By Selwyn Duke
Most of us will publicly lament our immigration woes, but not without a disclaimer. “Look, I have no problem with immigration,” say we, “I just want people to come here legally.” This, after all, is supposed to be the sober, sane, American point of view, as we “know” that immigration is the lifeblood of the U.S.A. Personally, I can sympathize with this perspective. Western civilization has become old, tired and decrepit; it’s a mere shadow of its former self, running on fumes and on empty. Perhaps its time for it to be euthanized.
I just want it done legally.
Now I’ll transition from a wise-guy to a guy who waxes wise. You should be outraged by the pandering to the illegal alien lobby, and I’ll unabashedly say that the three most important factors in immigration policy are deportation, deportation and deportation. Still, to focus our eyes narrowly on just illegal immigration is to lament only the salt thrown into the wound while accepting the wound itself. Illegal immigration is not the problem.
It’s an exacerbation of the problem.
The real problem began with a piece of legislation titled “The Immigration Reform Act of 1965” (Ted Kennedy’s brainchild). It not only increased immigration levels from approximately 250,000 yearly to about one million, it also has created a situation wherein 85 percent of our immigrants hail from the Third World and Asia and half from Spanish-speaking countries. This was a departure from historical norms and guaranteed the ultimate destruction of our western, Anglo-American culture.
It’s really very simple. Do you want to know why we have Moslem prayers broadcast five times daily in Hamtramck, Michigan; Moslem foot baths installed in the Kansas City Airport; “Islamic Immersion” classes in a California school district; Moslems who are planning jihad against us on our own shores; and Moslems who demand an Arabic public school in NYC and Moslem dormitories at colleges? Legal immigration. Why do we have illegal immigrants brazen enough to protest in the streets and demand the rights of citizens? Legal immigration. Why do you have to press buttons to conduct business in the language of the land and why are government documents printed in foreign ones? Legal immigration. Why have we seen Mexicans in our streets burning our flag and wielding signs stating “Gringo Go Home”? Legal immigration.
“But, wait, Duke,” say some, “a couple of the problems you’ve cited involve mainly illegal immigration.” If you believe this, just ask how it is that we’ve come to tolerate offensive demands made by those who are nothing but invaders. Sure, politically correct native minds are a factor, but the truth is these movements are facilitated by legions of people with no true allegiance to America, individuals who carry water for illegals because their patriotism is only of the ethnic variety.
The fact is that most of the folks who won’t assimilate are here legally, but citizenship papers can’t change a heart. A pious Moslem will gladly upend our culture to make way for sharia just as an ethnic patriot of Mexican descent will subordinate our language to his own. Legality is deceptive. Slavery was legal at one time, as was cocaine, but this didn’t render the former any more moral or the latter any more healthful. A law doesn’t make a bad idea good; like an unassimilable legal immigrant, it just makes it more entrenched.
A peril of knowing history is that it robs one of blissful ignorance. A cross I bear is that I see very clear parallels between third millennium America and Rome during its waning days. For instance, let’s consider the barbarian invasions.
Peoples beyond the Roman realm certainly didn’t call themselves barbarians, but culturally and technologically they did pale in comparison to Greco-Roman civilization. And while you may have heard of these rough-hewn invaders, what you may not know is that they weren’t always uninvited guests. On the contrary, Rome often enlisted their aid to fight other barbarians, sometimes granting them lands in return; other times they just seized territory, having become accustomed to being there. This started with the Visigoths in 376 A.D., who immigrated into the empire and were allowed to stay under the condition that they defend the Danube frontier. I guess you could say they were doing jobs Romans wouldn’t do.
Then they did a job on Rome. They grew powerful enough to sack Rome itself in 410 A.D. and eventually established a kingdom in Iberia, which was once part of the Roman Empire. Ah, the law of unintended consequences.
You see, as with us, a shortage of manly power – as opposed to manpower – made the Romans all too willing to have foreigners fight for them. But power-hungry government officials were also a factor. In 429 A.D., the Roman general Bonifice enlisted the aid of the Vandals, promising them land in North Africa if they would help him vanquish Roman leaders who he believed were bent on his destruction. In a land where power was won not at the ballot box but on the battlefield, he needed to buy their swords – as opposed to their votes.
Bonifice later learned he had been tricked into believing there was a plot against his life and didn’t need his Vandal allies, but it was too late. North Africa was the breadbasket of the empire, and the Vandals licked their chops and took the fecund region for themselves. North Africa was Rome’s no more.
Eventually, most all of what had become known as the Western Roman Empire was in the hands of barbarians; this included the Italian peninsula itself, the place where the Roman Republic was born. Rome as her people had known her had vanished, and she would never rise again.
Of course, every inch of land comprised by the Roman Empire exists to this day, but the empire does not. Asia Minor still exists, but its people no longer speak Greek and are very different from those who helped give birth to western civilization. North Africa still exists, but its people no longer look to Rome, but Mecca. A nation is not defined by a land mass, but by people.
In other words, replace our population with a Mexican or Moslem one and you no longer have a western civilization, you no longer have America. You have Mexico North or Iran West.
Of course, we won’t become either of those things exactly; rather, we’re becoming the Balkans West, a cauldron of competing, motley subcultures, little de facto nations within a nation, each approaching the others with its own unique agenda and “foreign policy.” And history issues a stern warning: When lands lacking the glue of a common culture aren’t held together by an iron fist, like Marshal Tito’s in Yugoslavia, they descend into civil strife if not civil war, which is why Tito’s nation’s days were numbered when his ended. Yet, instead of changing that outdated inscription on Lady Liberty, our response is to entertain amnesty for illegals and import more Moslem refugees (such as Iraqis). Well, when the gauntlet is finally thrown down, at least it will be a fair fight.
So ironic it is, with war raging in Iraq, many will say that America shouldn’t be in the Middle East. What we should lament is that we’re bringing the Middle East to America. Oh, we don’t call members of our squeaky-wheel alien nations barbarians, and they don’t bear names such as Visigoths, Lombards, Vandals and Alans, but like the latter groups, they don’t want their host nation’s values and culture, just its wealth. One is left to wonder if we’ll have to become barbarians to survive.
Many palliate themselves with the notion that, by golly, after a generation or two these folks will assimilate. But why? Why would a person who is encouraged to hyphenate himself (fill-in-the-blank-American), who is not pressured to conform to our culture or learn our language, who is so puffed up with ethnic pride that he ascribes superiority to his “native” land while viewing the one that suckles him with disdain, ever contemplate assimilation? Never mind, we know the answer.
So, assimilation? Sure, but we are the ones being assimilated. And if you think it’s bad now, wait until 70 million more Mexicans and Moslems strengthen us with their diversity.
Theoretically, we could still right the ship, but there’s a formidable psychological stumbling block. We’ve been inured to invasion, sedated with the supposition that immigration is as American as baseball and apple pie. But there is nothing at all American about support for policies that guarantee the destruction of America.
The FBI just foiled a terrorist plot involving an attack on Fort Dix, NJ, one illustrating the nature of our problem well, as three of the suspects are here illegally.
And three are here legally.
Were it not for the Immigration Reform Act of 1965, we wouldn’t have to worry about Moslem terrorism on our soil. We wouldn’t be beset by ultra-violent, terrorist-enabling gangs such as MS-13, either. You see, these folks would presently be where their hearts are – in their homelands.
So don’t ask me why I won’t give a nod to legal immigration as I oppose the illegal variety. You might as well ask why I won’t choose a slow death over a quick one.
