Saturday, November 29, 2008

Culturism and Diversity

Monday, November 17, 2008

Culturism, Loyalty and Barack

Divided loyalties should worry any political observer with a sense of culturism. Presidents must be born American citizens. If you're in the Congress or the Supreme Court there is no such requirement. The answer as to why brings us to recognize the importance of loyalty. Though some controversy reverberates in come circles, President-Elect Barrack Obama has American citizenship by birth. But there are still loyalty problems.

President-Elect Obama just barely got born here. His family globe-trotted and his father and step father were not Americans. He has a lot of foreign-born relatives. So now he has an illegal alien Aunt living in public housing in Boston. It would emotionally tear him up to enforce our border laws. Should he betray his aunt and send her back? Should he turn against his family to do his job as our Chief of State? Here we see the immediate impact of divided loyalties.

History has provided other evidence of the danger of diversity when it comes to loyalty. In 1846 the United States went to war with Mexico. When the treaty signing happened we had taken Mexico City militarily. It was an easy win. Today would we easily win a rematch of that war? We probably wouldn't. Why not? Divided loyalties.

This is natural. The other day I was discussing this with my classes here in New York. One fully Americanized student of Mexican -descent contributed, "you guys stole it from us." I brought his pronoun use to attention of the class. I joked about it and explained why it is dangerous. We need to discuss loyalty and teach about it in our schools.

Americanization programs met the last wave of immigrants. These sought to get immigrants to stay in and identify with America. This was a widespread culturist reform effort concerning loyalty. They used parades contests and public schools to teach about loyalty. Many people of Mexican descent already do identify with America. And replacing multiculturalism with culturism will help with increase that number. This is our best step forward.

In Europe, they have been at war with Islam for over one thousand years. So they must ask if in their case diversity is a good thing? Does diversity make them stronger and more able to win wars or the reverse? Americanizers recognized that some cultures were harder to assimilate than others. If assimilation does not work the only choice is border laws. But here loyalty comes back into play.

In a democracy the laws represent the will of the people. In a democracy, if demographics change to where people are more concerned with opportunity for peoples of other nations than the domestic one border laws must become lax or non-existent. And I pray that President - Elect Obama find it in his heart to put American interests above all else. And, though it will be hard for Barrack to send his auntie back, the only other choice is dismantling all of our border laws for sentimental reasons. I hope President - Elect Obama has the strength to put America first.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Culturist Election Results

Barrack Obama will be our next President. In some ways this bodes very well for our culture. There are also real reasons for concern and potential dangers from an Obama Presidency. We must productively address our culturist concerns and work to maintain our point of view. We are especially well placed to avert the dangers the Obama Presidency brings. And, ultimately, as proud Americans we must wish Obama the best of luck as the next President of the United States.

First the good news. We have a black President. This can help America shake its self-image as a hopelessly racist nation. Obama's election seems to be irrefutable evidence that we have moved beyond racism. It will also provide a sense of optimism to minorities. Rather than hating or resenting America for being racist, having a black President should help minorities to see that America is amongst the least racist nations on earth. This realization can aid culturists in their quest to teach Americans that differences in achievement have more to do with culture than race. Thus having a black President could make us prouder and more culturally aware.

While celebrating the cultural impact of Obama's being black, it would have been preferable for culturists if he did not have a Muslim name. Our leader having such a name normalizes an Islamic presence in our nation. It implicitly teaches us to consider cultural differences irrelevant. And while his color may help us to identify the Enlightenment roots of our Western culture, his name subtly undermines the recognition that we have specific Western culture to protect and promote. Culturists must point out that our lack of racism highlights our Enlightenment roots and Obama's Christianity confirms the other source of our Western civilization.

Obama's election creates some very real concerns. His having chosen a Muslim name and his affiliation with some powerful Muslim leaders indicates that he will not recognize that Western cultural is under siege. This will at very least lead to lackadaisical security. His affiliation with the racist Reverend Wright raises concerns that he may describe ours as a racist nation. Even more than other Presidents, he may label efforts to protect ourselves and our economic inequality as reflecting racial rather than cultural concerns. Both possibilities point to culturists needing to continue teaching people to distinguish the important variable of culture from the irrelevant one of race.

