What is unity good for?

[loseyourname]

How does a political structure allow freedom? That is untrue. Political structures aim at curtailing freedom.

Look, I'm not sure how to word this, but I'm pretty sure you know what I'm getting at. I just want to preserve a relatively peaceful land in which I might pursue my life's goals. Some freedom needs to be curtailed, such as the freedom of my neighbor to steal my wealth and murder my family.

It's a bit more complex than that. I already explained I am not drawn to American culture, even though I understand it.

I don't know, Mousy. I've gotten the impression, during the 4+ months that I've been here, that you hold more American values than Armenian ones. I imagine that if you ever moved to Armenia, you would find that you would not fit in there quite so well as you do here.

First you said culture is taught, then when I explained that, you say the pattern of multicultural empires collapsing is taught. Culture is innate to man, it isn't taught, for how could have the first man taught himself culture? It is inborn in people, the capacity to, that is. And throughout the globe and history different "races" have produced very different cultures, as cultures are a form of expression.

Technically, I said that it is learned, not that it is taught. You can learn without being taught. I just said that it isn't inborn, in the same way you are not born learning to speak a language. Nonetheless, the first man to ever speak must have made up the words, that is, learned them without being taught. Still, that doesn't mean that humans are born with the ability to speak. In the same way, you are not born with a sense of culture. A Jew is not born with an aversion to pork anymore than an American is born with a tendency toward national arrogance.

That is what I was referring, perhaps that instinctive trait is not as strong as those of eating, and sex, but they are prevalent nonetheless.

I really don't think it is. I can't see why a desire to preserve culture would be instinctual. Culture did not even exist when man first came into existence. I doubt that a new instinct could develop that quickly in evolutionary time.

And before you go arguing with evolutionary theory, be aware that the evolution of a new instinct within a species is an example of microevolution, something that you have said you have no qualms with.

These are all so subjective as to how one interprets them that one can construct another model detailing how Jews and Mexicans do not assimilate but stick to their own.

It doesn't make any difference how you construct your model. Reality is not a model. Either the nation will fall because of Jews and Mexicans, or it will not. It all depends on whether or not they adopt American values. The Jews have done so. They generate a great deal of wealth and have assumed prominent positions of leadership. Granted, there have negative aspects of this happening, as the US has ended up with a largely Zionist foreign policy that has gotten us into a great deal of trouble, but it isn't ethnic isolationism that caused this, and really it only goes to prove my point. Assimilation needs to take place to the point where new immigrants feel a stronger allegiance to the US than to their old home, or in this case, where Jews feel a stronger allegiance to US interests than to Israeli interests. It is a complicated issue, I know, but the solution isn't simply to bar new people from coming in. That type of policy would have pre-empted the very existence of this nation, a nation built entirely from immigrants of disparate cultural backgrounds. Even the early colonists, though almost all white, did not agree on many issues of culture and politics, which is why it took a war to unite them in the first place.

This goes back to the basic. There will be some non-whites that will hold American beliefs, but for the most part, others won't as this is alien to them.

That is why we have the public school system, to indoctrinate second generation citizens. As long as the schools continue to exert more influence than parentage, and for the most part it has, by the second generation, most will assimilate. The problem lies largely with groups, such as Jews and Armenians, that insist on keeping their own private schools that do not indoctrinate the youth with American ideals, and with bilingual education.

This goes back to the idea that culture is a product of the people that create it. This idea of a liberal constitutional republic, or what not, is a mainly European idea. It has worked well for Western Europeans but it cannot work for others, as that culture is foreign to them and doesn't reflect them.

Again, this is why we have the public school system. Immigrants themselves may have difficulty assimilating, but their children that are born in the United States, at least in principle, should not. There is nothing in the non-white genome that entails aversion to the ideal of the constitutional republic. This is taught, and it can be taught to anyone.

Take a look at Rome. Towards it's latter day we witnessed the barbarization of the Roman Empire, in which the barbarians became more Romanized, and the Romans became more barbarized, and as the original Romans disappeared, those who called themselves "Romans" were in reality a pale comparison to the original creators of that Republic, and so could not understand the principles that culture laid down, and so hence it shifted away from its original precepts as that previous idea, or culture, did not reflect the new peoples.

The empire also became too large for the Romans to handle and the leaders became increasingly corrupt. This is the real problem we should be worried about - rampant imperialism and government corruption. Immigration is not nearly as big of a concern. Even the white men, I would say especially the white men, in charge of this nation have lost sight of the true American ideal, and this has nothing to do with the influence of ethnic minorities.

[Anonymouse]

Look, I'm not sure how to word this, but I'm pretty sure you know what I'm getting at. I just want to preserve a relatively peaceful land in which I might pursue my life's goals. Some freedom needs to be curtailed, such as the freedom of my neighbor to steal my wealth and murder my family.

That is obvious, but where we disagree is you believe the State has the right to be the arbiter.

I don't know, Mousy. I've gotten the impression, during the 4+ months that I've been here, that you hold more American values than Armenian ones. I imagine that if you ever moved to Armenia, you would find that you would not fit in there quite so well as you do here.

That is untrue.

Technically, I said that it is learned, not that it is taught. You can learn without being taught. I just said that it isn't inborn, in the same way you are not born learning to speak a language. Nonetheless, the first man to ever speak must have made up the words, that is, learned them without being taught. Still, that doesn't mean that humans are born with the ability to speak. In the same way, you are not born with a sense of culture. A Jew is not born with an aversion to pork anymore than an American is born with a tendency toward national arrogance.

To teach is to learn, don't play with semantics. The first man to speak didn't learn it or teach it, he created it.

I really don't think it is. I can't see why a desire to preserve culture would be instinctual. Culture did not even exist when man first came into existence. I doubt that a new instinct could develop that quickly in evolutionary time.

Two things. That culture did not exist when man came into existence, is itself an assumption, since our theories about the past are simply theories, and the "facts" woven around them are based on subjective principles. Second, that there is a need to preserve a culture, is a tribe mentality humans have. Notice you stated humans are social creatures. Naturally, blacks favor the advancement of blacks here, Hispanics, and Asians respectively. If there would be a collapse of the central government of America, you would quickly see people split up along those lines and conflict with each other, just like in Iraq, like the Arabs, Kurds, the Sunnis and Shi'ites fighting amongst each other.

And before you go arguing with evolutionary theory, be aware that the evolution of a new instinct within a species is an example of microevolution, something that you have said you have no qualms with.

Before making assumptions of what I will do, lets leave theories about life that is itself an assumption and based on semantic manipulation.

It doesn't make any difference how you construct your model. Reality is not a model. Either the nation will fall because of Jews and Mexicans, or it will not. It all depends on whether or not they adopt American values. The Jews have done so. They generate a great deal of wealth and have assumed prominent positions of leadership. Granted, there have negative aspects of this happening, as the US has ended up with a largely Zionist foreign policy that has gotten us into a great deal of trouble, but it isn't ethnic isolationism that caused this, and really it only goes to prove my point. Assimilation needs to take place to the point where new immigrants feel a stronger allegiance to the US than to their old home, or in this case, where Jews feel a stronger allegiance to US interests than to Israeli interests. It is a complicated issue, I know, but the solution isn't simply to bar new people from coming in. That type of policy would have pre-empted the very existence of this nation, a nation built entirely from immigrants of disparate cultural backgrounds. Even the early colonists, though almost all white, did not agree on many issues of culture and politics, which is why it took a war to unite them in the first place.

