Going the way of the Soviet Union? America must look in the mirror

Over the course of the last three hundred years, the American vision of "a people embracing democracy" has become a "democracy embracing people". Today, almost anyone can become "American" regardless of their race, color, religious creed or national origin. Some may say this is what America should be about, but it is important to understand that these developments have also put Americans in jeopardy. While a well-known Islamic terrorist may have some difficulty obtaining citizenship in the United States, a simple Muslim who approves of Sharia Law and the neo-Caliphate would have no more difficulty obtaining citizenship than anybody else. On the other end of the spectrum, not all Latinos have come to the U.S. to assimilate and just live their lives, either. Some are encouraging other Latinos to rise up and fight immigration laws to create an all-Latino nation out of the Southern United States. In short: with multicultural America, you get the good transplants with the bad, the compatible with the dangerous.

For years, America's economic prosperity has enabled many people to put aside their racial and religious preferences, take no interest in the ethno-religious spirit of the country and bask in material comfort. Many would also argue that this fortune is what America is all about. But what would happen to this diverse citizenry if economic fortunes declined? Well, if the dollar continues to lose its value and the economy continues to slip, we may find out. In the meantime, history gives some pretty clear examples of what can happen. Consider the events that took place in the Soviet Union, where state leaders and social planners also believed that, they too, could rebuild man and overcome racial, religious and ethnic differences with a new ideology. But when the Soviet economic experiment ended in failure, the populations within that state's borders broke into individual nation states, with borders that reflected the ethnic and demographic reality of the terrain.

Below is a look at the demography of the Soviet Union (left) and the national borders which exist today, in the post-Soviet era (top right):

(click to enlarge)

Of course, the Soviets had little choice but to deal with the demographic situation that existed where the movement under Lenin came to power; the same was true in the creation of Yugoslavia, and in nearly every moment in history where a ruler sought the advantages of an empire and, in the process, assumed control over a diverse population. However, the United States was a unique exception.

Although the first citizens of the United States were immigrants, these immigrants shared a common Euro-Christian culture that became the fabric for a united nation. Through further immigration and subsequent expansion across the North American continent, this nation grew larger. In the process, however, due to the lure of cheap imported labor, and an increasingly-accepted homegrown belief in the ability to integrate anyone and bypass racial and religious differences, the U.S. has slowly evolved towards what the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia began as.

What a shame it would be if the possibilities for such a vast-but-homogeneous, resource-rich country were lost because some people decided to toss traditional concerns about national identity, language and community into the wind, opening the door for Balkanization on some future day. Many Americans would like to think that their country will not endure the same fate as every single multicultural entity throughout history if hard times descend. For the sake of the Union, for the United States, one can only hope that they are right.