The thread linking Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Afghanistan and Somalia is lack of an overarching sense of national identity. We do not want to go down that route:http://thehill.com/opinion/civil-rights/406096-us-joins-ranks-of-middle-east-with-fierce-identity-politics …
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How do you balance that against demographic decline?
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What do you mean?
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How do you balance the need for a stable population and therefore immigration with the need for a stable identity?
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Can you think of any ways other than immigration that might help a country maintain a stable population?
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Higher birth rates but that’s proven to be difficult to carry out in the modern age. Check out
@lymanstoneky for full data on this -
I live in LA, so it's gonna be tough to sell me on the idea that society would collapse if the population dropped a bit. Shorter lines at Disneyland, less traffic on the 405, reasonable housing costs... Somehow, we would survive this nightmare!
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Haha, understood. However look at the problems Japan is facing to understand what can happen. The only reason the USA isn’t in the same spot is immigration. The US birth 1.76 births per woman
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Is Japan really having problems, though? In 100 years, the world will have changed, technology will be unpredictably different, Japan will still be Japan, facing that world as Japan.
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I don’t see why patriotic immigrants couldn’t see the virtue in someone like George Washington, because his virtues transcend the ethnic identity of most nationalisms. Just need opportunity to educate. Other political dynamics make education towards seeing virtue difficult tho.
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The biggest one I can think of being that our educators often don’t see virtue in the founders, so new populations have less conditioning to value this country’s national myths.
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Maybe our educators are merely adjusting to the needs and demands of the new population they're educating.
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You're advocating for America as a religion, rather than as a nation. Check out Robert Bellah and others if you're interested in more (or Dr. Fukuyama's excellent new book, for that matter).
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