Unless disparate groups of people have something in common to strive for, they will develop reasons why they should become even less unified. Our 'village mentalities' are hardwired and can only be overcome by the collective recognition of a beast in the nearby jungle that we have to collaborate against.

Canada has never had a compelling overarching goal outside of wartime, and as our trendy thought-leaders systematically dismantled our willingness and ability to engage in war, the memory of those triumphs has become tarnished to the point of meaninglessness. Instead, we are asked to celebrate diversity. Diversity as an end in itself can only result in a fractured society.

For two centuries America had a common goal. Now the villages within America have lost sight of it, and are turning inward to their own parochial wants. The most successful country in the world has weakened its own foundations.

We will not be better off as a result.

"Canada has never had a compelling overarching goal outside of wartime."

Not so at all.

Canada was once the up-and-coming Dominion. Its evolution from colony to self-governing member of the British Empire served as the very role model for Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

But of course, that's all old hat now.

Canada has never had a realistic debate about immigration and multiculturism. Our MSM has always resorted to superficial cliches and simplistic gingoism to describe any discussion regarding culture. We need to really discuss issues such as honour killing, the suppression of women and children in some cultures. The seperation of religion and government. Moral values vs cultural standards and how they effect human rights.
Canadians ( at least in my 7 decades ) have always assumed fairness as a guiding light. This is not always the case in some cultures. killing an unborn fetis is bad in some cultures while killing female babies is quite acceptable in others. We need to really talk about these things or our own core culture will destroyed. Colour, language and dress do not make a culture and we should not allow a debate to focus on these issues.
Moral standards and cultural norms with regard to basic human rights do form a basic part of different cultures and we desperatly need to talk about thier effect on our nation. Building a tolerant nation is one thing, turning a blind eye to unacceptable standards of human rights is another.

"I'll take Democracy for 200 please Kate"

Seriously, society today has morphed itself in such a way that any discussion about democracy, immigration or multiculturalism is met with cries of racism, biggotry and any other label that precludes anything meaningful from happening. The same thing is unfolding down here (US of A) with the immigration protests. The fact that people have broken the law to get into the country, and it really doesn't matter why, doesn't seem to sink into some of those brainwashed minds. After all, they are "entitled" to seek a better life. As one commentator (on FOX) said, "Ever see just what rights illegals get in Mexico, Cuba, et al? Nada, zip." Kind of like seeing Dutch Christian protests in Tehran. It ain't going to happen.

Texas Canuck,

For $200 under the category, Multicultural Assimilation

The answer is:

The CPC has no clear policy.

Alex, "What is No more government funding for multiculturalism?"

Democracy and the 2 other concepts are mutually exclusive.

As we can see now, the Liberal-crafted so called muticultural democracy is neither a true democracy nor multiculturally egalitarian...strike out on both utopian concepts there.

Immigration and Multicult beget cultural ghettoization and race/ethnic pandering politics in a governing class which operates on a "plantation" welfare state construct....of course democracy can accomodate these but all it means is you will have a corrupt dysfunctional democracy (a tyranny or kleptocracy of the minorities)....a dystopia...like Canada.

Personally I'd settle for honest, responsible minimal government accountable to the majority...but in the age of multicult socialist sleaze this may be a utopian concept as well.

Every great society carries within itself the seed of its own destruction. Politically correct immigration policies and institutionalised "multiculturalism" - such as foisted upon us by Pierre Elliot T - are the fertilizer for this seed of destruction. It becomes worse when - for various reasons - political correctness stiffles honest debate. When one attempts to project existing trends in the way Canada is evolving into the future all the outcomes are not ones that I would be happy with. Drastic change in directions is required but who will lead this change?

Tiananmen Tank Man (Documentary)
PBS Frontline ^ | Antony Thomas

Posted on 04/12/2006 8:54:04 AM PDT by Dr. Marten

PBS has set up an entire website devoted to the memory of the Tiananmen Tank Man and the massacre that ensued.

The online documentary is scheduled to be released this Friday.