This is the paragraph where, I am sorry to say, you don't know what you're talking about. The example you gave, is tantamount to arguing for me, the exact points I would argue. Of all examples you brought forth Jews, as fitting in perfectly to the American values. This may be the case on the surface or to the illusion of the naked eye, but no one has more fanatic party loyalty than Jews, who for the most part, are pro-Israeli, Zionists. They of all people have the least amount of loyalty to American values, one can argue, and of all people, have the least tolerance for "mixing" with non-Jews, at least the orthodox Zionists, and we can take this further by highlighting how this current war is in fact for Israeli interests, but why would America be fighting it, is exactly what you highlighted, Jews in key positions and lobbying and power, namely people like Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, I forget which one of the two had dual citizenship to Israel, and both are confirmed Zionists. That is the way it goes. Too much diversity causes problems, and if you add on to that, the amount of dissention and non-American loyalty different groups have, you will quickly see how such "diversity" eventually corrupts the system from within.

That is why we have the public school system, to indoctrinate second generation citizens. As long as the schools continue to exert more influence than parentage, and for the most part it has, by the second generation, most will assimilate. The problem lies largely with groups, such as Jews and Armenians, that insist on keeping their own private schools that do not indoctrinate the youth with American ideals, and with bilingual education.

If you think that somehow public schools "indoctrinate" kids to be more "American" you are clearly in the pond of misunderstanding. For you see, I am a graduate of a public school, and I have always been going to a public school since first grade, and no where did I see more examples of inter-ethnic violence, than in public schools. When I went to a Catholic school, there I saw no violence. The only thing public schools indoctrinate people with are stupidity and indolence, and apathy.

Again, this is why we have the public school system. Immigrants themselves may have difficulty assimilating, but their children that are born in the United States, at least in principle, should not. There is nothing in the non-white genome that entails aversion to the ideal of the constitutional republic. This is taught, and it can be taught to anyone.

Just like the concept of "Rominatus" was taught to some African or Barbarian in the Roman Empire in 370 A.D. No one denies this. I learned it in my civics class. Teaching "constitutional republic" doesn't mean such is the practice, for if it were, we wouldn't be an empire, we'd call it a Republic. The indicator of history shows that despite the fact that Rome taught Romanitas to non-Romans, the empire nonetheless changed. This is brilliantly documented and argued in Edward Gibbons classic masterpiece.

The empire also became too large for the Romans to handle and the leaders became increasingly corrupt. This is the real problem we should be worried about - rampant imperialism and government corruption. Immigration is not nearly as big of a concern. Even the white men, I would say especially the white men, in charge of this nation have lost sight of the true American ideal, and this has nothing to do with the influence of ethnic minorities.

Immigration is tied in to every bit of government corruption and expansion. The more this country expands, the more immigrants come here. If Iraq turns into another Vietnam, how many new Iraqi immigrants do you think we will get? As the demographics shift, the interests that make up society change. When society begins to reflect a more and more bulk of immigrants from different cultures then you have more and more need to pander up to them for fear of them rebelling or causing a riot, such as the case with blacks. The same Mexicans that the white man conquered are now serving in the U.S. Army en masse, no different than when Rome conquered the barbarians in the Marcomanni Wars, as shown in the movie Gladiator, ended up serving in the Imperial Army. History isn't what you want it to be. We can point to any civilization or empire and trace this pattern - a homogenous culture, or at least a clear majority; it begins to subjugate and conquer its neighboring peoples and absorbs them; then the society itself begins to change and reflect more and more of the new peoples.

[loseyourname]

That is obvious, but where we disagree is you believe the State has the right to be the arbiter.

It's not so much that I believe the state has any inherent rights so much as I remain unconvinced that any entity other than the state could effectively ensure my own security. And don't go arguing about the way our current state does not do this. I am not in favor of our current state - you will again be arguing with a straw man.

That is untrue.

If you insist, but your politics are closer to mine than they are to any of the Armenians on this site.

To teach is to learn, don't play with semantics. The first man to speak didn't learn it or teach it, he created it.

You're doing the same thing - playing with semantics. If he created it, it was still not inborn. My point stands.

Two things. That culture did not exist when man came into existence, is itself an assumption, since our theories about the past are simply theories, and the "facts" woven around them are based on subjective principles. Second, that there is a need to preserve a culture, is a tribe mentality humans have. Notice you stated humans are social creatures. Naturally, blacks favor the advancement of blacks here, Hispanics, and Asians respectively. If there would be a collapse of the central government of America, you would quickly see people split up along those lines and conflict with each other, just like in Iraq, like the Arabs, Kurds, the Sunnis and Shi'ites fighting amongst each other.

Yes, blacks favor the advancement of blacks and asians favor the advancement of asians because they remain distinct groups. This goes back to my original point regarding the virtue of interracial breeding. I am multiracial and I don't identify with any ethnic group. For that reason, I simply favor my own advancement, and that of the state in which I live. I do not favor the agenda of any particular ethnic or racial group.

Before making assumptions of what I will do, lets leave theories about life that is itself an assumption and based on semantic manipulation.

Dude, all we're doing here is theorizing. If you're going to criticize it, stop doing it. And don't come in telling me that you are only making observations and pointing things out. That is not true. You are extrapolating from your observations to come to conclusions regarding the future of this nation. You can't see the future. You are only theorizing.

This is the paragraph where, I am sorry to say, you don't know what you're talking about. The example you gave, is tantamount to arguing for me, the exact points I would argue. Of all examples you brought forth Jews, as fitting in perfectly to the American values. This may be the case on the surface or to the illusion of the naked eye, but no one has more fanatic party loyalty than Jews, who for the most part, are pro-Israeli, Zionists. They of all people have the least amount of loyalty to American values, one can argue, and of all people, have the least tolerance for "mixing" with non-Jews, at least the orthodox Zionists, and we can take this further by highlighting how this current war is in fact for Israeli interests, but why would America be fighting it, is exactly what you highlighted, Jews in key positions and lobbying and power, namely people like Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, I forget which one of the two had dual citizenship to Israel, and both are confirmed Zionists. That is the way it goes. Too much diversity causes problems, and if you add on to that, the amount of dissention and non-American loyalty different groups have, you will quickly see how such "diversity" eventually corrupts the system from within.

Mousy, do you even listen to me? We have exactly the same view on this. I said that Jews have created a great deal of trouble for us in that they have instilled a Zionist bias to US foreign policy, and that by maintaining their own schools and by refusing to interbreed they have remained a distinct group with its own agenda that is not good for America. I have also argued against diversity.

If you think that somehow public schools "indoctrinate" kids to be more "American" you are clearly in the pond of misunderstanding. For you see, I am a graduate of a public school, and I have always been going to a public school since first grade, and no where did I see more examples of inter-ethnic violence, than in public schools. When I went to a Catholic school, there I saw no violence. The only thing public schools indoctrinate people with are stupidity and indolence, and apathy.

Do they not teach history with a very pro-American bent? Up until maybe thirty years ago, the American public education, at least in the social sciences, was almost entirely pro-American propaganda. I'm referring to the curriculum, not what you learn in the playground. If your school was violent, it's likely because you lived in a poor neighborhood. I had no such problem at my school, and I can guarantee there were just as many ethnic groups and races coexisting at my school. The difference is that they were all native-born Americans living in the middle class.

Just like the concept of "Rominatus" was taught to some African or Barbarian in the Roman Empire in 370 A.D. No one denies this. I learned it in my civics class. Teaching "constitutional republic" doesn't mean such is the practice, for if it were, we wouldn't be an empire, we'd call it a Republic. The indicator of history shows that despite the fact that Rome taught Romanitas to non-Romans, the empire nonetheless changed. This is brilliantly documented and argued in Edward Gibbons classic masterpiece.

Frankly, Mousy, I don't really care what happened to the Roman empire. I still think that our leaders losing sight of the American ideal and the deleterious effects of imperialism are the things we really need to be worried about.

This is a different situation from that which existed in the latter days of Rome. Don't become enamored with the past to the point where it blinds you to the present. I can assure from personal experience alone that native-born American children living in the middle class who attend integrated public schools have a common, pro-American political agend and buy into American values. Most that I know have little to no knowledge, or least interest, in the culture of their heritage.

