Victor Davis Hanson has a piece out on “Premodern Diversity Vs. Civilizational Unity.” He warns that tribal diversity leads to civilizational collapse.
Then he sets up a list of seven things we have to get right to avoid a mess-up. My comments are in italic bold.
One, America is enriched by immigrant “food, fashion, art, music, and literature.”
And, immigrants must forget their politics from back home.
Fact is, immigrants all want preserve their way of life from back home.
Two, people vote with their feet to emigrate to America.
And, “no sane immigrant” would keep the old culture “that drove them out from their homeland.
Fact is, immigrants all instinctively bring their politics from back home, good and bad.
Three, tribalism wrecks nations.
And, “the tribalism of one group inevitably leads only to more tribalism of others.”
Fact is, US politicians have always used and abused immigrant naivété and old world ways.
Four, immigration must be measured.
And, immigrants must “be manageably assimilated and integrated.”
Fact is, Democrats benefit from unlimited immigration, because recent immigrants vote Democrat.
Five, immigration “must be legal.”
Or, “the legal applicant is rendered a fool.”
Fact is, Democrats will only do that when illegal immigration hurts them.
Six, immigration “must be meritocratic.”
And come “with English and skills and do not burden their hosts.”
Fact is, Democrats benefit when immigrants are ignorant and isolated.
Seven, immigration must be diverse.
So, “all groups abroad have equal access to the American dream.”
Fact is, immigrants bring their old enemies with them to America.
Now I am going to analyze this in the view of Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt’s Concept of the Political, where the political is distinction between friend and enemy, because “there is no politics without an enemy."
Our ruling class operates a political formula where it advertises itself as the ally of oppressed groups: victims of injustice. Immigrants are peculiarly apt to think of themselves as victims, as they struggle to make a life in America and try to make sense of America and its ways. So Democratic political machines since whenever have inducted immigrants into their political machines in return for benefits, which might range from jobs to help with interface with government and the rules and regulations that are unfamiliar to immigrants. And they teach them that they are victims.
So the ideas on immigration that Hanson develops above, while sensible and just to the average American, do not appeal to our educated ruling class. The ruling class benefits from large floods of immigrants. Lower class immigrants instinctively believe that ordinary Americans don’t like them and take advantage of them. Educated immigrants will pick up the culture of the educated ruling class, just as the average kiddie at university picks up woke culture and politics from their teachers and believe that the average white American is a racist-sexist-homophobe.
Myself, I don’t believe that immigrants get assimilated by the passage of time. Why would they? Their ethnic leaders and ordinary sauntering politicians want them separate. What assimilates immigrants is world war. World War I did a good job of assimilating and unifying the doughboys and taught German-Americans to shut up. World War II turned all the Irish and Italian and Scandinavians to be regular GI, government issue. Unfortunately, the Negro soldiers of Word War II were kept separate. Pity about that.
Fact is, politics is the art of division, and politicians keep people divided until there is a world war and they need cannon fodder. That’s when they call all the people to be united. And not before.