Really, I can’t completely blame foreigners who hold us Americans in contempt. I know that’s a controversial statement, but my reasoning is explained with two questions: Do people generally respect those who allow themselves to be used as a doormat? And, then, how do people usually feel about the character of a traitor?
Now consider what foreigners see from modern America. We not only allow aliens to transgress our borders and often refuse to deport them, but we then also sue each other, with many among us fighting tooth and nail for the “rights” of these interlopers. Where other nations throw illegal migrants out like yesterday’s trash, we’re erecting water stations in the southwestern desert to facilitate their invasion.
Then there is the war on our formative religion, Christianity, and the attendant exalting of what had been considered foreign faiths, such as Islam. There are again the lawsuits, resulting in the removal of crosses and other historically present Christian symbols and sentiments. Christmas trees are renamed “Holiday” trees and schoolchildren are sometimes told not to write about Jesus, while a California school district instituted an Islamic immersion course. In contrast, Muslim countries tend to be chauvinistically Islamic, often even prohibiting the proselytization of other faiths under the threat of death.
There are other examples, but suffice it to say we’re eating ourselves alive. The antibodies have turned on the body, with our hate-America-first schools, universities, media, and popular culture attacking our every institution and casting American and Western traditions as the bane of humanity. And even those not of this mind — many of whom we now euphemistically call “low-information voters” — are complicit because they care about little save bread and circuses. They are, to echo Edmund Burke, the (somewhat) good men who do nothing.
A recent example of this indifference was the popularity of South Korean “Gangnam Style” singer Park Jae-sang, better known by his stage name “PSY.” In 2004, he sang the following anti-American lyrics as a protest against the US’ role in the Iraq War:
Kill those f*****g Yankees who have been torturing Iraqi captives and those who ordered them to torture…. Kill [the Yankees’] daughters, mothers, daughters-in-law and fathers / Kill them all slowly and painfully.
Despite this, many Americans welcomed Park with open arms — and minds so open the brains have fallen out. Barack Obama shook his hand and attended one of his performances, and the masses clapped and cheered at his bow-legged little dance. Sure, he did apologize, just recently — eight years later — after it became apparent that his verbal indiscretion could impede his international breakout in music’s biggest market.
But apologies of convenience are just that; it’s what a person says when there’s nothing to lose that is far more telling. Moreover, Park didn’t just utter a somewhat impolitic statement during an unguarded moment; these were vile lyrics that had been contemplated in advance, memorized, and rehearsed.
And here’s the message our indifference sends: You can say anything about those Americans. Treat them like dirt. Oh, pout a little they may, but just do a funny song-and-dance routine and they’ll forget all about it. Dangle a toy in front of the wailing little baby, make a funny face or some kooky noises, and he’ll start laughing and wagging his tail.
As for Park, he ought to get down on his knees every day and thank God for America. Were it not for us, he’d be 30 pounds lighter and goose-stepping in Kim Jong-un’s dystopian freak show of a country. But, again, how can we expect people such as him to respect us when we don’t respect ourselves?
Heck, they oughta’ put a sign on us.
Now to the crux of the matter. I’ve used the words “us” and “we” liberally in this piece, but there no longer is any such thing. A true “nation” is an extension of the tribe, which itself is an extension of the family. But reckless immigration policy combined with multiculturalism and numerous other relativism-spawned isms have balkanized us. The “us” and the “them” are as synonymous today as the terms are irrelevant.
It isn’t just many foreign-born citizens who haven’t — and won’t — assimilate; it’s also those with a long family history in the U.S. who, if they aren’t outright contemptuous of the designation, no longer feel “American.” And then what does it mean to be American today? What is there for the foreign-born or the young native-born to assimilate into? If being American can mean speaking any language, cherishing any culture, having any faith or ideology, loving the founders or hating them, and even believing in any constitution or no constitution — if it can mean anything — it means nothing. Sure, it sounds open-minded to praise social codes allowing one to march to the beat of any drummer his little liberty-loving heart pleases, but if you’re bound together by nothing, you are nothing … but an individual. “You” cannot be a nation.
I mentioned the assimilation of the young native-born. This absolutely is necessary; otherwise they and their elders will be as foreigners. Just consider, for instance, the kid behind the convenience-store counter sporting multiple tattoos and body piercings. What does he have in common with the white-haired, churchgoing lady or even a 40-year-old from Middle America? This failure to uphold and pass on important traditions — to assimilate the young — is the true cause of what we call a “generation gap,” which is in reality a state in which the generations are of different cultures. And it is why G.K. Chesterton was so fond of the Middle Ages, which he described as a time when everyone (in Catholic Europe) agreed on what really mattered.
So we let people walk all over us because we’re no longer an “us.” Being emotional creatures, people generally only react when they feel offended. But people only feel offended when they view the slight as against them. Blacks and Muslims react strongly to perceived anti-black or anti-Muslim sentiment because of strong group patriotism; they identify so closely with their group that, psychologically, there’s little if any separation between it and them. An attack upon the group is thus considered an attack upon them. In contrast, most U.S. citizens simply don’t see “American” as being integral to what they are.
Of course, just as one should punish a child out of principle and not anger, it would be ideal if we’d defend the U.S. simply because it’s right and necessary. Again, however, it generally doesn’t happen without that requisite emotional attachment. For we may leap to the defense of a family member, but will we likely be as vigilant about the defense of someone else’s family member?
And this is why balkanization imperils us. If we won’t be an American family and defend it, other families (nations) certainly won’t do so. They will in fact hold us in contempt. Just as a man may use a loose woman for carnal pleasure but not respect her, foreigners are more than willing to use our traitors within to destroy the city walls. But they may despise the traitors most of all.
Without self-respect, winning the international variety is a lost cause.
