A Nation of Immigrants — Only if They Assimilate

I am writing this column in Japan, a country whose crime rate is the lowest among countries with large populations. I asked my Japanese translator, a middle-aged woman, what she thought.

“Why is there is so little crime in Japan?” I asked.

Without taking a moment to reflect, she responded, “Because we don’t allow immigration.”

Anyone who visits Japan is struck by the ethnic homogeneity of the nation. If you meet a Caucasian, a black or a Hispanic in Japan, you can be all but certain that the person is visiting or studying there, not a citizen.

Likewise in the United States, there is direct correlation between ethnic homogeneity and low levels of violence. According to 2016-2017 data, the four states with the lowest percentages of violence are:

Vermont — where 95 percent of the population is one race (white).

Maine — where 95 percent of the population is one race (white).

Wyoming — where roughly 93 percent of the population is one race (white).

New Hampshire — where roughly 94 percent of the population is one race (white).

Sweden, which for much of its modern history has had among the world’s lowest rates of violent crime, was almost always as homogenous as Japan. Now that it has admitted hundreds of thousands of immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa, it is no longer a homogenous country, and its levels of violence have increased dramatically.

All this leads to a particular rule, which is, in order to maintain a low crime rate and social stability, a country has only two choices: Do not allow immigrants into the country, or allow immigrants into the country, but be certain to assimilate them into the native population as quickly as possible.

The second choice has been America’s choice throughout most of its history, and it has been uniquely successful in shaping people from all over the world and from every background into one nation known as Americans. One of America’s three fundamental principles has been e pluribus unum, or “out of many” (the other two, as our coinage testifies, are liberty and In God We Trust). And that is precisely what America has done.

But since the 1960s, the Left has supplanted e pluribus unum and its national American identity with the antithetical doctrines of diversity and multiculturalism.

Diversity and multiculturalism celebrate the national/ethnic identities of the nations from where American immigrants came instead of celebrating the American identity and traditional American values.

The result is the beginning of the end of the United States as we have known it since its inception.

The Left constantly repeats “we are a nation of immigrants” without citing the other half of that fact — “who assimilate into America.” The Left mocks the once-universally held American belief in the melting pot. But the melting pot is the only way for a country composed of immigrants to build a cohesive society.

America was never just “a nation of immigrants.” America was always a nation of immigrants who sought to become — or at least were taught by American public schools and by the general American culture to become — Americans.

If America becomes a nation of nonassimilating immigrants, or a nation consisting of nonassimilating ethnic, racial and national groups who are already here, it will cease being a glorious idea and become just another nation torn by conflicting interest groups. These various groups will fight one another — first verbally and then, perhaps, violently (and America will see more and more violence) — just as France, Sweden and Germany have seen since they began taking in millions of immigrants, many of whom have no intention of becoming Frenchmen, Swedes or Germans.

Contrary to one of the Left’s more mendacious claims, diversity has not been America’s great strength. America’s great strength has been forging an American identity out of diversity.

But the Left, with its identity politics and commitment to multiculturalism — as expressed, for example, by ballots in dozens of languages, the proliferation of ethnic studies departments at universities and the allowance of all-black dorms and graduation ceremonies — is undoing that.

If you want to understand the immigration crisis, just know that because the Left has undone the second choice, it has made the first choice — Japan’s choice — look tenable to many for the first time in American history.

SOURCE

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The Pouting and Shouting Left Is Just Being Itself

I'd almost forgotten how unreasonable the Left can be when out of power, but liberals are giving us a daily refresher course, and it's almost hard to take seriously - except we must.

They describe everything President Donald Trump does in hyperbolic terms. He's a fascist. He's destroying our liberties. He disrespects the rule of law. He represents a threat to humanity. He is going to start a world war. He is a danger to the freedom of the press. He needs to be impeached.

A few quick examples. America did fine for 240 years without a lawless federal mandate requiring all public school districts to allow transgender students to use bathrooms that match their gender identity rather than those that correspond with their actual gender. According to liberals, the world is coming to an end. Trump has dealt a devastating blow to this beleaguered group of people, and he's an ogre. In fact, Trump lawfully reversed a lawless order, which will result in leaving the matter to the states to decide. Far from harming this minuscule group, he is protecting all other people from the concern that they or their children will have to share the same bathroom with those of the opposite gender.

Sunsara Taylor, an activist with Refuse Fascism, appeared on Tucker Carlson's Fox News Channel program to rant maniacally about how Trump and Vice President Mike Pence are operating out of "Hitler's playbook." Trump, she said, "is more dangerous than Hitler ever could have been." She called Trump and Pence a "danger to humanity" but offered no evidence they had done anything to justify her ridiculous charges. From what I could tell, Taylor's main concern is that Trump is trying to advance a conservative agenda while in control of "the biggest nuclear arsenal in the world." Conservatism plus nukes apparently equals a clear and present danger to mankind.

