Category Archives: Multiculturalism

GOP Beating The Tom-Tom For Tribalism

Feminism, Justice, Law, Multiculturalism, Politics, Republicans

The Republican National Committee’s makeover manifesto reminds me of the questions posed to butcher Jodi Arias by her jurors: wordy and worthless.

The “The full 100-page Growth and Opportunity Project report from the RNC” has 219 prescriptions, many of these beating the tom-tom for party directed tribalism.

From the Table of contents:

Growth & Opportunity Project

Table of contents
1

Introduction

Messaging
1. Some People Say, “Republicans Don’t Care”
S
2. America Looks Different
3. The Way Forward

Demographic Partners
1. Growth and Opportunity Inclusion Council
A
2. Hispanics
3. Asian and Pacific Islander Americans
A
4. African Americans
5. Women
6. Youth
…

TECHNOLOGY AND DATA

ASIAN AMERICANS

WOMEN

VOTE BY MAIL/EARLY VOTING/ABSENTEE VOTING

AFRICAN AMERICANS

YOUNG VOTERS

HISPANICS

VETERANS

[SNIP]

Blah, blah, blah.
More of this banality here.

In case you wondered, jurors asked Miss Jodi some 200 voyeuristic questions. Shades of the deliberations in the Casey Anthony case. The clever quorum on Casey’s case decided that, “If it wasn’t uploaded on YouTube you must acquit.”

Self-Segregation Trumps Imposed Multiculturalism

Ilana Mercer, Liberty, Multiculturalism, Paleolibertarianism, Political Correctness, The West

“Originality is rare in punditry these days,” writes Joseph F. Cotto, who is “a scholar and columnist from central Florida.” “Every time a new narrative-of-the-day arrives, we take refuge in groupthink rather than thinking for ourselves. Not Mercer … [who] is one of America’s leading paleolibertarian voices, [with] “a prominent column on WorldNetDaily.”

Mr. Cotto recently interviewed this writer for the Washington Times’ community pages. You can read the interview, “Self-Segregation Trumps Imposed Multiculturalism,” at WND. Here are excerpts:

JOSEPH F. COTTO: This seems like one of the most polarized eras in American politics. Why do you think that our country’s political atmosphere has become so divisive?

ILANA MERCER: I think you are correct in your assessment regarding the unparalleled polarization of American society. Have you noticed how commentators on both sides of received political wisdom attempt to diminish the fact you articulate by referring to America’s fractious history? Nevertheless, this is a complex issue that is hard to answer briefly. I’ll try. In the introduction to F.A. Hayek’s “The Road to Serfdom,” economist Milton Friedman underscores this important point: “The argument for collectivism is simple if false; it is an immediate emotional argument. The argument for individualism is subtle and sophisticated; it is an indirect rational argument.”
Underway today in the USA is a monumental clash between individualism and collectivism; between the forces of reason and reality, against force and coercion. The “philosophical” differences between the Republikeynesians, on the one hand, and the Democrats, on the other, are insignificant. The first believe individual rights should be carefully calibrated by central planners; the latter believe these natural rights can be overridden.
There is also a cultural dimension to these irreparable divisions. We are today, thanks to social engineering, a deracinated and divided society. We are no longer what John Jay termed “a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and custom.” There can be no unity without community. The glue of togetherness is gone, replaced by a flimsy, fluid, and thoroughly fake unity peddled by politicians. “Ideas” they call it. On the one day, it’s a crusade for democracy; on the next, it’s a war against racism.

COTTO: Multiculturalism is spreading rapidly across the Western world. This has led not only to cultural barriers, but tremendous religious and ethnic conflicts. What are your views on the subject?

MERCER: Multiculturalism as practiced in the West amounts to top-down, centrally enforced and managed integration. Show me a historical precedent where forced integration has worked. As it works across the Anglo-American and European spheres, one group (the founding, historical majority) is forced by self-anointed and elected elites—no contradiction there—on pain of public and professional ostracism, to submerge its history, heroes, customs, culture, language, and pander to militant minorities, who’ve been acculturated by the same elites in identity-politics warfare. …
… An interesting new book, reviewed by one Barnaby Rogerson, makes the point that the Levant of the 18th century was peaceful and prosperous (and surprisingly libertine), because it was made up of “a grid of self-governing communities.” Integration between disparate communities was not enforced. And surprise, surprise: communities freely chose to live in complete segregation. This freedom fostered “remarkable tolerance” among diverse communities across the cities of the Levant of that time. “Deals before Ideals, City before State, Trade before Politics,” as the reviewer puts it. This freedom of association was the source of strength. These autonomous ethnic communities were free of the top-down, punitive, forced integration that has become the hallmark of the 19th-century nation-state that usurped their authority. …

This interview, “Self-Segregation Trumps Imposed Multiculturalism,” continues at WND.

