You're not a syrupist, are you? Some cinnamon sticks, limburger cheese, hay from the field, eye of newt, toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog? Now that's diversity! And throw in some foxglove while you're at it – no worries about indigestion afterwards then.
We're no longer a melting pot, but a dish gone to pot. We've forgotten that robust, healthy America was a result of a specific recipe, and we cannot perpetuate that republic unless we remember the recipe. Of course, some say that limiting a land to one recipe is narrow and exclusionary. I say that the road to Heaven is narrow. And all recipes necessarily include only some ingredients and exclude most others, just as definitions limit by defining. If America can mean anything, she means nothing; but if she is something, then she can be defined. And then, by definition, she would have to be exclusionary – like any nation.
Why are many Americans indifferent about their cultural destruction? For one thing, they've been conditioned to feel that Western culture is either nothing special or especially bad. At the same time, however, they've been imbued with moral relativism, which blinds one to danger. After all, different cultures espouse different values, but this won't matter to a person who considers all values equal. And, yes, it is possible to hate the West at one moment while claiming all cultures are equal the next. For a person disconnected from Truth will tend to operate based on emotion, which changes with the wind. Besides, consistency is no better than inconsistency in a relativistic universe.
But reality is an absolutist. And having been fed lies for decades, Americans will soon find out that their tomorrows will only be as great as their appreciation of their yesterdays.
© Selwyn Duke
The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
