If we analyzed the history of the world, it consists of hundreds of thousands of instances of some people taking over the land of other people. There is scarcely any country of size in the world that did not have it's early inhabitants conquered by other peoples with the latter becoming the dominant group.
If everybody in the world had to go back to the country where their ancestors came from, we'd probably see half the earth's population or more having to move back somewhere else..
See, there's the problem. Which country they came from? England? Normandy (some left ca 1066), Scandinavia (earlier yet), even farther back to where? We'd all be standing outside The Garden.
Humanity's history is one of exploration, assimilation, conflict, conquest, of seeing who or what is over the next hill, and often enough, moving there. Much of the spread of technology, and indeed the stirring of the gene pool has come from just that.
In terms of culture and the gene pool, humanity doesn't do so well when it stagnates--decadence, classical immorality and perversions seem to rise from that ichor, and with that, the culture is often destroyed by people who aren't encumbered by such cultural liabilities, who have focus on the things which actually strengthen their offspring and their culture. Eventually, they, too, seem to become complacent, distracted by serious diversions from that which is biologically (and morally) fundamental, and either rot in their own cultural ooze, imploding, or are overrun--an eventuality, in any case.
The essence of a Frontier, how it strengthens humanity, is that those on that cutting edge who remain focused on survival first, and development as an adjunct to that, seem less likely to be distracted by the self destructive tendencies of those who live a more complacent existence. It does not mean they always prevail, just that in many ways their culture is more fit to do so. History is littered with the husks of decadent empires which yet managed to destroy those in their path, regardless of the rot within, before finally being overrun themselves or imploding from the fruits of their own decadence.
If we ask what contribution to the survival and development of the species, indeed that subculture of the species, a particular aspect of a culture gives, we find that having matching drapes is nowhere as important as the seemingly drab contribution of agriculture, good hunters or herdsmen, and those who risk life and limb to defend those, all of whom are often held in contempt by the rotting and decadent factions who would rule over them.
Such syndromes are writ, time and again, in the ruins of civilizations great and small, and none but the most vigilant are immune, and then only for so long as they remain vigilant.
But then, Jefferson summed it up "Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty".
We suffer from two invasions, unfortunately, one from without, the latter day Visigoths are at the gate--only there is no gate, not even a wall. As bad as that is, as easily identifiable, we suffer from the internal and less immediately obvious cultural decay that has been the death knell of many civilizations as well, a pervasive rot that kills from within, that snakes its tendrils into every facet of the lives of ordinary people.
Whatever name is put on it, the basics are the same, with fundamental confusion over what is 'good' for society and what is 'bad' for society, a confusion those who will overrun the culture are not burdened with, a serious weakness that extends from personal mindsets to the collective works of the culture, even undercutting those basic things which would allow the culture to continue.
Those who would invade from without have little such confusion, and to the undiscerning eye, that may seem ruthless or brutal, but it is the reality of nature, that those who are strong will prevail, and that strength is not merely a matter of arms, but that which has the integrity to stand for the things and ideas which allowed the culture to flourish or even prevail in the first place.
Time and again, the seeds of the destruction of empires are inherent in the self-destructive tendencies in human nature: those 'seven deadly sins' ( pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath and sloth) which take root in the leadership of the empire, and even in the populace itself, and despite the ardent efforts of those who resist the moral decay, are eventually imposed on the populace if they have not embraced such.
Without careful attention and limitation those seeds take root, expand their range, and become so deeply rooted in the cultural framework, that they choke out any effort to be productive and consume the resources of those who would try.
It is in our Constitution that the power of government to expand was limited, by checks and balances within the system, by codified Rights of the People to question, limit, and even resist that Government when it was growing beyond its proscribed limits, and by the retention of Rights not so codified by the People and their local (state) governments.
It is apparent to the student of that intent that it has been thwarted over time, increasingly so by those who prey upon a population kept ignorant of those rights, undermining the foundations of the Republic which was instituted to protect them and turning that same government into a mechanism of oppression, first for some, eventually for all.
Either that metastasizing corruption is thwarted, rooted out, and excised, or it will eventually destroy the host.
Whether America can or will, or has the will to remove the rot, teach her children, and get back to those basics is history unwrit, but if the pattern is followed, that of millennia, writ in the ruins of the mighty nations past, this great experiment's days are numbered unless there is a reversion to many of the basic principles that made the country great to begin with.
Hogue's nonsense is a small part of the problem, but the well fertilized minds he casts that seed upon, even more so.
