Not since the American Civil War has such boundless hatred been so widespread, especially in our political culture. This new-emerging atmosphere of vitriol reminded me of the maiden season of the one of the many attempts at creating yet another additional football league in the United States. The turning of the millennium gave us the short-lived XFL.
I saw its very first game on TV, or at least the first half, such was its risible attempt to appeal to our insatiable need for more football. The League tried to innovate with such creative ideas as player-chosen nicknames instead of their surnames on the back of their jerseys.
One player in particular stood out. His real name was Rod Smart, a running back for the Vegas Outlaws. Smart had played his college ball at Western Kentucky University, followed by a brief stint with the San Diego Chargers in 2000. The name he chose to reflect his personality was He Hate Me. When asked to explain his strange choice, he stammered and stuttered for a good minute and finally said…well, the guy playing against me….He….he…hate me!
Smart, who later ran kicks back for the NFL Philadelphia Eagles that season, sans the Hate moniker, stuck around pro football until 2008. I saw him play in St. Louis that year in 2001 after the XFL had folded.
I received a pointed e-mail from an old friend last year, which still rings true today. An ardent Trump supporter, she is savvy to all the nefarious rhetoric coming from across the Democratic aisle in Congress and its several auxiliary venues throughout the nation.
Her most recent missive struck me as the most potent, and I would say blatantly honest threat the Democratic Party has unleashed on the country as a whole since the secessionist movement got its marching orders in Charleston, South Carolina in 1861. And I will trust many of us missed it then.
Some of us might recognize Dick Lamm, as the former Democratic Governor of Colorado. He served three terms as 38th Governor, from 1975-1987. I remember him as the man who had the audacity to tell the elderly of this country, that instead of a right to life, they/we had the duty to die to ease over-population.
Anytime he gets a microphone in his hands, his words will usually have a profound impact on all those who do not share his political ideology. In early March of 2017, there was an immigration overpopulation conference in Washington, DC, filled to capacity by many of America’s finest minds and leaders.
A brilliant college professor by the name of Victor Davis Hanson talked about his latest book, Mexifornia. His book detailed, how immigration, both legal and illegal was destroying the entire state of California. He said it would march across the country until it destroyed all vestiges of The American Dream. Moments later, former Colorado Governor Richard D. Lamm followed him to the podium. He outlined in his speech a detailed plan on how best to destroy America, in blunt and horrifying simplicity.
The audience sat spellbound as he described eight methods for the destruction of the United States. He said, If you believe that America is too smug, too self-satisfied, too rich, then let’s destroy America. It is not that hard to do. No nation in history has survived the ravages of time. Arnold Toynbee observed that all great civilizations rise and fall and that an autopsy of history would show that all great nations commit suicide.
Lamm said: First, to destroy America, turn America into a bilingual or multi-lingual and bicultural country…History shows that no nation can survive the tension, conflict, and antagonism of two or more competing languages and cultures. It is a blessing for an individual to be bilingual; however, it is a curse for a society to be bilingual.
The historical scholar, Seymour Lipset underscored Hanson’s thinking when he wrote, The histories of bilingual and bicultural societies that do not assimilate are histories of turmoil, tension, and tragedy.’ Canada , Belgium , Malaysia , and Lebanon all face crises of national existence in which minorities press for autonomy , if not independence. Pakistan and Cyprus have divided. Nigeria suppressed an ethnic rebellion. France faces difficulties with Basques, Bretons, Corsicans and Muslims. Economist Thomas Sowell has written several books on this subject.
In his second point, Lamm suggested Americans invent ‘multiculturalism’ and encourage immigrants to maintain their culture. Make it an article of belief that all cultures are equal; that there are no cultural differences. Make it an article of faith that the Black and Hispanic dropout rates are due solely to prejudice and discrimination by the majority. Every other explanation is out of bounds.What he failed to say was that multicultural was a Marxist construct that has been around since before he was born.
