E Pluribus Unum?

I don't usually agree with Pat Buchanan, but he is a thoughtful person and I usually find his columns thought-provoking and worthy of attention. Yesterday's column is no exception.

Buchanan writes of Major Hasan and his divided loyalties. He notes that "conflicts in identities and loyalties are common in the cauldrons of war". He gives examples to back this up, such as in the Mexican War Irish Catholics deserted the Union army to fight beside Mexican Catholics.

But his conclusion after this analysis is quite sobering. It is this: only in this era has "religious, racial and ethnic diversity" been declared to be "not only a national good but a national goal". Up to now we have believed in the "e pluribus unum" concept of out of many, one. But now we celebrate diversity.

Now, there is nothing wrong with diversity in certain aspects. But when it comes to a country, history teaches us that diversity is a recipe for failure. In the last ten years I have made it a point to pay attention to trouble spots around the world, and it has been quite a depressing eye-opener to see how many of these trouble spots are due to different ethnic groups which just can't get along. And not only that they can't get along, they too often insist on killing each other and even engaging in genocide.

So, a fair reading of history tells us that Buchanan is right in his analysis. He writes that "America is unraveling. No longer are we one nation and one people". He continues: "There is no American Melting Pot anymore. It was discarded by our elites as an instrument of cultural genocide. Now we celebrate America as the most multiraical, multiethnic, multicultureal country on earth." Then he concludes, "And yet, we are surprised by ethnic espionage in our midst".

He concludes, "Eisenhower's America was a nation of 160 million with a Euro-Christian core and a culture of its own. We were a people then. And when we have become, in 2050, a stew of 435 millions, of every creed, culture, color and country of Earth, what holds us together then?"

What indeed. History teaches us that only homogeneous cultures are stable cultures.