People with other faiths and cultures have always been welcomed in our land, assured of equality under the law, of proper respect and of open friendship. There is absolutely nothing incompatible between this and our desire to maintain the essence of our own identity.
—Margaret Thatcher. Speech to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, May 21, 1988.
The essence of a country’s identity is its linguistic, cultural, ethnic and religious heritage. It is quite legitimate for a people to wish to protect each of these. It is no infringement on the rights of foreigners to tell them they are not welcome—no more than it infringes an individual’s rights to be told he is not welcome in his neighbor’s house.
Preserving the ethnic identity of a nation
If Spain, France and Germany allow themselves to become predominantly Arab countries, or if Canada became a predominantly Asian country, or the United States became a predominantly Hispanic country, it would be their right. The citizens of a country collectively own that country, and under the natural law they can give it away if they wish. Nevertheless, it is a people’s entitlement to resist being thus subsumed. The current position in the Western world, in which there is a widespread belief that resisting immigration is immoral, is misguided.
Preserving the religious identity of a nation
In November 2009 the Swiss, hoping to prevent Switzerland from slowly transforming into a Muslim country, voted by referendum to ban the construction of minarets on Switzerland’s mosques. The Swiss government opposed the ban, as did the Parliament, by a vote of 129–50, further proof that politicians do not represent the will of the people on immigration matters. However, the referendum was an exercise in futility: minarets are a mere symptom; the real problem is the unrestricted immigration of Muslims into Switzerland. If it continues at current levels, the native Swiss will become an outvoted minority in their own country. The ban on minarets will be overturned, and the construction of churches will then be banned as offensive to the Muslim majority. The same applies to the French ban on the burqa; unless the French address the underlying problem, not only will any ban eventually be overturned, but in all likelihood eventually every woman in France will be required by law to wear a burqa.
Preserving the cultural identity of a nation
A general dissolution of principles & manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader.
—Samuel Adams. Letter to James Warren, February 12, 1779.
From the perspective of good government, it does not matter what race or religion is allowed to immigrate into a country, nor at what levels. All that is important is that:
- The owners of the country be consulted instead of being browbeaten into thinking they have no right to be heard on the issue;
- Immigration from countries with corrupt cultures is prevented.
The following is a litmus test to determine whether a culture is corrupt: If the average person in a country is caught bribing a public official, would he be ashamed to face his parents, siblings, and friends? In a noncorrupt culture, the answer is “Yes.” In a corrupt culture, the answer is “No.” In places like Mexico, South America, Africa, Italy, Greece, Russia, Eastern Europe, Turkey, India, Pakistan, Indonesia and China, policemen routinely pull cars over and ask for a bribe. Children are forced to sit and listen as their father haggles over the size of a payoff. Thus not only is it quite normal to bride officials—it is unavoidable. A person caught bribing a public official in a corrupt country can therefore no more be ashamed than a person found breathing in a non-corrupt nation can be. There is unlikely to be a Mexican adult alive today who has never bribed a government official. The lawlessness, corruption, mayhem, and murder permeating Mexico speaks to that fact. The Mexican culture is the complete opposite of the culture in the United States, where the number of U.S.-born adults who have bribed a government
official is infinitesimal (immigrants excluded).
These negative cultural traits do not disappear overnight. You can take the Mexican out of Mexico, the Greek out of Greece, or the Turk out of Turkey, but you cannot take the corruption out of them—not overnight. Respect for the rule of law deteriorates as more immigrants from corrupt states are admitted to a country. The only way to address the problem is to strictly limit immigration from countries without the rule of law. This does not mean immigration from such countries must be disallowed entirely; rather, the numbers have to be kept so low that they can be easily assimilated into a law-abiding culture.
Language
When people share a common language—words, concepts, ideas, philosophies can be debated among them because they understand them in the same sense. That vital ingredient of democracy—public opinion—can more easily come into being; a public debate on political questions that can then become something real and popular—a sport of taxi-drivers, housewives, businessmen, blue-collar workers and football fans—rather than a thing of elites, special interests and remote bureaucracies … The United States is itself a glorious example of how a common language, culture and institutions have made one people out of immigrants from every quarter of the globe. True, the United States is also united by a common philosophy of freedom, elaborated in a great Constitution, but would that common philosophy be enough to unify 280 million Americans if their common language and culture were to be broken down into a patchwork quilt of multi-culturalisms? I doubt it.
—Margaret Thatcher. First Clare Boothe Luce Lecture, Washington D.C., September 23, 1991.
It is severely misguided for governments to print material, teach children, and allow public signage and broadcasts in foreign languages. Such a misguided approach means that immigrants and their children are not forced to obtain a working knowledge of the local language. Thus assimilation fails to take place and you end up with a balkanized country filled with corrupt cultures.
Undoing the damage
Every society has a right to fix the fundamental principles of its association, and to say to all individuals, that if they contemplate pursuits beyond the limits of these principles and involving dangers which the society chooses to avoid, they must go somewhere else for their exercise; that we want no citizens, and still less ephemeral and pseudo-citizens, on such terms. We may exclude them from our territory, as we do persons infected with disease.
— Thomas Jefferson. Letter to William H. Crawford, Monticello, January 20, 1816.
Countries like France, which have allowed far more immigrants from non-law abiding cultures than they can possibly assimilate, will continue to find that immigrants from corrupt cultures reinforce each other’s contempt for the law and corrupt the rest of society. In order to re-establish respect for the rule of law, those countries must implement the vigorous repatriation of immigrants and children of immigrants who commit felonies. Otherwise the mass rioting, the burning of cars, the murdering of policemen, will continue and grow. Periodic nationwide riots will become the norm.
Business immigration
An industrialized country does not compete with the Third World by importing unskilled immigrants to work its fields. Rather, it recognizes that backward countries have a competitive advantage in cheap unskilled labor and focuses on those industries in which it has a competitive advantage. If mines cannot be worked, or factories run, except by paying wages below what a citizen would deign to accept, then those pursuits should be left to developing countries. Nor should governments concern themselves with ‘labor shortages.’ After all, they are not communist planners. If ‘business’ claims there are ‘labor shortages’ or ‘skills shortages’, then ‘business’ should be reminded that every commodity is in limited supply and those who want it must increase the price they offer until they meet the market. If they cannot afford to do so, then they are pursuing an unviable business.
Family reunion schemes
Family reunion schemes are simply Trojan horses devised to allow exponential growth in immigration against the will of the majority. They are used, in countries like Canada, to keep the immigration flood gates open against the will of the majority. Families that do not want to be separated should not part in the first place.
