Hey Guys... How would you refute this speech by Richard D. Lamm?

[battleknight24]

I got this from www.snopes.com

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A Frightening Analysis

We all know Dick Lamm as the former Governor of Colorado. In that context his thoughts are particularly poignant. Last week there was an immigration-overpopulation conference in Washington, DC, filled to capacity by many of American's finest minds and leaders. A brilliant college professor named Victor Hansen Davis talked about his latest book, "Mexifornia," explaining how immigration — both legal and illegal — was destroying the entire state of California. He said it would march across the country until it destroyed all vestiges of The American Dream.

Moments later, former Colorado Governor Richard D. Lamm stood up and gave a stunning speech on how to destroy America. The audience sat spellbound as he described eight methods for the destruction of the United States. He said, "If you believe that America is too smug, too self-satisfied, too rich, then let's destroy America. It is not that hard to do. No nation in history has survived the ravages of time. Arnold Toynbee observed that all great civilizations rise and fall and that 'An autopsy of history would show that all great nations commit suicide.'"

"Here is how they do it," Lamm said: First to destroy America, "Turn America into a bilingual or multi-lingual and bicultural country. History shows that no nation can survive the tension, conflict, and antagonism of two or more competing languages and cultures. It is a blessing for an individual to be bilingual; however, it is a curse for a society to be bilingual. The historical scholar Seymour Lipset put it this way: 'The histories of bilingual and bi-cultural societies that do not assimilate are histories of turmoil, tension, and tragedy. Canada, Belgium, Malaysia, Lebanon all face crises of national existence in which minorities press for autonomy, if not independence. Pakistan and Cyprus have divided. Nigeria suppressed an ethnic rebellion. France faces difficulties with Basques, Bretons, and Corsicans."

Lamm went on: Second, to destroy America, "Invent 'multiculturalism' and encourage immigrants to maintain their culture. I would make it an article of belief that all cultures are equal. That there are no cultural differences. I would make it an article of faith that the Black and Hispanic dropout rates are due to prejudice and discrimination by the majority. Every other explanation is out of bounds.

Third, "We could make the United States a 'Hispanic Quebec' without much effort. The key is to celebrate diversity rather than unity. As Benjamin Schwarz said in the Atlantic Monthly recently: 'The apparent success of our own multiethnic and multicultural experiment might have been achieved! Not by tolerance but by hegemony. Without the dominance that once dictated ethnocentrically and what it meant to be an American, we are left with only tolerance and pluralism to hold us together.'"

Lamm said, "I would encourage all immigrants to keep their own language and culture. I would replace the melting pot metaphor with the salad bowl metaphor. It is important to ensure that we have various cultural subgroups living in America reinforcing their differences rather than as Americans, emphasizing their similarities."

"Fourth, I would make our fastest growing demographic group the least educated. I would add a second underclass, unassimilated, undereducated, and antagonistic to our population. I would have this second underclass have a 50% dropout rate from high school."

"My fifth point for destroying America would be to get big foundations and business to give these efforts lots of money. I would invest in ethnic identity, and I would establish the cult of 'Victimology.' I would get all minorities to think their lack of success was the fault of the majority. I would start a grievance industry blaming all minority failure on the majority population."

"My sixth plan for America's downfall would include dual citizenship and promote divided loyalties. I would celebrate diversity over unity. I would stress differences rather than similarities. Diverse people worldwide are mostly engaged in hating each other - that is, when they are not killing each other. A diverse, peaceful, or stable society is against most historical precedent. People undervalue the unity! Unity is what it takes to keep a nation together. Look at the ancient Greeks. The Greeks believed that they belonged to the same race; they possessed a common language and literature; and they worshiped the same gods. All Greece took part in the Olympic Games.

A common enemy Persia threatened their liberty. Yet all these bonds were not strong enough to over come two factors: local patriotism and geographical conditions that nurtured political divisions. Greece fell.

"E. Pluribus Unum" — From many, one. In that historical reality, if we put the emphasis on the 'pluribus' instead of the 'Unum,' we can balkanize America as surely as Kosovo."

"Next to last, I would place all subjects off limits ~ make it taboo to talk about anything against the cult of 'diversity.' I would find a word similar to 'heretic' in the 16th century - that stopped discussion and paralyzed thinking. Words like 'racist' or 'x! xenophobes' halt discussion and debate."

"Having made America a bilingual/bicultural country, having established multi-culturism, having the large foundations fund the doctrine of 'Victimology,' I would next make it impossible to enforce our immigration laws. I would develop a mantra: That because immigration has been good for America, it must always be good. I would make every individual immigrant symmetric and ignore the cumulative impact of millions of them."

In the last minute of his speech, Governor Lamm wiped his brow. Profound silence followed. Finally he said, "Lastly, I would censor Victor Hanson Davis's book Mexifornia. His book is dangerous. It exposes the plan to destroy America. If you feel America deserves to be destroyed, don't read that book."

