Questions For The Future

The Old Order is Dying

5/30/2013 - Victor Davis Hanson Townhall.com

Ideas of the 1960s have now grown reactionary in our world that is vastly different from a half-century ago.

Take well-meaning subsidies for those over age 62. Why are there still senior discounts, vast expansions in Social Security and Medicare, and generous public pensions?

Five decades ago all that made sense. There was no such thing as double-dipping. Seniors often were physically worn out from blue-collar jobs. They were usually poorer and frequently sicker than society in general. The aged usually died not long after they retired.

Not now. Seniors often live a quarter-century or longer after a mostly white-collar retirement, drawing subsidies from those least able to pay for them.

Seniors are not like today's strapped youth, scrimping for a down payment on a house. Most are not struggling to find even part-time work. None are paying off crushing student loans. In a calcified economy, why would an affluent couple in their early 60s earn a "senior discount" at a movie, while the struggling young couple with three children in the same line does not?

Affirmative action and enforced "diversity" were originally designed to give a boost to those who were victims of historical bias from the supposedly oppressive white-majority society. Is that still true, a half-century after these assumptions became institutionalized?

Through greater intermarriage and immigration, America has become a multiracial nation. Skin color, general appearance, accent or the sound of one's name cannot so easily identify either "oppressors" or "victims."

So who exactly should receive privileges in job-hiring or college admissions -- the newly arrived Pakistani immigrant, or the third-generation, upper-middle-class Mexican-American who does not speak Spanish? Both, or neither? What about someone of half-Jamaican ancestry? What about the children of Attorney General Eric Holder or self-proclaimed Native American Sen. Elizabeth Warren? What about the poor white grandson of the Oklahoma diaspora who is now a minority in California?

Even if the 21st-century state could define who is a minority, on what moral grounds does the targeted beneficiary deserve special consideration? Is his disadvantage defined by being poorer, by lingering trauma from his grandparents' long-ago ordeals, or by yesterday's experience with routine racial prejudice?

If Latinos are underrepresented at the University of California, Berkeley, is it because of the stubborn institutional prejudices that also somehow have been trumped by Asian-Americans enrolling at three times their numbers in the state's general population? Are women so oppressed by men that they graduate from college in higher numbers than their chauvinist male counterparts?

Consider also the calcified assumptions about college education. The expanding 1960s campus was touted as the future gateway to a smarter, fairer, richer and more ethical America. Is that dream still valid?

Today, the college-educated owe a collective $1 trillion in unpaid student loans. Millions of recent graduates cannot find jobs that offer much chance of paying off their crushing student debts.

College itself has become a sort of five- to six-year lifestyle choice. Debt, joblessness or occasional part-time employment and coursework eat up a youth's 20s -- in a way that military service or vocational training does not.

In reaction, private diploma mills are springing up everywhere. But there are no "diversity czars" at DeVry University. There is no time or money for the luxury of classes such as "Gender Oppression" at Phoenix University. Students do not have rock-climbing walls or have Michael Moore address them at Heald College.

The private-sector campus makes other assumptions. One is that the hallowed liberal arts general-education requirement has been corrupted and no longer ensures an employer that his college-graduate hire is any more broadly educated or liberally minded than those who paid far less tuition for job-training courses at for-profit alternative campuses.

Scan the government grandees caught up in the current administration's ballooning IRS, Associated Press and Benghazi scandals. In each case, a blue-chip Ivy League degree was no guarantee that our best and brightest technocrats would prove transparent or act honorably. What difference did it make that White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Attorney General Eric Holder, President Barack Obama and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice had degrees from prestigious universities when they misled the American people or Congress?

The now-aging idealists of the 1960s long ago promised us that a uniformly degreed citizenry -- shepherded by Ivy League-branded technocrats -- would make America better by sorting us out by differences in age, gender, education and race.

It is now past time to end that ossified dream before it becomes our collective nightmare.

Demography is Destiny!

