Whether one holds to the blood-and-soil idea of a nation, or to the creedal idea, or both, neither nation is what it was in the 1940s, 1950s, or 1960s. We live in the same country, we are governed by the same leaders, but can we truly say we are still one nation and one people? It is hard to say yes, harder to believe that over a million immigrants every year, from every country on earth, a third of them breaking in, will reforge the bonds of our disuniting nation. John Stuart Mill warned that “free institutions are next to impossible in a country made up of different nationalities. Among a
...more
I can't help but think of India. In many ways, the failure to unite as one ethnic/linguistic group (especially once the caste system was codified around 100 CE) caused most of the problems there today.