If you’d like to feature this column, WND’s longest-standing, exclusive paleolibertarian column, in or on your publication (paper or pixels), contact ilana@ilanamercer.com.

JOIN THE DISCUSSION, AND DO BATTLE FOR LIBERTY BY:

• Using the content-sharing icons on Barely a Blog posts.

• At the WND and RT Comments Sections, and on Facebook.

• By clicking to “Like,” “Tweet” and “Share” WND’s “Return To Reason” , and RT’s “Paleolibertarian Column.”

UPDATED: Republicans Find Religion On … Evolution

Democrats, Elections, IMMIGRATION, Multiculturalism, Race, Republicans, Welfare

“Republicans Find Religion On … Evolution” is the current column, now on RT. Here’s and excerpt:

“On the heels of Barack Obama’s Las Vegas run-on ramble on the necessity of immigration ‘reform,’ this week, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) announced that he too had “evolved” overnight on the issue. ‘I’m … open-minded enough to say that it is an issue that we do need to evolve on,’ the senator vaporized.

Paul is a Johnny-come-lately to his party’s devolution on immigration. The country was still surveying the debris left by the “D-Bomb” (where “D” stands for demographics), dropped on Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2012—when, one-by-one, key Republicans began to defect, pledging their commitment to an ‘overhaul of the immigration system’; to ‘reform’; to ‘a comprehensive solution’; to ‘fixing a broken system,’ all well-recognized euphemisms for amnesty.

A tipping point in the demographic shift in the US population had returned Barack Obama to power for a second term. A moratorium on mass immigration, buttressed by strong secessionist and states’ rights movements, might just help delay another such bomb from detonating . But the Republicans were having none of it.

House Speaker John Boehner was soon leading the party of turncoats to the promised (la-la) land, pledging that ‘a comprehensive approach’ was ‘long overdue.’ ‘I’m confident,’ Boehner promised, ‘that the president, myself [and] others can find the common ground to take care of this issue once and for all.’

In short succession, our wily pitch men were joined by Republican media mouths who had also ‘evolved’ overnight. Thus, in a career-clinching bid—presumably, to continue playing a part in national politics—Sean Hannity, an influential Fox-News personality, declared that he too had found religion on immigration and now supported a ‘pathway to citizenship.’

Another mantra mouthed by brother-believer Charles Krauthammer and echoed by Sen. Paul was that, ‘The GOP needs to do a better job of reaching out to Hispanic voters.’ Yes, ‘Inside each Latin American immigrant there’s a Republican waiting to get out,’ mocked Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies.

Mockery for this pie-in-the-sky is warranted. However dispiriting, the reason 71 percent of Hispanic voters broke for Obama is not because Republicans are mean to them—John McCain and George Bush demonstrated that they would wrestle a crocodile for any Hispanic convert, legal, illegal and criminal. This identity group’s political preference is because 60 percent of them live in or near poverty and ‘fully 57 percent use at least one welfare program.’

In his irrational ramble, the president waxed about legalizing the ’11 million undocumented immigrants [residing] in America,’ while at the same time praising the contribution made by their kind to the founding of great ‘businesses like Google and Yahoo.’

Fantasies about the future founders of companies like Google and Yahoo, aside—their highly educated corporeal founders are from Russia (Sergey Brin) and Taiwan (Jerry Yang). …”

Read the complete column, “Republicans Find Religion On … Evolution,” now on RT.

If you’d like to feature this column, WND’s longest-standing, exclusive paleolibertarian column, in or on your publication (paper or pixels), contact ilana@ilanamercer.com.

JOIN THE DISCUSSION, AND DO BATTLE FOR LIBERTY BY:

• Using the content-sharing icons on Barely a Blog posts.

