“I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.”
~ Naturalization Oath of Allegiance to the United States of America (1952)

Does the American experiment in individual liberty require acceptance of everyone and every belief? Is it rational to believe that inclusiveness and diversity will lead to unity or does it create even more factionalism and tribalism?

Let’s assume for the sake of argument these few points:

• Nations are organized or evolve around common beliefs and the desires to live according to those shared beliefs which support certain common, unalienable rights.
• Governments are instituted among people to protect certain common, unalienable rights.
• For a government to protect those rights, it must derive its just powers from the consent of the governed.
• If a government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed, it follows that the government must also act according to the common beliefs and desires of those who created it.

It seems to me the breakdown of liberty in the United Kingdom is evidence that when a government deviates from the consent of the governed and establishes the implementation and defense of its own beliefs as its primary goal, chaos ensues.

Similar things have happened in America on a much smaller scale. Courts have ordered Christian clubs at universities to admit non-Christians and have declared that a belief in God is not necessary to be a military chaplain. People also do it to themselves – the United Church of Canada allows atheist pastors and the Boy Scouts now accept girls. It happens when people and government decides that “diversity” is more important than liberty.

The fastest way to destroy a unified group is to insert members who don’t believe as the rest of the group does and are even opposed to those beliefs. Why would a person who is opposed to the goals of a group want to join it?

There is only one reason. They do so to destroy the group. They may claim it is to “reform” the group – but if “reform” means the destruction of the core principles of the group, it is the same as destruction.

Groups can survive dissention about how to accomplish a given goal, but they cannot survive disputes about the goal itself – because the goal is the reason for the group to exist. If the group cannot agree on the goal, it has no reason for existing.

Was America created to accept every idea, every belief, and every person – even those who are opposed to America’s raison d’etre? If one accepts, as I do, that America is based on Judeo-Christian tenets, do we have an obligation to accept those who are a war with Jews and Christians? Since America was founded on limited, distributed government and individual liberty, do we have an obligation to accept and assimilate socialists, Marxists, and communists?

This is the conundrum of a free and open society.

How do you maintain unity and accept diversity? How do you maintain a desired reverence to common ideals without being exclusionary?

I know that oaths are no longer in vogue but it seems important that citizens, whether by birth or naturalization, who violate America’s oath of citizenship are creating the chaos that has the potential to end that which they enjoy as Americans and we should never accept the idea that America can exist as some sort of ideological sponge that can survive collection of every speck of debris. America can weather different opinions and different perspectives about how it lives up to its principles, but it cannot survive the variation, replacement of destruction of them.

It is NOT in America’s best interest to accept anyone who can physically cross our borders and vest them with constitutional protections. Being “foreign” is also a state of mind.

The UK is a laboratory in which this disaster is playing out. They have both admitted people who are pledged to the destruction of the UK as it has existed and suffer citizens who are allied with the invaders and their aims. Now the UK government’s largest concern is keeping the factions apart in an attempt to forestall civil insurrection – and in doing so, almost certainly guaranteeing that such an insurrection will come to pass.