Against my better judgement, I read Pat Buchanan’s Human Events column on the riots in France. As expected, he eventually (in the penultimate paragraph) came around to linking the French conundrum with hispanic immigration into the United States.

His conclusion is most gloomy:

Colonization of the mother countries by subject peoples is the last chapter in the history of empires—and the next chapter in the history of the West—that is now coming to a close.

Of course, in making a parallel between Europe and the US he ignored his own arguments over culture and integration of Muslim immigrants into European society (as well as his argument that America has a history of assimilation that Europe does not). While it is true that recent immigrants to the US from Latin America do not speak English, but they do come to the US with a variety of key cultural aspects that are compatible with US culture, prominent among them is the fact that they come to the US as Catholics and therefore have compatibility with US religious views. Further, they come from capitalist, democratic countries (of varying degrees of quality, I will readily grant) and from places where US pop culture and products tend to be embraced.

Indeed, if anyone has ever lived in Texas, California, Arizona or New Mexico (let alone just about anywhere else in the US), then one knows that the there is no basis for the argument that persons of anglo descent and persons of Latin descent can’t live side-by-side or that there is some chasm between the current citizens of the US and those born south of the border. Heck, two of my oldest son’s two best-friends were born *gasp* in Mexico. Somehow there have been no enormous cultural barriers to separate them.

Imagine that.

The problem is Europe is plain: not only do the immigrants in question come from countries with different religious values, they also tend to be marginally capitalistic and democratic at best (if at all). But more significantly the French (and the rest of Europe) have isolated (figuratively and literally) there immigrant populations and consider them as second-class persons. They do not seek to welcome them into their culture. Couple that with a welfare state that provides the basics of living, and therefore a culture that sees no problem with making further demands on the state (coupled with 20% unemployment) and disaffection and demands are hardly a surprise.

It isn’t as if, for example, persons from the same countries don’t come to the US and find their niche in our society, indeed, find it possible to flourish here, even when there are glaring religious differences.

Buchanan and his ilk are simply blinded by their prejudices when they view immigrants from Latin America in a manner different from Buchanan’s own ethnic enclave, the Irish–who were hardly welcomed with open arms to the United States a century ago either.

Further, I must confess, the cliche employed by so many who want to see collapse around every corner (unless, of course, specific policies are adopted to save us all) of the Romans and the Barbarians is quite tired.

The two more recent examples of imperial collapse (the Soviet Empire and the British Empire) looked nothing like the collapse of Rome, so perhaps we need to to re-assess this notion of imperial demise and barbarians at the gate.

Having said all that, it is clear that there is a major brewing problem in Europe, but exactly what it is remains to be seen.

(Cross-posted at AWS).