Kerry, my pleasure to elaborate.

"In the meantime, the big news is the anti-immigration piece by Samuel Huntington in the current issue of Foreign Policy (and my thanks to Derb for linking to the article last week as I was prepping for today's shoot). To quote a just a few sentences:

Continuation of this large immigration...could divide the United States into a country of two languages and two cultures....such as Canada and Belgium....The transformation of the United States into a country like these would not necessarily be the end of the world; it would, however be the end of the America we have known for more than three centuries. Americans should not let that change happen unless that are convinced that this new nation would be a better one."

Transformation of the United States into a country like Belgium? DON'T!!!!!

On a more serious note:

A country with two (or more) languages and cultures IS a workable option, as is proven all over the world. The trick is to make the existing communities live together in such a way that no group feels left out and has its share of power. I'm a little astonished Huntington picks a.o. Belgium for illustrating his case. First of all, the Belgian divide Flemings/Walloons is an artificial creation by the Brits in the wake of Waterloo. There's a curious analogy with Iraq here where it was, again, the Brits who housed Kurds, Shia, Sunni et al in the same building. The analogy with Iraq, with respect to the Sunni/Shia question, gets even weirder given the fact that for decades it was the Wallonian minority pulling the strings, whereas the Flemings, comprising roughly 60% of the population, were... yeah, let's call it that way... second-class citizens. Without much exaggeration you might say the Flemings were Belgium's Shiites and the Walloons, for a long time the ruling elite, its Sunnis.

Now, I'm not going to make this a long and boring thread on how present-day Belgium came to be. Suffice to say that anno 2004 Belgium is a federal state, consisting of two Regions, Flanders and Wallonia, each with its own Government and Parliament. A lot of authority has been transferred to the regional level, with key ministries (defence, justice, foreign affairs...) remaining at the national level.

So in a way one could speak of the United States of Belgium (USB). As my mother always said, "after A comes B", so after the USA comes the USB. In the greater framework of the ever expanding EU it is interesting to note that our capital, Brussels, is also being regarded more and more as the EU's capital. Also, NATO Headquarters is here, as well as some 2,000 international organizations. Furthermore, so as to avoid infights between Flemings and Walloons over whose territory Brussels is on, a special status was created for it, much in the same way as for Washington D.C. In short, Brussels does not lay in Flanders, neither does it in Wallonia; it's a Region in itself ("Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Gewest" - "Brussels Capital Region").

To cut a long story short: while the Belgian solution DOES function without Flemings and Walloons caving each other's heads in, it came about because of the insurpassable language/culture abyss: neither side willing to give up its mother-tongue or its customs. It works, but it is costly. If you can avoid it, don't go for it.

And here we come to the conclusion: I don't think you can avoid immigration. No law will ultimately stop a certain influx of Mexicans, Azerbeidjans, Yemenis, Belgians, Dagestans or whatever. What you should do, and here I endorse Marks idea: FORCE THEM TO ASSIMILATE. No soft words here. They must learn English and be able to disinguish Britney Spears from Pink. (*) Period. Setting up Spanish classes is the same foolishness leftist clowns over here commit when they call for Berber or Arabic language courses for our immigrants: they will withdraw into their ghettos and never be reliable and contributing countrymen. On the contrary, they are a recipe for disaster. You have had guys like Shalikashvili, Shinseki and Abizaid in your armed forces and they served, and continue to serve, well. That was not by allowing them to live in a Georgian, Japanese or Arabian enclave.





(*) I'm already assimilated. Pink has bigger bo...um... is built heavier.