After all others had been silenced, his lonely act of defiance against the Chinese regime catalyzed the world. What became of him? And 17 years later, has China succeeded in erasing this event from its history?

The spring of 1989 saw the largest pro-democracy demonstration in the history of China's communist regime. The following timeline tracks how the protests began in April among university students in Beijing, spread across the nation, and ended on June 4 with a final deadly assault by an estimated force of 300,000 soldiers from People's Liberation Army (PLA). Throughout these weeks, China's top leaders were deeply divided over how to handle the unrest, with one faction advocating peaceful negotiation and another demanding a crackdown. Excerpts from their statements, drawn from The Tiananmen Papers, reveal these internal divisions. +
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1613783/posts

BTW, to commenters using such 'nyms, eg, as "Stockwell Day", "Alex Trebek"; please stop, cease, and desist. Why not use Mr. "X"?

"Multiculturalism" as we know it in Canada is nothing more than the Trudeaupian re-education program of Marixist religious belief:

Western/Christian BAD--violient, tribal Third World GOOD.

This worship of the "primitive other" stems directly from Marxism. It's a feeble argument against the crowning achievement of western society: respect for individual freedom and liberty. If you prize the STATE above INDVIDUALS, then why would you not worship TRIBAL CULTURE?

There's no need, John Bor, to move into organic essentialism, suggesting that the demise of a society is somehow an a priori genetic determinism. That's illogical and unprovable.

In large populations, democracy is the only viable option for a political system. It's not a choice. Immigration is a means of population expansion and is amenable to democracy but ONLY IF the newcomers are assimilated and integrated within an evolving society.

Democracy privileges the individual. The problem the West is having with the ME, is that they have become frozen in a tribal model. Tribalism works only in smaller populations. It's kin-based, hereditary and family-based, group based..with one group pitting itself against another group. Immigration doesn't exist - except by acknowledging subservience.

Individualism doesn't exist. That's why the Muslim states haven't had a scientific thought since they began. They are only, with oil, now able to buy the technological results of the Western mind - but - they themselves, produce zilch.

The Canadian model of multiculturalism, which is also the European model, is disastrous. It rejects assimilation; it is actually an elitist model - and Trudeau was an elitist. What it does is to say that 'you can come here, but, we won't integrate with you. You must 'stay as you were' and we'll isolate you in GROUPS. Ethnic groups. In Europe, these groups are isolated in the suburbs; they become self-defining, self-governing and ignore the normative rules of the society.
In Canada, we have defined immigrant groups as 'tourist blocs' - who can come out to interact with us, via annual 'festivals'. We encourage them to remain trapped within their old cultures and reject assimilation. We sneer at that - for assimilation is American.

We've only been spared the riots and bombs of Europe - because our ghettoized population is small.

The other danger to our democracy, besides our policy of multiculturalism, is bilingualism. It has effectively locked out 80% of the population from acting within the governance of this country. This is not merely within the political sphere - but - within the legal sphere, the economic, the public corporations, the federal bureaucracy, the research sphere which allots all research grants. ALL of the positions in these areas must be bilingual.

This is like insisting that any member of the governance must be fluent in Latin. Effectively, by the time an individual is in their teens, and twenties and thirties and decides to enter into any of these spheres - it's too late to be part of the governing class. We have created a closed mandarin class, who self-define and control their membership, ..and the ordinary Canadian, no matter how successful a lawyer, a businessman, a researcher - has no chance of making a federal contribution.

We have done this to ourselves - multiculturalism has isolated and reified immigrants into parodies of 'the old way' and bilingualism has set up a closed, small exclusive mandarin class of governors. Canada is an oligarchy - not a democracy.

The fear of being politically incorrect and being labelled as such has corralled us all into a sheep pen. The sooner we see through the language barbed wire and develop thicker skin in order to break out, the sooner we might say goodbye to the multicult socialism that has been imposed on us all.

"We stand on guard for thee" has no meaning anymore.

Texas,

Well done, $200 has been added to your total.

