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Article Too much diversity can be divisive by Mike McGarry The Rocky Mountain News December 7, 2001 Given the attacks of Sept. 11 and the war in Afghanistan, reactivating the military draft is not an unrealistic possibility. The Military Selective Service Act requires all males 18 to 25 years old residing in this country, including illegal immigrants, to register for the Selective Service. Failure to register could bring penalties as great as $250,000 and / or five years in prison. Last year, the Director of Selective Service, Gil Coronado, said that 20 U.S. citizens over the last 20 years had been prosecuted for violating that law. But, curiously, he reported no illegals had been prosecuted. When asked to explain that glaring disparity, the director dismissed the question as not important. If the draft were reactivated, would we forgive illegals their felonious trespasses and then draft them? If so, given that many residing here illegally don't speak our language, would we be compelled by circumstances to have full brigades and divisions exclusively speaking Spanish and the hundreds of other languages and dialects spoken exclusively by millions now residing in the rapidly growing number of ethnically balkanized enclaves throughout the U.S.? Will we be culturally correct and serve military meals consistent with the cuisines of the home countries and cultures of the 8 million to 11 million illegals from all over the world now in the U.S.? Sound absurd? We currently extend that and other diversity-aware accommodations to foreign prisoners in our federal prison system. Today, criminal aliens represent more than 25 percent of our federal prison population, and they are its fastest growing segment, about 15 percent growth per year since the mid-1980s. Last year, U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Ky., reported the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, over the previous five years, had released back into an unsuspecting American population more than 35,000 criminal aliens, more than one-third of whom went on to recommit major crimes, including 98 murders, 44 kidnappings and 142 sexual assaults. Then there is the alarming baseball-size boil on the nose of the State Department, the oxymoronic "dual citizenship." The number of dual-citizen Americans, "political polygamists," is exploding. Foreign nationals swear to "renounce . . . entirely all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty . . ." at the time of becoming U.S. citizens. Dual citizenships necessarily mean dual allegiances - a dangerous, impossible concept. Mexican dual citizenship, for example, was designed to encourage Mexican nationals to become U.S. citizens so they could vote in the interests of Mexico, something the Mexican government made no effort to disguise. On his way out the White House door, President Clinton signed into law Executive Order 13166. Under that sweeping order, any recipient of federal funds, including state, county and local governments, must provide translations upon demand in any language a person wishes to conduct business, with the costs of translators and translations borne by the providers, private and public. There are 6,800 languages spoken in the world, 41 versions of Arabic alone, with nearly 20 percent of U.S. residents speaking a language other than English at home. The Bush administration says the president has no plans to repeal that order. Will the Pentagon's telephone system soon be asking you, "If you prefer Farsi, press 56, now; if you prefer a Hmong dialect, press 212, now"? A healthy nation is like an extended family. A polyglot,international mass of 1.5 million permanent annual additions from all parts ofthe world is not a family. We are often instructed with unchallenged, mantralike repetition, "Diversity is our strength," but as former Colorado Gov. Dick Lamm cautions us, too much diversity is divisive. Home |