The multi-culti never rests, but continues to seek to grind everyone under its weight. A grand failed social experiment continues apace in the Western world. But fortunately at the same time there has been a strong reaction to this of late, and in various parts of the Western world nations are declaring that multiculturalism has been a major failure. See my discussion about this here for example: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2011/02/13/the-death-of-multiculturalism/
Yet nonetheless our government now wants to force feed our kids on it. It wants to extend it even further, and like any statist power that has gone overboard, it wants to bypass parents as it throttles our children. School kids will be compelled to embrace the government propaganda, all in the name of education.
Here is how one news item covers this: “Multiculturalism will be ‘embedded’ into the national curriculum as the first step to force society to respect other cultures. Students will be trained in ‘cultural competency’ in the classroom as part of the federal government’s plan to boost support for multiculturalism and combat negative attitudes.
“Thousands of teachers have been surveyed about how the policy is working and to uncover racism, under special research entitled ‘Rethinking Multiculturalism/Reassessing Multicultural Education’. The government’s plan also involves 40 ‘People of Australia Ambassadors’ to spruik the benefits of multiculturalism and a new offensive against racism.
“Some ethnic bodies have reacted angrily because the word ‘multicultural’ has been dropped from ministerial titles. The government, responding to 10 recommendations made by the Australian Multicultural Advisory Council, has agreed multiculturalism should be infused in high school curriculums.
“Australian teenagers should ‘understand and appreciate the value of other cultures’, the government has decided. ‘The government will work to ensure our national curriculum recognises our multicultural character and our history of immigration and enterprise,’ it said in its response.”
Of course all this is so much baloney for the simple reason that the very core foundation of Australian society, the Judeo-Christian worldview, will be effectively downplayed if not excluded altogether. Indeed, I just wrote a piece documenting how government bodies are seeking to basically banish Christianity from our schools and the public arena: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2011/09/05/the-attempted-eradication-of-christianity/
The truth is, indoctrination is still indoctrination, even if passed off in the guise of education. There has been plenty written on the manifest failures of multiculturalism. I have written about it often myself. But an American author did a good job of demolishing the many myths surrounding multiculturalism in an important 2002 book.
Dr. Paul Gottfried’s Multiculturalism and the Politics of Guilt: Towards a Secular Theocracy was a much needed wakeup call regarding the failed policies of multiculturalism. He rightly notes how “our welfare state since midcentury has become increasingly preoccupied with modifying social behavior.… It has moved into socializing ‘citizens’ through publicly controlled education and wars against discrimination.”
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What it is really all about is the removal of the Christian worldview and value system: “At issue is not the coexistence of more or less tolerated ethnic minorities grouped together under an administrative unit or imperial jurisdiction but the celebration of state-sponsored ‘diversity.’ In the new multicultural as opposed to conventional multiethnic situation, the state glorifies differences from the life associated with the once majority population. It hands out rewards to those who personify the desired differences, while taking away cultural recognition and even political rights from those who do not.”
Of course the word “diversity” covers a multitude of sins, as I document elsewhere. This term not only allows governments to cram creeping sharia down our throats, but it results in the force-feeding of alternative sexualities, expected to be seen as fully normal and natural.
And all this is brought about by the heavy hand of the law: “…‘prejudice’ in the United States looms as a pathological hate that envelops particular victims. It is also a sickness that, we are assured, only public administration, is equipped adequately to deal with. In this special pleading, dressed up as clinical analysis, administrators are charged with social healing. They can allegedly attain this goal by reeducating others and by confronting social and moral dissent as an unacknowledged illness. By now the understandings of ‘liberalism’ and ‘democracy’ proposed by sensitizing social psychologists have come to prevail. Today in most western countries, public speech and written publications that unsettle ethnic and racial minorities have undergone the process of criminalization.”
