Restoring the Republic

“Democracy, as our forefathers clearly recognized, is not a group of people living under common procedures and economic exchanges. It is a social fabric of tradition, habit, and prejudice that makes self-government possible in a way that no proclaimed set of procedures or even carefully balanced interests can. A miscellaneous collection of people are not citizens of a republic but interchangeable ciphers of imperialism. The aspiration of a globalized citizenship is not the vision of republicanism but the dream of empire. In order for American society to begin to feel its power and reassert itself against government, it must have a period of stabilization. We must have time to absorb the great immigration we have received in the last three decades. Otherwise we will have a society increasingly fragmented rather than pluralistic, divided into hostile groups competing for advantage, a situation in which democracy cannot long survive, as the history of the world shows. Unlimited immigration serves the rich and the government, not the people.” 

—Clyde Wilson, “Restoring the Republic,” 1992.