In his third point Lamm suggested that American leaders could easily turn the country into a ‘Hispanic Quebec, replete with its internecine arguments that could turn violent with the blink of an eye. The key is to celebrate diversity rather than unity.
As Benjamin Schwarz said in the Atlantic Monthly: The apparent success of our own multi-ethnic and multicultural experiment might have been achieved not by tolerance but by hegemony. Without the dominance that once dictated ethnocentricy and what it meant to be an American, we are left with only tolerance and pluralism to hold us together.
To effect this, Lamm would encourage all immigrants to keep their own language and culture. His ostensible goal was to replace the melting pot with the salad bowl. Again, Lamm is way behind the his revolution’s curve because that metaphorical change happened at least 20 years ago.
His fourth point in dumming down the population, has also been going on for at least a full generation. Thanks to the philosophy of John Dewey, teachers on the elementary and secondary levels are more concerned with how students perceive themselves than teaching subjects with lasting educational value. On the university level, these young minds of mush as Rush Limbaugh would say, are more easily indoctrinated to the bellicose hostility and ignorance toward their own country.
In his fifth point, Lamm encouraged the big foundations and business to give these efforts lots of money. I would invest in ethnic identity, and I would establish the cult of ‘Victimology’…I would get all minorities to think that their lack of success was the fault of the majority. Again it is as if he wrote this speech on the ideas that were current in the last century.
His point number six would include dual citizenship, and promote divided loyalties. I would celebrate diversity over unity. I would stress differences rather than similarities. He points out that diverse people worldwide are mostly engaged in hating each other…killing each other.
His most prescient and valid pointthat should be followed by all Americans is to understand how hard it is to unify a nation. Lamm cites the Greeks as the best example of this. The Greeks believed that they belonged to the same race; they possessed a common language and literature; and they worshiped the same gods. All Greece took part in the Olympic games. A common enemy, Persia, threatened their liberty.
Despite all these positives, it was not enough for the Greeks to overcome two factors: local patriotism or what we would call tribalism and geographical conditions that nurtured political divisions. Lamm adds his two cents worth by saying that our motto of ‘E. Pluribus Unum‘ — From many, one, should have its emphasis on the ‘pluribus instead of the Unum. He said that will help to further Balkanize’ America as surely as Kosovo. Al Gore hinted at this same idea when he translated the aforementioned motto as from one to many.
Lamb would place all subjects critical of these ideas off limits. He would virtually censor debate on all of the above parts of his plan. Though it might be news to the former Governor, this has already been happening in all facets of our culture for years. Thousands have risked the personal destruction of their lives as they had known them for having the temerity to challenge any of his sacred tenets of our self-destruction.
The former Governor would find a word similar to ‘heretic’ in the 16th century to stop that discussion and paralyze thinking. Many words exist, such as racist, sexist, and homophobic already and neologistic terms with serious bite crop up every day so it seems. Infidel just might fit the nation’s fascination with Islam at this critical juncture in our cultural history.
And finally, he would censor Davis Hanson’s book, Mexifornia, because it was a dangerous book that exposed what is no longer a dark conspiracy but more like H. G. Wells open conspiracy. If you feel America deserves to be destroyed, don’t read that book. (Maybe those of us who disagree with the fossilized revolutionary should rush out and get a copy. It is still prescient.)
Ever since Marx and Engels haunted the alcove of the Reading Room in Manchester’s Chatham Library, these ideas have been floated around, creating barnacles on the ship of state since the early 20th century. It seems that their modern accolades are getting ready to sink the ship.
Lamm’s speech reads more like a premature obituary or reliquary of America. Instead of love for his country, Lamm’s philosophy can only emanate from a hate that runs so deeply in his veins that it permeates all his thinking. In truth this descendant of the Paris Revolution is not a vanguard, he is an ardent foot solider who seems poised to sharpen up the guillotine. His vitriol has come to River City. My greatest fear is that a fear-laced apathy runs too deeply in this country. The least we can do is start wearing Smart Shirts that say They hate us!
