Acting Globally:
The vast majority of people who subscribe to the utopian ideal of the citizen of the world cosmopolitanism are white liberals in North America, Australia and Europe whereas the vast majority of the rest of the world still believe in
blood and soil nationalism. This is something any reader from New York City can see for themselves with the recent non-European immigrants who tend to live in their own ethnic enclaves, some of which like Flushing resemble virtual colonies after ethnic cleansing. These are examples of
imperialism.
This balkanization cannot be due to racism or housing discrimination which is today not only outlawed and actively pursued and punished but because people generally prefer to live among others like themselves. A people who share a common history, language, culture and customs is in fact the definition of nation and people tend to prefer their own nation over others, if not be overtly patriotic.
The racism charge is commonly used to lay the blame for the earlier generations of immigrants from the 19th and early 20th century living in their respective ethnic ghettos. Although, in light of these current observations, it would be possible to say that the earlier "Ellis Island" immigrants lived in ethnic ghettos more by choice in preference of living among their own people who shared a common language, culture and customs than from native discrimination. Whereas they may have suffered some forms of discrimination in the past, still the racism charge could be handy today for deflecting native criticism of not fully assimilating back then and justifying retaining a hyphenated American identity today. For when an immigrant does not fully jettison their old language and culture in favor of the new country's, they do not really assimilate to the new culture and never truly joins the American nation. This hesitancy to fully assimilate can even be seen in the descendants of the "Ellis Island" immigrants, many of whom still honor their ancestor's old country ways and further describe themselves as hyphenated Americans. Changing one's way of life to a new way of life is not always as easy as it sounds even generations later. Immigrants will find it difficult or will be resistant to assimilating into the culture of the new country and learning the new language (if that is the case) if there are ethnic enclaves of their own people where they may live and there is no encouragement or impetus for assimilation from the natives or local government. It is very difficult to leave behind a lifetime's worth of experience and the familiar old country ways practiced for many generations that have been successful for that particular people and is to them, the best way to do things.
This doesn't mean all immigrants or their descendants do not completely assimilate and cannot cooperate with other ethnic groups but that the ones who do are the outliers, not the average. The impact of the outlier on the overall community is limited if not ineffectual.
The civic nationalist is one who believes in the nation of immigrants meme, a meme which was not ever mentioned in American history before the early 20th century (the melting pot meme was from a
1908 play of the same name) and was not in popular vogue until the advent of the Hart-Celler immigration act of 1965. The civic nationalist erroneously believes in the universality of liberal democracy, religious freedom, freedom of speech, individual liberty and property rights contained in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. In fact, the rise of the nation of immigrants meme is an example of how immigrants have already altered the culture and very history of the U.S. to suit their own interests by retconning the centrality of immigration with hyphenated, not completely assimilated Americans to the very soul of America.
Whereas the civic nationalist believes that anyone who takes up residency in the U.S. can be or is in fact automatically an American by virtue of just being here, he is completely wrong as he eschews the definition and concept of nation.
The definition of a nation is a people who share a common history, culture, customs and religion. It is impossible, therefore, for there to be a nation of immigrants from many different cultures as it defies the meaning of the word. The concept of nation cannot be conflated with mere residency or only as the concept of government.
Different people of different nations who live under a common government is really the definition of an empire and what does history teach us about the fate of empires.
We should then carefully consider if the path of empire is really one we want to follow and if allowing the aforementioned imperialism to flourish in our own country is really a good thing.
Furthermore, the ideals of the Enlightenment upon which our republic was founded were formed and took shape in Christian western Europe. Other peoples, not of European origin or necessarily Christians, who have no history of liberal democracy may understand the concept on a purely abstract, intellectual level but may not fully accept it, assimilate it and truly live it as it is a way wholly outside their experience. Recall what I observed how people will tend to think their own native ways that have been practiced in their own homelands for centuries are the best. Why would they completely accept the foreign concepts and foreign ways of western liberal democracy as they would feel that their own ways have always worked well enough for them. Some may even reject the ideals of western liberal democracy for whatever reason even if they have lived in the U.S. for any appreciable amount of time and are well read on the subject. In any case, why, then would they not try to alter the cultural and political landscape here to align more with their own ways of doing things.
What the civic nationalist really fails or refuses to recognize is that when immigrants of any particular nationality increase their population to a significant enough size, they will elect their own people to office who will then act in the best interest of their fellow countrymen and then try to alter the cultural landscape around them to be more suitable to themselves. This inevitably leads to a situation where these different ethnic groups cannot cooperate with other groups as they have different interests, different norms of behavior and so there will be no sense of an overall community. If anything, these different groups will conflict with each other over which group will wield the most power, redistribute the most public wealth to their own people and control which culture(s) will dominate the community. Violent civil conflict as a result is also a possibility.
Despite all this, the civic nationalist still clings to the mystic belief that anyone from anywhere in the world can become a true, pocket Constitution carrying, tricorn hat wearing American by virtue of the transformative powers of our unique American magic dirt.
Thinking locally:
Here in Queens our managerial apparatchiks and their lickspittals like to boast about our being the most diverse borough in New York city with some 138 languages or 800 spoken here depending on your source. If we can't even agree on a common language as the subject of English as our official language is strictly forbidden, or a common culture as the state's ruling party's globalist multiculturalism forbids our native culture holding sway, then how could we agree on anything and what do we have in common if we're so globally diverse? How can we be a cohesive community under these circumstances?
The answer is no. We can't be a community and this is to the benefit of our Democrat overlords one party county, city and state. First, as all the various ethnic and identity groups have nothing in common with each other, we as a community can never form any sizeable or effective opposition to the various plots and plans our rulers of which we may not want. And as many of these newcomer groups, hail from third world, strong man dictatorships, they would see nothing wrong with having a one party dictatorship here. If it works for them back home so why not here too and why should they care if rest of us do not want it or how it will affect us if it favors them?
Second, we have a good percentage of transient residents who really don't care about this borough as they are just passing through. Like many of the newcomers who plan on staying for a long while, the transients really do not see this as their home so why should they give a shit about what happens here and whether it's a good thing for us or not. They have their own home towns or home countries they really care most about. This is just a place they stay for their respective benefits so the history and native culture of Queens and her towns means nothing to them. This also applies to native-born white middle Americans who flock here to play at being "edgy and urban" while trying all the while to force their suburban "
Joneses" lifestyle and pop-culture liberal progressivism on us. However I digress.
Really, we're more like a borough-sized, long-term residency hotel with guests from around the country and around the world having nothing more in common with each other than we are all staying in the same hotel. The guests are here for their own reasons, do not care about the concerns or problems of the other guests and generally treat the hotel Queens and its employees, the native residents, with ill-disguised contempt.
Donald Cavaioli