This past Independence Day, Journalist Paige Kieffer of a local ABC affiliate penned the column “Diversity is What Makes America Great” and described America as “people of many different nationalities, ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations, religions and backgrounds” Kieffer’s thoughts about American identity and greatness being rooted almost exclusively in “diversity” are in line with most modern progressive leaders.
On July 14, 2019, Joe Biden claimed “America’s strength is and has always been rooted in our diversity. Days later, Michelle Obama repeated the mantra of her husband Barack Obama in claiming “Diversity truly makes‘ America great”. In 2021, the US State Department published the video “America’s Diversity is the strength of our nation”.
The mainstream media, repeating the progressive party line, continuously “reminds” Americans that American identity and greatness is solely due to diversity. Any disagreement with that party line can bring the stigma of “racist”, and so, few question it. Without diminishing the positive good of diversity, it’s time to ponder whether we will remain the “One Nation, Under God” (Pledge of Allegiance) continuing this party line. History tells us it will not end well. Let me explain.
First, the founders were clear about the importance of unity for America to work. According to George Washington, immigrants must be quickly “assimilated to our customs, measures, and laws: in a word, soon become our people” for the nation to thrive. Alexander Hamilton similarly wrote “The safety of a republic depends essentially on the energy of a common national sentiment; on a uniformity of principles and habits; on the exemption of the citizens from foreign bias and prejudice; and on that love of country”.
John Quincy Adams exhorted immigrants “must cast off the European skin, never to resume it. They must look forward to their posterity rather than backward to their ancestors.” In the early 20th century period of substantial immigration, President Theodore Roosevelt warned of the doom of the nation “to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities,” each with a distinct identity. Woodrow Wilson likewise claimed “A man who thinks of himself as belonging to a particular national group has not yet become an American.”
According to Dr. Edwin J. Feulner, founder and former president of The Heritage Foundation “America has always sought to help immigrants incorporate their unique values and culture into the melting pot that is America. Becoming American has nothing to do with birth, ancestry or ethnic identity; it is a state of mind, heart and beliefs.” Feulner described the lengths America went to help create an American identity in immigrants: “In the past, new citizens of this great country were welcomed with a solemn ceremony befitting the commitment they were making. They had been through a rigorous testing process, demonstrating their command of English in a probing interview with an examiner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS); they had proved their moral character and answered questions covering the history, culture, and political heritage of their adopted country… in a formal courtroom, a black-robed federal judge would lead them through the oath of citizenship, telling them what it meant to be citizens and how to live up to their new responsibilities.”
Feulner contrasts the earlier formalities of immigrants becoming American with today’s experience “in the nondescript local office of the INS, a bureaucrat reads them the oath… they can go straight to the passport office to be set up for their next trip “home” — to China, Honduras, Poland or Sierra Leone” and he laments that “This scene is sadly symbolic of the way Americans of all stripes are being taught nowadays to think about their citizenship and their national identity. The national motto, E pluribus unum, remains on the books: Out of many, one.”
It’s important to remember that unity is what makes a nation: “A nation is a group of people with a common language, history, culture, and (usually) geographic territory.” History gives countless examples of states which have fallen apart due to the lack of a common national core identity. Empires have historically held different national groups together by force or threat of force, but when those empires weaken they fall apart by national differences, usually by violent upheaval. We witnessed what happened to the former Yugoslavia, which was a state containing multiple nationalities by threat of force. Under strongman Josip Tito “The main guarantors of Yugoslavia’s unity were the communist police and army. No force in the country could challenge them, and Tito always had complete control of both”. After Tito’s death and the collapse of communism, Yugoslavia fell apart.
What Joe Biden and other progressives keep telling Americans is wrong. Unity has been the source of American strength and identity. It’s not a unity of benign characteristics like skin color, but a unity that creates a nation and a national identity. Let us hold to what our founders told us about the importance of “common national sentiment” and “uniformity of principles and habits” and most critically the “love of country”. Let us all come together as “One Nation, Under God” that will continue for the next two and a half centuries in unity.
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Excellent article. Our unity has been based on Western Civilization and it is the Progressives (aka cultural Marxists) who preach diversity for the sole purpose of destroying our Western Civilization nation to enter a Marxist based global technocracy. The traditional family, church, private enterprise and constitution have to be destroyed along with any sense of individualism, liberty and justice.
I have great admiration and respect for Col. Bill Connor. My own view of the state of our nation is less optimistic. Col. Connor touched very briefly in passing on two things which need greater analysis and emphasis.
The first is our national motto “E Pluribus Unum” which appears on every coin we mint. The meaning of E Pluribus Unum is from many, one. That is to say the “diverse” many are all assimilated into the distinct American one.
We must state what that American one is, and what it is not. America was founded by White, English speaking, Christians and just a smattering of Jews. Our culture, customs and laws were patterned on our English heritage. We embraced private property, free enterprise and the individual liberties outlined in our Bill of Rights.
To become an American in every respect as President Theodore Roosevelt said, does not require you to be White, or to convert to Christianity or Judaism, but it does entail embracing all of our constitution, laws and customs fully.
Col. Connor mentioned in passing an American “melting pot.” I dearly love it when progressives, the euphemism for American communists, use the term melting pot because it destroys what they want. A melting pot is a term from a steel mill. You put iron ore and scrap metal in the “melting pot” heat it to 2,400 degrees F to burn out all the impurities, shoot high pressure oxygen through the molten mass to burn out all impurities, wipe the slag off the top and you are left only with pure steel that has had all the impurities burned out and the slag wiped off the top and discarded.
Potential immigrants must embrace the English language fully with the idea it will be spoken by their children and grandchildren exclusively. They must be productive. They should be of good moral character. They need to be free of communicable diseases. Military age males need to be willing to fight for this country if called upon. They must embrace the miracle of free enterprise while respecting the sanctity of private property. Failures in any area are the things to be burned up in the furnace of the melting pot. Unity is not a word to be thrown in casually. It is the cheerful and willing embrace of the English language, and all of our existing culture. It is the willingness to be tested for right thinking to be assimilated into America.
The left chose poorly when they correctly suggested our pool of potential immigrants must have impurities (unAmerican ideals) burned out in the melting pot. What they really want is a salad of many conflicting ideologies to ferment and further weaken this republic. Conflicting is another word for diversity. Diversity has the same root as division, divisive and divorce. It is an impurity to be burned out, not anything to embrace.
Sadly this nation started down the wrong path in about 1965 and is now very far from the core ideals and beliefs which ignited the miracle of American Exceptionalism. Adding more unqualified immigrants to the wrong side of the equation is exacerbating our problems as a nation.
The problems in America are not uniformly dispersed through our nation like some virus in the bloodstream. Rather the evil is concentrated in specific areas like cancerous tumors. Those areas are primarily in the Northeast, Chicago, and Southern California. The portion of our nation that adheres most strongly to the principles of our Founding Fathers is the South. I do not advocate violence, but the South would make a wonderful nation which would start as the most powerful on the globe and serve as a beacon to other nations.