September 15, 2008
America has long been termed the "melting pot"--a place where persons of all nationalities, races and creeds could come, enter the crucible and come out as an "American". For hundreds of years millions have come and embraced their new American identity while celebrating the traditions of their heritage. My mother's own family came from Sweden in the early 1900s and were proud to learn English, become American citizens, and be proud of their roots.
Immigrants have come for countless reasons. Yet as they formed a new nation they did so with adherence to a number of principles that they were determined would make America dramatically different from the lands they left--chiefly Europe at the time. Europe had been marked for thousands of years by warfare and strife over religion, nationality, and race. America would be created to provide equal treatment under the law regardless of these factors. In fact, government was to be forbidden to count these factors at all. It required a civil war, a civil rights movement and lots of time and effort to ensure that these principals were practiced, but America continues to improve in this regard as is most recently evidenced by the nomination of an American of African descent for President of the country.
Yet Europe continues with great division over race, religion and creed. Commentators have noted the failures of France, Germany and England to assimilate minority groups. Recent summer riots in France by Muslim youth provided dramatic evidence of the failure. Now the National Review has noted a disturbing trend in Great Britain. Social scientists there have found that one-third of the nation's Muslim students support the creation of a world wide caliphate to rule us. About the same number believe that killing in the name of Islam is justified. Forty percent want sharia law incorporated into Britain's legal code. Among non-Muslim university students, 55% believe Islam is incompatible with democracy and 10% have "little respect" for Muslims. One academic declared in the study that, "The solution is to stop talking about celebrating diversity and, instead, focus on integration and assimilation". And perhaps those who don't want to assimilate, don't want to become "British", should be encouraged to leave rather than to force the change of a country that has existed for thousands of years.
Liberals in the United States, chiefly in the Democratic party and in academia, have been decrying assimilation for the past 30 years and have fought efforts to require English as an official language of citizenship and business. They pushed government and schools into providing services in foreign languages of large minority groups and pushed the notion that these groups should be able to retain their separate identity. They should observe carefully what is transpiring in the democracies of Europe as they fail to assimilate minority groups. They should recall American history and how waves of Irish, Scots, English, Germans, Poles, Slavs, Swedes, Norwegians, Portuguese, Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, Mexicans and countless others have come to America, celebrated their heritage but chosen to become Americans first. These immigrants have worked hard, contributed to our communities, learned English, fought for our country, and became citizens. Many of these groups fought initial discrimination but overcame it becoming fully-privileged citizens.
Now, more than ever, we need to proclaim our sovereignty as a state; control our borders; make access reasonable for those who want to come legally; require English and history for citizenship; and make every effort to encourage assimilation. We should also make it extremely difficult for people to come here illegally as a permanent class undermining the very notion of America. And we should encourage those to leave who want to stay among us but change our society back to notions that we left behind over 232 years ago when we created our nation. American citizenship, and the benefits it brings, should only be available to those who embrace its ideals--that of a nation where race, nationality, and creed do not matter before the law.