As one reviewer of this book states, “Gottfried attempts to answer the question of which came first, the therapeutic state, or the special classes that benefit from being singled out for protection and nurturing. Gottfried demonstrates that the state itself is the source purveying the mantra of collective guilt and that without its active support, the protected groups wouldn’t be able to exercise the disproportionate influence they do. The state derives its power from dividing society into those oppressed and the oppressors. By their lights, keeping ‘prejudice’ from becoming oppressive ‘requires state control of social relations, to be guided by “social professionals”.’ In other words, you have to be crazy to disagree with their policies.”
Mark Steyn in his powerful new book, After America, also speaks to the devastating effects of government-mandated multiculturalism policies. He warns about how in our day we will see “the total eclipse of all values.” He continues, “Man would attempt a ‘re-evaluation,’ as the West surely did through multiculturalism, sexual liberation, eco-fetishization, and various other fancies. But you cannot have an effective moral code, Nietzsche pointed out, without a God who says ‘Thou shalt not.’
“Thou shalt not what? Eat pygmies? Rip out children’s hearts? Wire up your own infant as a bomb? Express mild disapproval of the cultures that engage in such activities? Multiculturalism was the West’s last belief system. Its final set of values accorded all values equal value. Which is to say that it had no values—for, if all values have equal value, what’s the point?
“There was still enough of the ‘mere pittance’ of the old values for skanky tweens in hooker chic or burqa-ed women escorting their daughters to the FGM clinic to cause feminists some momentary disquiet. But they could no longer summon up a moral language to object to it. They valued all values, and so relentlessly all values slipped into eclipse—and then a valueless age dawned. It’s never a good idea to put reality up for grabs.”
Quite right. The modern push for a conformist multiculturalism in fact erases all values, all boundaries, and all belief systems. It dumbs us all down into a homogenised mess. And it is especially good at wiping out the last vestiges of biblical Christianity – which seems to be the real goal behind it all.
Morality is now a moving target based on the social engineering imperatives of the moment.
Martin Faliss, US
Yes quite right Martin.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
“Australian teenagers should ‘understand and appreciate the value of other cultures’ ”
I doubt if teenagers could understand much of other cultures in such a short time. I’ve been reading anthropology and sociology for decades. There’s an awful lot to understand. How would their teen understanding be measured, by political correctness? I doubt if the kids will be taught to recognise the totalitarian foot in the door in any culture, including our own.
John Snowden
Thanks Patrick
Yes, that is what we like to see here: articulate, well-reasoned, thoughtful, and properly argued comments which stick to the facts. Heaven knows we get far too much ugly name-calling and rabid mud-slinging here. Oh, and are we supposed to accept that you are a Christian? Just wondering.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
A quote from the cartoon movie, The Incredibles, “If everyone is special, then no one is special.”
That’s multiculturalism in a nutshell.
Anna von Marburg
Yes you are exactly right Anna.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
I shudder to think what is being taught in public schools these days. Are our Australian history and geography being taught to give the future generation a solid knowledge of Australia basics and foundations?
Multi cult is a gateway to disaster and a disaster for our society. Coming to Australia means obeying Australian laws and upholding Australian values. Words to this effect are printed on the Australian naturalisation certificate. People who come to Australia must undertake to respect our customs and abide by our laws.
Back to the basics, educate and teach Australia, not multi deception.
Judith Bond
The best counter to racism is not multiculturalism, as the secular humanists would have you believe, but the observance of the Second Great Commandment of Christianity: “Love your neighbour as yourself”.
Why waste money on futile government initiatives when the alternative is far superior, and cheaper.
Dunstan Hartley
Be afraid, very afraid. In 1942, Vladimir Lankin’s father was sent to a Russian labour camp for 7 years for telling jokes about Josef Stalin. His crime was listed as anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda.
Are we seeing a reincarnation of Communism’s “thought police” in the guise of the intelectual twitterati?
Roger Marks
As someone who has worked in various cultures for some years I am very much in favour of teaching attitudes that remove racism. The failure of “multiculturalism” is not so much that people are encouraged to embrace other cultures (which has much good), but that there is no standard to go by. Everything is considered “right” or “good”.
