Nationalism versus internationalism

Daniel Greenfield writes about nationalism and the pitfalls of internationalism.

Democracy in Iraq attempted to apply the idea that political representation transcends cultural difference to the Middle East, even though it no longer even worked properly in the United States. The Arab Spring demonstrated conclusively that democracy in the Muslim world would lead to a majority rule that would preclude the human rights and religious freedoms of the minority.

But Iraq doesn't just stay in Iraq. Some parts of California now look like Iraq, as do some parts of Arizona and Texas. Mexican drug cartels have already turned Mexico into a broken dangerous place and they are moving north. El Salvadoran gangs have been here for some time and are expanding. Refugees from every conflict have come here bringing the roots of that conflict to the United States.

Muslim terrorism like the drug cartels is what happens when internationalists fail to realize that importing a population from a troubled part of the world also means that you are importing its troubles.

Importing large numbers of immigrants from countries where democracy does not work will insure that our democracy does not work either. The last election should serve as ample demonstration of that.

Europe's growing Islamist minorities are already making basic freedoms impossible. Europeans are learning that they can have cultural freedom and a welfare state, or they can have high immigration, but they cannot have both. Immigration is forcing Europe to curtail religious satire, freedom of the press and its art scene. And it is overburdening its generous welfare system. If the process goes on, then European Socialism will have made its defining qualities extinct.

That is not to say that there should be no immigration and that we should never invade another country. But both invasion and immigration should be governed by the national interest, rather than by an international one.

An international interest believes that reforming another part of the world or adding diversity to ours is an end in and of itself. A national interest however looks primarily at how the the citizenry of the nation would benefit from such a step.

The entire program of reconstruction is inherently internationalist. It uses American soldiers as blunt instruments for reforming another society. In Afghanistan, American soldiers are denied air support or the right to fire first because that would interfere with the internationalist aim of winning over the native population. Once the internationalist aim dominates the national interest then that is a sign that the entire program has gone wrong.

Read more here: http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2013/03/nationalism-and-internationalism.html