By Aaron Miller | FreedomTalk Magazine, September 2026 pages 6-8
Realigning our System With its Purpose.
There is a popular phrase in systems theory: “The purpose of a system is what it does.” While this is largely applicable to the more objectively based fields of engineering, evaluation, statistics, and so on, it is also very much applicable to other fields, such as the political sciences. In short, the phrase means that the end result of a system, be it an organization, policy, or even an entire nation, dictates what its purpose is.
This heuristic completely ignores the original or stated intent of the system, because if the system is not producing something pursuant to that expressed intent, then the intent is not fit for the purpose. If a factory was built to produce automobiles, but it produces tanks, then the production of tanks is the factory’s purpose. If a church purports to provide charity to those in need or to otherwise serve the community, but only produces riches for its lead pastor, then the purpose of that church is to enrich the lead pastor. If advocates for a particular national policy espouse the virtues of multicultural assimilation and the American Dream, but it produces cultural enclaves of foreigners that maintain their native culture and religion while remaining highly dependent on government handouts—if not flagrantly committing fraud against the honest intent of the American taxpayer and government—it fails its stated purpose. This is not to posit that the dismissal of original intent in this heuristic is useless; to the contrary, comparing a policy or organization’s intended goals to its outcomes is the easiest way for even a layman to evaluate whether or not that entity is functioning properly.
This is the crux of the current national conversation around immigration. The narrative is that the United States is, has always been, and always will be “a nation of immigrants.” The lack of historicity around this narrative aside (the phrase was not even coined until JFK used it in his 1958 book of the same title at the behest of the ADL), the wider narrative described hard-working, productive individuals and families that came to the United States from overseas “looking for a better life,” seasoned with anecdotes about teaching their children to only speak English in the home, to work hard and build businesses or pursue higher education, to become an integrated part of the cultural fabric of American culture and society because they wanted to be Americans.
But is that the case today?
Over 53% of immigrant-led homes are on welfare, with a large number of diasporas reaching as high as 93% of all households living almost entirely on the largesse of the American taxpayer. American amusement parks and similar cultural and social centers post signs in four, five, or six foreign languages to facilitate foreign-language-speaking diasporas; grocery stores and restaurants specifically catering to foreign cultural cuisines sprout up around ethnically homogeneous neighborhoods like mushrooms after a rainstorm; hundred-foot-tall golden statues to foreign demon-gods are erected to gaze across the American landscape. This is, objectively, not what assimilation looks like. This is what foreign colonization looks like.
Naturally, the normalization of relaxing the cultural and social expectations of the immigration system and those that benefit from it is not without cost. Hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars are spent every year to support these policies and individuals. More importantly, it has a direct cost on our children. Immigrants, regardless of their merit, intent, action, or origin, require the same things that everyone else in any country needs: housing, healthcare, jobs, and education. They use roads, place their children in schools, and sit in emergency rooms. They buy houses, take up seats in public universities, and work in roles across industries in the US economy. This presents a basic problem, one necessitated by the Law of Scarcity: if they are using these resources, that means there are fewer resources for our children and grandchildren to use.
This isn’t an abstract problem, either. The median homebuyer age is now 50. The average age of a first-time home buyer is 45. Half of Americans under 30 live with their parents. 12% of Americans under 30 own a home and are married. 90% of jobs created in the US since the COVID pandemic have gone to people that were not born here. This is not an emotionally laden argument against immigration, full of hatred and vitriol. Rather, these are objective facts that have been manifested by intentional policy and enforcement choices that are actively harming our own children and grandchildren.
As Christians, we are commanded to avoid harboring hate in our hearts for our fellow man, as we are all equally fallen creatures made in the image of God. We are also commanded to save up an inheritance for our children, and our children’s children. In fact, Scripture tells us that the man who does not provide for his family is worse than a non-believer in the eyes of God. We must care for our children first. Not only in a financial sense, or a spiritual sense, or in how we raise them, but also in how we work to provide a country and policies in which and with which they can flourish.
Thankfully, these commandments are not mutually exclusive. But it means making difficult decisions, drawing and enforcing lines and expectations for those that wish to share a country with us. It is, in fact, an act of love for all to draw and enforce such lines, to create and enforce such standards, to create a harmonic system that allows only the best, brightest, most virtuous, and most culturally advantageous to enter our land to live among and integrate with us, and to encourage the cultural assimilation, work ethic, and values that made this country great. But if we fail to do these things, then we are furthering the already existing mechanisms necessary to create a national decline and balkanization that will serve neither our children, nor the newcomers that came here in good faith.
The silver lining of the purpose of a system being what it does is that what it does can be changed and placed back into alignment with its stated purpose. But the window to do so is closing fast.