I believe that every culture has something good and that every culture has something bad which must be judged. The question then becomes “judged according to what?” The answer I would give is the Christian Scriptures.
So the failure of multiculuralism is not so much that it encourages people to accept ideas from other cultures – something I think is good, but that it does so in an environment where the true standard has been thrown out so that people are required to accept the bad along with the good. The results are everywhere evident in the modern world.
John Symons
No other belief system other than Christianity has successfully produced a peaceful society of cultural diversity. The best multicultural societies can only be sustained by the continuing presence and effect of Christianity.
Ian Clarkson
In the words of someone else: “All animals are equal, just that some are more equal than others”. Multiculturalism seems to be following this mantra quite closely. I wonder who the pigs really are?
Robert Wickstead
Patrick: You claim this is the “most racist vile crap I’ve ever read”. Have you ever read the Old Testament in depth? Now, that is a book to get riled over, if you are on the receiving end, of course.
Robert Wickstead
Bill
You are correct in calling “multiculturalism” for what it is.
I woke up to what they were on about very early in the piece and was accused of being paranoid, when I said that once the Left or the Naive gain significant power they’ll be issuing all sorts of rules to eventually totally control our lives.
The Left, particularly in the western world woke up to the fact that dictators like Adolf Hitler made the mistake of being in too much of a hurry to rule the world. The smarter plan was to take your time in the early stages with a policy of gradualism. The hoi polloi, even if they notice won’t be over perturbed with some”small” rule which is introduced, even if they aren’t really in agreement. However once the Left move closer to total control, which could take twenty years or more, then it could be time to accelerate the agenda
Multiculturalism is a crucial part of that world plan, with its capacity to bury local cultures. Also crucial is the use of its first cousin, the overworked charge of “racism”. This accusative weapon has replaced such sins as adultery as something with which you could shame your opponents and attempt to win debates.
Now total control can not be achieved unless the Left have no competition with any other philosophy, such as Christianity. The Left feel they can destroy that, but only if they take the initiative of indoctrinating the young. Forget the elderly, you won’t change most of them, except for those silly old duffers, who fall in line with the new order, in the hope that they will be eaten last.
My final comment is that the name Dr. Gottfried caught my interest. I studied German for many years and enjoy translating their names to check if their name matches their nature- Gottfried means “God’s peace”: How’s that for a match?
Frank Bellet, Petrie Qld
Best proof of how much of the epic-failure official multiculturalism was shown earlier this year (or maybe it was last year?) by Canadian MP Ujjal Singh Dossanjh (FYI, Dossanjh is an NDP or hyper-liberal–and of a community which supposedly should BENEFIT from such–definitely no conservative)!
Specifically, Canada’s policy was dreamed up under erstwhile PM Pierre Trudeau in mid-1970’s order as a method to divide and continue misruling the country (and failed even in that regard–Trudeau was voted out of office in 1979, though he resumed it in 1980 and misruled even worse until resigning in 1984).
Srini Varadarajan
Multi-Culturalism is the Trojan Horse of International Socialism. It is not really about respecting diverse cultures, it is about destroying them.The communists will not only destroy American culture, but those others also.
It is like respecting frogs and toads by putting them in a blender to mix them up. Big Brother causes problems to have an excuse to intervene in our affairs and will always compromise the people to extract more power and profit. Compromise is the business of politics, and politicians never know when enough is enough. They will continue to compromise us until they have killed America! We must secede to succeed! Revive the “Spirit of ’76”!
David McElroy, US
Watch Mark Steyn explain multiculturalism in this 8 minute video:
You might remember me from the late 1980’s when we were both painting houses for Ross Dixon? I have particularly fond memories of the weekly political arguments between yourself & Bill Hallam, those were the days. But I digress, to the matter at hand.
I’m perplexed at your views on multiculturalism. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I think that multiculturalism was largely championed by the Conservative government that ousted Whitlam in 1975, so it’s difficult to entertain your commentators perception of it’s role as the ‘Trojan horse of International Socialism’. I think Mr Fraser would be very surprised to discover himself to be a Fifth Columnist of a Socialist coup.