Immigration is tied in to every bit of government corruption and expansion. The more this country expands, the more immigrants come here.

The country hasn't made any significant expansion in almost 100 years.

If Iraq turns into another Vietnam, how many new Iraqi immigrants do you think we will get?

Exactly why I say imperialism is the bigger concern.

As the demographics shift, the interests that make up society change. When society begins to reflect a more and more bulk of immigrants from different cultures then you have more and more need to pander up to them for fear of them rebelling or causing a riot, such as the case with blacks.

Mousy, this has been going on since the days of the draft riots and fights between Irish immigrants and native-born Anglos almost 200 years ago. The nation has survived it. I suggest we not lose sight of how this was managed - through assimilation.

The same Mexicans that the white man conquered are now serving in the U.S. Army en masse, no different than when Rome conquered the barbarians in the Marcomanni Wars, as shown in the movie Gladiator, ended up serving in the Imperial Army.

The US hasn't fought a war with Mexico in over a century. No Mexican serving in the army was conquered by anybody. What are you talking about?

History isn't what you want it to be. We can point to any civilization or empire and trace this pattern - a homogenous culture, or at least a clear majority; it begins to subjugate and conquer its neighboring peoples and absorbs them; then the society itself begins to change and reflect more and more of the new peoples.

I will again point to the heterogeneity of the American colonies. From the very beginning, Americans have disagreed and have come from many different cultures. I see no less unity in the present day United States than existed in the late 1700's.

[Anonymouse]

It's not so much that I believe the state has any inherent rights so much as I remain unconvinced that any entity other than the state could effectively ensure my own security. And don't go arguing about the way our current state does not do this. I am not in favor of our current state - you will again be arguing with a straw man.

I am not arguing a straw man. In fact, you brought on this argument which had nothing to do with the said discussion.

If you insist, but your politics are closer to mine than they are to any of the Armenians on this site.

That is, once again plainly put, untrue.

You're doing the same thing - playing with semantics. If he created it, it was still not inborn. My point stands.

The fact that he created it, showed he had a capacity to, showing it was in fact innate.

Yes, blacks favor the advancement of blacks and asians favor the advancement of asians because they remain distinct groups. This goes back to my original point regarding the virtue of interracial breeding. I am multiracial and I don't identify with any ethnic group. For that reason, I simply favor my own advancement, and that of the state in which I live. I do not favor the agenda of any particular ethnic or racial group.

That is because you are a mutt, and not belonging to any particular ethnic or racial group, although I bet someone looking at you can classify you as "white". Alot of these white people who have "native American" in them, look really "white".

Dude, all we're doing here is theorizing. If you're going to criticize it, stop doing it. And don't come in telling me that you are only making observations and pointing things out. That is not true. You are extrapolating from your observations to come to conclusions regarding the future of this nation. You can't see the future. You are only theorizing.

Of course we are theorizing, that is the whole point. Based on evidence of the past, we are applying it to the future. For each instance, that has been the case in the past, and there is reason to believe that it will be the case again, for reasons obvious. I never claimed to see the future.

Mousy, do you even listen to me? We have exactly the same view on this. I said that Jews have created a great deal of trouble for us in that they have instilled a Zionist bias to US foreign policy, and that by maintaining their own schools and by refusing to interbreed they have remained a distinct group with its own agenda that is not good for America. I have also argued against diversity.

And hence why many catalysts acting this way eventually detiorate the empire. You were criticizing me earlier for "seeing the future", yet you yourself just gave a peak into the inner workings of this process.

Do they not teach history with a very pro-American bent? Up until maybe thirty years ago, the American public education, at least in the social sciences, was almost entirely pro-American propaganda. I'm referring to the curriculum, not what you learn in the playground. If your school was violent, it's likely because you lived in a poor neighborhood. I had no such problem at my school, and I can guarantee there were just as many ethnic groups and races coexisting at my school. The difference is that they were all native-born Americans living in the middle class.

Presuming that the cirriculum is supposed to teach Americanism, it still has no bearing. The average Hispanic sitting in my Government class, or the average Filipino, really couldn't identify with this or care for it. "Who were Thomas Jefferson and John Adams?" anathema to their ears, for it didn't matter, they were totally from a different country, a different heritage, and different histories and could not understand it, or relate to it, even second generation.

Frankly, Mousy, I don't really care what happened to the Roman empire. I still think that our leaders losing sight of the American ideal and the deleterious effects of imperialism are the things we really need to be worried about.

Hence, why you cannot understand or see what is happening now. To know the present and the future, you must know the past, for out of the past are built the present, and out of the present, the future. That is the way it goes. Even the problems you are highlighting are the same for Rome at one time, which is interrelated to the Imperialism that ensued and the immigration that followed.

This is a different situation from that which existed in the latter days of Rome. Don't become enamored with the past to the point where it blinds you to the present. I can assure from personal experience alone that native-born American children living in the middle class who attend integrated public schools have a common, pro-American political agend and buy into American values. Most that I know have little to no knowledge, or least interest, in the culture of their heritage.

That is not a "different situation", the parallels between Rome and the New Rome, are striking. The points highlighted are the same. Do you not think many Barbarians became "Romanized" and eventually "Romans"? In fact, the Barbarians started to fill in rank and file in the Roman Army, replacing the Romans, and eventually became emperors, and then eventually established their own kingdoms. The ethnogenesis that occured in Rome is the same that will occur here, replacing the order and culture with a new one.

The country hasn't made any significant expansion in almost 100 years.

Not in the literal sense, in the metaphorical sense. As the non-Americans are becoming more "Americanized" the Americans are becoming more "barbarized" by the non-Americans. This same ethnogenesis was taking place in Rome. In fact, you would learn alot about America, if you took a course in Roman history.

Exactly why I say imperialism is the bigger concern..

It was imperialism that absorbed the native Americans, the Mexicans, etc., only now to have a threatening dominant Mexican majority in the Southwest. The same Rome defeated and expanded into the barbarians, and the barbarians lived in Rome peacefully and were "Romanized", but it was the same barbarians that caused the collapse of the old order.

Mousy, this has been going on since the days of the draft riots and fights between Irish immigrants and native-born Anglos almost 200 years ago. The nation has survived it. I suggest we not lose sight of how this was managed - through assimilation.

I don't see how this means anything, since the country was founded by an Anglo majority and that characterized the American experiment mostly in an "Anglo" sense, as they formed the majority for clearly most of the period. Even now most of the "whites" in America claim either a clear Anglo ancestry or a German one, making up the bulk of the whites in this country, of either Anglo or German stock.

The US hasn't fought a war with Mexico in over a century. No Mexican serving in the army was conquered by anybody. What are you talking about?

Dates are not the point. You are drilling at a non-issue. The point is that, like Rome conquering the Barbarians, the U.S. conquered the Mexicans, and both eventually served in the Army, and administrative positions and became enmeshed, but eventually they were the catalysts.

I will again point to the heterogeneity of the American colonies. From the very beginning, Americans have disagreed and have come from many different cultures. I see no less unity in the present day United States than existed in the late 1700's.

Every society begins either homogenously or with a distinct or defined majority, as the American experiment. Nor should we forget that the framers clearly had in mind a European nation when they first formed it, as writings from them confirms it, such as Jefferson, Franklin, Thomas Paine, or John Jay. The United States was self-consciously homogenous, as John Jay wrote in the second of The Federalist Papers in 1787. Hence the first naturalization law in 1790 required citizens to be free white persons. No society can begin multiculturally/multiracially. They all begin with a homogenous or clear majority. Only later in the later stages do they become multiracial.

[loseyourname]

I am not arguing a straw man. In fact, you brought on this argument which had nothing to do with the said discussion.

