Greetings and welcome to April 5, 2026. It’s Easter Sunday and the fourth day of Passover. Some would have us recognize that it’s National Caramel Day, National Deep Dish Pizza Day, and National Raisin and Spice Bar Day. Whatever floats your spice bar, I guess.
456 Saint Patrick returns to Ireland as a missionary bishop
1621 Mayflower sails from Plymouth, Mass., on a return trip to England
1792 George Washington exercises first presidential veto to strike down a Congressional bill to increase the number of seats for northern states in the House of Representatives
1803 First performance of Ludwig van Beethoven’s 2nd Symphony in D, conducted by the composer, in Vienna
1923 Firestone Tire & Rubber Company starts producing inflatable tires
Birthdays Today Include: English philosopher Thomas Hobbes; British surgeon Joseph Lister, for whom Listerine is named by its inventor; Booker T. Washington; Pop Warner [Glenn Warner], American college football Hall of Fame coach; actor Walter Huston (The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre); actor Spencer Tracy (Bad Day at Black Rock; It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World); actress Bette Davis; actor Gregory Peck; Peter Grant, English rock band manager (The Yardbirds, Led Zeppelin); General Colin Powell; singer Crispian St. Peters (The Pied Piper); actor Max Gail (Barney Miller); and singer Pharrell Williams (Happy).
If today’s your day, have a happy one.
* * *
Here’s a quote from the always worthwhile Thomas Sowell:
Europe is belatedly discovering how unbelievably stupid it was to import millions of people from cultures that despise Western values and which often promote hatred toward the people who have let them in.
Indeed. The Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs quotes a report from Carnegie Europe, which in turn describes the consequences of the huge swings in immigration trends this way:
- The progressive erosion of the EU’s Schengen system of passport-free travel across Europe.
- The growing polarization among states across the continent, with fundamental and increasingly sharp divisions on the question of resettlement of the newly arriving immigrants especially between Germany and Central and Eastern Europe.
- Europeans’ initial calm, goodwill, and even enthusiasm for the new arrivals and welcome culture have given way to growing public anger.
- Public confidence in European governments’ ability to deal with the crisis has rapidly declined.
The study notes that the current EU debate on how to tackle the crisis seems to have bifurcated into two strands:
- The European Commission and some countries, especially Germany, have made demands for European solidarity on resettlement quotas for the migrants who have already arrived in Europe.
- Other EU member states have demanded the slowdown of immigration flows by closing off access routes or increasing financial aid to migration transition countries outside Europe to keep the migrants in place.16
- One of the most likely consequences, according to the Carnegie study, is the strengthening of right-wing and populist political parties that oppose mass migration in upcoming elections.
That last point is more the left fearing they will lose elections because of their policies, and less to do with what they are doing to their countries. Gee, pretty much what we’ve been seeing the last few years during the Biden administration. As an example, remember Eric Adams? PJ Media’s Rick Moran does, having written back in 2023:
New York City Mayor Eric Adams is a Democrat. But the way he was talking about the Democratic president’s response to the crisis of illegal aliens makes him sound like a rock-ribbed Republican.
“The president and the White House have failed this city,” said Adams. “[The] city is being destroyed by the migrant crisis,” the mayor added during a roundtable discussion in Washington featuring black mayors.
A February 2025 press release from Mayor Eric Adams’s office quoted a city official saying that “one in nine New Yorkers” identifies as Muslim — which, given New York City’s’s population of ~8.47 million, would translate to roughly 942,000 Muslims. A Pew Research study suggests that means, among other things, that New York City has more Muslims than it does Jews. A historic change, and that delta is growing by the day.
Now, Adams’ solution to the problem was absurd. Rather than actually enforcing immigration laws already on the books, he stuck with his commitment to “sanctuary cities,” which in fact are the causing the problem. Zohran Mamdani is taking a similar tack, being a Muslim himself. Their solution is to toss taxpayer dollars at the problem so they can keep illegals in luxury hotels in and around New York City, while the veterans of our military sleep on the streets. And of course occasionally the intent of the Democrats slips out, as it did a few years back by way of Chris Murphy.
We care about most? Undocumented Americans? pic.twitter.com/k69391uhvs
— Santa Trump.. 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 (@lovetocook12345) April 3, 2026
Now, of course, there are other groups in the mass of immigration, but they do not constitute nearly the threat to our culture that Islam does. Those coming from Venezuela, for example — and for that matter, all of South America and Mexico — are more compatible with our culture than those coming from the Middle East. They are not demanding that we change our culture to accommodate them (though admittedly I have my doubts about Eastern Canada on that score).
The fact is that the biggest immigration problem for both Europe and the U.S. currently is Islam. The statement is clearly established fact now. There’s no getting around it.
That said, I’m not going to get into theological particulars. I have no intention of getting into a religious debate about this. The reason is simple enough: I refuse to give such arguments the credibility required for any meaningful discussion of them. Even aside from First Amendment issues, going down that particular rabbit hole gets us into the argument of what is and is not Sharia, which practical experience shows is a futile discussion. Address the question to any Islamist and you’ll get as many definitions for it as there are Islamists, and those definitions tend to change minute to minute. Clearly, seeking an answer from them is beyond pointless and often well into the absurd. It is also outside the purview of any Western government, though I note many governments in the Middle East consider it part and parcel of their job.
In any event, being preached at about religious freedom by a group of people who clearly don’t believe in religious freedom, be they Islamists or liberal Democrats, is a non-starter for me. Coming into the country and demanding that we cease being who we are so as not to offend them is even more of a non-starter. Open-mindedness and tolerance are one thing, but imagine with me someone demanding that you do away with the family dog because dogs are “unclean.” How many will put up with that? Not I.
My argument is rooted not in religion per se, but rather in cultural comparability. As I have stated in previous columns, every great civilization in history has had one religion or another as its philosophical center, its root. At the root of Western civilization, you will find the Judaeo-Christian philosophy. Across the Far East, you find the pantheistic collections of thought. Across the Middle East, you find Islam. There are others, of course, as well as atheism, which is sprinkled in amongst all of these. Each of these is respectively the root of the culture in areas where they hold sway.
Here’s the rub: America could never have been founded as such with any of these other root philosophies, or the religions and cultural values that spring from them, because America has its own cultural values. More important to this discussion is the idea of cultural survival. Argue, if you will, about “freedom of religion,” but do not discount that we’re talking not about religion per se, but rather about the place where culture and religion meet. I say it again and cannot stress this enough: cultural compatibility is the central issue we face in our current situation here in the West.
Ultimately, what we must measure the compatibility of people we allow into our country by — and in fact the only measure we need to use for the purpose of keeping our culture and people intact — is whether or not any individual, and I mean any individual, regardless of religion or any other factor, supports the concepts put forward by the founders of this country. That’s the filter, the dividing line.
Our founding was based on the culture at the time, which in turn was based on the philosophies expressed in the Judeo-Christian mindset. Remember that when Jefferson wrote “we hold these truths to be self-evident,” he wasn’t talking about a universal truth. Instead, he was talking about the point of view of the then relatively new American culture. The operative word in that passage is “We.”
When you view the situation through that filter, and base your choices of who should be in our country on that view, a much safer environment emerges.
By basing our choice on that mindset, you’re going to filter out any Islamists, particularly the extremists who want nothing more than to tear America down. By the same token, you will be filtering out any socialists or Communists, who also, and just as certainly, fall outside the cultural values of the founders.
I have discussed on many occasions the idea that multiculturalism simply does not work, particularly when the values of cultures you’re trying to force together are diametrically and unalterably opposed to each other. Is it Islamophobia when they actually say “death to America”?
Let’s make sure the people who want to come here and benefit from our country and its culture are willing to adopt the culture that made the country worth coming to. Barring that, they are not citizens but invaders.
Much of Europe has, in large part, already identified this issue. The UK somewhat less so. The governments there are still pretending they can make this work. They’ve each let it go on long enough that it’s going to be a very long-term problem for them. The voting patterns show the people in those countries and cultures are trying, rather desperately and in large numbers, to make them see the folly in this.
Let’s not let it go so far here.
Investigative reporting and honest analysis are becoming rare these days. You get it here. That’s why it’s important to become a PJ Media VIP member. Not only do you support the reporters and writers who support YOU, but you also get 60% off the regular price by going to this link and using the promo code FIGHT.