Before you dismiss this as a one-off exception to normally rational behavior, consider that Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota - who is vying to be chairman of the Democratic National Committee, no less - said he is open to calls to begin impeachment proceedings against Trump. "I think that Donald Trump has already done a number of things which legitimately raise the question of impeachment," said Ellison. And Ellison is not an outlier. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) also called for Trump's impeachment, describing Trump's team as "a bunch of scumbags."

Such lovely tolerant liberals took to social media to attack first lady Melania Trump, mocking her accent and religion - some calling her a whore, others a hostage - because she recited the Lord's Prayer at a campaign rally.

The glaring irony with all this is that it is liberals who are hateful and intolerant, authoritarian and lawless. They are the ones who represent a threat to our liberties - not Trump, Republicans or conservatives.

It's worth noting that almost every charge these breathless critics make against Trump is baseless and grounded on their irrational fears of what he might do rather than anything he's done. It's also remarkable that though these concerns are exaggerated when applied to Trump, many of them could have been accurately applied to President Barack Obama.

The dirty big non-secret is that the Left isn't concerned about the rule of law or any alleged threats to liberty. Liberals are pouting (and shouting) because for once in their lifetimes, they are not getting their way. For once, someone in a position of authority is refusing to roll over to political correctness. For once, a powerful public official is holding his hands up against this bullying liberal juggernaut and saying: "Stop. We've had enough. The people have had enough. You are not going to steamroll us anymore. We aren't any longer going to look the other way when you ignore the law, when you use the courts and unaccountable administrative agencies to legislate your will, when you use holdover federal bureaucrats to thwart the will of the chief executive and when your biased media distort the facts and advocate a liberal agenda rather than objectively report the news. We are not going to cower at the demagogic cabal that says people aren't paying their fair share of taxes. We aren't going to be shamed as heartless or nativists for demanding secure borders and safe cities. We aren't going to accept your belittling for identifying the enemy, by name, that is at war with us and with Western civilization. We aren't going to accede to your narrative that radical Islamic terrorists are only at war with us because we provoke them, so we reject your mindless mantra that the prison at Guantanamo Bay is a recruiting tool for otherwise peaceful global citizens. We aren't going to passively ignore your own selective assaults on religious liberty - on Christians. We aren't going to continue to allow you to dominate the public dialogue. We're finally fighting back - not as some tit-for-tat pettiness but because we believe that we are doing the right thing, that your virtual monopoly on the culture has been devastating and that it's time to begin reversing the destruction you've wrought.

"But unlike you, we won't break the law in undoing your agenda and advancing ours. To us, the ends don't justify the means. We won't - despite your projected concerns - diminish the freedom of the press or the constitutional liberties of any other individuals or groups. We are going to aggressively pursue policies that are in the best interests of America and the American people. Please keep calling us crazy and displaying your true colors to the American people, and with any luck, we'll do even better in 2020, provided we persevere in standing up to your bullying and proceed with a pro-growth, pro-defense, pro-liberty agenda."

SOURCE

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Why the DNC Chose Perez as New Chief

The new chair of the Democratic National Committee will be Barack Obama’s former labor secretary Tom Perez. In what proved to be a tight vote, Perez beat out Keith Ellison, the former Nation of Islam member and representative from Minnesota. While the mainstream media portrayed Perez’s election as evidence that Democrats are seeking to moderate their current hard-left stance, the reality is that both candidates are committed lefties.

Perez was one of the most leftist members of Barack Obama’s cabinet and a radical and relentless ideologue. For example, he has long touted the “disparate-impact theory” — a blatantly racist method for economic control. The Cato Institute’s Ilya Shapiro explained, “He essentially operationalized Eric Holder’s radicalization of the Department of Justice.” And Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said, “Perez has shown a glaring inability to tell the truth and dispassionately apply the basic constitutional tenet of ‘equal justice under law.’”

In the end, the primary reason Democrats chose Perez rather than Ellison may have more to do with a strategy to oppose Donald Trump specifically over the issue of immigration. Perez, who is Hispanic, has a long history of pushing for legal acceptance of illegal immigration. He is an open-borders proponent, is strongly opposed to voter ID laws and has consistently pushed for greater expansion of government programs designed to support illegal aliens. Democrats would love nothing more than to create another solid voting block out of Hispanics like they currently have with blacks. Redefining immigration appears to be their recipe.

SOURCE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated),  a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

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