Relax there, buddy. I didn't say you were arguing with a straw man. I said you would be if you argued that our current does a poor job of ensuring my security.

That is, once again plainly put, untrue.

Honestly, Mousy? Compare your politics to mine. The only differences that I can see are that I favor the existence of a very minimal state consisting of national defense and contract enforcement, as well as health and environmental regulation. You favor no state at all. I favor interracial breeding along with forced assimilation of new immigrants, whereas you seem to favor simply barring all non-white immigrants. Then compare your politics with say, Baron or Tigran, perhaps the two most active posters in the Armenian politics forum, or perhaps with Surfer and patlajan, the two most politically active posters in the other forums aside from perhaps the two of us. I think you will find you have more in common with me than you do with them.

The fact that he created it, showed he had a capacity to, showing it was in fact innate.

Mousy, you're not going to effectively argue that humans are born with a knowledge of langauge, or of culture. Had you been raised by wolved, you would not speak Armenian nor would you care one iota about Armenian issues. You wouldn't even know that you were of Armenian descent.

That is because you are a mutt, and not belonging to any particular ethnic or racial group, although I bet someone looking at you can classify you as "white". Alot of these white people who have "native American" in them, look really "white".

Yeah, I look quite white, although I'm willing to bet I tan a lot better than any of you.

This is exactly what I said, and exactly my point. Those who are interracial and don't identify with any single ethnic group favor the advancement of their nation rather than any one ethnic group. This is why interracial breeding is good for America - it creates Americans that care more about American issues than say, hispanic or asian or armenian issues.

Of course we are theorizing, that is the whole point. Based on evidence of the past, we are applying it to the future. For each instance, that has been the case in the past, and there is reason to believe that it will be the case again, for reasons obvious. I never claimed to see the future.

I'm glad we agree. Now will you not criticize me when I theorize?

And hence why many catalysts acting this way eventually detiorate the empire. You were criticizing me earlier for "seeing the future", yet you yourself just gave a peak into the inner workings of this process.

No, I didn't. I said that you don't see the future. I never said that you claimed you had. I was only pointing out that all you can do is speculate, same as me.

I never said I didn't see a problem. In fact, I said I see quite a problem with the fact that Jews refuse to interbreed or attend integrated American schools. I would say we both see the same problem, only that we offer different solutions. You seem to be saying that we shouldn't allow Jews into the country. I say that they should be allowed in, but that they should interbreed and send their kids to American schools to learn American values. If they want to maintain their ethnic purity, they can stay in Israel. They obviously do have something to offer, as they generate a great deal of wealth.

Presuming that the cirriculum is supposed to teach Americanism, it still has no bearing. The average Hispanic sitting in my Government class, or the average Filipino, really couldn't identify with this or care for it. "Who were Thomas Jefferson and John Adams?" anathema to their ears, for it didn't matter, they were totally from a different country, a different heritage, and different histories and could not understand it, or relate to it, even second generation.

As I said before, I imagine this is because you lived in a poor neighborhood. I did not, and this problem did not exist at my school. The only kids that seemed to have problems were those in bilingual programs or those who were poor, regardless of their race or ethnicity, meaning even the poor white kids. Every middle or upper class student, of every race and ethnicity, had no problem with American ideals and identified with the US more than with any individual line of descent. As I said before, most had little to no knowledge of their ethnic background.

Hence, why you cannot understand or see what is happening now. To know the present and the future, you must know the past, for out of the past are built the present, and out of the present, the future. That is the way it goes. Even the problems you are highlighting are the same for Rome at one time, which is interrelated to the Imperialism that ensued and the immigration that followed.

I know the past, dumbass. I doubt I'm as familiar with Roman history as you, but I'm willing to bet I'm more familiar with it than anyone else on this site who is not a history major. I know the problem I've highlighted was a problem for the Romans - in fact, that's exactly why I said it was a problem for the Romans. I wonder sometimes if you even bother to actually read all of what I post. The empire became too big for Rome to handle. The army was overextended into all of Europe and many parts of Africa and the middle east. We see this today with the US army. We have bases everywhere, and our troops are so widely spread that we are considering a draft to increase the size of our forces. We are also experiencing a great deal or corruption, and loss of true American ideals in the upper echelons of government. The doctrines of president Bush and his cronies, almost entirely white, anglo-saxon, protestant males, bear little to no resemblance to the teachings of Thomas Paine or John Locke or Thomas Jefferson or George Washington or even the progressive Alexander Hamilton. How you can honestly think this is not as big of a problem as immigration is beyond me. We've extended our hand into just about every part of the world where we don't belong, pissed off almost every other nation in existence, our white leaders are barely recognizable as Americans, and you're concerned about Mexicans coming to California to find work.

That is not a "different situation", the parallels between Rome and the New Rome, are striking. The points highlighted are the same. Do you not think many Barbarians became "Romanized" and eventually "Romans"? In fact, the Barbarians started to fill in rank and file in the Roman Army, replacing the Romans, and eventually became emperors, and then eventually established their own kingdoms. The ethnogenesis that occured in Rome is the same that will occur here, replacing the order and culture with a new one.

It is a far different situation. Rome had not mass-media. Rome did not have a global cultural influence due to franchised chain stores and hollywood movies. Rome did not have our public education system. Rome did not have the internet or telecommunication or the ability to travel from one end of the empire to another in less than a day. Rome did not have an information network reaching into every part of the empire, including its citizens private lives on the frontiers. Rome was also not founded on any particular ideal. In fact, the US was really the first nation ever founded on the idea of natural rights, rather than divine rights. It was the first nation founded on common ideology rather than common ethnicity. Heck, people that were at war with each other in Europe, French and German, Irish and English, came together to form one republic in the new world. Rome started out as a single city inhabited by a single people, and for much of its history, it was ruled by an emperor who claimed divinity, not by social contract, as is the case here in our republic. The situation is extremely different.

Not in the literal sense, in the metaphorical sense. As the non-Americans are becoming more "Americanized" the Americans are becoming more "barbarized" by the non-Americans. This same ethnogenesis was taking place in Rome. In fact, you would learn alot about America, if you took a course in Roman history.

I'm not going to retake a course in Roman history. You would do well to pay more attention to the current situation. Take a look at how the United States managed to successfully integrate former slaves to the point where top government officials like Clarence Thomas, Colin Powell, and Condoleeza Rice are completely Americanized and couldn't give a hoot about black issues.

It was imperialism that absorbed the native Americans, the Mexicans, etc., only now to have a threatening dominant Mexican majority in the Southwest. The same Rome defeated and expanded into the barbarians, and the barbarians lived in Rome peacefully and were "Romanized", but it was the same barbarians that caused the collapse of the old order.

Sounds like you've been reading Huntington. The man makes some valid points, but he's also an alarmist that ignores very many telling facts regarding the integration of Mexicans and other immigrant groups into the American mainstream.

Look no further than Japanese-Americans during and after WWII. They had all their property taken from their, they were sent to camps, and they still didn't revolt. In fact, the most decorated regiment in the entire Pacific theater was Japanese. They chose to fight with America against their own people. Does this not tell you something?

I don't see how this means anything, since the country was founded by an Anglo majority and that characterized the American experiment mostly in an "Anglo" sense, as they formed the majority for clearly most of the period. Even now most of the "whites" in America claim either a clear Anglo ancestry or a German one, making up the bulk of the whites in this country, of either Anglo or German stock.

You don't see how this means anything? The list of ethnic groups in the history of this planet that have hated each other more than the Irish and English is a very short list, yet they managed to co-exist and integrate in subsequent generations, even after rioting broke out to the point where the US navy had to fire on the city of New York. This isn't of any significance to you?

Dates are not the point. You are drilling at a non-issue. The point is that, like Rome conquering the Barbarians, the U.S. conquered the Mexicans, and both eventually served in the Army, and administrative positions and became enmeshed, but eventually they were the catalysts.

