It's a great country, said the Somali taxi driver

Yeah, because America is just about making $. At least those who advocate the proposition nation aspire to something a little bit higher.

African Muslims are often more moderate. This isn't as true of Somalians, but I think it's more or less fair to say that when people fear "A Muslim wave" they mean more "Muslims from North Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia."

I don't think anyone's that afraid we're going to be overrun by Wolofs, Mandinka, or Swahilis. (In general Black African immigrants are disproportionately educated and law-abiding) Or for that matter other "moderate" non-African Muslims like Ahmadiyya (often not counted as Muslim), moderate Sufi orders, Rohingyya people (ethnic group fleeing Myanmar, they pretty much all go to Thailand), Chinese Hui, Minangkabau people, etc. In part that's because not many of these groups are coming, but it's also because the Muslim peoples or sects I named are rarely involved in terrorism.

Mike F.,

All you've shown is how cancer spreads and eventually takes over the healthy host.

I could be one of the least patriotic people around, but even I tear up a bit when I remember walking to work early one morning in DC about a year ago. These two teenage Hispanic girls, in broken English, asked me how they could find the "Lincoln Monument." I think about them staring up at Lincoln, contemplating what he means, what he did, and the country he loved. I think about how much I take for granted and how little I do to help this country live up to its own standards, as opposed to simply complaining when our leaders and citizens don't live up to those standards.

Thanks, Rod, for reminding me how helpful it is to look at this country from that perspective again.

and then the Somali Muslim cab driver plowed into a crowd of pedestrians and blew his cab up, killing hundreds. The End

Sorry, thought I was on Wonkette there for a second.

I'm glad TR mentioned female genital mutilation. In Somalia, over 90% of all women are subjected to this practice. For most of them, it's what's called Type III (from a U.S. State Department report):

Type III is the excision (removal) of part or all of the external genitalia (clitoris, labia minora and labia
majora) and stitching or narrowing of the vaginal opening, leaving a very small opening, about the size of a
matchstick, to allow for the flow of urine and menstrual blood. The girl or woman’s legs are generally bound together from the hip to the ankle so she remains immobile for approximately 40 days to allow for the formation of scar tissue.

In the cities, these procedures generally take place in a medical facility under anesthesia. If the operation is
performed in a rural village, an old woman excisor performs the procedure without anesthesia.

The mutilation is carried out with knives, scissors, scalpels, pieces of glass, or razor blades, often without sterilization as well as without anesthesia.

So, yeah, if that's what you call "moderate" . . . .

Thanks for that post. It is indeed easy to lose sight of what we have because we take it for granted. Spend some with people who've seen some dark places, and you'll gain a better appreciation for the United States. I can remember coming home from my last deployment and just sitting on the porch at my grandparents' house, staring in slack-jawed wonder at it all. The grass was green, the sky was blue, the temperature was moderate, children were walking to the library without adult supervision, the mail was being delivered, the garbage was being collected, the police were patrolling, and did I mention the green grass?? Coming out of Baghdad in 2006, where it was a rare sight to even see children or women anywhere and where gunfire was almost constant, I was bowled over by the contrast. Iraq is better 2008 than it was in 206, but they still don't have the basic services we take for granted, the opportunities. They'll never have the green grass and blue skies and vast forests and mountains and beaches and moderate temperatures. And no one knows what 2009 will bring them.

There is a racist edge to those most concerned about illegal immigration and I find that disturbing. Derbyshire, beloved here, is one of the worst mainstreamish offenders on that.

Thomas R, race is a reality. It is biologically quantifiable. And it seems a pretty natural and universal tendency for humans to want their ancestors to look reasonably like themselves. No non-western country I can think of allows mass migration of those who are racially unlike themselves. Not prosperous ones like Japan, not upcoming ones like China or India.

What you call 'racist'then is simply a natural defensive reaction. It is not natural for people people, previously a racial majority, to want to become a racial minority -- see our native Americans and their campaigns, quite justified, to stop European settlement. Just so, it is not natural for European Americans, who for good or ill pretty much built this country and its institutions, to want to be driven to minority status, or to have themselves transformed radically in a biological sense. This isn't about hate, this isn't about superior or inferior, it is just about us, an identifiable group of people, wanting to maintain our own community, culturally and biologically.

"race is a reality. It is biologically quantifiable." SM

TR: I didn't say it was unreal, I just don't like the implications some make about it. Although judging by the genetics "race" is probably more varied then what many think. Africa certainly has several "races." The Khoisan and the Pygmies are different races from each other and from "blacks." Even those "black Africans" are quite likely of several races. Evidence indicates the Ainu were a separate "white race." (Surviving Ainu usually have strong Japanese admixture, but older skeletons indicate different skeletal features from Caucasians)

This doesn't mean I have to start thinking blacks are childlike or Mexicans sneaky as some of these "race realists" advocate.

"it is just about us, an identifiable group of people, wanting to maintain our own community, culturally and biologically." sm

TR: Then become Amish. Segregation is thankfully dead and white nationalism isn't going to go anywhere.