Thread: THE MAN WITH THE PLAN TO DESTROY AMERICA

http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/new ... 496009.htm

Posted on Thu, May. 04, 2006


Michael Smerconish | THE MAN WITH THE PLAN TO DESTROY AMERICA



IT'S BEEN QUITE a week in the illegal immigration, er, "undocumented worker" debate.

First came the release of "Nuestro Himno," our national anthem sung in Spanish by Latin pop stars, and then another "Day Without an Immigrant" protest.

But there was the solace that came from a speech spreading like wildfire online. Its purported author was ex-Colorado Gov. Richard Lamm, and it is titled "I Have a Plan to Destroy America." Lamm began his remarks by saying to a Washington crowd:

"I have a secret plan to destroy America. If you believe, as many do, that America is too smug, too white bread, too self-satisfied, too rich, let's destroy America. It is not that hard to do. History shows that nations are more fragile than their citizens think. No nation in history has survived the ravages of time."

Lamm's Plan goes like this:

"We must first make America a bilingual-bicultural country. History shows, in my opinion, that no nation can survive the tension, conflict and antagonism of two competing languages and cultures. It is a blessing for an individual to be bilingual; it is a curse for a society to be bilingual.

"I would then invent 'multiculturalism' and encourage immigrants to maintain their own culture. I would make it an article of belief that all cultures are equal: that there are no cultural differences that are important. I would declare it an article of faith that the black and Hispanic dropout rate is only due to prejudice and discrimination by the majority. Every other explanation is out of bounds.

"We can make the United States a 'Hispanic Quebec' without much effort. The key is to celebrate diversity rather than unity."

No wonder "the speech" is ablaze online. While the logic speaks for itself, I wondered whether Lamm actually said these things. So I tracked down Gov. Lamm and asked whether he'd uttered these words. He said yes, then expanded on them.

"I knew by the impact on the audience that it was a good speech. I really spent a lot of time thinking about how you get the maximum amount of meaning in the minimum amount of words... most politicians speak way too long, and I think that conciseness helps focus the mind."

He said of his title, "If you can find an attention-grabber like 'I Want to Destroy America,' " the audience will think " 'Who would want to destroy America? What is this crazy guy thinking about?' It sure gets their attention."

He also cited a local example for another of the elements ("Get big foundations and business to give these efforts lots of money... establish an ethnic identity and... a cult of victimology"):

"One of the most outrageous examples of this is the Ford Foundation, although your Pew Foundation is not particularly helpful.

"I chaired a commission for the Pew people... they're very well-meaning people, but... not really advanced thinkers. They have not thought through what illegal immigration has done to this county, what bilingualism does to other countries, multiculturalism. You have to have a social glue. You have to have a common denominator.

"People have to ask, 'What commonalities do people have in a diverse society that hold us all together?' I, frankly, think that they just knee-jerk come down on the liberal side of things."

Lamm told me that while immigration has been good for America, we are now taking more than four times more legal immigrants than we've averaged over our 200-year history, and taking another million illegal immigrants every year.

He said too much emphasis is made of minorities as victims, and what is left unsaid is that the highest earners are all minorities that once were discriminated against.

"I'm an old civil rights lawyer. My family marched at Selma. We don't need lessons about civil rights. Racism and discrimination are never justified, but the Jews, the Chinese-Americans, the Japanese-Americans, the Korean-Americans - those are the highest incomes in America, and none of them had it easy. They were all, in effect, victims, but they never focused on their victimhood."

Lamm even has an element of the Plan for those who don't like what he has to say.

"I would place all these subjects off-limits... I would find a word similar to 'heretic' in the 16th century that stopped discussion and paralyzed thinking. A word like 'racist' or 'xenophobe' that halts argument and conversation."

How do you say "pretty damn clever" in Spanish?

Yeah, the man who has a plan to destroy America is ARLEN SPECTER.