Dates are completely the issue. Again, look no further than top-level blacks in the current administration. They are descended from men who were enslaved by the ancestors of the men they work next to, and you know what? They don't seem to care. They certainly aren't catalyzing any huge shift in American politics that is going to bring down the republic and remake us into one great big African tribe.

Every society begins either homogenously or with a distinct or defined majority, as the American experiment. Nor should we forget that the framers clearly had in mind a European nation when they first formed it, as writings from them confirms it, such as Jefferson, Franklin, Thomas Paine, or John Jay. The United States was self-consciously homogenous, as John Jay wrote in the second of The Federalist Papers in 1787. Hence the first naturalization law in 1790 required citizens to be free white persons. No society can begin multiculturally/multiracially. They all begin with a homogenous or clear majority. Only later in the later stages do they become multiracial.

Ethnically, the US may have been largely English, but there were also a great deal of Irish, French, and Germans living here as well. These were not groups that got along too well in their native lands. They still managed to come together to build a republic.

My point wasn't so much about ethnic diversity anyway as it was about political diversity. The politics and economics of the southern colonies was hugely different from that of the northern colonies. Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton were almost always at odds, to say nothing of John Adams and Andrew Jackson.

Heck, Mousy, the divergence was so great that it led to a civil war less than 100 years after the Declaration of Independence. Nonetheless, we have a stable republic today. That really says a lot. Forget the way we integrated former slaves and immigrant groups such as the Irish and Japanese. What about the reintegration of the south, after Grant and Sherman had all but burned it to the ground?

[Anonymouse]

Honestly, Mousy? Compare your politics to mine. The only differences that I can see are that I favor the existence of a very minimal state consisting of national defense and contract enforcement, as well as health and environmental regulation. You favor no state at all. I favor interracial breeding along with forced assimilation of new immigrants, whereas you seem to favor simply barring all non-white immigrants. Then compare your politics with say, Baron or Tigran, perhaps the two most active posters in the Armenian politics forum, or perhaps with Surfer and patlajan, the two most politically active posters in the other forums aside from perhaps the two of us. I think you will find you have more in common with me than you do with them.

Political philosophy and theorizing has nothing to do with my cultural identification. You don't know me but that is generalizing that I am somehow "not in tune" with my "Armenian politics", which, I assure you, I very well am, perhaps not to the level Baron and Tigran are versed in, but I do have more of a historical base on Armenians, than a current political base. I'll more effectively argue a historical issue, than a contemporary political issue.

Mousy, you're not going to effectively argue that humans are born with a knowledge of langauge, or of culture. Had you been raised by wolved, you would not speak Armenian nor would you care one iota about Armenian issues. You wouldn't even know that you were of Armenian descent.

No one is born with a knowledge of anything, but a capacity to. Hence why different races produce different cultures because of different capacities to. Don't misconstrue what I said. As far as your examples of wolves, that is highly unlikely.

This is exactly what I said, and exactly my point. Those who are interracial and don't identify with any single ethnic group favor the advancement of their nation rather than any one ethnic group. This is why interracial breeding is good for America - it creates Americans that care more about American issues than say, hispanic or asian or armenian issues.

That is untrue. It assumes that someone who is mixed will be "in favor of Americanism". Mexicans for the most part are mixed mestizos, or blacks are mixed with whites for the most. They seem to cause more division than unison. Your thinking assumes a priori that somehow people who are mxied will favor the cause of "Americanism" over some other cause. That is untrue. And as far as mixing, you for the most part focus on the trivial issue of "division" whereas what I focus on is the ethnogenesis of the civilization, and how it will collapse and change into a different, reflecting the new peoples.

I'm glad we agree. Now will you not criticize me when I theorize?

Critique is part of theorizing. All evolution is, is theorizing. Thus I will criticize you.

No, I didn't. I said that you don't see the future. I never said that you claimed you had. I was only pointing out that all you can do is speculate, same as me.

You're only pointing out the obvious, but my speculation is based on changes that are already in effect and evidenced in the past as well. I don't speculate based on nothingness, just like Marx. He speculated falsely about a utopia, based on the past. If we look at history through Marxian dialectic, it explains everything, up to the period of capitalism, yet it explains nothing. It leaves out many gaps that do not deal with classes. I like to look at history, as a model based on people and culture, as opposed to classes, and take it from there, and based on this, the United States will change over.

I never said I didn't see a problem. In fact, I said I see quite a problem with the fact that Jews refuse to interbreed or attend integrated American schools. I would say we both see the same problem, only that we offer different solutions. You seem to be saying that we shouldn't allow Jews into the country. I say that they should be allowed in, but that they should interbreed and send their kids to American schools to learn American values. If they want to maintain their ethnic purity, they can stay in Israel. They obviously do have something to offer, as they generate a great deal of wealth.

All I can recommend to you is The Culture of Critique: An Evolutionary Analysis of Jewish Involvement in Twentieth-Century Intellectual and Political Movements by Kevin MacDonald, a Psychology Professor at Cal State Long Beach. From Amazon.com book description:

"MacDonald provides a theoretical analysis and review of data on the widespread tendency among certain highly influential, Jewish-dominated intellectual movements to develop radical critiques of gentile culture that are compatible with the continuity of Jewish identification. Particular attention is paid to Boasian anthropology, psychoanalysis, leftist political ideology and behavior, the Frankfurt School of Social Research, and the efforts to influence United States immigration policy."

As I said before, I imagine this is because you lived in a poor neighborhood. I did not, and this problem did not exist at my school. The only kids that seemed to have problems were those in bilingual programs or those who were poor, regardless of their race or ethnicity, meaning even the poor white kids. Every middle or upper class student, of every race and ethnicity, had no problem with American ideals and identified with the US more than with any individual line of descent. As I said before, most had little to no knowledge of their ethnic background.

I do not live in a poor neighbor, nor was my school in a poor area. Have you asked each and every kid personally that they "hold American ideals high"? This paragraph at best, is a trivial issue based on nothing but personal experience and perhaps bias, to have something to throw in this discussion. I do not want to go into the idea of how ethnic differences breed violence and many schools in L.A. County have experienced ethnic violence, schools where there were mostly black and hispanic students, no whites, and they themselves have gotten into riots, in North Hollywood High School, in Locke High School, my own high school at John Marshall. Diversity breeds more violence and more difficulty, and there is no society that has successfully enmeshed all these cultures to somehow support the one dominant culture they are not a part of. It has always resulted in the subversion of one culture over another, and it will happen again as well.

I know the past, dumbass. I doubt I'm as familiar with Roman history as you, but I'm willing to bet I'm more familiar with it than anyone else on this site who is not a history major. I know the problem I've highlighted was a problem for the Romans - in fact, that's exactly why I said it was a problem for the Romans. I wonder sometimes if you even bother to actually read all of what I post. The empire became too big for Rome to handle. The army was overextended into all of Europe and many parts of Africa and the middle east. We see this today with the US army. We have bases everywhere, and our troops are so widely spread that we are considering a draft to increase the size of our forces. We are also experiencing a great deal or corruption, and loss of true American ideals in the upper echelons of government. The doctrines of president Bush and his cronies, almost entirely white, anglo-saxon, protestant males, bear little to no resemblance to the teachings of Thomas Paine or John Locke or Thomas Jefferson or George Washington or even the progressive Alexander Hamilton. How you can honestly think this is not as big of a problem as immigration is beyond me. We've extended our hand into just about every part of the world where we don't belong, pissed off almost every other nation in existence, our white leaders are barely recognizable as Americans, and you're concerned about Mexicans coming to California to find work.

