There is an old saying about the United States and all of the waves of immigration we've seen over the years, from places ranging from Ireland to India, from Russia to Peru. That saying is that the United States is a melting pot, not a salad bowl, and that (legal) immigrants should come here and assimilate; not to abandon their home's traditions and cultures entirely, but to adapt them to the American ideals of liberty and property — and not to seek to impose those traditions and cultures on anyone else.
The entire concept of "multiculturalism" flies in the face of that. This is a pernicious undertaking, that seeks to set up what that old saying abhors, a salad bowl, where people from varying cultures do not assimilate, but form enclaves for those of their own cultures, many of which are not only not supporting of, but are actually opposed to the American standards of liberty and property.
And we are seeing, again and again, how Western governments are not only accepting of this, but insisting, sometimes with the force of law, that the citizens be accepting of it as well. That's how multiculturalism ends: In tyranny. The Federalists' John Daniel Davidson has some interesting thoughts on that score.
Rioting that began late last week in the suburbs of Paris has now spread across France. This week there have been riots in Marseille, Lyon, Dijon, Lille, Bordeaux, Nantes, Strasbourg, and elsewhere. Every corner of the country, it seems, is beset by a coalition of violent left-wing activists and second- and third-generation immigrants from Africa and the Middle East.
The rioters are not calling for education reform or protesting poor classroom conditions, despite what the corporate press has reported. These are not “school protests” but rather an intifada. The rioters themselves are the footsoldiers of a “Red-Green alliance” between the radical left and pro-Palestinian Islamist activists, whose shared goal is to clear the ground for a “New France” that will replace the actually existing French nation.
One could argue that the "existing French nation" has been gone for some time already. The demographics are clear; another old saying reminds us that the future belongs to those who show up for it, and most of the ethnic European people's seem to be opting out. Wave after wave of illegal "migrants" seem determined to replace them, and without any of the cultural and economic institutions that made Europe what it is today. They would, in effect, reduce France and many of the other nations of the Continent to Third World status within a couple of generations, and in the process, reduce Europe's governments to tyranny — like the countries these people came from. And it will all begin with those governments seeking to impose multiculturalism by force.
That's the notion, and Mr. Davidson has the receipts. Key point:
This is why we now see the political leadership of western countries making hard turns toward authoritarianism, and especially against free speech. Freedom of expression is the one thing you cannot tolerate if the state is going to enforce multiculturalism and impose a large foreign population on a native one. Indeed, managing tensions between disparate ethnic groups, and each group’s relationship to the state, is a hallmark of imperial rule, not republicanism. It’s how the millet system of the Ottoman Empire operated.
Ay, that's the rub. We are seeing this, not just in France, but in the United Kingdom as well, where free speech is essentially a dead letter, where Muslim grooming gangs go ignored for years because the authorities are afraid of being accused of being racist or Islamophobic, but where retired British police officers are jailed over a wrong-think social media post. Yes, this happens. Just ask Julian Foulkes, a retired police constable from Kent, who was arrested at his home over a social media post expressing his personal concerns over rising antisemitism. Constable Foulkes, worse yet, was arrested by some of his own former colleagues.
Now, in France, the country faces "student riots," but it's rather interesting how few of the rioters seem to be, well, French.
The response to all this by the governments of Europe? The governments are cracking down on dissent. They are not just jailing retired cops for social media posts; they are trying to get political parties who oppose multiculturalism and the endless stream of "migrants" banned from offering candidates for elected office. The once liberal (in the original sense, not the modern leftist version) societies of Europe are running scared before the cultures they sought to import, the cultures that are now setting their countries ablaze, the cultures that are utterly opposed to Western values.
And if any ethnic European objects, they may be arrested. Freedom of speech, one of the cornerstones of Western civilization, one of the cornerstones of liberty, is being done away with to appease the "migrants", and it's only a matter of time before the peoples of Europe lose the rest of their rights, as well.
This is what happens when liberty dies. And the American Left ascribes to many of the same notions: Hate speech laws are the beginning of just this process, as is unchecked Third World immigration.
We stand at a crossroads. The next two to three election cycles may well determine the course of our country for a generation or two. We have to look, with eyes wide open, and what is happening in Europe. We have to look, with eyes wide open, at what the American Left favors, what they would do here. And we have to vote accordingly, and if you have to bite your tongue to vote for a political candidate who isn't ideal but who is better than their opponent, then bite your tongue and get it done. Because if the left gains power, they may well arrange things to that they keep it, forever, and we all know how that ends.