Memo From Middle America | Get The Message, People! Demography Is Destiny!

By Allan Wall 07/09/12 VDARE

I think we would all agree that the U.S. faces many problems today. Our national debt [1] is enormous, about the size of our Gross National Product [2]. We have a high unemployment rate and growing gap between rich and poor. We have many social problems, including crime and family disintegration [3]. We have a high abortion rate, and a movement afoot [4] to completely redefine the institution of marriage. We have environmental problems and our education system is in crisis. Racial and ethnic [5] strife are growing, and in general, our shared links as a nation are fraying.

There are many movements working to improve and/or restore elements of American greatness. Environmentalists say we need to protect the environment [6], education reformers say we need to reform the schools. Social conservatives uphold moral values. Libertarians [7] say we need limited government. Constitutionalists say we need to follow the Constitution.

I would actually agree, in principal, with all these movements. But with so many causes, where do we begin? There is one factor that is related to all these problems. And this is the one factor our leaders don’t really want us to debate. What’s that factor?

DEMOGRAPHY.

America is being drastically transformed [8]. Our white, Anglo-European majority, the historical American majority, the people who formed this country, is being reduced to a minority [9]. It hasn’t happened yet, but if present trends continue, by about 2050, whites are going to be a minority.

Just recently the Census Bureau announced that the total of minority babies has surpassed the total of white babies. So the demographic transformation is well underway. It’s rather astonishing how fast it’s occurred, and how little has been said about it.

As a nation and a people, Americans NEVER voted on this [10]. It was never publicly debated in any meaningful fashion. Yet now it’s being foisted upon us and we’re told it’s inevitable.

Mind you, it is permissible to discuss the transformation—as long as you think it is a good thing. But you can get in big trouble for saying it is bad, or even questioning it. Pat Buchanan was kicked off the MSNBC network [11] in February for doing so. The network head, Phil Griffin, [12] didn’t think Buchanan’s book, Suicide of a Superpower [13], which discusses the transformation [14], “should be part of the national dialogue...”

Incredibly, to question this extraordinary and unprecedented transformation is thus taboo in the “land of the free and the home of the brave”. [15] The Republican Party´s “Conservatism Inc.” [16] elitists and even many immigration patriots don´t want to question [17] the transformation either.

In 1960, the U.S. was 89% white, 10% black and 1% other. The 1965 Immigration Act [18] began the process of changing that, despite the fact that one of its sponsors, a young Senator Ted Kennedy, assured [19] the nation that “the ethnic mix of this country will not be upset…” Of course, there have been other factors involved.

“Diversity” is now held up as our highest ideal—even higher than our Constitution and American traditions. A legacy of the Civil Rights era [20] is a powerful narrative of white oppressors and nonwhite victims which became the lens through which to view race relations in general. Our young people have been raised on that.

Then there was the establishment of the “Hispanic” ethnic category, [21] which encourages even white Hispanics [22] to identify as “Hispanics” [23] and not as whites.

The demographic transformation of our country continues rapidly. There are still large areas of our country which are recognizably American. [24] But it doesn’t take long, especially with the power of the cheap labor lobby, to inundate these areas with foreigners. Of course, any friction between foreigners and natives is chalked up to white racism.

So does this massive demographic transformation even matter? So what if whites become a minority? It will still be the U.S.A., right? That’s what the Conservatism Inc. elitists want you to believe. They say they are “color blind”. But if they are truly “color blind”, why aren’t they resisting affirmative action, [25] race norming and disparate impact [26] policies, all of which discriminate against white people.

I guess to be “color blind” doesn’t include defending white people from discrimination. [27]

What will a post-2050 America look like? Will it be a better place to live? Will any of the problems listed at the beginning of the article be improved by making whites a minority?  Is the demographic transformation going to prevent economic disaster? Is it going to prevent our government from spending (and borrowing) more money? Is it going to prevent the diminution of the middle class?

All the evidence indicates the opposite. The growth of the nonwhite population is increasing the size of the welfare state [28] and makes it more difficult to decrease it.

