|
A Tribute to America
America is like an oasis in a desert. It is like a beacon at sea. It inspires hope and freedom in the hearts of people all over the world. Whether it is in the legacies of the pilgrims and countless immigrants seeking freedom from oppressive homelands; the founding fathers fighting for freedom from an oppressive ruler; the African slaves struggling for freedom from their oppressors; women and minorities seeking justice and equality; the liberation of the French and the Italians on the D-Day; burying the hatchet and being magnanimous to defeated foes, such as Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union—in embrace of new beginnings, restoration, friendship and support in building better societies.
In all the American experience, there is an element of “the good, the bad, and the ugly”. But America has never been timid in confronting any issue that undermines her true ideals, at home or abroad, and reinventing herself and reshaping the world when those issues so warrant. This in itself has been an inspiration to the rest of the world. The history and the values that gave birth to America, lie in the circumstances and ideals that produced the nation we have come to know as America. America is an idea more than it is a place. It is a providential idea intrinsically and inextricably bound to the immutable worth of every human being. That idea inspired the declaration of independence and the constitution. It is the idea:
"…that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its power in such form, as to them shall deem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." [...More]
|
America's Identity Crisis
Identity crisis is rooted in the observable quality of personal sameness and continuity, whether the personality
is a human being or a country, the result is the same.
According to psychologist Erik Erikson, identity crisis is the most important conflict human beings encounter when they
go through the developmental stages in life. Erikson suggested that people experience an identity
crisis when they lose "a sense of personal sameness and historical continuity". This is also true of societies and that is
precisely what America is experiencing now, as it is on the verge of being pulled apart by the demands of "multiculturalism"
that has only shown to be deleterious to the unity and the perpetuity of the providential experiment called America. [...More]
|
Nationality infidelity
It is impossible to love two countries equally, just as it is to two masters or two wives equally.
One cannot pledge allegiance to two different ideals or countries and remain faithful to both
- the idea of multi-national citizenship is nationality infidelity, no less than marital infedility.
Whether we admit it or not, it is low level treason.
Divided loyalty is worse than no loyalty.[...More]
|
Love Her or Leave Her
Every immigrant came to America for a better life; in other words,
we all came here because, one way or another, it is better than where we came from. It is, therefore,
contrary to reason to seek to transform America into what we escaped from or attempt to transfer to
America the failed or failing values or ideas from the cultures from which we came and for which
we left in the first place. [...More]
|
The folly of multiculturalism
Multiculturalism as it is sought in America today, is a harbinger of tribalism or “ethnicism.” It possesses
intrinsic potential to produce a social consciousness similar to tribalism, because it is simply a social concept
where many cultures exist in divergent parallels within a particular society or social setting. The contemporary
profuse concept of multiculturalism lacks objectivity and is in direct conflict with common sense and the basic
concepts of unity.[...More]
|
|
|
America! America! God shed HIS grace on thee!
|
|
America is a providential idea, indeed a providential experiment.
In all of human history, before and after America,
there has never been any other country quite like America; in the making of it - the ideals that inspired it.
The Ideals that brought about America as a nation unlike any other are intrinsically and inextricably bound to the
immutable worth of every human being. That idea, inspired the declaration of independence and the constitution.
It is the idea:
…that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,
that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Freedom is marvelous thing, but it is such a delicate thing. For a free man freedom is even more delicate;
for he fights for freedom, for which he may die and a dead man has no need for such freedom.
Nevertheless, a free man would die for freedom, because freedom by its nature makes free people altruists.
Many such people have bled and died that others might
live in freedom. Those who live in this freedom must always remember that it is not free and must not use it to
divide America. Freedom come with responbilities, the most paramount of which is to preserve the America that many
have died for. Abraham Lincoln, once said, “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose
our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”
How could America possibly lose its freedom, you might ask; by using freedom illegitimately and in a way that causes
America to lose its unity. Such is the increasing dynamics of the aberration of America's democartic and political
institutions that are increasingly appealing to politics of ethnicity by virtue of the political numbers game and
excessive group allegiance.
|
E pluribus unum or E unum pluribus?
America's national motto is Out of Many, One,
but is it effectively or in reality becoming
Out of One, Many? As more and more groups seek semi-autonomous
identity that promotes their particular ethnic groups or ancestral homelands in competition with America and
often over and above America, the real American identity continues to be diluted and washed away.
One would wonder if the entity symbolized by the prefix in the growing hyphenated American identity, such as Saudi-American, Asian-American,
Chinese-America Korean-American, Palestinian-American, Mexican-American, Hispanic-American, African-American, Muslim-American, Iraqi-American, Iranian-American,
Seik-American, Jordanian-American, Syrian-America, Kuwaiti-American, Indian-American, and hundreds more such lexical compounds, does
carry more political weight and command more patriotism than the United States of America, represented by the suffix;
it certainly seems that way sometimes.
|
|
The lack of integration in America, fostered by profuse multiculturalism and schizophrenic political
correctness presents a serious potential problem to American democracy and continued viability.
America is in danger of becoming fragmented in ways much similar to the tribal social structures that
hinder democracy in many regions of the world and has kept them stuck in unending anarchy engendered by
deep division along tribal or ethnic lines.
