Joseph Palmi (Joe Pesci): Let me ask you something... we Italians, we got our families, and we got the church; the Irish, they have the homeland, Jews their tradition; even the niggers, they got their music. What about you people, Mr. Wilson, what do you have?
Edward Wilson (Matt Damon): The United States of America. The rest of you are just visiting.
For me that exchange captures a lot of both the good and the bad of the old WASP establishment. On the one hand, it perfectly illustrates the "prejudice and insularity" that have led to its decline. On the other hand, it shows what we have lost - an aristocratic leadership class who really believed in the "noble lie" as understood by Plato. Our elites these days only seem to be in it for themselves and their transnational friends.