Family values? Hispanic women have both higher out-of-wedlock birth rates and higher abortion rates than white women! Is this likely to get better as Hispanic population growth continues to increase so rapidly?

Gay marriage? [29] It’s more likely to be supported by Democratic politicians than Republicans, and the growing minority population [30] increases the rolls of the Democratic Party. [31]. As for the environment, do you think the demographic transformation [32] is going to stop urban sprawl? [33]

Our growing diversity is causing all sorts of problems in the educational system [34]. Our own Steve Sailer [35], in some groundbreaking journalism you won’t see in the Mainstream Media, has shown how [36] American educational statistics [37] are affected by diversity.

Furthermore, the loss of the white majority [38] is not only going to affect relations between whites and minorities. There is already friction between nonwhite minorities. [39] How will things be without the white majority to hold the country together? As for limited government, minorities in general don’t really go for it [40]. Big Government means more government benefits for minorities.

Do we need to get back to the Constitution? Of course we do. But the Constitution is a product of our culture, designed for our culture. It may not work for every culture, and most likely won’t work for an amalgam of competing cultures in post-2050 America. [41]. We have to face reality. We can’t stick our heads in the sand. The demographic change means the massive transformation of our society.

Of course the Democrats support it. Why wouldn’t they? Democratic leaders see minorities as more votes. That’s why they like mass immigration—of both the legal and illegal varieties, really just two sides of the same coin.

Prominent Democrats are fully aware of how demography helps them. Hispanic labor activist Eliseo Medina [42] has boasted about how amnesty will bring in millions of liberal voters and former president Bill Clinton [43], in his own picturesque way, has bragged [44] about how the demographic change hurts the ability of Republicans to oppose Democrats.

What about Republican leaders? Why do they support mass immigration and demographic change? Don’t they realize it will swamp the Republican Party? Have they not noticed solid Republican states [45] moving over to the Democratic column? Why do they think pandering to Hispanics [46] will make up for the demographic tidal wave?

Maybe it´s too late to save the Republican Party. But if Hispanics and other minorities won’t vote for the pusillanimous Republican Party, they are even less likely to vote [47] for the Constitution Party [48] or the Libertarian Party [49] or any party or candidate favoring limited government. Third Party activists who think they can get the minority vote [50] are living in a real fantasy land.

So what can be done? Is there no hope?

Not as long as we let the Multicultural, Cultural Marxist [51] Left set the agenda, and determine the way people think. The first step is to shake off the intellectual yoke of the Left.

Our Main Stream Media and educational system have indoctrinated nonwhites to be very race-conscious—but white people are never to think of themselves as white. We constantly hear about the “Latino Vote” and the “Black Vote”, etc., but to even bring up the “White Vote” is to risk ostracism—even if, in the case of the GOP, it would be beneficial to your political party.

Why not bring that fact up, into the Mainstream Dialogue? If whites can’t appeal to racial and ethnic interests, than nobody can. But if minorities can openly appeal to such interests, why can´t American whites?

When we hear the paeans to post-2050 America, let’s ask: “Hey, when did we vote for this? How about a national referendum to vote on it?” It at least might get people thinking.

When they prattle on about the Hispanic vote, let’s ask: “Hey, do Hispanic voters have different interests [52] than non-Hispanic Americans?” We should ask Hispanic activists [52] themselves this question. When they use the Hispanic vote to stampede us into supporting an amnesty [53], ask: “Why should Hispanics alone have veto power over U.S. immigration policy?”

The demographic transformation is still not inevitable. But for those who believe it is, ask why whites should be discriminated against [54] if they are just going to be another minority?

It’s high time to ask these and similar questions in public, so that even our candidates [55] can’t ignore them. And we do need to wake up the average American voter. Too many Americans are just not paying attention. As long as their own lives are comfortable, they don’t care about the demographic transformation that’s going to shape the lives of their children and grandchildren. [56]

It is time to wake them up.

It is time to ask the tough questions.

It is time to face reality and deal with it.

Source URL: http://www.vdare.com/articles/memo-from-middle-america-get-the-message-people-demography-is-destiny

Things Change - Whether We Like It Or Not

So What Happened to America?

Roger Schlesinger Townhall.com  8/12/2013

I was out in the desert this weekend at our second home, where, borrowing the words from an old song "nothing is heard of a discouraging word" except if someone is discussing their round of golf.  While waking my dogs for their morning ride in my golf cart I got to 'thinking of what's going on in this country and all I could think of was What Happened? And when did it happen?

Let me start in the middle of this discussion to try to illustrate my point.  This part of my essay should be subtitled: “me and the Presidents” or for the English majors “the Presidents and I.” When I was under 10, and that is a close as I can pin it down, my father took us to the desert, which was Palm Springs and some interesting places surrounding Palm Springs.  One of them was the La Quinta Resort which I guess was in Indio at that time and we stopped for some food or drinks.

We went into a big room and my father said after looking across the room, “that's Eisenhower.” I can't remember whether he said President or General but I do remember the name.  The rest is much clearer than that.

1.  In the mid to late 50's I saw President Truman at a Rams game in Los Angeles walking up the aisle as everyone was yelling "Give them hell, Harry".

2.  In 1967 I believe, I got off the plane from Los Angeles to New York and went to the baggage claim and there was former Vice President & Governor Richard Nixon waiting with some people for his luggage.  He had flown first class and I obviously didn't.

3.  In the early 1990's my son and I were going to an office in Century City and as we turned the corner in the lobby my son walked into Ronald Reagan. The security guys with him laughed as my son said he was sorry.

4.   In the mid 2000's I went to a luncheon in Century City which was attended by Jimmy Carter.  When I parked in the building I had to open my trunk for an inspection.  I met him and had a picture taken with him as my company had built a house for Habitat for Humanity.

5.   In the middle 2000's Bill Clinton was the honored guest at a house in my gate guarded community and as I drove by the house he was going in so, I honked and waived and he waived back. I bring this up because none of it was a big deal.  Today, however, when the President travels, streets are closed, Freeways in Los Angeles are closed, sections of down towns are closed.  WHY?

I grew up in the 50's and knew nobody who did drugs, smoked the funny stuff and basically didn't have respect.  In high school if you were in the hall during school hours without a written pass you were in for a bad day.  You might be suspended, given an invitation to spend an hour or two after school or on a weekend or maybe even paddled. Do I need to mention what most high schools look like now all day long?

In college our drug of choice was Beer.  That's right, beer.  There was some hard liquor around but very few drank it.  The only birth control we had was abstinence, condoms, rhythm or good luck.  I didn't know but a handful of girls who got in trouble (hersay) and I am not sure any of it was true.  There obviously were some rush marriages, then and now.

What really changed America, in my opinion, began with the Vietnam War. To say that it was unpopular was a real understatement. I was too young for Korea and had already been drafted and deferred during the German crisis, when Russia surrounded Berlin, so Vietnam didn't impact me.  But it did a lot to this country starting with the resistance to the draft, huge rallies and marches and the peace movement, although I am not sure I spelled it right.

The above mentioned war gave us the militant crowds of both men and women. With the advent of new forms of birth control we started expansion of the moral code and the rewriting of the America we knew.  From then to now things started going downhill.  Maybe it wasn't much different than earlier days, decades and centuries but we found out about what was going on with the evening news. Do you think we are all better off now?

It seems to me that what we lost is much dearer to the average American than what we gained.  

Losers include    

1. Fun

2. Respect

3. Our Constitution

4. Faith in God

5. The American Dream

6. COMMON SENSE!

It doesn't seem worth it to me and it doesn't seem to be getting better.  We all need to become vocal, start voting for the person, not the party, and stand up for your beliefs. It's much easier for things to keep going the way they are unless a massive effort is put forth to change it.