• At the WND and RT Comments Sections, and on Facebook.

• By clicking to “Like,” “Tweet” and “Share” WND’s “Return To Reason” , and RT’s “Paleolibertarian Column.”

UPDATE: More of a reality check from Pat Buchanan:

Hispanics are not small-government people. They believe in and benefit disproportionately from Big Government.
Some 53 percent of Hispanic children are born out of wedlock, and 52 percent of Hispanic families are headed by single women.
Big Government provides their kids with Head Start before school, free K-through-12 schooling, Pell Grants and student loans for college, and two or three free meals a day at school for the kids.
Big Government provides food stamps, welfare for mom and earned income tax credit checks should she work. Big Government subsidizes her housing and provides free health care for the family through Medicaid.
A Pew Hispanic poll found that by 3-to-1, Hispanics would favor a big government with more services to a small government with fewer services.
Why would these folks vote for a Republican Party that promises to downsize the Big Government upon which they depend for sustenance, security and survival? Why would they vote for a party that is going to cut capital gains, income and inheritance taxes they don’t pay?

UPDATED: Multiculturalism & ‘The 18th-Century Levantine Mindset’

Family, Free Markets, IMMIGRATION, Liberty, Middle East, Multiculturalism, Trade

As hard as it is to believe, the “18th-century cities of the Levant” were liberal, libertine and prosperous. The secret to the successful, vibrant life in the Levant is detailed in a book by Philip Mansel, which traces “the story of how first Smyrna (modern Izmir), then Alexandria and then Beirut emerged to prominence, and how they waxed in wealth, power, beauty and influence over the 19th and 20th centuries.”

The Levant then was without the top-down, punitive, forced integration which is the hallmark of the 19th-century nation-state. Enforced across the Anglo-American and European spheres, this integration compels the founding peoples to prostrate themselves before minorities, each and every one of whom is said to suffer from historical wounds and claims to match their eternally suppurating wounds:

The reviewer reveals a thing or two about multiculturalism in these cities.

“The cities of the Levant were never a melting pot of peoples, rather a grid of self-governing communities, enforced by separate schools, places of worship, hospitals, burial grounds, clubs, charities, newspapers and libraries. Internal schisms – between Catholic and Orthodox, between Nestorian and Monophysite, between Sunni and Shia, between Ashkenazi and Sephardim further subdivided the urban tribes of Greeks, Jews, Syrians, Armenians, Turks, Franks and Egyptians. Trade, fame and the pursuit of pleasure alone brought the citizens together, and with it came a natural multi lingualism, so that it was not uncommon for a Levantine family to be fluent in half a dozen languages and scripts, or to use ‘farabish’ a slang-like fusion of Arabic, Italian, English and French. And because the divisions between the communities were so absolute there was a remarkable spirit of tolerance within a Levantine city. Noone felt that their children were in danger of being submerged by another culture and so there was a propensity for sharing, knowing and acknowledging the various festivals and rituals of the different faiths. This arose not out of any interest in a multi-faith fusion, but as neighbours with a taste for being amused by different dishes, street processions, dances and tunes.”

Levantine loyalty structures started with family, then progressed out to ethnic community with a light gilding of urban pride before drifting on outwards via thin personal connections (however faint or imaginary) to other trading cities and the court of the ruling dynasty. Nationalism was startling absent from the 18th-century Levantine mindset, as was any concern, kinship or sense of responsibility for the parochial hinterland. The laboriously constructed contract of 19th-century nationalism – duty, obedience and sacrifice (duty to pay tax, obedience to the heirachy of state servants and readiness to fight for the fatherland) was in almost comic opposition to the Levantine mindset. For the Levantine was a natural free-trader, if not a smuggler, a deal-maker, a tipper of minor officials and a hoarder – who would migrate rather than fight for a distant state, but also perish rather than witness the break-up of family. Mansel creates a mantra to help us translate the smiles of welcome, the immaculate tailoring, the charm and the intoxicating scents of the Levantine: Deals before Ideals, City before State, Trade before Politics.

UPDATE: “Deals before Ideals, City before State, Trade before Politics”: This quote from the review above is especially germane for those of us who champion the locality as the proper repository of conservative loyalties.