Tancredo speech falls flat as he tries to “be nice.” — Ed.
By Cooper Sterling
Former Congressman Tom Tancredo delivered a speech to an overflow student audience at American University February 24, sponsored by a promising new collegiate organization—Youth for Western Civilization.
Tancredo is rightly a hero to all immigration reform patriots. But at American University, in a clumsy attempt to appease the overwhelmingly unsympathetic students—idealistic American proponents of a multicultural, multiracial, pluralistic society; a sizable contingent of young non-Westerners—Tancredo, flustered at times, struggled to define his message.[Watch YouTube clips here and here.]
Tancredo’s central point, namely that Western Civilization is worth preserving, simply fell flat. Any concern that Western societies will be unable to assimilate mass immigration was fundamentally anathema to the audience. In particular, the non-Western contingent obviously prefers to remain unassimilable. They understand that blood is thicker than water and that ethnic and racial heritage is worth preserving.
Tancredo’s urgent call for “assimilation” employs a catchphrase that too many patriotic immigration reformers, intent on saving their nation and local communities from alien annexation, have failed to carefully assess.
Do we really want a massive influx of non-Westerners to “assimilate”, in a rather superficial way, into our communities? Do we need non-Western refugees from Third World countries settling in vast, largely homogenous areas or Michigan, Maine and the upper Northwest, currently stable, safe, highly livable, neighborly communities?
“It is not about race”, the soft-spoken Tancredo said at the outset of his speech. He asserted his steadfast opposition to diversity, multiculturalism, and (in this speech, mostly illegal) immigration. But he also repeatedly emphasized that his concerns about assimilation, citizenship, and Western Civilization had nothing to do with race or ethnicity.
Tancredo spent a great deal of time awkwardly trying to reconcile the irreconcilable: that the issue of mass immigration has nothing to do with race or ethnicity. He even went out of his way to stress that race and ethnicity should be immaterial criteria for legal immigration and citizenship, although it was quite unnecessary to do so.
Tancredo claimed that the issue of citizenship and nationhood is merely one of language and cultural assimilation. Adopt the language, customs, and folkways of Western Civilization and America will remain, well, American.
But this is the equivalent of believing that, yes, the leopard can indeed change his spots. Massive waves of Third World refugees will enhance American democracy—if they can recite the pledge of allegiance!