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ref: footnote #2..that patterns in W Europe and the USA started diverging twenty-five years agoReader comment on item: Europe's Stark Options Submitted by S. E. Kalmutz. (United States), Apr 18, 2007 at 16:22 Such opinion may be overly optimistic. The present Muslim population, of recent Middle Eastern, Central Asian, and North African origin, has been estimated at six million. I don't know what proportion could be considered actual or potential Islamist. The present numbers are small. (In this and other contexts, one should remember that the Communists took over Russia when they constituted less than one percent of the population of Russia.) This could change if a greater upheaval occurred in the Middle East, and, predictably, the US admitted large numbers of refugee Muslims out of a misplaced, self-flagellating, sense of guilt. A different source of the danger of societal fracture in the USA quite possibly leading to a change in our boundaries, is the very large scale, and unregulated immigration of an essentially homogenous population with a potentially different nationalistic focus. I am referring to the immigration of Mexicans in such large numbers that it appears unlikely that they can be assimilated fast enough to prevent perpetuation within our nation of a group that will maintain a significant self perception of difference. I am not referring to "quite different" and insular groups such as the Amish, or Chassidic Jews, who are to too few to constitue a threat, and actually can have positive effects. It has been projected that if present trends continue, by mid-century (only forty years), Mexicans will constitue 35% of the population, and will be a majority in California, Texas, and other Southwestern States. These are the states that were acquired by means of the Mexican War, and even now give rise to a (presently) small, but strident group who articulate irredentist passions that will certainly grow as the insufficiently assimilated Mexican population grows. Two factors willmexacerbate this process: One is an economic crisis, a depression. The other is the continuing weakening of the factors that have bound us together, and have resulted in a society and culture that is as good or better than any other that has evolved at this tme. Not perfect, but better. And it has the capability of improving through it's established governmental institutions. Unfortunately we are afflicted by the same destructive influences that you described as being active in England. That is the pervasive academic elites (with their subsequent influence on education at all levels, and many political activists) who have made an ideology of denying the positive accomplishments and uniqueness of the civilization and society that has developed in the United States of America, and not in the United States of Mexico, nor on the Indian sub-continent, nor elsewhere. Major universites now allow, and even encourage, entering under-graduates to immerse themselves in the study of other cultures as alternatives, often with the implication that they are better- before ensuring that they have a firm understanding of our own culture and it's antecedants. I am ccertain that the foregoing will be misconstrued as the expressions of racism. Nonsense. I have, and have had for maby years, friends of every race and many ethnicites, Furthermore, the individual in the past century who best exemplifies selfless devotion to the cause of his people (and was murdered for it), and complete incorruptibility, was a Mexican: Emiliano Zapata. It is not racist, nor pathologically ethnocentric, to want to preserve the society, culture and institutions that have been provided us by our forebearers, with their particular insight and wisdom, that was based on a particular culture. We do not need to repeat the the British example of starting with a peaceful, non-divisive community, that invited divisiveness, terror, and the threat of their civilization-culture-jurisprudence being replaced as the result of their allowing unrestricted immigration of large numbers of Muslims from Pakistan-India, who are unwilling to assimilate sufficiently to the host culture. Are our political leaders unable to learn from this example? Or are they too corrupt? Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments". << Previous Comment Next Comment >> Reader comments (280) on this item
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