Increasingly, America is practically being turn apart, gradually but surely,
as the old melting pot has essentially become the salad bowl, with irreconcilably incongruent content, so to speak. As more and more groups
riding the tide of multiculturalism, refuse to integrate, but would rather exist seperately, by
recreating the replicas of the disparate hinterlands from which they came, bringing about
parallel cultural exsitence in America. They seek to carve up America by carving out cultural enclaves, hence tribes or tribe-like sub-entities, for themselves, to represent
their ancestral homelands. The problem with this development is that it is a process of tribalization.
After all, a tribe is essentially a social group made up of people having a common character or culture, which they are inclined and determined
to preserve and advance, in competition with different sets of common character or culture advanced by other social groups.
Sometimes, it feels like America is the other the United Nations. But, we don't need another loosely and inefficient network of ethnic groups.
Basically, immigration or movement of people into a place is how ethnic groups (people with differing
ancestry and ways of life come to find themselves in the same place). This was how older societies ended up with tribes - people
with differing cultures or ways of life. The convergence of people with different cultues has frequently been because of trade or
to escape nature's sometimes inhospitable dispositions and to escape economic, political or social adversity.
These same circumstances are brought America, but until now, America has been different from every other land
where people from different ancestry and cultures have converged. The singular element that has been
responsible for America's uniqueness in the world is emphasis on individual rights, whereas everywhere else
where people have congregated, emphasis has been on groups.
Tribalism is a social concept rooted in the idea of societal groups marked by shared tradition or cultural
characteristics that sets people distinctly and sometimes irreconcilably apart from one another.
Here is why I believe America is undergoing a process of tribalization - a process towards a self destructive social change:
 Multilingualism
Emerging Dominance of Group Rights
Heightened Ethnic Consciousness
Cultural Divergence (Profuse Multiculturalism)
Politics of Ethnicity
Politics of Numbers
Multi-National Citizenship
Excessive Group Allegiance
Extreme Political Correctness
|
|
|
The book: 
This book is a consciousness raising effort to call attention to the imminent crisis in America’s identity and the reality of the implications thereof. It urges America to return to emphasizing a unified people, instead of emphasizing ethnicity and divergent cultures.
It used to be that America was one great idea that everyone, regardless of race or creed, sought to be included, and when people were excluded, they fought to be included. Now, no one cares about that great idea anymore. Now, everyone wants to wrest a piece of America for himself, and not for the purposes of belonging to that one great idea, but to represent his or her ancestral homeland or ideology.
Some people characterize the emerging crisis in America’s identity as a sign of inevitable coming of age—the shedding of “quaint modernist idealism”, for trendy postmodernist multiculturalism, as borne by the “vehicle” of political correctness, on the road to progress. The author, while recognizing the merits of political correctness, disagrees with this notion, characterizing it as multiculturalism driving the vehicle of political correctness to the terminus of chaos.
The author believes that there is unnecessary and excessive emphasis on ethnicity and groups in America that threatens to erode the essence of the American citizenship and identity, because it encourages cultural divergence or parallel cultures, hence a “tribal-like” consciousness.
[...More]
|
Only in America
In the past few months we have seen "undocumented immigrants" boldly take to the streets all across
America and even on Capitol Hill, boldly and unapologetically demanding to be automatically made
American citizens, yet many of them marched carrying national flags other than the American flag,
chanting their solidarity anthems in alien languages, and in apparent show of strength threatening
to flex their power and tapping into the politics of ethnicity and the political numbers game that
is evermore dividing America. As unprincipled politicians, tripping over one another to be seen, glibly
and patronizingly chant along, hollowly echoeing the their solidarity anthems in Spanish, in apparent
show of endorsement and hoping for a payoff.
America is an empowering place, it is clearly evident in these protest demonstrations. Being a recent immigrant myself, I have experienced that empowerment in
in my own life and seeing even illegal immigrants (people who have no legal rights to be here, let alone make
demands) boldly march in demonstrations, without fear of retribution or reprisal, raised my admiration for this country. But the absence of any appeal
to the magnanimity of Americans and the law, also roused a sense of indignation in me.
Only in America can it be that people who have broken fair laws of the land would be protected by the
law - a paradox of law indeed, yet a hallmark.
300 million people, 300 tribes?
Imagine that? Well, it is no longer farfetched, it is now quite realistic. According to the San Diego Union Tribune, published on August 22, 1999,
which noted that California alone is now home to recent immigrants from nearly 200 nations.
What will become of America, when the old melting pot is no longer, but becomes a salad bowl?
As the wind of change sweeps in divergent culturalism (profuse multiculturalism), may of which are
diametrically opposed to the core America ideals, America has embarked on a slippery path that leads
to a steep slope that is even more slippery.[...More]
The Babel Syndrome!
A common language is a key to national unity. Language is perhaps the primary element of a society and the primary method of communication among
people in the society. It is a very powerful tool that can unite or divide to the same degree.
The starting point or foundation for social integration is perhaps a common language. Without it,
the process would be like making bread, bricks, or concrete with little or no water. In a sense,
language is equivalent to the arteries and veins (perhaps, in another sense, like the blood) in the
human body, through which the essential elements are distributed, the essence sustained, and the body
maintained. [...More]
Political correctness unmasked
Racial or gender discrimination is morally wrong, must never be tolerated and must be
eradicated from the society, hence the merits of the idea of political correctness.
But to the extent that political correctness is the tool for establishing group rights over individual rights,
as evident in the emerging hyphenated identity of Americans and a tool for dismantling real morality (Judeo-Christian morality)
and for advancing vague and fluid morality or cultural and behavioral relativism, political correctness
is a fraud with deleterious effects on society.[...More]
|
|
Calling attention to America's emerging identity crisis