To observe the decades-long paralysis of America's political elite in controlling her borders calls to mind the insight of James Burnham in 1964—"Liberalism is the ideology of Western suicide."

What the ex-Trotskyite turned Cold Warrior meant was that by faithfully following the tenets of liberalism, the West would embrace suicidal policies that would bring about the death of her civilization.

The crisis on our Southern border, where the left, and not only the left, is wailing that we cannot turn away desperate people fleeing wicked regimes and remain true to our liberal values, is a case in point.

To assert that we cannot take all these people in, that we must send them back and seal our border for our survival, is to be called a variety of names—racist, xenophobe, nativist—all of which translate into "illiberal."

But as we continue our descent to Third World status, perhaps we should explore more deeply the "diversity" that has of late come to be regarded as America's most treasured attribute.

In 1960, we were not nearly so diverse. Nine in 10 Americans professed a Christian faith. Nine in 10 Americans traced their ancestry back to Europe. E Pluribus Unum. We were one nation and one people.

Since then, we have become the Brazil of North America, a multiracial, multilingual, multiethnic, multicultural "universal nation" unlike any that has existed in the history of the West.

And if we look abroad at those Western nations traveling along this perilous path with us, we can see clearly now our future

Before the 1960s, Europe never knew mass immigration. And after the terrible ethnic cleansing of Germans after World War II, most of Europe's nations were ethnically homogeneous.

Several were not. Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, the USSR. At the end of the Cold War, with freedom, all three came apart. Where we had three nations, suddenly we had 24 and such sub-nations as South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Transnistria.

Now Scots are seeking to break away from England, Catalans from Spain, Corsicans from France, Venetians from Italy and Flemish from Belgium, though these peoples have lived together for centuries.

Crimeans have gone back to Russia, while Chechens and other peoples of the Caucasus are fighting to break free of Russia.

The roots of these secessionist movements may be traced to economics, ethnicity, history, religion, language, culture and borders.

Then there are the rising millions of Muslims in Europe who are not assimilating, as Catholic Irish and Catholic Germans did in a Protestant USA, but are replicating within the West the countries and cultures whence they came. They are separating themselves, by ethnicity, culture and faith, from the Western societies into which they have migrated.

Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Dominicans, Somalis and Arabs in America also build replicas of the countries and cultures whence they came. Thus, we take on the aspect of an empire. And empires fall apart.

The melting pot, rejected by our elites as an instrument of nativist bigots, is history.

Libya, Syria and Iraq are coming apart, as did Sudan and Ethiopia. The Kurds seek to carve a nation out of Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria. A Sunni-Shia sectarian war impends.

Christians are being persecuted, martyred and expelled from Islamic nations. In Myanmar, Muslims are brutalized by Buddhists. In Western China, ethnic Uighurs resort to terrorism in a war of secession to establish a new East Turkestan.

Disintegration, separatism and secessionism, for racial, religious, and cultural causes, are a phenomenon common now to Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Are we somehow immune?

The world is boiling with racial, tribal, cultural and moral conflict. People carry in their hearts the seeds of these conflicts. The notion that they will come here and be converted into Ozzie-and-Harriet Americans may be a bit utopian.

America is becoming a microcosm of a world on fire.

Why are we doing this? Why are we inviting the world into the USA? Was there some grievous flaw in the America of Ike and JFK that must be expunged? Some sin for which we must do penance?

What is coming is predictable, and has been predicted.

By 2042, Americans of European ancestry will be a minority in a country built by Europeans. "Anglos" are now a minority in California, New Mexico and Texas. Hispanics will soon be the majority in all four border states with Mexico.

And should Hispanics decide not to give their electoral votes to any presidential candidate who does not promise to erase the border with Latin America, that would mean the end of the United States as we know it.

Americans are already deep in a culture war over morality—marijuana, abortion, same-sex marriage. We are already racially polarized over affirmative action and income inequality.

And when we have ceased to be an English-speaking, Christian country and become instead an Asian-Hispanic-African-American-white nation, with large Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, agnostic and atheist minorities, and no defined borders, or common faith and culture, what holds us together?

And when did we vote for this future?

Patrick J. Buchanan needs no introduction to VDARE.COM readers; his books State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America,  and  Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?  are available from Amazon.com.  Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of the new book “The Greatest Comeback: How Richard Nixon Rose From Defeat to Create the New Majority.“