Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Have a Coke and a Smile, or Behead the Infidels?

So, after reading all of this month's essays on Cato Unbound, it appears that the ensuing conversation did not really expound on Old Europe's ideas on social security. Instead, they took a broader look at the culture that allows the welfare state to subsist and [seemingly] hinders economic growth. To summarize, they've got fear of America; fear of capitalism; fear of immigrants (multiculturalism); and fear of losing existing jobs and wealth all at the expense of new job and wealth creation.

Here's an amusing passage from Theodore Dalrymple regarding integration [or assimilation] of immigrant populations in Old Europe vs. the U.S.:

"The idea that the French riots took place because the inhabitants of the banlieues did not speak sufficient French is absurd: they all spoke French. And I fail to see how embracing multiculturalism will do anything to inhibit Muslim extremists. As one Italian put it, multiculturalism is not couscous: it is the stoning of adulterers—and, as we have recently discovered, far worse than that. The United States has an advantage because it has a compelling foundation myth, which Europe does not have, and this helps to integrate new arrivals."

Emphasis mine.

I'm not sure the "compelling foundation myth" did much to grease the wheels of integration for the Chinese immigrants to the U.S. who helped build our railroads in the West or the Irish immigrants who became our cops and firefighters in the East [kidding]. Rather, I think these folks had to really pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. And they, like other successful immigrant populations in the U.S., realized they must adopt--or adapt to--American culture to succeed. Today, I think we are [or recently were?] much more accepting of new immigrants [partly because of our "foundation myth"]; and their barriers to success are more economic than prejudicial in nature. However, some more conservative pundits may argue that the new immigrants have become less willing to assimilate as a result of our growing acceptance of foreign cultures [but I really don't want to touch that issue]. As near as I can tell, the people most likely to get stoned in my neighborhood are the "sandwich artists" at the Subway down the street, and not some Muslim adultress.

Anyway . . . I believe Mr. Dalrymple is implying that, with respect to Muslim immigrants in Europe, there is integration resistance from both sides. What I can't understand is why any person would sacrifice everything to move to a country that offers him scant economic opportunity; and especially to a country in which he is not only particularly unwelcomed, but also toward whose culture he is bitterly resentful. I don't live in Europe, so I can't tell which side bears most of the blame. But lately I've gotten the impression that a portion of the Muslim immigrant population on that continent is not a very flexible or tolerant one.

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