If we are to believe Mr Fraser’s definition of Multiculturalism (ref http://www.barc.org.au/post/12528), it should encourage us to “learn and benefit from differences” whilst maintaining “respect for the law and for our democratic institutions”. He also stated that “Insisting upon a core area of common values is no threat to multiculturalism but its guarantee”.
I live in the Western suburbs of Melbourne, a region that reputedly has over 200 languages spoken by it’s residents. I interact regularly with people from a huge diversity of cultures & religions. However, I have yet to come across anyone trying to persuade me to ‘wire up your own infant as a bomb’, or even eat a pygmy for that matter. Perhaps the reason for this is that violence is not cultural, neither is it confined to a specific race or religion. Violence is prevalent in all cultures, has been commited by all religions, and unfortunately is an ever present part of human history.
I appreciate your and your commentators anxiety that your way of life and christian values may be overrun by a potentially militant and alien force, but I’d suggest that this threat comes not from multiculturalism, but from a lack of real dialogue & understanding between our different cultures. I agree with you that a practice assessed as being ‘cultural’ doesn’t make it immune to ethical & moral standards, but I seriously doubt that this is an issue of concern in the proposed education policy that you discuss.
I would also like to make the point that many of the cultures currently established in Melbourne are predominantly Christian, and have been for centuries (eg Lebanese, Ethiopian, Italian, Greek…). It’s worth noting that many of these traditional communities, christian & otherwise, would completely agree with your stance against what you refer to as “alternative sexualities”, though I strongly disagree with you about this.
Finally, can I suggest, regarding your reply to ‘Patrick’, that rather than resorting to sarcasm, you may like to articulate why your position is, in fact, not racist. I’d
certainly be interested to read your rationale, so perhaps Patrick would too.
Thanks Bill
Clive
Thanks Clive
Yes I recall those days. Still painting?
A few replies if I may. I of course do not claim to be an expert on Australian history since I was not born here as you know. But your facts seems amiss (hey, nothing’s changed since we used to argue so long ago!). Multiculturalism was started in the early 1970s under the Labor government.
As to the remarks by Fraser, I absolutely agree with them. That has been my point all along. There is nothing wrong with ethnic diversity, but only if it can be maintained by “Insisting upon a core area of common values”.
Indeed, given that I have penned over 30 articles on multiculturalism, you might look at some of those to see what I actually believe on this topic. But I have said all along that there is a proper place to enjoy such diversity. But if we cannot have the newcomers to Australia willing to embrace shared values, a shared language, and a shared culture, then we are asking for, and will get, trouble. And we are seeing exactly that played out all over the Western world. Nations that have refused to insist upon a proper level of integration and assimilation are now splitting at the seams. England is a supreme example here, and the recent riots there were further evidence of this. But again, I discuss all this elsewhere, so no need to repeat myself here. See for example:
Also, I do not have an obligation to waste my time with those who come here simply to hurl insults and ad hominem attacks. Any intelligent reader can see that what I have been saying here and elsewhere has absolutely nothing to do with racism. So if you want to defend his silly remarks, feel free, but not me.
And I am glad to hear that in your rather limited experiences you have never encountered someone ‘wire up your own infant as a bomb’. Sadly of course other people have experienced that, or things like it. So we won’t take your brief existence in Melbourne as a barometer of all that has happened around the world! (Hey you gotta lighten up a bit. Steyn is actually quite humorous. But I realise you lefties don’t always have much patience for that sort of thing!)
But despite his humour, his point is 100% valid. The myth of moral and cultural relativism is killing the West. The idea that there is no moral difference between, say, helping an old lady across the street, and pushing her in front of an oncoming truck, is ludicrous. In the same way, the idea that preaching the gospel to African natives is no more different morally speaking than flying 747s into skyscrapers is equally ludicrous. Yet a major goal of the multi cultis is to insist that all cultures are morally equal, and none should be preferred over another. That is exactly why we see rich young people thinking to themselves that looting and trashing a posh store in London is just as acceptable as getting a job and earning a living.