The biggest danger of Obama's Presidency comes from the power it could give to one lone nut or even an undercover Jihadist. Assassinating Obama would greatly destabilize America. We are very vulnerable now. Remind people that the West is great because of democracy and democracy is great because it makes for stable, flexible and peaceful governments. As many culturists blog on the right, we have a special duty to sternly denounce hysterics. As culturists we take pride in the fact that Western nations use ballots and words, not bullets. Obama's getting through office safely will help us showcase the greatness of America and democracy. Being a good American means monitoring and arguing with your President. But at the end of the day, it also means wishing him or her success in their attempts to improve America. As a culturist and an American, I hope Obama makes us all proud.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Culturism and Barack

The election of Barack Hussein Obama will be a great event for mulitculturalism and thus a horrible one for culturism. Multiculturalism denies that western nations have a core culture. They would assert that America has no more of a tie to the heritage of British protestant culture than it does to Saudi Islamic culture If Barack Hussein Obama gets elected, if our President's name has an Islamic cast, it will undermine our ability to define ourselves as unique and in competition with other cultures.

His supporters will respond, but he is not a Muslim, he just has an Islamic name. This argument would fly if he were born with that name. In fact, he chose it as an adult. And people should ask themselves why people have changed their names to Islamic names. Why did Cassius Clay become Muhammad Ali? Why did Lew Alcindor become Kareem Abdul Jaabar? But if we take him at his word, if he is as he claims to be, we have to hold him to it. We need him to repeatedly remind us that he American and proudly identifies with our Christianity and Enlightenment based culture. To control the damage his Islamic name does, we need him to constantly reaffirm he does not identify with Islam.

Unfortunately, his reassurance that he is not a Muslim will not help us internationally. Whether true or not, the Islamic world considers it obvious that he has ties to Islam. His name, muslim father and stepfather, madrassa training and close ties to the Islamic rebel in Kenya give them grounds. And though multiculturalism has hidden the fact that the West has been in mortal conflict with Islam since 700 ad, the Islamic world meditates on this fact day and night. They will see this as a victory and get a tremendous morale boost from it.

Obama's policy on Iraq makes him seem like a culturist. Culturism takes diversity seriously and so has very limited hope for turning Iraq into a progressive democracy. McCain takes the globalist position that we are all the same and Iraq's Islamic culture is not inherently incompatible with being a liberal democracy. Obama follows culturists in regretting our involvement in Iraq. But, culturists should be fooled into thinking him a culturist because of this coincidence. Whereas culturism takes Islamic nations to be essentially hostile and foreign enemies to whom we owe nothing, Obama sees them as friends in the global community whom we have injured.

Obama's name not being recognized by English spell checkers reflects its foreign genesis. It reflects the fact that much of his family has non-American ties. Does this create complications? Well, how can he purely think of American interests when his aunt is an illegal alien? How can he consider the American perspective in international aid when his brother lives on a dollar a day in a Kenyan slum? His connections with the Muslim Luo tribal leader Odinga shows a non-Western cultural affiliation. For internationalists, for globalists, these relations are a boon. Just as other nations do, culturists argue we have to put our culture and nation first in our land. Culturists would rather have an American president purely reflect American interests.

What's in a name? A whole lot. Even though Obama is not Osama, the Islamic world will interpret his pulling us out of Iraq will in a much different way than if someone named McCain did. Even if Obama is not a Muslim, celebrations will break out across the Islamic world on this basis if he gets elected. Even if he is as Christian and American as the day is long, his very name will undermine the idea that we have a common cultural heritage in the West. His aunt being a Kenyan illegal immigrant shows the foreign nature of his name actually does reflect foreign ties. But even if he governs with none but America's interests in mind, his name alone will convey extremely detrimental culturst lessons.