Thank you for writing concerning the article “Immigrants, Not Americans, Must Adapt”, which is displayed on my web site.  Like you, I received this as an Email from someone.  Like you, after reading it, I said, “Yeah!  Tell it like it is!”  UNLIKE YOU, I did not change my first impression after thinking more about it.

I can see from what you wrote to me that you are a very passionate and intelligent person, and in what you refer to as your “rebuttal”, you go about defending the sentiments surrounding and saturating what others call “multiculturalism” in America.  I think on that platform, you have done a fine job making the case of multiculturalists “FOR AMERICANS ADAPTING AND NOT IMMIGRANTS ADAPTING!”

The first question one must consider when discussing these things is “why do immigrants move to America, if they love everything about their own countries and their own cultures?”  I believe the answer has always remained the same.  They don’t love everything about their own countries and their own cultures!  I believe that is why my ancestors and your ancestors immigrated to this land.  Should Americans--and I include here folks who may have been immigrants just 10 years ago, but now consider themselves Americans—should Americans adopt and adapt to all the customs that new immigrants bring with them to this land?  What is the process for deciding which ones can co-exist with current American customs and which ones are the very ones that caused them to flee their own natural countries?

If “Americans” must adapt to everything, then we will one day live in a country full of customs and laws that caused these very immigrants to flee their own countries.  I’m glad my own ancestors fled their countries years ago, so I do not mock immigrants by my use of the word “flee”.

For years in America, most immigrants have been tickled to death to develop pockets of their own ethnic countrymen in parts of this country and continue their traditions under the freedom that America has always afforded immigrants; and we both hope will continue to afford them.  I believe that for years, most immigrants have not wished to draw attention to their own cultures by seeing the American government force others to adapt their ways.

When other Americans see something, hear something, taste something or even sense something they like that immigrants are enjoying in this land of freedom and opportunity; then by all means they should be allowed to freely and voluntarily adopt those things into their own lifestyles.  And as you so exhaustively detailed in your letter to me, other Americans have adopted many of them.

“Adopt” and “adapt” seem to have two totally separate meanings.  To “adopt” is to accept something freely and voluntarily of one’s own volition.  To “adapt” seems to mean “adjust and accept whatever is being forced onto you”.  Do Americans have to adapt to the laws that immigrants fled when they left their countries?  Or do immigrants have to adapt to the laws of the country they have immigrated to?  You know the answer to that, yet some who would call themselves “multiculturalists” would not be so sure of the obvious answer to that question.

Subjectivity seems to be a characteristic of the thinking of many multiculturalists, because they are afraid to say that the accepted norms and standards of their own nation are right and some of the immigrated norms and standards of some immigrants might be wrong.  They tend to avoid absolutes accepted as a matter of fact by their own countrymen for fear of being pigeon-holed as right wing reactionaries or as fear-mongering nativists.  They might agree with something upon first hearing it and upon further inspection begin to see a distasteful political shading that runs contrary to their own political leanings.  Guilt kicks in and they immediately do a 180 and strongly oppose the very position they so naturally agreed with before putting on their slanted political glasses.

What the author of the article is simply saying is that if businesses want to conduct their businesses in English only, then they should not be forced to display or translate every transaction of what they are doing in multi-linguistic formats.  Nor should the American government “force” businesses or schools or individuals to adapt to other languages.

There is an old saying that is older than either of us that says, “when in Rome, do as the Romans do!”  All this means is that for maximum freedom to function in a society; then foreigners, immigrants, outsiders, or whatever one calls them should do the adapting.  You may not like the tone of this saying and I’m sure if I changed it to “when in America, do as the Americans do!”, you would like it even less.  But I suspect if I said “When in Mexico, do as the Mexicans do” or “when in Africa, do as the Africans do”, it would not offend you near as much.

I would not dream of going to either of these two countries and having them adapt to my English; rather than expect me to adapt to their own native languages!  The notion seems very silly to me, when I view it in that perspective.  Yet, somehow, when the shoe is on the other foot, Americans are told they have to adapt to the many languages of the immigrants who migrate to their own soil.  I guess the author of the article here is saying he wants immigrants to become Americans, not Mexican-Americans or African-Americans—just unhyphenated Americans!  There is more than a semantic difference here with this line of reasoning!!!