As to other people’s comments here, well you would have to take that up with them. I obviously do not endorse every comment that appears here. Indeed, if I did, yours would not be here!
Lastly, I hope your painting skills are better than your reading skills! My commenting rules do clearly require a full name here.
As I say, with 33 articles on this topic, you might read a few of them first before you launch your next round of salvos. But thanks for getting in touch. BTW, I still do a bit of painting, but I mostly spend my time nowadays debating lefty knuckleheads like you! (That of course is a bit of humour as well, so don’t sue me OK? After all, we do want to celebrate our diversity here!)
Thanks for the link, sir. Good post.
Morality is now a moving target based on the social engineering imperatives of the moment.
Martin Faliss, US
Yes quite right Martin.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
“Australian teenagers should ‘understand and appreciate the value of other cultures’ ”
I doubt if teenagers could understand much of other cultures in such a short time. I’ve been reading anthropology and sociology for decades. There’s an awful lot to understand. How would their teen understanding be measured, by political correctness? I doubt if the kids will be taught to recognise the totalitarian foot in the door in any culture, including our own.
John Snowden
Thanks Patrick
Yes, that is what we like to see here: articulate, well-reasoned, thoughtful, and properly argued comments which stick to the facts. Heaven knows we get far too much ugly name-calling and rabid mud-slinging here. Oh, and are we supposed to accept that you are a Christian? Just wondering.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
A quote from the cartoon movie, The Incredibles, “If everyone is special, then no one is special.”
That’s multiculturalism in a nutshell.
Anna von Marburg
Yes you are exactly right Anna.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
I shudder to think what is being taught in public schools these days. Are our Australian history and geography being taught to give the future generation a solid knowledge of Australia basics and foundations?
Multi cult is a gateway to disaster and a disaster for our society. Coming to Australia means obeying Australian laws and upholding Australian values. Words to this effect are printed on the Australian naturalisation certificate. People who come to Australia must undertake to respect our customs and abide by our laws.
Back to the basics, educate and teach Australia, not multi deception.
Judith Bond
The best counter to racism is not multiculturalism, as the secular humanists would have you believe, but the observance of the Second Great Commandment of Christianity: “Love your neighbour as yourself”.
Why waste money on futile government initiatives when the alternative is far superior, and cheaper.
Dunstan Hartley
Be afraid, very afraid. In 1942, Vladimir Lankin’s father was sent to a Russian labour camp for 7 years for telling jokes about Josef Stalin. His crime was listed as anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda.
Are we seeing a reincarnation of Communism’s “thought police” in the guise of the intelectual twitterati?
Roger Marks
As someone who has worked in various cultures for some years I am very much in favour of teaching attitudes that remove racism. The failure of “multiculturalism” is not so much that people are encouraged to embrace other cultures (which has much good), but that there is no standard to go by. Everything is considered “right” or “good”.
I believe that every culture has something good and that every culture has something bad which must be judged. The question then becomes “judged according to what?” The answer I would give is the Christian Scriptures.
So the failure of multiculuralism is not so much that it encourages people to accept ideas from other cultures – something I think is good, but that it does so in an environment where the true standard has been thrown out so that people are required to accept the bad along with the good. The results are everywhere evident in the modern world.
John Symons
No other belief system other than Christianity has successfully produced a peaceful society of cultural diversity. The best multicultural societies can only be sustained by the continuing presence and effect of Christianity.
Ian Clarkson
In the words of someone else: “All animals are equal, just that some are more equal than others”. Multiculturalism seems to be following this mantra quite closely. I wonder who the pigs really are?
Robert Wickstead
Patrick: You claim this is the “most racist vile crap I’ve ever read”. Have you ever read the Old Testament in depth? Now, that is a book to get riled over, if you are on the receiving end, of course.
Robert Wickstead
Bill
You are correct in calling “multiculturalism” for what it is.
