There is, I think, a compelling historical analogy.Note especially the elements of Roman kindness and willingness to welcome large numbers of foreigners to their lands.In the late fourth century AD, the Roman Empire was the greatest civilisation on the planet. But in the summer of 376, recorded the historian Ammianus Marcellinus, ‘terrifying rumours spread abroad that the peoples of the north were stirring up new and uncommonly great commotions’.
On the banks of the River Danube, along the empire’s Balkan frontier, Roman officials reported the arrival of tens of thousands of men, women and children, known to posterity as the Goths.
Poor, frightened and hungry, they had been driven west by another tribe, the Huns. Now they begged for shelter inside the Empire.
The Romans agreed. Across the river, in scenes rather like those this summer in the Mediterranean, came the Goths, though many were drowned in the desperate rush.
Many historians believe this was one of the great turning points in world history. From that moment, as successive waves of migrants poured across its frontiers, the Roman Empire bent, buckled and finally collapsed completely.[1]
Common decency morphs rapidly into contemptible weakness when boundaries are erased. Remember the movie about the gentleman and his manservant who gradually reverses the roles and comes to dominate his master? No one found that movie too recondite. Too, it would be the rare visitor to any faculty lounge in the country who isn't familiar with the necessity for psychological boundaries. Actual books have been written on this.
For those of us who still care about our kith and kin (dog whistle alert), our nation, and our borders, we must act from here on out with the bedrock principle of toxicology in mind: dose determines toxicity.
One immigrant is a contribution. 30,000,000 immigrants are an invading army.
Next time Speaker Boehner, Sen. Rubio, or Rand Paul take out their hankies about the deficiencies of our system, keep that in mind. What they say about immigration is a sign of the sickness of otherwise smart people. Patriots in days past didn't fret about broken "systems." They fought invaders and threw them the hell back and out.
[Queue liberal chorus of "But . . . ."]
Notes
[1] "Another boat packed with migrants heads for Europe as it's revealed Britain's population has grown by 5million in 12 years: This human tide will be the crisis of the century, warns DOMINIC SANDBROOK." By Dominic Sandbrook, Mail Online, 6/28/14.
H/t: Crusader Rabbit.
Getting across this point is so tediously difficult; attempts to explain the problem is met with:
ReplyDelete"Don't you CARE about the suffering of poor people?", along with appeals to Christian compassion.
Sometimes, I get so tired.
I know what you mean about getting tired. My current preoccupation is with what I call the "one fact" rule. No great shakes as far as rules go, it's true, but I like it for what it suggests should be normal for human beings. We all have cherished beliefs and unexamined assumption but if one is reasonably tuned into, like, facts, there just has to be the occasional fact that just rattles the cage of your worldview. The number of Muslim immigrants to Western nations and their insufferable behavior is one fact, loosely speaking, that should start the wheels turning to square that fact with old thinking. Solzhenitsyn's writings were amazingly influential in my life. The vicious, arbitrary killing and oppression was the one fact that just demanded to be squared with other assumptions. Maybe I should speak of "insistent" facts.
ReplyDeleteDriving a car requires constant corrections but I don't see that behavior with Westerners. They seem happy with the steering wheel locked in place, immune to even minor corrections.
We see many extremely intelligent and well educated people yet they strangely lack any kind of agility or curiosity about non-familiar facts.
It should go without saying that is not about me knowing what are good and bad facts, rather, it's about facts that are out there that are manifestly insistent facts that are strangely ignored.
Here's a good example of an insistent fact learned by an honest man:
ReplyDeleteComment by S. Veritas:
I live in Calgary and most Calgarians are not only ignorant about Islam but don't even want to know. Including my son! Every time I brought up the subject, he would throw up his hands and say, "Dad! I'm not interested I have some Muslim friends and they're not like that!" Then about a week ago he tells me that everything I said to him about Islam was correct. What changed his mind? He saw the video of Farah Mohamed Shirdon threatening Canada, United States and even Barack Obama. And then he told me that he and Farah went to high school together and had been "friends"!
Rome's economy can be tracked by measuring the lead content of peat bogs in Spain. Those bogs show that Rome's GDP (and probably other measures of its power) was well down from its peak even before Valens invited in the Visigoths. The barbarian invasions were a consequence of Rome's weakness, not a cause.
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