The author of the article was simply saying that our nation was founded on the principles of a people who believed in one god.  It was founded by men who wrote God into their speeches, their writings and their lives.  Yes, some of them were deists (believers in a god who started it all and then removed Himself from the affairs of men).  But the influential deists never insisted on removing all signs in the culture of the theistic believers.  They showed an insurmountable amount of tolerance for the beliefs of others.  Something that atheistic cultures and anti-Christian cultures have failed to do in the whole history of the world.  True Christianity has shown the tolerance (not always Christian offshoots and cults within Christianity).  Christian nations allow Synagogues, Mosques, and Buddhist temples to stand on their soil.  Name some countries of other faiths that afford the same tolerance to those of the Christian faith.  Is that what offends some immigrants and multiculturalists about America?

The author is saying, when immigrants of whatever faith start crying “I am offended with the Christianity I see throughout this culture, take it away!”, then the rest of us should say “If you don’t like it, go home!”  Are you telling me, that you and others, who would identify themselves boldly as multiculturalists, would say, “we will remove the Christian overtones of our culture to keep from offending you—after all it is not really our heritage.”

If those kind of sentiments ever become a national movement that gains political power, what will follow will make the American Civil War look like a little skirmish.  That is one of the main motives that brought the first immigrants to “the new land”—religious liberty.  To practice freely what they believed.  Do we now trash that liberty to please some offended immigrants and some offended multiculturalists?

The author also said that if the Stars and Stripes offend a person, then they should exercise their American freedom to leave the country and wrap themselves in their native country’s flag.  Should a new American flag be stitched and mounted everywhere in place of the “old” flag, which is made up of patches of every flag of the world to show we are a true multicultural community?  Some would say “YES, START STITCHING IT TODAY!”  Do you have any insight as to why the American flag would offend an immigrant who fled to this country?  I think the author of the article is simply saying that he does not.

I printed the author’s article on my web site, because I thought it was a near flawless statement of Americanism (a word that offends some).  In this letter to you, I am defending what the author said.  I may not agree with the author’s other political positions if I knew them.  I may not agree with the author’s motive(s) for printing the article.  But I find no fault in the article itself!

I would like to print your “rebuttal” on my web site, if you would want it there.  But I would not do it without your permission!  I would also like to print this response of mine to you, if you agree to have your response to me printed.  If you do not want your rebuttal printed, I will probably print this letter on my web site as a response to an anonymous rebuttal.  But if you want your rebuttal to be read by others, just give me the permission to do so.  I would not print your full name.  I would put your first name (if you want) and your home state if you would want that, but I would give you as much privacy as you want.  You make the call.

The reason this particular article is circulating all over the country in emails is that it appeals to people of, or leaning toward, at least three of the four major political persuasions in the United States.  It appeals to conservatives, it appeals to libertarians and it appeals to populists.  It does not appeal to liberals—the fourth ideological persuasion.  If you take a look at my links page on my own web site, you will see that I tolerantly provide good links to all four of these political persuasions http://www.accs.net/users/wolf/links.htm (Not being able to keep up on my links page, I have since discontinued it on my site).

I’m not saying you have to be a liberal to find fault with the author’s article, as you have.  I suspect it also appeals to you, but that it bothers you that it does.  I am interpolating that that is what you meant when you said that your first impresssion upon reading it was “Yeah!  Tell it like it is?”

You have to figure all of this out for yourself.  If you are happy believing the way you do with the cards of thinking that you are presently holding, then play out your hand.  You will never be alone.  This is America and although I disagree with what you say, I would fight to the death for your right to say it.  (That is why I’m willing to print your words on my web site.)

By the way, I eat at the Pizza Hut and at Taco Bell.

Take care and again thanks for trusting me enough to voice your opinion to me.  I respect you for taking a stand against something that bothers you.  Did you happen to read my POLITICAL POEM http://www.accs.net/users/wolf/poem.htm .  And if you did, were you able to laugh at some parts of it?  And did you find yourself in near total agreement with it?

It is important to keep our sense of humor when we get involved in political discussions.  We are all fallible “creatures”; or if you would prefer, “humans”.