I woke up to what they were on about very early in the piece and was accused of being paranoid, when I said that once the Left or the Naive gain significant power they’ll be issuing all sorts of rules to eventually totally control our lives.
The Left, particularly in the western world woke up to the fact that dictators like Adolf Hitler made the mistake of being in too much of a hurry to rule the world. The smarter plan was to take your time in the early stages with a policy of gradualism. The hoi polloi, even if they notice won’t be over perturbed with some”small” rule which is introduced, even if they aren’t really in agreement. However once the Left move closer to total control, which could take twenty years or more, then it could be time to accelerate the agenda
Multiculturalism is a crucial part of that world plan, with its capacity to bury local cultures. Also crucial is the use of its first cousin, the overworked charge of “racism”. This accusative weapon has replaced such sins as adultery as something with which you could shame your opponents and attempt to win debates.
Now total control can not be achieved unless the Left have no competition with any other philosophy, such as Christianity. The Left feel they can destroy that, but only if they take the initiative of indoctrinating the young. Forget the elderly, you won’t change most of them, except for those silly old duffers, who fall in line with the new order, in the hope that they will be eaten last.
My final comment is that the name Dr. Gottfried caught my interest. I studied German for many years and enjoy translating their names to check if their name matches their nature- Gottfried means “God’s peace”: How’s that for a match?
Frank Bellet, Petrie Qld
Best proof of how much of the epic-failure official multiculturalism was shown earlier this year (or maybe it was last year?) by Canadian MP Ujjal Singh Dossanjh (FYI, Dossanjh is an NDP or hyper-liberal–and of a community which supposedly should BENEFIT from such–definitely no conservative)!
Specifically, Canada’s policy was dreamed up under erstwhile PM Pierre Trudeau in mid-1970’s order as a method to divide and continue misruling the country (and failed even in that regard–Trudeau was voted out of office in 1979, though he resumed it in 1980 and misruled even worse until resigning in 1984).
Srini Varadarajan
Multi-Culturalism is the Trojan Horse of International Socialism. It is not really about respecting diverse cultures, it is about destroying them.The communists will not only destroy American culture, but those others also.
It is like respecting frogs and toads by putting them in a blender to mix them up. Big Brother causes problems to have an excuse to intervene in our affairs and will always compromise the people to extract more power and profit. Compromise is the business of politics, and politicians never know when enough is enough. They will continue to compromise us until they have killed America! We must secede to succeed! Revive the “Spirit of ’76”!
David McElroy, US
Watch Mark Steyn explain multiculturalism in this 8 minute video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdEGJb5W5ks
Ewan McDonald, Victoria
To Patrick Healy – Go away!
Steve Davis
Hello Bill
You might remember me from the late 1980’s when we were both painting houses for Ross Dixon? I have particularly fond memories of the weekly political arguments between yourself & Bill Hallam, those were the days. But I digress, to the matter at hand.
I’m perplexed at your views on multiculturalism. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I think that multiculturalism was largely championed by the Conservative government that ousted Whitlam in 1975, so it’s difficult to entertain your commentators perception of it’s role as the ‘Trojan horse of International Socialism’. I think Mr Fraser would be very surprised to discover himself to be a Fifth Columnist of a Socialist coup.
If we are to believe Mr Fraser’s definition of Multiculturalism (ref http://www.barc.org.au/post/12528), it should encourage us to “learn and benefit from differences” whilst maintaining “respect for the law and for our democratic institutions”. He also stated that “Insisting upon a core area of common values is no threat to multiculturalism but its guarantee”.
I live in the Western suburbs of Melbourne, a region that reputedly has over 200 languages spoken by it’s residents. I interact regularly with people from a huge diversity of cultures & religions. However, I have yet to come across anyone trying to persuade me to ‘wire up your own infant as a bomb’, or even eat a pygmy for that matter. Perhaps the reason for this is that violence is not cultural, neither is it confined to a specific race or religion. Violence is prevalent in all cultures, has been commited by all religions, and unfortunately is an ever present part of human history.
