The Parkus Empire wrote:I am opposed to individualism as I understand the term. An individual does not need to consent to any social contract and duty is not voluntary. The family, not the individual, is the basic building stone of society.
I concur with all of this and with the subsequent statement.
The Parkus Empire wrote:In truth I don't think anything can be done. The left have shot themselves in the foot by their support for open borders. Trump and Brexit should have been a major wakeup call, but it looks like they are in denial of the situation. Eventually there will be a backlash and tyranny will reign. All our cherished rights will stripped away (at least in Europe but quite possibly here too) by a government that people will support because the "managerial state" has proven to be deaf to the existential panic caused among natives by rampant immigration
We have immigration scares on a periodic basis and they're generally exaggerated. At the moment, perhaps 12.5% of the American population consists of immigrants. This is a good deal lower than the 15% they comprised in 1910. I would argue the principal difference is that they emerge from nations with a common language and political culture, specifically Latin American nations to the south of our border.
The solution is to intermarry with them and assimilate them into mainstream Anglophone society as a concerted social movement. This is already happening on a gradual basis. My mother was Mexican, and I've been thoroughly Americanized. I'm bilingual, but prefer English. I wholly embrace American traditions. I read Walt Whitman and George Santayana. I participate in all mainstream institutions. This process is substantially helped by the fact that Latin American culture still experienced the Enlightenment and is still predominantly Western.
In countries like Sweden (20%) or the UAE (over 70%), where immigrants usually come from radically different cultures, where they aren't assimilating, and where they represent more than twenty percent of the population, this might become problematic. At the moment, in country's where instability might be risked, halting or at least severely restricting immigration, deporting immigrants who commit crime or who don't work steadily, and encouraging integration might suffice.
Of course, cracking down on the far-right is always an option too. They're threats to the social order too, and more deliberate and pressing threats.
The Xenopolis Confederation wrote:My God, what is everyone's problem with individual rights?
None of the American conservatives have an issue with individual rights as stipulated by the Constitution. The critique of unencumbered individualism has nothing to do with a principled opposition to individual rights. Observing that certain elements of liberalism are caustic to American society, which through its institutions, laws, and values has given you those rights, is not a rejection of individual rights but rather a validation of them.