It's still your turn go ahead and pick a category and an amount.

Bilingualism pour trois cent dollar SVP.

Texas, you KILL !

Just remember, the Romans blew it because they were too busy getting loaded while they let other peoples cultures fight their wars... Multi-culturalism didn't work for them, and their empire spanned a 1000 years. In light of that, it's somewhat arrogant to think it will work for us in the long run.

Some level of assimilation must occur, if only to keep everyone on the same playbook.

So what does assimilation mean?

Does it mean giving up your religion? Or switching to another? And if it is switching to another religion, which one is it?

I'm just curious what people think assimilation really means in the context of coming to Canada.

It maybe should be called adaptation, not assimilation. Although it wouldn't suprise me to find out that a translation of 'assimilation' includes the word 'welfare'.

Both words have value - assimilation and adaptation.

The Islamic religion, for instance, is not really a statement about the metaphysical reality. Indeed, it has little to say about this level. Instead, it's a system of political-social forms of behaviour. Almost like a constitution rather than a religion! But, a very detailed and strict constitution.

The problem is, that its modes of behaviour are suited to a tribal society, living in a no-growth economy, within a sustenance peasant agriculture. They aren't suitable for a modern industrial society.

Even the dress code is an adaptation - to a desert, blowing sand environment. It has nothing to do with 'religion'. Again, Islam is really a socio-political code; it says little about the metaphysical. As such a code, it developed within a specific space, the ME desert; and a specific economy, peasant agriculture; and a specific political system - hereditary tribalism. None of these have anything to do with the 'metaphysical realm' of life.

What Islam has done, is to hide this lifestyle within the protective walls of A Religion - whose axioms are thereby, presumably, off limits to discussion, and unchangeable.

The point of human beings, is that they can evolve their social norms; they can change. Our knowledge base is not frozen into our genes. Our knowledge base is learned. So, we can move from hunting/gathering societies to learning how to plant grains..to learning and developing new technologies.
So- when different social lifestyles come together, in a new territory, they should develop, together, new modes that are suitable for that time and space. That's how we developed industrialism.

So- yes, religions evolve. The Christian religion has evolved from its early debates of the 4th and 5th century. But, Islam has not evolved. And - since it is not simply a religion but also a politico-social system, it refuses to adapt to modern industrialism. In any part of the world.

Trudeau was not the inventer of multicult. Pearson was the turkey responsible. You ncould say that Pearson was the one that first drove the spike into Canada's heart and Trudeau was the one who drove it home, and then Like laywers Turner, Mulroney, Campbell, Cretchen, and Martin stood around pissing on the grave

In Canada we don't just fall short of assimilating our immigrant communities, we encourage them to identify themselves along ethnic lines. Effectively promoting a foriegn culture over our own, to the point that no one really knows what it means to be Canadian.

People will pipe in with lots of generalities about what it means to be Canadian, but there is no longer anything concrete. Multiculturalism is not a culture! There is nothing to assimilate into in this country. You cannot have a society of individuals, or factions.

I highly recommend "HOW TO STOP A WAR" (1987) by Dunnigan and Hartel for the class today, since we are talking ethnic groups.
A few book comments include:

'The most difficult wars to end result from one ethnic group being ruled by another.'
'Either you give each ethnic group an acceptable form of self-rule, or you destroy the minority populations.'
'After the war is over, it's not over. Wars often fail to settle the original disputes and they cause new ones.'
'Research shows that, despite the common view, different cultures hate each other even more after they get know each other.'
'The lesson is, if you start a war, don't expect to escape the nasty side effects. And watch out for accidents.'

To illustrate that the boys knew what they were talking about, listen to this 1987 comment.
"Yugoslavia has all the potential for a vicious civil war. ........When enough Yugoslavs forget the past horrors of internal disorder and lose their restraint, the natural instabilities of the nation will do the rest'.

It contains comments on future wars and nuclear wars. Also has a great database of the last 200 yrs of war. Very informative. No assimilationalist should be without it.