Rome was experiencing exactly what you highlighted. It was overextended, thinned out, and exhausting itself militarily and economically, however that had allowed many differnet cultures and peoples to be absorbed into its empire, to the point where Romans became a minority, and were surrounded by barbarians, by Africans, by Middle Easterners, who although spoke Latin, and were entirely different peoples, alien to the culture, as in, they were not the original creators and sustainers of that culture. A culture reflects the people that create it. When those people die out and are replaced, the culture changes as well. That is the way it goes. The fact that towards the latter days of the Roman Empire the Emperors had to wear blond wigs to hide the fact that they were "dark skinned" and "dark haired", as documented by Gibbon, is a telling change in the ethnic make up of Rome. Now that America has expanded from its 13 colonies into something greater it has absorbed all sorts of peoples, from Indians, to blacks, to Hispanics, now Asians are coming with an influx into the Mecca, and this current trend of legalizing every illegal immigrant by the United States, is similar to when Caracalla granted Roman citizenship to all peoples, regardless of whether or not they were versed on Romanitas In all cases, even prehistory, you can look at all tribes or nations and see they are distinguished by a common gene pool and common characteristics. All nations arise by people with a common heritage, reflecting those peoples. No nations arise multiculturally or multiracially. They may have not been monoracial or monocultural, but they have always formed a clear dominant culture or majority, enough to allow for the development of that culture. H.G. Wells highlights brilliantly in The Outline of History how a great nation arises having intelligence, vigor, creativity, and begins to expand and conquer its less fit neighbors. That which led them to victory is lost, as the gradual process of absorbing the conquered and lesser peoples begins and lose their dominance as they lose their homogeneity by absorbing the other peoples. So its clear the creators of the original lose their dominance, and ergo their culture, and it reflects the new peoples.

It is a far different situation. Rome had not mass-media. Rome did not have a global cultural influence due to franchised chain stores and hollywood movies. Rome did not have our public education system. Rome did not have the internet or telecommunication or the ability to travel from one end of the empire to another in less than a day. Rome did not have an information network reaching into every part of the empire, including its citizens private lives on the frontiers. Rome was also not founded on any particular ideal. In fact, the US was really the first nation ever founded on the idea of natural rights, rather than divine rights. It was the first nation founded on common ideology rather than common ethnicity. Heck, people that were at war with each other in Europe, French and German, Irish and English, came together to form one republic in the new world. Rome started out as a single city inhabited by a single people, and for much of its history, it was ruled by an emperor who claimed divinity, not by social contract, as is the case here in our republic. The situation is extremely different.

You are playing with pliability and elasticity. History repeats itself. Rome and the U.S. are very much similar. Trying to compare obvious technological and social changes to say "there are differences" is itself not much. For its time, Rome was the power and it influenced the world or what they understood as the world, in its time. The average Roman could not walk the streets marketplace and not imagine the Roman Empire not being there. It was the global power of the time, however the people back then understood "globe".
To point out obvious technological changes and say "there are differences". To truly compare the two on a historical and aesthetical level, requires more than just obvious changes reaped by time and technology. Very much has changed indeed, and yet very much is similar. Both countries started out by a distinct people. Both started out as a Republic, both resulted in extending themselves beyond what they began. Both lost their ideals of a Republic, to pursue imperialism. It is speculated that Nero burned Rome and blamed it on the Christians to have something to pin them on, to begin his persecution, and it is very much believed ( and I believe this myself ) that Bush was responsible for 9-11 to use as a pretext to justify the war on terror. Of course Hitler is said to have burned the Reichstag and blamed it on the Communists to have a reason to persecute. I disagree with you on every grounds loser, that history is very much repeating itself, because people do not learn. Contrary to your beliefs the U.S. was not found on any ethnicity, all we have to do is look at the writings of the "fore-fathers" to see their thoughts on race and civilization, and the Constitution which referred to Negros as 3/5. The forefathers very well knew the racial and cultural hierarchies and realized that they need to be separated.

[Anonymouse]

I'm not going to retake a course in Roman history. You would do well to pay more attention to the current situation. Take a look at how the United States managed to successfully integrate former slaves to the point where top government officials like Clarence Thomas, Colin Powell, and Condoleeza Rice are completely Americanized and couldn't give a hoot about black issues.

Yes, there were many African officials and Middle Eastern officials, in fact many non-Romans in the Roman government, and in fact emperors. That is how society is changing. That a black person can be a top official to suit your idea of "we are equal" and "integration works" is silly, since these people were not the founders of the American civilization. One can be culture bearing, but not culture creating. You are only proving how Rome and America have similarities.

Sounds like you've been reading Huntington. The man makes some valid points, but he's also an alarmist that ignores very many telling facts regarding the integration of Mexicans and other immigrant groups into the American mainstream.

I have not read Huntington, I have only seen references to his work. You just cannot understand, for lack of a better term, that integration means nothing, for even the barbarian was "integrated" into Roman society, yet some telling transformation took place.

Look no further than Japanese-Americans during and after WWII. They had all their property taken from their, they were sent to camps, and they still didn't revolt. In fact, the most decorated regiment in the entire Pacific theater was Japanese. They chose to fight with America against their own people. Does this not tell you something?

You are giving examples I already know. This means nothing. These are only exceptions to the rule. Of course there people who will integrate. That doesn't mean anything. It only means people integrate. There are many more examples of people not integrating. Your point? If I cherry picked and bought that up as evidence, I'd be laffed at.

You don't see how this means anything? The list of ethnic groups in the history of this planet that have hated each other more than the Irish and English is a very short list, yet they managed to co-exist and integrate in subsequent generations, even after rioting broke out to the point where the US navy had to fire on the city of New York. This isn't of any significance to you?

What is the point of this? This is mere opinion that has nothing to do with historical fact.

Dates are completely the issue. Again, look no further than top-level blacks in the current administration. They are descended from men who were enslaved by the ancestors of the men they work next to, and you know what? They don't seem to care. They certainly aren't catalyzing any huge shift in American politics that is going to bring down the republic and remake us into one great big African tribe.

Are you a mind reader? Do you know what they care or care not about? That is not the point. Society is changing its face. By 2050 America will be majority non-white, by 2200, whites will all be but extinct. These immigration and demographic patterns are the same all over the world for "white" countries. A culture and civilization reflect the people that create them.

Ethnically, the US may have been largely English, but there were also a great deal of Irish, French, and Germans living here as well. These were not groups that got along too well in their native lands. They still managed to come together to build a republic.

This is pointless to the argument. It only confirms large European presence here. The English are Germanic peoples, so they are not German only in a national sense, for they certainly speak a Germanic language.
Let's look at what John Jay had to say in the second Federalist Papers:

“Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people, a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs . . . .”

And I've already mentioned how naturalization to be a citizen was for "free white persons". There goes the myth that this country was founded on "diversity". On the contrary, a clear Anglo-Saxon majority was the case.

My point wasn't so much about ethnic diversity anyway as it was about political diversity. The politics and economics of the southern colonies was hugely different from that of the northern colonies. Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton were almost always at odds, to say nothing of John Adams and Andrew Jackson.

Thank you for stating the obvious. The political diversity has nothing to do with the issue of this thread. It was a simply thing between the Federalists and the anti Federalists.

Heck, Mousy, the divergence was so great that it led to a civil war less than 100 years after the Declaration of Independence. Nonetheless, we have a stable republic today. That really says a lot. Forget the way we integrated former slaves and immigrant groups such as the Irish and Japanese. What about the reintegration of the south, after Grant and Sherman had all but burned it to the ground?

Today there is no such thing as a Republic nor does anyone refer it as such. I suggest you rethink that position before I explain why we do not have a Republic.

[loseyourname]

Yes, there were many African officials and Middle Eastern officials, in fact many non-Romans in the Roman government, and in fact emperors. That is how society is changing. That a black person can be a top official to suit your idea of "we are equal" and "integration works" is silly, since these people were not the founders of the American civilization. One can be culture bearing, but not culture creating. You are only proving how Rome and America have similarities.

