This is cross-posted from Potomac Tea Party Report, my other blog, here.
The brilliant Thomas Sowell has a good column today at Real Clear Politics in which he riffs off of Gingrich’s use of the word “humane” in suggesting a form of amnesty for those illegal immigrants who have been here for twenty five years at last week’s national security debate. (Hat tip: Paul)
Read the whole column for more on Gingrich, but I was interested in his discussion of our potential loss of culture (and the security threat) as we continue to import immigrants (legal and illegal) some of whom have no interest in becoming Americans in the fullest sense of the word.
Sowell (emphasis mine):
Let’s go back to square one. The purpose of American immigration laws and policies is not to be either humane or inhumane to illegal immigrants. The purpose of immigration laws and policies is to serve the national interest of this country.
There is no inherent right to come live in the United States, in disregard of whether the American people want you here. Nor does the passage of time confer any such right retroactively.
The American people have a right to decide it they want unlimited imports of cultures.
The more doctrinaire libertarians see the benefits of free international trade in goods, and extend the same reasoning to free international movement of people. But goods do not bring a culture with them. Nor do they give birth to other goods to perpetuate that culture.
Why do people want to come to America in the first place? Because America offers them something that their native countries do not. This country has a culture which has produced a higher standard of living and a freer life than in many other countries.
When you import people, you import cultures, including cultures that have been far less successful in providing decent lives and decent livelihoods. The American people have a right to decide for themselves whether they want unlimited imports of cultures from other countries.
At one time, immigrants came to America to become Americans. Today, the apostles of multiculturalism and grievance-mongering have done their best to keep foreigners foreign and, if possible, feeling aggrieved. Our own schools and colleges teach grievances.
European countries have learned the hard way how massive imports of a foreign culture can undermine your own culture, polarize your population and create internal dangers that are irreversible.
What about those dangers? See my post yesterday about Michelle Bachmann the Presidential candidate with the guts to bring up the Somalis in her home state of Minnesota and their connections to Al-shabaab.