There was no applause.

A chilling fear quietly rose like an ominous cloud above every attendee at the conference. Every American in that room knew that everything Lamm enumerated was proceeding methodically, quietly, darkly, yet pervasively across the United States today. Every discussion is being suppressed. Over 100 languages are ripping the foundation of our educational system and national cohesiveness. Barbaric cultures that practice female genital mutilation are growing as we celebrate 'diversity.' American jobs are vanishing into the Third World as corporations create a Third World in America — take note of California and other states — to date, ten million illegal aliens and growing fast. It is reminiscent of George Orwell's book "1984." In that story, three slogans are engraved in the Ministry of Truth building: "War is peace," "Freedom is slavery," and "Ignorance is strength."

Governor Lamm walked back to his seat. It dawned on everyone at the conference that our nation and the future of this great democracy are deeply in trouble and worsening fast. If we don't get this immigration monster stopped within three years, it will rage like a California wildfire and destroy everything in its path, especially The American Dream.


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How would you guys respond?

Peace,

[MisterP]

1. die Juden sind hier! sie zerstören unser Kultur und yada yada yada

[lenidog]

2. One of the greatest mistakes in history was that everyone

who was in power when Hitler started his rise thought of him as a buffoon, rabble rouser, called in an idiot and at best thought even if he gets power we can control him. Funny I guess they couldn't.

[lenidog]

3. I actually bookmarked this to read tomorrow when I am a little

more bushy tailed and clear thinking so I can refute this rather effective piece of propganda.

[jmcon007]

4. Tell him we've heard it all before, going back to 18th century...

I thought it only proper to bring Chicken Little's rants into perspective with information from his own state's University:

http://www.colorado.edu/AmStudies/lewis/2010/migrate.htm#Since

....many Americans at the time Crevecoeur wrote did not want to accept America as a nation of immigrants. John Jay wrote in The Federalist Papers (1787) that:
"Americans are one united people--a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion,..., and very similar in their manners and customs."
_____________________________________________________________________

"So in the very earliest days of the English settlement,immigration began to be restricted, and Quakers and Baptists, Episcopalians and Catholics, were banished and proscribed from the Commonwealth on the grounds that American standards were apt to be impaired by their admission. From that day to this the older immigrants and their descendants have tried to keep this country for those already here and their kindred folk. They have looked upon themselves as a kind of aristocracy, their supposed superiority being proportioned to the length of time that they and their ancestors have lived upon this continent, and each successive generation of immigrants newly arrived has tended with curious repetition to adopt the same viewpoint, to believe that the succeeding immigrants were inferior to the former in religion, habits, education, or what not, and ought to be kept out."
A. Piatt Andrew (1914)
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In the 1800s, White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant American elites tried to create a white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) identity as the American identity. As a result, with the new wave of immigration to America between 1880 and 1920 of immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe, many Americans feared that these new immigrants would never become Americans. One of the larger reasons for this fear is that the majority of these immigrants were Catholics or Jews, religions which many Americans saw as incompatible with American Protestant identity.
Between 1880 and 1920, Americans feared these new immigrants:

1. Strange customs and insistence on maintaining their cultures in crowded urban ghetto communities, such as the Polish ghetto, the Italian ghetto, the Russian ghetto, and the Jewish ghetto.
2. The massive influx of Catholics and Jews in crowded urban immigrant enclaves.
3. That these immigrants were responsible for social problems in the exploding, industrial cities, problems such as crime, poverty, insanity, and immorality.
4. Blamed immigrants for labor unrest and violence.
5. That these unassimilated immigrants were a threat to American culture and society. Feared that their ethnic enclaves threatened to undermine assimilation and the process of Americanization

__________________________________________________________________

End of University of Colorado excerpts.

In my opinion immigration policies cannot be completely ignored and, yes, there are some problems. But, Lamm is falling back on familiar old scare tactics that date all the way back to the American Revolution to mask his prejudices.

[Crunchy Frog]

5. I'd ask him about Switzerland.

"History shows that no nation can survive the tension, conflict, and antagonism of two or more competing languages and cultures."

The Swiss must be on the verge of collapse due to sectarian violence about now.

He's always been a bit controversial but really, it sounds like my old governor is developing a touch of senile dementia.

[evermind]

6. It refutes itself

- obviously the ravings of a hardcore bigot with paranoid tendencies (as if there could be a *plan* for a bi-lingual America!), it casts extreme doubt on the credibility of the speaker.

[Frederik]

7. In the 1830s it was the Catholics

that were going to destroy America. At the turn of the century it was Germans and Italians with their dangerous, subversive anarchist and socialist beliefs. There were also far too many Jews immigrating from Eastern Europe, with their strange customs and unfamiliar music.

Yawn.

[chalky]

8. Oh, yeah. Canada's really sinking into the abyss.

What a dumbass.