I appreciate your and your commentators anxiety that your way of life and christian values may be overrun by a potentially militant and alien force, but I’d suggest that this threat comes not from multiculturalism, but from a lack of real dialogue & understanding between our different cultures. I agree with you that a practice assessed as being ‘cultural’ doesn’t make it immune to ethical & moral standards, but I seriously doubt that this is an issue of concern in the proposed education policy that you discuss.
I would also like to make the point that many of the cultures currently established in Melbourne are predominantly Christian, and have been for centuries (eg Lebanese, Ethiopian, Italian, Greek…). It’s worth noting that many of these traditional communities, christian & otherwise, would completely agree with your stance against what you refer to as “alternative sexualities”, though I strongly disagree with you about this.
Finally, can I suggest, regarding your reply to ‘Patrick’, that rather than resorting to sarcasm, you may like to articulate why your position is, in fact, not racist. I’d
certainly be interested to read your rationale, so perhaps Patrick would too.
Thanks Bill
Clive
Thanks Clive
Yes I recall those days. Still painting?
A few replies if I may. I of course do not claim to be an expert on Australian history since I was not born here as you know. But your facts seems amiss (hey, nothing’s changed since we used to argue so long ago!). Multiculturalism was started in the early 1970s under the Labor government.
As to the remarks by Fraser, I absolutely agree with them. That has been my point all along. There is nothing wrong with ethnic diversity, but only if it can be maintained by “Insisting upon a core area of common values”.
Indeed, given that I have penned over 30 articles on multiculturalism, you might look at some of those to see what I actually believe on this topic. But I have said all along that there is a proper place to enjoy such diversity. But if we cannot have the newcomers to Australia willing to embrace shared values, a shared language, and a shared culture, then we are asking for, and will get, trouble. And we are seeing exactly that played out all over the Western world. Nations that have refused to insist upon a proper level of integration and assimilation are now splitting at the seams. England is a supreme example here, and the recent riots there were further evidence of this. But again, I discuss all this elsewhere, so no need to repeat myself here. See for example:
https://billmuehlenberg.com/2011/05/17/creeping-sharia-again/
https://billmuehlenberg.com/2006/09/16/integration-or-disintegration-a-test-for-immigrants/
https://billmuehlenberg.com/2010/01/25/whither-multiculturalism/
Also, I do not have an obligation to waste my time with those who come here simply to hurl insults and ad hominem attacks. Any intelligent reader can see that what I have been saying here and elsewhere has absolutely nothing to do with racism. So if you want to defend his silly remarks, feel free, but not me.
And I am glad to hear that in your rather limited experiences you have never encountered someone ‘wire up your own infant as a bomb’. Sadly of course other people have experienced that, or things like it. So we won’t take your brief existence in Melbourne as a barometer of all that has happened around the world! (Hey you gotta lighten up a bit. Steyn is actually quite humorous. But I realise you lefties don’t always have much patience for that sort of thing!)
But despite his humour, his point is 100% valid. The myth of moral and cultural relativism is killing the West. The idea that there is no moral difference between, say, helping an old lady across the street, and pushing her in front of an oncoming truck, is ludicrous. In the same way, the idea that preaching the gospel to African natives is no more different morally speaking than flying 747s into skyscrapers is equally ludicrous. Yet a major goal of the multi cultis is to insist that all cultures are morally equal, and none should be preferred over another. That is exactly why we see rich young people thinking to themselves that looting and trashing a posh store in London is just as acceptable as getting a job and earning a living.
As to other people’s comments here, well you would have to take that up with them. I obviously do not endorse every comment that appears here. Indeed, if I did, yours would not be here!
Lastly, I hope your painting skills are better than your reading skills! My commenting rules do clearly require a full name here.
As I say, with 33 articles on this topic, you might read a few of them first before you launch your next round of salvos. But thanks for getting in touch. BTW, I still do a bit of painting, but I mostly spend my time nowadays debating lefty knuckleheads like you! (That of course is a bit of humour as well, so don’t sue me OK? After all, we do want to celebrate our diversity here!)
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch