Posted by
Mike on Tuesday, November 08, 2011 5:11:46 PM
http://www.westernperspective.blogspot,com/
The Founding Fathers implicitly recognized in the Latin motto "
E pluribus unum" that America's true strength is in her diversity. Although in 1776 the original thirteen Colonies were made up overwhelmingly of families with origins from the British Isles, whose language was English, and who belonged to one or other of the Protestant Christian sects originating in Europe, yet each new state to be incorporated under the Articles had its own unique character, both in terms of culture and religion.
As the young nation grew and prospered in the early 19th century, her ethnic character expanded to include a wider range of European ancestral heritage and culture, most notably Irish Catholics who had been few in the Colonies in 1776, and those from Germany and Scandinavia, including a large number of German Jews, as well as those of French origin, both Catholic and Protestant, with the purchase of the Louisiana territory from Napoleon in 1803. As time went on, by mid-century there were a great deal more European immigrants, particularly from Ireland, Great Britain which includes Scotland, Wales, etc., and Germany, and additional citizens of Mexican and Spanish ancestry with the increase of territory pursuant to the Mexican-American War. The increase in population did not so much result in assimilation to White Protestant culture as some historians would have us believe, although English did become over time the spoken language of all US citizens, with the exception of the formerly Spanish and Mexican lands of the southwest where Spanish continued to be spoken by many as their first language, as for example Mr. Buckley, and will in time become the dominant language through immigration and demographic change. Added to this mix is the growing Black or African American culture which gained in prominence after the Civil War in the early 1860s.
The economic system of capitalism merged with the American secular religion with the Industrial Revolution of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The tenets of this new religion included a misapplication of evolutionary science known as social Darwinism, and the idea of the Melting Pot which tries to eliminate or reduce all ethnic distinctions within the American mosaic, becoming a coarsening and leveling of authentic American culture.
The failure of European multiculturalism is the result of a post-war secular imposition of a super-state in Europe, with US backing, with no regard for the actual historical roots of Europe in the Roman Empire and in Christian culture, the glue holding the fragile alliance together, which will inevitably come apart unless Europeans find again their common Catholic Christian roots. In America, the situation is just the reverse. There was never in actuality a cultural meltdown. English is the common language, for example, in Pennsylvania and Louisiana out of deference to the newcomers by the dominant Pennsylvania Dutch and Cajuns at the time these states became part of the United States. Texas and California remain to a large extent Spanish-speaking and culturally Mexican because they became first US territories not through voluntary agreement as in Pennsylvania and Louisiana where English was adopted more so as a matter of convenience.
Although it is true that the descendants of many Jewish and Moslem immigrants are now Christian, this is really a reflection of classical liberalism giving rise to religious freedom and tolerance. The European approach, which gave a privileged status to the Protestant confessions as in Bismarck's Germany, has proven to be disastrous in terms of not bringing about social stability, bringing about but the reverse.