Shining Cities On Hills Take Centuries to Build but Can be Destroyed Quickly

September 8, 2024 by Vince Coyner

Image by Vince Coyner using A.I.

America’s Founding Fathers were nothing short of extraordinary. Never before had a group of men come together to do things that would so change the arc of human history. To a man, it’s likely that they agreed with Sir Isaac Newton’s adage from 1676: “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” This particularly applies to the two men most responsible for the nation’s founding documents, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.

Jefferson, whose extensive library formed the core of the Library of Congress collection, was extraordinarily well-read. From Plato and Plutarch to Chaucer and Shakespeare to Blackstone and Burke, he was a voracious reader. Perhaps none more so than the giant of the Enlightenment, John Locke. In addition to the intellectual arsenal that this reading gave him, there were specific documents Jefferson drew upon in writing the Declaration of Independence. Among these were his own draft of the Constitution of Virginia, George Mason’s Virginia Declaration of Rights, and the English Bill of Rights and its antecedent, the Magna Carta.

Madison shared Jefferson’s familiarity with Montesquieu, Locke, and Blackstone, and crafted the Constitution with many of the same sources in mind. Given the different functions of the documents, Madison focused the Constitution on the fundamental nature of man and the need to constrain men’s basest instincts, while Jefferson’s Declaration was focused on the passions that impel men to act.

The nation they bequeathed to us is, of course, imperfect, but it is extraordinary nonetheless. Based on these documents and the 2000 years of Western civilization that preceded them, America has evolved with principles that have been, in aggregate, the most providential in all of human history.

Fundamental elements such as freedom of speech, press, and religion, and the right to a fair trial and to be free from government molestation in your home created an almost crystal clear limitation on the powers of government and the tyrannical nature of men. At the same time, outside the government’s sphere, you have things such as private property, capitalism, and the Judeo-Christian tradition that reinforced the nation's framework.

As everyone knows, America had extraordinary challenges from the beginning, starting with her Original Sin. But throughout, she has had at her disposal—in the form of the Constitution—the tools to evolve and overcome her imperfections and advance.

The culture Americans have today, or at least did until recently, focused on things like community, church, freedom of speech, limited government, private property, merit, and individual achievement.

All of that took generations to build. It took patriots standing on the shoulders of giants to build…and the result has been nothing short of spectacular. For most of the last century, the United States has been the most powerful nation in the world from both a military and economic perspective, and perhaps most of all, from an opportunity perspective.

From universities to Silicon Valley to Wall Street to Main Street, America has led the world in scientific advances, economic advances, and, again, opportunity. This is nowhere more clear than the fact that of the 954 Nobel Prizes awarded since the Prize’s its inception in 1900, over 404 of them (42%) are Americans, and of those 404, approximately 35% were immigrants.

It's not just intellectuals. There’s athletics. Of the 21,000 Olympic medals awarded since the revival of the Games in 1896, Americans have won over 3,000 or 15%. In this year’s games, approximately 10% of the American team was made up of immigrants or children of immigrants.

And there’s money. Of the world’s 2,781 billionaires in 2024, 29% of them, or 813, are Americans. Of those 813, approximately 11% are immigrants.

All of this suggests that immigrants are good for America. That’s true. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have a problem. We do. Because culture matters…

Unfortunately, what we have seen over the last 30 years has been a flood of illegal immigrants from nations with no concept of the basics of American culture. The breakdown of the countries of origin tells the tale.

The top ten nations from which illegals hail are as follows: Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, Columbia, Ecuador, and El Salvador. Together, they make up 80% of the illegals crossing our border. Those nations have no sustained history of free speech, limited government, private property, free elections, or capitalism. Contrast that with the previous waves of migration (1840-1889 and 1890-1911), when 89% of immigrants came from fellow European nations with overlapping Western values.

It is simply not sustainable for a nation to import tens of millions of people from nations with cultures that are anathema to its own. Indeed, of the top ten most dangerous cities in the world, eight are in the countries listed above.

The basic elements of Western culture—of American culture—are not found in DNA; they are found in communities, in the shared history of the citizens, and in the nation’s laws.

Large numbers of immigrants from nations with different mores can be destabilizing. From crime to the hundreds of billions of dollars necessary to support illegals to the strains on services such as education and healthcare to the dollars sent back home, illegals harm America. Just this past week, we’ve seen reports of Venezuelan gangs taking over neighborhoods in Colorado and unleashing chaos in Dallas, while 75% of arrests in midtown Manhattan are illegals.

The only solution is deportation. By the millions. It will be ugly, it will be difficult, it will take courage in the face of withering media assaults and Democrat lamentations, but it is necessary. If we do not build a wall and send the illegals home, it will be seen as an open invitation to the entire world to cross our border. And as Roy Beck explains with gumballs, that’s not sustainable.

Culture matters. The reality is, not all cultures are equal. If they were there, there wouldn’t be millions of people seeking to cross our borders. Western civilization, in general, and American culture, in particular, have taken centuries to develop, and a quick look around the world will demonstrate that cultures and civilizations that have maintained themselves for centuries are few and far between.

If Americans don’t recognize that what we have is a gift and is something to be valued and protected, our shining city on a hill will soon devolve into a morass of chaos, violence, scarcity, and tyranny where much of the rest of the world resides.

If we really want to show compassion to those longing for what Americans have, the solution is not to open our borders and let them in but, instead, to export the basic elements of freedom that are at the foundation of our success.

There’s an adage of much-disputed origin that perfectly articulates the idea: Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime. Our goal should not be to suckle the millions of illegals who swarm our borders and overwhelm our cities. Rather, we should export the fundamental tenants of freedom and prosperity to the billions around the world so they can build their own shining cities on their own hills.

Follow Vince on Twitter at ImperfectUSA.