Iowa Representative Steve King isn’t taking back the controversial statement made on Sunday.

I highlighted it here.

What he’s doing is clarifying and saying we need to have more babies here.

From The Washington Examiner:

King said on CNN that he wasn’t calling for more white people in the United States or criticizing diversity, but instead was trying to make a point about differences in culture and how immigrants from other cultures contribute to society. His point related more to what’s happening in western Europe than the United States, but the lesson is the same.

“You cannot rebuild your civilization with somebody else’s babies, you’ve got to keep your birth rate up, and that you need to teach your children your values and in doing so you can grow your population you can grow your culture and you can grow your way of life,” King said.

And that all seems perfectly reasonable. I absolutely get that.

I also get that you only have 140 characters on Twitter to get your point across, which may make it difficult, especially if you’re trying to get an idea out, quickly.

That being said, a deep breath, and then a remark about assimilation and culture, rather than making it sound as if babies from other countries and cultures are somehow a problem would have been a better way to go.

In fact, avoid talking about babies, altogether, if there is any chance your speech might drift into the realm of Nationalism, because it is far too easy for things to go sideways and be misunderstood.

To that point, I’ve got people that read the opening paragraph to my piece yesterday as calling the man “racist,” who felt I was being unnecessarily hard on the man, and others who think I didn’t say enough to point out how racist he was.

If you fall into either one of those categories, I hope this clears it up.

What he said yesterday was awful. It was negative. It did not serve his image well, as a public servant.

Is he racist?

I don’t know the man’s heart. I can only go by his words, and what he said yesterday was horrid. Putting it into context with what he’s saying today, however, it at least makes a point, beyond the vilification of “other.”

King went on to say that immigrants from different cultures contributed differently to our culture, and “if they’re assimilated, that’s what we want.”

“I’d say they’re all created in the image of God, and they’re equal in his eyes. And if they’re citizens of the United States, they’re equal in the eyes of the law,” King said. “Individuals will contribute differently not equally to this civilization and certain groups of people will contribute more to this society than other groups of people will, that’s just a statistical fact.”

King said his issue is with a clash of cultures, not race. He said he wasn’t speaking as a defender of the white race, but instead as a defender of Western civilization.

Got it, and that’s not a bad or a hateful thing.

And if you’re up in arms and you want me to insist there’s something racist about this, I’m not going to do it, because this is reasonable.

“It’s far worse in Europe that it is today here in the United States,” King said. “I want to look at that, promoting the birth rate in America, restoring the rule of law putting an end to illegal immigration and recognizing we need to be a country pulled together on similar values and that makes us stronger.”

I have no problem with this.

He then went on to point out all the advances in science and technology, thanks to Western civilization, saying Western civilization is a “superior civilization.”

Ok. That’s gonna leave a mark.

Expect to hear about it from the perpetually outraged, but as to his remark about other people’s babies, I’m satisfied he’s just really bad at Twitter.