Honestly, man, if you're going to say that the presence of blacks in high-level government positions is deleterious to the nation, simply because they are black, I don't know what to say to you. You're starting to sound no better than Dan.

I have not read Huntington, I have only seen references to his work. You just cannot understand, for lack of a better term, that integration means nothing, for even the barbarian was "integrated" into Roman society, yet some telling transformation took place.

Look, you can argue Rome all you want. Rome is not my concern, because the US is not Rome. The world today is so far removed from the world of 2 millenia ago that, although I will not say there is no relevance, it does you no service to become completely enamored with your historical analysis to the point where you ignore all differences.

You are giving examples I already know. This means nothing. These are only exceptions to the rule. Of course there people who will integrate. That doesn't mean anything. It only means people integrate. There are many more examples of people not integrating. Your point? If I cherry picked and bought that up as evidence, I'd be laffed at.

They are not exceptions to the rule. Name me one immigrant group that has not successfully integrated - aside from the Jews, which I will give you for the most part - by the fourth generation. There do remain certain members of the groups that do not contribute positively to the nation, but they are mostly poor, and even they do not identify with their lands of descent more than they do with the lands they were actually born in; that is, the US.

What is the point of this? This is mere opinion that has nothing to do with historical fact.

It is mere opinion that the Irish and English hated each other terribly upon arrival in the new world, yet have managed to successfully coexist and stand today as two of the greatest contributors to the success of the nation? That is not my opinion - that is what has happened.

Are you a mind reader? Do you know what they care or care not about? That is not the point. Society is changing its face. By 2050 America will be majority non-white, by 2200, whites will all be but extinct. These immigration and demographic patterns are the same all over the world for "white" countries. A culture and civilization reflect the people that create them.

It makes little difference to me what they are thinking. I care how they act - I care how they vote when they are in the senate. The fact remains that perhaps the three highest-ranking black in the US today are all republicans, despite the fact that the republican party repeatedly attempted to block all civil right legislation from the 50's on. They are clearly more concerned with a holistic undertaking of American politics rather than with a narrow black issues view. The main dividing line is money, not race. They are rich, and almost all rich people that are not Jewish are republican, even prominent black athletes.

This is pointless to the argument. It only confirms large European presence here. The English are Germanic peoples, so they are not German only in a national sense, for they certainly speak a Germanic language.
Let's look at what John Jay had to say in the second Federalist Papers:

It is pointless? Again, how many groups can you find that hate each other more than the Irish and the English? Or the Germans and the French? If Armenians and Turks were to come together (both are white) to create a republic, would this not be remarkable?

Thank you for stating the obvious. The political diversity has nothing to do with the issue of this thread. It was a simply thing between the Federalists and the anti Federalists.

And this remains the case today. The primary dividing line between different peoples in the US is political, not cultural. You continually argue that many Armenians living in the US don't even seem to know anything or care about their Armenian heritage. Well guess what? It's far worse with just about any other ethnic group. Name me even two non-Armenian friends of yours that know more about the history of their ancestral people than they do about the history of the US. I know I couldn't do it.

Today there is no such thing as a Republic nor does anyone refer it as such. I suggest you rethink that position before I explain why we do not have a Republic.

I'm not suggesting that the US is truly a republic. It's just a grandiloquent term I use to the refer to the fact that the US still exists and is still successful, despite the presence for hundreds of years of many ethnic and racial groups.

This is because when push comes to shove, historically speaking, Americans believe in America, and they stand up for America and they fight for America. Given that you are not a native-born American, and especially that you come from a part of the world where ethnic strife is a huge problem, you'll likely have a lot of difficulty understanding this. Look not only to the Japanese in WWII, look to German-Americans as well. Look to Vietnamese-Americans during the war there, or even to blacks in the Civil War, in WWI, and in WWII, who all served valiantly and were consistently decorated despite the fact that they were still considered to be second class citizens. The fact that you completely ignore all of this, and instead only look to historic patterns shows a great deal of neglect on your part. The present is not the past, and the US is not like any other nation that has ever existed.

The examples I gave of the differences had more to do with reach than with technology. The technology allows for quick integration and common ideology that wasn't possible in the past. A Gaul living in the Roman Empire was for all practical purposes still a Gaul. The only Roman influence in his land were the centurions charged with keeping the peace. There were no Roman newspapers and Roman television and Roman fast-food outlets. There were no public schools teaching Gauls how to be Roman and what that meant. How you cannot see the differences is beyond me. All I can tell you is wait and see. This is probably a pointless debate, but it is not one that will end with no resolution. You will live out your years and you will see what I am telling you you will see. The US will not fall. People will interbreed and even those who do not will come to see the US as their home, just as previous immigrant groups have come to do. There will never be any legislation barring non-whites from entering the nation; you can wish all you want, but you know damn well something like that would never fly. That has been tried in the past and it has been shown to be stupid, and it has made the people living in the US whose kin were barred all the more eager to prove their American values. Nothing of this sort ever occured in Rome or in any other nation in the past.

[Anonymouse]

Honestly, man, if you're going to say that the presence of blacks in high-level government positions is deleterious to the nation, simply because they are black, I don't know what to say to you. You're starting to sound no better than Dan.

I never said they are deleterious to anything, I only said they are the changing face. That is the way it goes. I do not care what you think of me, or if you liken me to Dan. Facts are facts.

Look, you can argue Rome all you want. Rome is not my concern, because the US is not Rome. The world today is so far removed from the world of 2 millenia ago that, although I will not say there is no relevance, it does you no service to become completely enamored with your historical analysis to the point where you ignore all differences.

The proper tool to understanding history is to compare and contrast, that which you seem not to be able to grasp. You weigh in all the differences and conclude on those, whereas I acknowledge those differences, yet the striking similarities. Obviously no civilization of yonder is a carbon copy of one today.

They are not exceptions to the rule. Name me one immigrant group that has not successfully integrated - aside from the Jews, which I will give you for the most part - by the fourth generation. There do remain certain members of the groups that do not contribute positively to the nation, but they are mostly poor, and even they do not identify with their lands of descent more than they do with the lands they were actually born in; that is, the US.

These assertions are all based on personal bias and opinions and have no bearing on reality. The same groups I can list as contributing "negatively" to the nation. This doesn't make or break any arguments, it only deviates based on personal opinions.

It is mere opinion that the Irish and English hated each other terribly upon arrival in the new world, yet have managed to successfully coexist and stand today as two of the greatest contributors to the success of the nation? That is not my opinion - that is what has happened.

It's amazing how you paint totally colorful pictures of society based on your own opinions of the way things should be. The Irish and the English hated each other is not opinion, it goes back to Europe, not the New World. The part about the Irish coexisting with the English is simply fancy, for the same can be said of anyone else. Moreoever, the Irish did not arrive in en emasse until later in the 19th century, not the 18th. If you are going to hang on to such weak and historically ambigious and obscure examples of the "great case" for the success of "integration" try harder, for it begs the question why naturalization was only for free white persons and no one else.

It makes little difference to me what they are thinking. I care how they act - I care how they vote when they are in the senate. The fact remains that perhaps the three highest-ranking black in the US today are all republicans, despite the fact that the republican party repeatedly attempted to block all civil right legislation from the 50's on. They are clearly more concerned with a holistic undertaking of American politics rather than with a narrow black issues view. The main dividing line is money, not race. They are rich, and almost all rich people that are not Jewish are republican, even prominent black athletes.

Before going into more mind reading, read my statement and then compare your above response to my statement. There is absolutely no correlation.

It is pointless? Again, how many groups can you find that hate each other more than the Irish and the English? Or the Germans and the French? If Armenians and Turks were to come together (both are white) to create a republic, would this not be remarkable?

