Recently, after the June 25th post, I was encouraged to read, "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order" by Samuel P. Huntington. And so I did.
This is an academic writing, analytical and focused on the Civilizations in this world, by a very respected late Harvard Professor. The writing examines the civilizations' relationships among each other and themselves. Not especially main stream writing, but very important nonetheless. What I expected to be an abject critique of all the tenets of Republican foreign policies turned, in the end, to be a harrowing indictment of Liberal domestic policies.
Written in 1994, and updated once since, this book covers history up to the late 1990's. Its relevant today for many reasons, not the least of which stem from the current policy decisions of the Obama Administration, and more pointedly, his border policies.
The damage of the border crisis on going today is a matter of record, whether or not sensationalized or diminished by partisan politics. The fact it can get this bad is, to me, a fault of both parties, but especially the Administration. Its bad in the sense that no matter how you view it the capabilities aren't there to administer to this, as well as to ask whether its cause was inadvertent or not.
Another reason the lessons in this book are important is this love affair some American's have with Hillary Clinton. Grounded as it is in this romantic notion that all things during the Bill Clinton Administration were well thought out and the root of all that was good during the times that were then.
I usually disagree, and this book reinforced one gripe I had then, but which continues to be championed today. Diversity.
Diversity is usually portrayed as an Idyllic cultural growth factor by liberal politicians. But what's hiding behind that pep slogan is really an effort to encourage the voting rolls in a particular direction.
There is no hard evidence, despite rationale to the contrary, as author Huntington details late in the book, that encouraging diversity in your civilization is at all beneficial to the survival of your civilization.
The reality is that the ambition of the Diversity crowd isn't doing anyone here any favors. Provided of course that by "anyone", I mean people who view the USA as a darn good culture, and part of a darn good civilization -- the Western Civilization.
Mexican immigrants may or may not be good people and potentially good citizens, but they aren't good members of Western Civilization because they aren't part of the Western Civilization. Same with Islamic, Hindu, and Chinese people just to identify a few. By encouraging this dilution, under the guise of Diversity being good for us all, the left has really just made a power grab for votes, to enrich a political party. The cost to be reaped, like most government decisions, by the future
I've been quick to point out smart ideas from the left, this isn't one of them.
Unless of course you don't like Western Civilization or our subset, the American Culture.
We should be encouraging assimilation, not diversity. But really my writings here aren't ground breaking opinions, and yet this lack of originality doesn't make the clash of civilizations any less dangerous.
Bill and Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama may be good Democrats, but are they being good Westerners? Who will be considered good Westerners by our future civilization, if they would to look back in consideration and to understand our shared history?
If they should find themselves in some less idyllic setting than we'd hope, I bet they could fine some culprits. At this point, don't be so certain Bush would be to blame for that too.
href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1451628978/ref=as_li_tl…">The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order
