Zakaria wants U.S. Constitution thrown out

Last September I wrote:

[Fareed] Zakaria is an alien in our midst, building his career on his identity as a fashionable alien who lectures the natives on the need to give up their country and adapt to the global community, particularly to Islam. He represents the “New Society” that globalists are attempting to turn American into. Every step in America’s weakening and loss of identity, means the strengthening and advance of Zakaria and his career and his importance.

And now Zakaria, who became a U.S. citizen in 2001, boasting of the fact that all the people at his naturalization ceremony were black and brown, is advocating that the U.S. Constitution be scrapped and replaced by a new constitution, to be written on Facebook and Twitter. He really loves his adopted country, right?

See also “Fareed Zakaria, appeaser and Muslim apologist” (2005), and “Zakaria, symbol of America’s self-undoing” (2008, about the first thing Zakaria wrote after becoming a U.S. citizen).

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Daniel S. writes:

Creeps like Fareed Zakaria are confirmation of the need for immigration restriction. If our society were healthy, such a man—an alien seeking to undermine our traditional society and political system—would be deported, or barred in the first place. Make no mistake about it, people like Zakaria are the conscious enemies of Western civilization and must be exposed as such.

On a side note, Zakaria has complained that the Constitution is not democratic enough, but that is exactly the point. The Founding Fathers knew all too well the dangers of pure democracy and sought to protect our republic from those dangers. Of course a liberal globalist like Zakaria has no idea about the political tradition of which the Founders were exponents (a tradition that extends back to Aristotle and Plato), and can only engage in smug, self-superior snipping. He doesn’t possess a quarter of the intellect and political wisdom of the men whose work he would throw away.

June 22

D. from Seattle writes:

Latest development: U.S. Constitution wants Fareed Zakaria thrown out.

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July 19, 2011

Here is Zakaria’s essay in Newsweek on July 16 2001, a few weeks after his naturalization. I’m not saying that all his observations here are wrong, but can you find a single indication of love or even affection for his new country? But why should he have affection for it? Given that the white American majority feel no affection for America,—as it is evident that they do not by their bringing in millions of non-Westerners who are changing America into a different country—why should the non-Westerners whom they are bringing in? America is committing national suicide, and Zakaria and millions of others are the gun with which it is doing it. Does the gun feel affection for its target? We have brought on ourselves the greatest tragedy in history.

America Doesn’t Need Crusades

Last week I celebrated my first Fourth of July as an American. I was sworn in a few weeks earlier at a ceremony that would have sent chills down Pat Buchanan’s spine. Seated in a noisy Brooklyn auditorium, more than 2,000 new citizens—almost all black and brown faces with the odd British banker looking around nervously—listened to introductory speeches in English, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic and Hindi. A young woman of Indian origin gave us an earnest lecture imploring us to do our civic duty and always vote. After a short, sweet speech on patriotism and the Oath of Allegiance, it was over and we emptied onto the streets where a small welcoming fair had been set up. You could eat pizza, sign up to join the New York Police Department and get your picture taken with a cardboard cutout of George W. Bush. In some cities the Daughters of the American Revolution host tea parties for new immigrants. Not in Flatbush, Brooklyn.

It’s funny, but I don’t feel so different as a citizen. That’s probably because ever since I left India to study in the United States almost two decades ago I have involved myself deeply in this country’s life. I can still remember, years back, the first time I used the word “we” when writing about the United States and wondering whether anyone would object. No one ever has.

Every immigrant has his own corny sense of why America is special. What has always struck me as unique about this country is that it welcomes anyone and everyone to be part of the American experience. If you want to be an American, then, in so many people’s minds, you are an American. (The Immigration and Naturalization Service has a somewhat more technical standard, which is why it took me as long as it did to convert desire into reality.)

For most of the people in that Brooklyn auditorium, the United States represents the future. But Americans these days seem increasingly interested in their past. Over the last few years the country has developed an insatiable appetite for tales of great Americans of yore. The extended multimedia homage to the World War II generation had barely abated this spring when it was replaced by a Founding Father chic. Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, Adams, have all been the subjects of recent, extravagant hagiographies. Even dour, dyspeptic John Adams is now cool.

This is odd. Most of these men were highly controversial and bitterly disagreed with one another. Admiration for one might reasonably imply dislike for another. How can one regard Jefferson and Hamilton as equally praiseworthy? Give me a founder, people seem to be saying, any founder.

We hanker not for heroes but for heroic times, circumstances that brought out grandeur in the nation, vision in leaders and the best in everyone. That is the true appeal of Tom Brokaw’s books and Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan.” Living in times of peace and plenty, when even a recession is something that can be contemplated calmly, people are searching for something more ennobling than next year’s bonus. This vein of disquiet was richly tapped by John McCain when he said on the campaign trail last year that he wanted Americans to serve a cause “greater than themselves.”

This is a worthy impulse. But what is distinctive about America is that it is not a country in search of great national causes. It has constructed a political order in which people can pursue their own private conceptions of goodness—whether they be coaching Little League, starting a company or volunteering—and these private acts are honored. Indeed they are what America is all about. This is not an invitation to hedonism. It is the definition of “the pursuit of happiness.” John Adams said that he studied war and politics so that his sons could study navigation and commerce, so that their sons could study poetry and music. (OK, so we’re surfing the Net rather than studying poetry, but you get the point.)

When America was threatened, as it was in World War II and the cold war, it rose to the task. And it will when the next crisis arises. But you can’t manufacture a great cause out of a sense of nostalgia for old ones. There is still important work to be done, and if one were to look abroad the tasks are immense. (Think of AIDS in Africa.) But there is no faking it. The stakes in American politics are low, lower than in decades.

Most countries in the world are not so fortunate. Eradicating poverty is a constant, Herculean challenge. Political, ethnic and religious divides are such that if one group comes to power, it often means the oppression of another. Politics can get deadly. People are certainly tested by these trials. But I think that most would prefer a more quiet national life.

A South African judge recently addressed a group of students at a major American university. She began by noting that the newspapers in the United States seemed full of trivia. Then she explained her deep and fervent hope that one day the newspapers in her country would also have nothing serious to report. For me, and I would guess most of the people in that Brooklyn auditorium, the big news about America is that there is no big news.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 21, 2011 10:44 AM | Send