Your opinionated statements are doing nothing to contribute to this discussion, aside from hovering on trivial issues such as "name me one group that hates each other more?" games. I can point to many examples of groups hating each other more so than the Irish and the English and I never expected that statement from you. As far as Turks being white, that all depends on how you define a "Turk" as "white". Do you consider the Turks that live in the villages that are extremely Mongoloid looking to be "white"? Or do you consider those Turks that are the descendents of stolen babies of Slavs and such into the Jannissaries to be "white"?

And this remains the case today. The primary dividing line between different peoples in the US is political, not cultural. You continually argue that many Armenians living in the US don't even seem to know anything or care about their Armenian heritage. Well guess what? It's far worse with just about any other ethnic group. Name me even two non-Armenian friends of yours that know more about the history of their ancestral people than they do about the history of the US. I know I couldn't do it.

That is untrue. Today exists ethnic politics. Every ethnic group is out to get their share of the loot, as we celebrate diversity, with Latino Heritage, African American Heritage, Asian Pacific Month, etc., etc. and each has their own organizations, clubs, schools, and funds, quotas, affirmitive action, or what not, as you confirmed earlier each would logically favor the advancement of their own.

I'm not suggesting that the US is truly a republic. It's just a grandiloquent term I use to the refer to the fact that the US still exists and is still successful, despite the presence for hundreds of years of many ethnic and racial groups.

Yes, that the U.S. still exists is obvious, and it will continue to exist as long as the Anglo culture is dominant. The U.S. will continue to decline the more diverse it gets and the more the original creators of that civilization disappear.

This is because when push comes to shove, historically speaking, Americans believe in America, and they stand up for America and they fight for America. Given that you are not a native-born American, and especially that you come from a part of the world where ethnic strife is a huge problem, you'll likely have a lot of difficulty understanding this. Look not only to the Japanese in WWII, look to German-Americans as well. Look to Vietnamese-Americans during the war there, or even to blacks in the Civil War, in WWI, and in WWII, who all served valiantly and were consistently decorated despite the fact that they were still considered to be second class citizens. The fact that you completely ignore all of this, and instead only look to historic patterns shows a great deal of neglect on your part. The present is not the past, and the US is not like any other nation that has ever existed.

You once again sighting exceptions to the rule don't prove anything. Barbarians fought for Rome, and made up the Praetorian guard, yet eventually were the catalysts that acted as the emerging culture in Rome, and you had the break down and the eventual rise of the Barbarian kingdoms. Such a Disney version of history run-down as you have given, does not exist, nor does it accurately define history or the present reality. American immigration policy was influenced by Jews, only then did you have a change in the term "American", contrary to how the founders understood American as distinctly Anglo-Saxon and the same can be seen during the time of Rome, when to be Roman under the Republic, as opposed to being Roman during Caracalla or even Odoacer, who was a barbarian. The problem with the way modern history is taught, is it attempts to project itself into the past, by the taint of the present, not studying or intepreting the past for the past. The statement that "the U.S. is not like any other nation" is both true and false, as I've already brought up the examples of Rome. Moreover, such a statement did nothing other than deflect from the issue, that cultures rise and fall based on the peoples that create them, and no multiracial or multicultural society lasts, and those that do, are in the worst conditions to live in today.

The examples I gave of the differences had more to do with reach than with technology. The technology allows for quick integration and common ideology that wasn't possible in the past. A Gaul living in the Roman Empire was for all practical purposes still a Gaul. The only Roman influence in his land were the centurions charged with keeping the peace. There were no Roman newspapers and Roman television and Roman fast-food outlets. There were no public schools teaching Gauls how to be Roman and what that meant. How you cannot see the differences is beyond me.

This is another non-issue you are drilling. For one must have an understanding of history to understand the stark differences and inequities that exist, and the differing cultural overtones that pervade. I never for once challenged the differing technologies and the difference that it carried with it. That is not the point here. You cannot compare the global condition and the atmosphere of the world at the time of Rome, to the atmosphere and development of the world now, for each had a different understanding of the world around them. This is what I mean by modern history being tainted, in that it projects itself into the past, by the taint of the present, in that it attempts to compare the present to the past and say "we are way different". Such obvious attitudes don't do much at all other than create more misunderstanding. The only thing we are interested in are the similarities that characterized Rome and that apply to the United States. The point of trying to learn something from history is to apply the historical cliches the connects and the tissues that bind everything. Your hang up with technology being an importer of culture, and comparing that to Rome, shows your lack of knowledge of Rome, for obviously this was not a society steeped in technology in the sense we understand it, a digital age. It was heavily based on Romanitas, and the city, the initial which is a philosophy or a broad concept that covers everything that refers to Rome, similar to "American way of life" or "Americanization" or "Americanized". It was a culture of administration, that is how it spreads its culture, through its military might, and administrative centers. Rome could not have established administrative centers in Gaul were it not for Roman military presence, which was literally everywhere, importing the culture, educating the barbarians and peoples into the Roman way of life. Hence by 52 B.C. the Gallic provinces had largely accepted their incorporation into the Empire. It got to the point where the people living within the borders of the Empire, resembled those living outside the borders of the Empire. Barbarians in the Roman Army, were fighting other Barbarians. Romans no longer constituted the fighting force. Towards the time of Marcus Aurlelius one can already see the barbarization of the Roman armies, and the Romanization of the Barbarians. Even the first Barbarians to settle in Rome were either prisoners of war, or refugees, slowly entering into the Empire, which in a 100 years or so, would be the same force to dominate the Empire. The other non Germanic forces to the south and East of Rome, were another force that were acting against the Empire.

All I can tell you is wait and see. This is probably a pointless debate, but it is not one that will end with no resolution. You will live out your years and you will see what I am telling you you will see. The US will not fall. People will interbreed and even those who do not will come to see the US as their home, just as previous immigrant groups have come to do. There will never be any legislation barring non-whites from entering the nation; you can wish all you want, but you know damn well something like that would never fly. That has been tried in the past and it has been shown to be stupid, and it has made the people living in the US whose kin were barred all the more eager to prove their American values. Nothing of this sort ever occured in Rome or in any other nation in the past.

First of all, my point here is not to create legislation to bar "non-whites", you are misconstruing my position and what I am discussing here. That is a common charge of those that misunderstand history. When history seldom lives up to egalitarianism and that "we are all equal" and actually shows the rise and fall of cultures in terms of the poeple that create them, it is met with insecurity by the purveyors of "equality" and "let's all integrate". There is nothing wrong with that, and it will occur, regardless. Second of all, your whole treatise is all based on senseless non-issue opinions. You responded with little to no substance to my previous response. The usual claim is "This is the way it ought to be" or "I want it to be that way". You're statement about the U.S. not 'falling' is historically blind. I just sat here and gave you a whole working of the rise and falls of civilizations and all you can do is give more opinions and evasive responses. Every empire has an expiration date. The average Roman in 30 B.C. never imagined that one day a Barbarian or an African can be an emperor of mighty Rome, or that someday it would be split in two, moreover, or that some day mighty Rome would not exist and what would replace it would be Barbarian kingdoms. Nor would the average Soviet Citizen, and I use my parents as examples, in the 1970s, ever imagined that one day the mighty Soviet Union would fall, and no more would they hear the Sovietzky Sayuz. The point is, civlizations, empires, cultures, all rise and fall, but some fall never to rise again, the why of that deals with exactly what I mentioned. The people that create a certain culture, have values reflecting them. When they change or disappear, the culture goes with them to change into a new one, reflecting new peoples. If you don't like the idea proposed here, you can feel free to disagree, but at least avoid making rash opinions about what you believe or what you think the way things are.

[loseyourname]

Dude, you just don't understand. Clearly I was wrong about you being more American than Armenian. I'm glad men like you aren't in control of anything.

I guess we'll just disagree. It's cool.