Diversity – good? or bad?

“Oft expectation fails…  and most oft where most it promises”          Helena – All’s Well that Ends Well               William Shakespeare

 

Do you have a pet cause?  An ideology that stirs you up?  Here’s a tip that will help you achieve your goal.  If you choose the terminology before your opponents do – you will be able to set the terms of the debate!  The naming rights here are just as important as they are for sports arenas.  If you’d like an example here’s one. Consider the abortion controversy. The first guys in were the “right to life” advocates. Of course that would leave their opponents with the “right to kill” moniker – not a name that would garner much popular support.  So the other guys counter with “pro-abortion” which is a much more gentle spin, but still not really the positive connotation that they could have gotten for their cause if they were first into the fray.  Round one always goes to the guys with the naming rights.

Here’s another example. A cause celeb in current events is the immigration debate.  The first guys in this battle were the people that want open borders.  Their banner is “Diversity”.  Now this group has done an outstanding job at setting the terms of the debate and they are hosting it on the Politically Correct playing field too.  It has become so PC in fact, that the people on the other side of the debate can’t even come up with a good name for their team!

“Diversity is strength”. I know you’ve heard that tagline. “Embrace everyone’s cultural background”.  How could you be against that?  You can see why the naming rights are so important.  You’d have to be a Neanderthal to argue against their terms, – a ‘right-to-kill’ sort. The diversity group has overwhelmed their nameless opposition with a deluge of these one-sided debates.  Now, in an effort to stay within the PC boundaries, I must state unequivocably that I am definitely not against immigration – from anywhere on the globe.  I embrace the cultural history of America as being the great “melting pot”.  This mixture of peoples and cultures was a part of our history from the very beginning.  Wanderers and adventurers from every other country have settled in America, and it is part of the reason why we have States and not just a singular “country” like every other government that came before us.  But the process of absorbing newer arrivals hasn’t always been easy.  In fact it has never been easy, either for the new arrivals or for the people that were already here.  But it always found a way to work itself out.  Even though everyone expected that the trials of becoming American were sometimes grueling, new people still came here, still saw America as the best hope for freedom in the world.  And after paying for the privilege they embraced the ideas of being American.  The end result was that we grew, we chugged along, we engaged the dreams of the entire world.

Then something changed.  We got soft-hearted.  Suddenly we wanted to make it easier for people.  Make their journey easier, make it “toll free”.  Since we are a free nation, everyone should be able to bring their cultures here as a free, but separate, group.  It’s called Diversity.  Today we are being told that keeping diversity makes us strong.  A forward thinking idea, except that if you have that expectation, it will fail where it promises most.

Once again we can learn from history (remember the whole premise of this blog site).  One example from history is still right in front of our eyes today.  It’s printed on the Seal of The United States.  There’s a little tagline written there – (albeit in Latin so you need to translate it) – E Pluribus Unum!  What, you don’t have latin, ok I’ll translate it for you – literally it is “Out of Many, One”.  Meaning UNITY.

e Pluribus Unum
the Great Seal of the United States

We took all of the states and UNITED them into The United States of America.  How long do you suppose that we would have existed as the Diverse States of America?

If you don’t let the other guy frame the debate, it is particularly easy to see that diversity is not strength, but a weakness.  More history coming – can you feel it? here it is –  Even the ancient Romans knew that diversity is weakness.  One of their favorite practices while they were conquering the western world was – DIVIDE and CONQUER.  They divided along the lines of diversity.  Caesar knew it and I’ll bet you knew it too.  I’ll also bet that the diversity side wouldn’t want you to make the association.  What all of this means is that we should still welcome all of the huddled masses from other places on the globe.  It really is quite enriching to embrace them.  But we should also require them to go through the same process as every other huddled mass before them.  In the end, in return for our embracing them, they need to embrace what being American is all about – It’s called being United!  ‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do’.

2 thoughts on “Diversity – good? or bad?

  1. I’ve often wondered about the term __________- American. Italian-American, African-American, Gay-American, and of course, the very controversial (but no doubt tasty) Franco-American.
    If I were to move to Ireland, would I be an American-Irishman? An Italian-Anglo-American-Irishman? Neither, I’d just be a foreigner, because no other country gives a damn about embracing your origin. Having only been to Italy once in my life, and then for only one week, I am as much an Italian-American as Halle Berry is African.

    At some point in our fragile existence as an upstart nation, we will demand loyalty and respect. There are vocal, minority factions in this country who will tell us we are not great. I will believe that when people on the beach in Miami, make rafts and paddle their way to Cuba. Or when the Mexican border patrol can’t stop the influx of American nationals from sneaking into their country.
    Sure, we’re not perfect. Our economy is struggling. We have idiots in Washington running our government into the ground. But, our worst day is better than any day in the last two centuries in Iraq.
    They say that history will prove that all democracies last between 200-250 years, only to be replaced by anarchy. Perhaps we are on the verge of that inevitable uprising. If a $14+ trillion deficit doesn’t get our attention, maybe we don’t deserve our greatness. We obviously have lost our appreciation for this amazing United States.
    In all of my travels outside America, I wouldn’t live anywhere else. So, I happily tell everyone, when I’m asked where I’m from, that I am a “New Jersey-American.” Not as sexy as Italian, but certainly more accurate.

  2. Well. I do agree diversity, or cultural diversity is a “good” thing. I feel that diversity is the stepping stones to the foundation of our nation. The reply before me is sort of humorous and hit’s many of the points spot on. Why are we the only nations that embrace diversity? Absolutely… If we went to another country we would be a “foreigner” or a “yank”. But what most the citizens of the other countries along with ours don’t realize is that one of the first drafts of the “nations official emblem” was a sheild with six figures in the middle representing the six countries in which our 13 states were peopled, these were encompassed by 13 smaller shields that represented each state. This was the creation of the a “United” nation we live in the “United States of America”, a nation that was built in part by cultural diversity.
    I am a strong believer in the education of the history of our country and the diversity surrounding it. As we grow older people often forget how we became what we are… forget the politics and the lack of leadership in the Washington, remember why we are here and who allowed us to be what we are. I would love to say I’m “English-Itali-American” or even a “Rhode Island-American” but there are people that are US Citizens that would ask me “Where is Rhode Island? Is that an Island off of New York?” Really????
    This was an ACTUAL question, and not the only one I have been asked like it.
    I too believe that anyone who wishes to, should be able to live in this country as a Citizen, but should have to go through the same due process as everyone else… But, how can we hold them accountable when we can’t even hold our own “Native” citizens accountable. Is it the educational systems fault? Is it parents fault? Is it the pure ignorance on the individuals fault?

    I think I may have jumped around to a few subjects. I started getting a little flustered with the topic. Thanks for the article. Always a fun read. I hope this opened a little dialogue for another thread.

Leave a Reply to bill Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *