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Here's an absolute must-read essay from the always perceptive European essayist Fjordman:
The relationship Americans have with Europe has always been complicated. On one hand, it is the Mother Continent. On the other hand, there is a skeptical or rejectionist view of Europe in the US, as many European Americans left precisely to get away from the Old World. I sometimes wonder whether the best way to understand this paradox is that the early pioneers wanted to create an improved version of Europe: A country steeped in the best of Europe's cultural and philosophical traditions, but with less of its religious intolerance and elitism.The most radical rejection of any relationship between Europe and the USA I have seen comes from writer Spengler of the Asia Times Online, who claims that: "America never, in my surmise, offered fertile soil for the propagation of Western civilization. The founders of Massachusetts came to America because they rejected Western civilization as hopelessly corrupt, and conceived of a New Jerusalem. The Virginians, with their mock-classic temples and slave-based culture of leisure, identified with the Greco-Roman classics. We know who won that argument. America, such as it is, is not really a continuation of Western civilization at all, but a strange throwback to Hebraic rather than Greek origins."
However, even Spengler isn't always consistent in this view, since he still refers to the US as "the West" in other columns: "In the presence of a single superpower, the chief strategic issue of the 21st century is whether the West has the will to continue living. Islam will have assimilated childless Western Europe by the end of the century. If America follows Europe into nihilism, the 21st century will go out in fair imitation of the 5th," in other words, the downfall of the Roman Empire. A more positive view comes from Victor Davis Hanson: "Europe is the repository of the Western tradition, most manifestly in shrines like the Acropolis, the Pantheon, the Uffizi, or the Vatican. We concede that the Great Books — we as yet have not produced a Homer, Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, or Locke, much less a Da Vinci, Mozart, or Newton — and the Great Ideas of the West from democracy to capitalism to human rights originated on your continent alone. And if Americans believe our Constitution and the visions of our Founding Fathers were historic improvements on Europe of the 18th-century, then at least we acknowledge in our humility that they were also inconceivable without it.""There is a greater oneness between us, an unspoken familiarity even now in the age of global sameness, that makes an American feel at home in Amsterdam, Paris, Rome, or Athens in a way that is not true of Istanbul, Cairo, or Bangkok." "Either your economy will reform, your populace multiply, and your citizenry defend itself, or not. And if not, then Europe as we have known it will pass away — to the great joy of the Islamists but to the terrible sorrow of America."
Tony Blankley, editorial-page editor of The Washington Times and author of the book "The West's Last Chance" adopts a similar tune:
"The threat of the radical Islamists taking over Europe is every bit as great to the United States as was the threat of the Nazis taking over Europe in the 1940s. We cannot afford to lose Europe. We cannot afford to see Europe transformed into a launching pad for Islamist jihad." "A defense of the West without the birthplace of the West -- Europe -- is almost unthinkable. If Europe becomes Eurabia, it would mean the loss of our cultural and historic first cousins, our closest economic and military allies, and the source of our own civilization. This is a condition Americans should dread and should move mountains to avoid."
"Even before Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt understood that a Nazi-dominated Europe would be more than a fearsome military and industrial threat. It would be a civilizational threat. Now we face another such threat in insurgent Islam."
The comparison is an instructive one. The attacks the United States suffered on September 11th 2001 were larger then Pearl Harbor. Yet here we are, more than five year later, with hundreds of billions of dollars spent on a failed attempt to spread democracy to Iraq, with sharia creeping ever closer in the West and with Western commentators warning against Islamophobia. What went wrong? Why the weak response?
U.S. President George W. Bush personally signed off on a visa allowing Mohammed Khatami, Iranian president until 2005, to visit the United States and speak at the National Cathedral and Harvard University because he wanted to hear his views. To do this at the same time as the Islamic Republic of Iran is seeking nuclear weapons and while Khatami's successor is threatening to wipe Israel off the map and overthrow the West, makes the American government seem weak and ready to capitulate to the forces of Islam.In 2005, more people from Muslim countries became legal permanent United States residents than in any year in the previous two decades. Meanwhile, Cathy Young, a writer for the Boston Globe and Reason magazine, has warned against "Islamophobes," attacking Oriana Fallaci and also Jihad Watch in the process. She has been joined by Ralph Peters, writing for the New York Post, lambasting what he calls "a rotten core of American extremists."
"The really ugly "domestic insurgency" is among right-wing extremists bent on discrediting honorable conservatism. How? By insisting that Islam can never reform, that the violent conquest and subjugation of unbelievers is the faith's primary agenda - and, when you read between the lines, that all Muslims are evil and subhuman." "The problem isn't the man or woman of faith, but cultural environment. Once free of the maladies of the Middle East, Muslims thrive in America. Like the rest of us."
James Taranto at the Wall Street Journal endorsed Peters' column as eloquently answering "anti-Muslim bigots." The same Ralph Peters earlier in 2006 managed to be neutral during the cartoon Jihad because "both sides are wrong," denouncing the "Eurotrash" just as much as Muslims: "Breaking a well-known taboo of Islam was irresponsible. No other word for it." "Those cartoons said more about Europe's own arrogance toward religious believers and intolerance of faith than they do about Islam." "For once, we Americans can sit back and watch the fight (pass the popcorn, please). The Europeans are going to get a few more teeth knocked out."
Does Mr. Peters have titanium testicles or what? Now, I can readily understand that Americans are sick and tired of the anti-Americanism that comes out of Europe these days, but the cartoon Jihad was the wrong instance to demonstrate this. First of all, it started in Denmark, which was also, along with Bulgaria, the only country in Europe which managed to save most of its Jews during WW2. It is no coincidence that this was the first Western country where Muslim immigration became the topic of a real public debate, which started there even before 2001. Denmark has a proud tradition of resistance to anti-democratic forces. Moreover, the cartoons were reprinted in many countries in Continental Europe, including France and Germany, whereas American media hesitated to do the same thing.
Now, if I may be as bold as to point it out myself, I was probably the first person outside Denmark to republish any of these cartoons, and to write extensively about the case in English. The twelve cartoons depicting Muhammad were published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten on September 30, 2005. I republished one of the cartoons, with the explosive turban, just a few days later, after picking up the story from Danish language blog Uriasposten. From there on, the story gradually made its way to Jihad Watch, Little Green Footballs and on to the international blogosphere. Paul Belien of the Brussels Journal, who is constantly harassed by the authorities in Belgium for maintaining his online magazine, wrote in November 2005 that "Fjordman is about the only one who keeps the world regularly posted on this ongoing affair [of the cartoons]."
Maybe I did that because I am a Eurotrash, anti-Muslim bigot. Or maybe I did that because I, unlike Mr. Peters, understood immediately that this story would have repercussions far beyond Denmark. Here's a quote from a post, which included a draft email in support of Jyllands-Posten, that I wrote already in October 2005:
"When some Muslims complain about their religion being slighted, the entire Islamic world seems to support them. Unfortunately, the same is not the case with the infidels using their freedom of speech. They are too frequently left to fight alone, with little support. This needs to change. The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), with dozens of member states backed by Saudi oil money, is now up against one newspaper and the government of a nation of just above 5 million inhabitants. But what is at stake is nothing less than the very concept of freedom of speech and thus democracy itself, an issue far greater than Denmark. It is totally unacceptable that Muslims try to intimidate the citizens of free nations from speaking their minds, and it is time that this is made clear in no uncertain terms."
It is sad that this message was lost on so many Western, including American, journalists. However, although the mainstream media in the United States largely failed this test, American bloggers did not. Many of them, including influential ones such as Michelle Malkin, republished the cartoons. The importance of independent websites has not been lost on columnist Caroline Glick of the Jerusalem Post, who states that "the blogosphere has taken upon itself the role of media watchdog" and become "a critical component of the free world's defense in the current war."
"The blogosphere, and particularly Little Green Footballs, Powerline, Zombietime, Michelle Malkin, and EU Referendum, have relentlessly exposed the systematic staging of news events, fabrication of attacks against relief workers, and doctoring of photographic images by Hizbullah with the active assistance of international organizations and the global media." "As each day passes it becomes clear that the responsibility of protecting our nations and societies from internal disintegration has passed to the hands of individuals, often working alone, who refuse to accept the degradation of their societies and so fight with the innovative tools of liberty to protect our way of life."
I still have a belief, or at least a hope, that most of Europe can be saved from Islam, although it will be a difficult fight. However, Europe is now so weak and the Islamic infiltration proceeding so quickly that it would be foolhardy to dismiss out of hand the possibility that Europe could indeed succumb to this threat.
How will it affect the New West, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, if the Old West in Europe goes Islamic? Will Western civilization survive in the New World, or will these countries, too, follow Europe's demise? After all, Western civilization in Europe has the advantage of being native to the soil, where it has grown organically for centuries, whereas it has been transplanted to Australia, Canada and the USA and superimposed on top of other cultures.
One important factor in this regard is how big the flow of European refugees from Eurabia will be, and whether they have learned their lesson regarding Islam or whether they will bring their failed ideologies with them to their new homelands.
If Eurabia indeed becomes the end result, Europe will slowly be reduced from industrialized countries to just another overpopulated Islamic failure. However, this process took centuries in most of what is now the Islamic world, and will take decades or generations in Europe. In the meantime, Eurabia would constitute an existential threat to the rest of the West, and indeed to much of the non-Muslim world. Westerners would be cut off from their civilizational roots, and some of their prized cultural treasures would simply be physically destroyed.
This would be a tremendous blow to the West, and an equally tremendous boost to the morale in the Islamic world. Islam has tried, and failed to conquer the European heartland of its Western rival for more than 1300 years. It is difficult to overstate what an enormous religious victory it would represent for Muslims if they were to finally succeed in this. In addition to the psychological effect on the global Islamic community, the umma would also get its hands on the accumulated financial and technological resources of Europe. This would reinvigorate Jihad worldwide, from Thailand to Armenia. We can already now, with the European Union appeasement of the Arab world, see the dangerous potential of such a constellation.
In short, an Islamic or Islamic-controlled Europe would pose a huge and continuous threat to the rest of the West.
I'm also not fully convinced that Americans, despite frequent claims to the contrary, will prove that much more resistant to Jihad than Europeans are right now. I will be thrilled if they are, but there are some disturbing signs to the contrary. A video of Osama bin Laden meeting with two 9/11 hijackers revealed that the mass murderers were motivated by a desire to avenge Muslims ... in Bosnia, where the US went to war to protect Muslims. I have heard many Americans complain that the US saved Muslims in Kuwait, Bosnia and then later in Kosovo, yet few Muslims seem to appreciate this. This indicates how little key policy makers understand the mindset of Muslims in general.
Westerners are told to find ways to win the hearts and minds of Muslims. Very few care to ask whether or not this feat is possible at all. What if the hearts and minds of Muslims are already occupied by Allah and Muhammad, and there is little room left for infidels? If that is the case, it means that projects aimed at giving financial assistance to Muslims are at best a waste of money, at worst outright counterproductive.
Jizya is a punishment tax that non-Muslim dhimmis according to the Koran 9,29 are supposed to pay for "protection", "in willing submission", as a sign of their inferior status to their Islamic rulers. Muslims will thus see payments from non-Muslims as a sign that you accept having been defeated and being subjugated to Islam's might. As a result, they may in fact become more aggressive and demanding, not less.
Westerners who believe that providing financial assistance to Muslims, or even bombing non-Muslims on their behalf as NATO did in the Balkans, will somehow buy them gratitude from Muslims reveal a fundamental lack of understanding of how the Muslim mind works. Muslims are fatalists. For them, everything that happens, good or bad, is the will of Allah. If something bad takes place, this is a punishment for being lax Muslims. If something good happens, for instance a bombing of Christian Serbs that paves the way for ethnic cleansing of non-Muslim in Kosovo, this is a reward for being good Muslims. Muslims will feel gratitude, but to Allah who caused this, not to the infidels who actually carried out the bombing.
If anything, Western involvement in the Balkans signaled to Muslims that the West was now weak and ripe for conquest, since we sacrificed the Christian Serbs in favor of Muslims. As a consequence, instead of a Westernization of the Balkans, we may end up with a Balkanization of the West.
Bat Ye'or has talked about a conflict between Europeans and Eurabians, with the latter holding sway for now because they dominate the media and the political establishment. This conflict is most severe in Europe because of the European Union and the number of Muslims there, but I see similar conflicts in Canada, Australia and the United States, too.
I sometimes wonder whether the West at the beginning of the 21st century is mired in an ideological civil war, which in Western Europe in particular is getting so serious that it could well lead to physical civil wars. I will call the contestants Westerners and post-Westerners. This makes more sense than right-wingers vs. left-wingers because although left-wingers tend to be more aggressive and open in their denunciation of the West, and although the strongest opposition is usually found among conservatives, post-Westerners have penetrated deep into the political right-wing, too.
Both Leftists and quite a few right-wingers ironically agree on the fact that only economic factors matter, and that culture does not have any significant impact. Leftists talk about economic exploitation and are frequently critical of, if not hostile to, Western culture, hence their allegiance to Multiculturalism. Some right-wingers see immigration only as cheap labor and more consumers. A country is thus one giant job-producing corporation, no different from Coca-Cola or Toyota. A place to make money, nothing more. Not a nation with a soul, a shared history or a common culture. In opposition to these post-Westerners we have traditional Westerners, whose primary loyalty still lies with their nation state, their culture and their civilization.
Many Americans now say that the United States is a "universal" nation that "doesn't have a culture of its own," which indicates that the USA itself is increasingly post-Western and cut off from its European roots.
It is significant that most Western nations face common challenges in upholding their national borders, and that it is considered "racist" to prefer certain groups of immigrants over others. This is becoming more and more apparent in the illegal immigration debate. The open borders activists are basically arguing that it's a "human right" to be allowed to settle in the West, not that Westerners should be allowed to preserve their own culture and decide who should settle in their lands.
Our unwillingness to uphold our physical boundaries is closely related to our unwillingness to define our cultural boundaries. In a strange way, it is the shared denial of our own historical roots or even the fact that we have a culture, the notion that we have somehow moved "beyond history" and the idea that it is "racist" to uphold your national borders that reveal the fact that Europe, North America and Australia still belong to the same civilization, despite everything.
Serge Trifkovic, author of Sword of the Prophet and the new book Defeating Jihad, points this out, too:
"It is in the inability and unwillingness of the elite class to confront jihad that Western Europe and North America most tellingly certify that they share the same chromosomes, that they belong to one culture and constitute one civilization." "Another result is an elite consensus that de facto open immigration, multiculturalism, and the existence of a large Muslim diaspora within the Western world are to be treated as a fixed given, and must not be scrutinized in any anti-terrorist debate."
"This war is being fought, on the Islamic side, with the deep conviction that the West is on its last legs. The success of its demographic onslaught on Europe enhances the image of "a candy store with the busted lock," and that view is reinforced by the evidence from history that a civilization that loses the urge for self-perpetuation is indeed in peril."
Europeans, after several devastating wars during the 20th century, seem to believe that we have moved beyond war into an age of international law and dialogue, and that war for whatever reason is evil. That is one idea that Americans most definitely do not share, and they are right. But Americans have other Utopian dreams of their own. I have warned against the dangers of "celebrating diversity" in a country that is already so diverse as the USA. Americans should celebrate their sameness and what binds them together, or they could wake up one day and find out hat they are united neither by culture, religion, race nor political beliefs, perhaps not even by language due to the growth of Spanish as a semi-official second language. This could create serious internal frictions, maybe even cause the country to fall apart.
The idea that "history is bunk," that all cultures can be assimilated equally into the USA and that the United States is a universal nation that has somehow magically moved beyond all conflicts known to mankind elsewhere is wrong and dangerous. It also has implications for foreign policy.
If Americans had remembered that their cherished political system was
steeped in a Western and European cultural tradition, and may not work
just as well in all other cultures, they might not have embarked on
the project of exporting democracy to a deeply Islamic country such as
Iraq, at the cost of hundreds of billions of dollars. This happened
because Americans believed theirs was a universal nation without any
core culture of its own. If this was the case, its political system
could be exported everywhere.Five years after 9/11, Muslim immigration to the United States is
higher than ever, there is still great reluctance to name the enemy
among members of the political establishment and President Bush sticks
to his failed strategy of exporting democracy to the Arab world while
the Islamization of the West continues apace.I hope Americans are right, that the USA will prove more resistant to
Islamization than Europe, and that Western civilization will prevail
in the New World even if it should die in the Old World. But I confess
to have some lingering doubt.Note from Fjordman: I have plans for at least a dozen longer essays after this, provided I have the time and financial opportunity to write them. The essays will be dealing with why I find a Reformation of Islam unlikely to happen. All of my online essays can be republished for free by anybody who wants to, as long as credit is given to the author. Any financial donation, which can be given here, should be considered as payment in advance for future essays.
Posted by Robert at September 13, 2006 12:11 PM
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The two most important areas of U.S. military R&D investment right now are submarine technology and anti-ballistic missile technology.
Both will be critical in defending America from the already emergent threat from the Islamic republics cropping up across the globe (Iran in particular what with the Persia Petrodollar). We need improved ABM right now.
But over the longer term, the Islamicization of Europe presents huge security problems to America.
Already we have a Moslem admiral presiding over Portsmouth, a mind-boggling but true fact (i.e., not a Fictive Reality fact but an actual fact).
But even before Sharia is attained in any European military power, critical mass attained in European militaries, governments, and legislatures will present America with a direct threat of mass murder-by-WMD from the Continent.
** United Kingdom ** France ** Sweden ** Italy ** Spain ** Germany ** Netherlands **
One can only hope that the American generals now running NATO will be smart enough to booby trap that once-great organization's military infrastructure. But with delusional dumbasses like Wesley Clark running NATO, this is unlikely.
The prospect of an Islamicized NATO is frightening, even after America flies her F-18s and F-22s home.
Posted by: Alarmed Pig Farmer![[TypeKey Profile Page]](https://swap.stanford.edu/was/20100322163935im_/http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/nav-commenters.gif)
at September 13, 2006 1:20 PM
APF
It's time for the US to leave NATO - without us, it becomes worthless. Otherwise, imagine - if Turkey, Azerbaijan is attacked, we are obligated to send troops in their defense? Why?
Leave NATO, and form loose alliances with countries in different areas in the world. Start with Israel, make Australia next, then Ethiopia, then Thailand - all countries that are on the frontiers of the ummah. I'm in 2 minds about India - on one hand, they vote with the Left most of the time in the UN, OTOH, their low level co-operation with Israel is being pilloried by Indian Leftists, so one might consider them.
And nuke any Islamic country that comes into possession of nukes. Start with Pakistan the next time a terror attack on the US by Pakis is discovered - regardless of whether or not it is prevented. And if any nuclear power in Europe ever goes Islamic, nuke them immediately.
Posted by: Infidel Pride at September 13, 2006 1:43 PM
I agree with much of what Fjordman says, but he does make one glaring error:
"If Americans had remembered that their cherished political system was steeped in a Western and European cultural tradition, and may not work just as well in all other cultures, they might not have embarked on the project of exporting democracy to a deeply Islamic country such as Iraq, at the cost of hundreds of billions of dollars. This happened because Americans believed theirs was a universal nation without any
core culture of its own."
America's belief that freedom is a universal and unalienable human right is a cherished American principle going all the way back to Jefferson's Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
So when Bush keeps talking about the "transformative power of freedom" in the Muslim world, he isn't saying anything that Jefferson wouldn't have agreed with in 1776.
If Fjordman is right, and only certain cultures can "appreciate" freedom, then Jefferson, and America, have been wrong for 230 years. That could be. But that would be truly sad for this world. And we Americans aren't prepared to write off the Declaration of Independence just because a bunch of Islamists find it offensive.
And there's no definitive proof yet that Jefferson was wrong. In Fjordman's writing I still detect a bit of that infamous European snobbery and elitism. The "European cultural tradition" also included such things as the Spanish Inquisition, the pogroms against the Jews, the burning of 200,000 women at the stake as alleged witches, and countless wars and more wars--culminating with giving the world all three of the great totalitarian ideologies: Communism, Fascism and Nazism.
The reason why European philosophers have such trouble resisting the incessant demands of the Islamists is largely due to their guilt over their truly mixed track record. Most Americans can say that they are proud of what their country has accomplished, both here in our own country and around the world. Can Germans be as proud of their own country's track record in the world?
At least we Americans can say that we've tried freedom and democracy and it didn't end up like 20th century Europe.
Posted by: Steven L. at September 13, 2006 2:01 PM
And what future or our civilization when political correctness leads to THIS!
Political Correctness Allows Taliban Leaders to Walk Away from Sudden Death
Read it all on:
http://alamogates.blogspot.com/2006/09/political-correctness-allows-taliban.html
at September 13, 2006 2:36 PM
Steven L. I think that I would ask Fjordman to elaborate and expand on that point, before I would immediately conclude that he got it wrong.
I'm not sure that Fjordman is implying that only people steeped in a preexisting western/Christian culture, can handle the demands made upon all citizens in a Democratic framework. I think he might be suggesting that GW UNDERESTIMATED the difficulty of grafting a Democratic government on a people and culture previously hostile to such a government.
I agree with the Founders, and that's because I'm convinced that the Natural Law exists, and that Natural Law works TOWARDS the full flourishing of the human potential. Islam is a totalitarian belief system, much like NAZISM, much like Communism, and has done incredible damage to the generations of people who've had the profound misfortune of growing up under its aegis of error and blood. But for all that error, which is considerable, it can in no way come close to effacing the imprint made by the Creator, by virtue of the act of creation itself.
The reason that the Founders were able to devise a system that represents the hallmark of humanity, is precisely because they were so deeply rooted in the truth, and part of that truth, was the Natural Law. They KNEW MAN, they would not have been shocked in any way by the ability of man to go astray, or to be led astray. As all of the followers of islam have gone astray, or been led astray.
Posted by: Dan at September 13, 2006 2:48 PM
Fjordman:
Another very perceptive piece of writing. A bit OT here perhaps, but one matter troubles me greatly and I submit it as a topic you might consider writing about in a future essay. You make the point that the Left is a more corrosive force than is the Right because of the former's embrace of multiculturalism, although you do also say that both ends of the spectrum largely embrace the view that only economics matters. Although I recognize this materialist determinism as axiomatic for the Left I am always surprised that the left, precisely BECAUSE of its embrace of ideologies such as socialism, feminism, multiculturalism, all of which are themselves surely negated by radical Islam, doesn't hit a wall when it comes to Islam, recognize that this surely indicates a limit to the efficacy of its theories, and align itself with the more conservative forces fighting against Islamist expansion. The Left resisted Fascism militantly in the 1930s and '40s and is often critical of religious authoritarianism. Why is this case different?, I often ask myself.
I have some ideas of my own about this, but at this point, am uncertain about these. I am hoping that a reading of Bat Yeor's "Eurabia" will yield some insight, although to date I have not yet had a chance to do so. I would appreciate your help if you have the time, either by way of a short response here, or a more detailed one in a future work.
Thanks, and again, my compliments on your great efforts
Jacques_de_Molay (aka "Templar")
Posted by: jacques_de_molay at September 13, 2006 2:58 PM
2 points:
about europe "Either your economy will reform, your populace multiply"
Am I the only one that finds irresponsible to promote multiplication of people? do you think the earth will ENLARGE to make room for all people or that we will be living under water (like the costner movie) or in the middle of the desert or in the north pole?
By coincidence, all the countries who are doing well money wise are the countries with smaller population. And who are the countries with too many people? largely muslim countries. And they are breeding not out of love for children, but out of conquest strategy.
Second point:
"The threat of the radical Islamists taking over Europe is every bit as great to the United States as was the threat of the Nazis taking over Europe in the 1940s."
the nazis at worst were 60 millions, the muslims are 1.5 billion. Which is strictly connected with my point n.1.
Somebody please tell me if the "solution" is the westerners breeding like rats. To me it's not.
And don't mistake me for someone anti-family.
at September 13, 2006 4:11 PM
FedUp:
I doubt that anyone is advocating the kind of demographic strategy that you characterize as "breeding like rats". However, it is a fact that simply reducing the population, in the way that Europe has voluntarily and unconsciously done since WWII, is naive and rife with unforeseeable consequences, such as those that the Chinese experience illustrates even more richly. Massive and unmanaged population reductions, as Europe's experience of the Black Plague in the 14th century and other earlier pandemic outbreaks show, cause massive casscade effects in societies that undergo them, leading to economic dislocation, sometimes including famine, and further disastrous depopulation in a spiralling "viscious cirle" scenario. Yes, the earth's carrying capacity is, presumably, finite, at least in principle, but cultural factors such as management and technology can stretch it, perhaps quite considerably, as some of the agricultural developments of the last 200 years indicate. I would not suggest that Europe's population needs to grow exponentially, but surely a birthrate that at least meets the replacement rate (2.1 per couple) is not unreasonable in most historical periods.
Secondly, the population has to be structured such as to guarantee that there are enough skilled and educated people to maintain the production of the knowledge and wealth that makes a society successful, and that it produces enough variability in its class structure as to guarantee a supply of workers in critical sectors, including its "service sector", to ensure that the society does not have to render itself vulnerable to hostile minorities by placing its security apparatus and other essential services in the hands of outsiders who resist assimilation and have other loyalties.
Europe's careless permissiveness toward the collpase of its birthrate, which it then subsequently tried to compensate for by importing large numbers of people from the Islamic world surely indicates the folly of these kind of simplistic ideologies of "overpopulation" panic.
Frankly, YES, the answer definitely IS, at least in part, for European states to reconsider these policies and to begin reinstating financial and other incentives for the reintroduction of larger families. (It could largely offset the costs of this by deporting large sectors of its foreign Islamic populations who, from what I understand, are disproportionately dependent on its welfare state). I do not mean huge "litters" of a dozen or more, just three or four per family until the peoples of traditional European stock, or others capable of being properly assimilated into European society and willing to do so, regain the upper hand on the continent, followed by a return to the replacement rate thereafter.
Posted by: templar at September 13, 2006 4:48 PM
"Massive and unmanaged population reductions, as Europe's experience of the Black Plague in the 14th century and other earlier pandemic outbreaks show, cause massive casscade effects in societies that undergo them, leading to economic dislocation, sometimes including famine, and further disastrous depopulation in a spiralling "viscious cirle" scenario. "
willing family planning is not comparable with plagues such as diseases cutting people's number.
Progress and birth control all lead all nations to have less children, the fact that it's happening in ALL those countries (you don't think that the higher birth rate in USA is all because of bigger american families, it is certaintly due to legal immigration and their birth rate). If it wasn't for the muslim threat it wouldn't be morally wrong for me if world population reduced its number gradually. If you think there was a time where world population was 2 billion, you wonder if 6 billion or more is a better number, of course it isn't. The problem is that the higest numbers are in the wrong places.
China, being the millenarian wisemen they are put limits on their families. That's why I advocate among other things. Even with chinese methods.
"Europe's careless permissiveness toward the collpase of its birthrate, which it then subsequently tried to compensate for by importing large numbers of people from the Islamic world surely indicates the folly of these kind of simplistic ideologies of "overpopulation" panic."
there are quicker ways to reduce the islamic immigration. simply stop islamic immigration. there is non-islamic immigration that's more suitable for us, non-islamic people have no problem working with meat, working with elders, with animals, with jews etc.
You cannot stop the cicle of history. What worries me is NOT italians disappearing, but that their replacements honor italian past and memory (michelangelo, Da Vinci etc). Which kind of people can guarantee that? surely not muslims who would bomb the pyramids if possible because not islamic. But if the future will be all chineses and south american, at least i hope it won't be muslim.
"Frankly, YES, the answer definitely IS, at least in part, for European states to reconsider these policies and to begin reinstating financial and other incentives for the reintroduction of larger families."
Funny that you say that, Mussolini did it during his regime.
Posted by: FedUp at September 13, 2006 5:20 PM
Fjordman posted: Will Western civilization survive in the New World, or will these countries, too, follow Europe's demise? After all, Western civilization in Europe has the advantage of being native to the soil.
Europeans have one prime advantage that Americans do not have - being native to the soil.
If and when push comes to shove, native rights will triumph.
at September 13, 2006 5:34 PM
Jacques_de_Molay:
Eurabia is a very academic read, but worthwhile- as an American, it made me aware of some of the political reasons behind the anti-American sentiments in Europe.
You might also want to consider While Europe Slept- it's a much more accessible book than Eurabia, and may answer some of the lingering social questions you have for Fjordman. Neither book is perfect, but they do present interesting ideas.
Posted by: s at September 13, 2006 5:41 PM
The "European cultural tradition" also included such things as the Spanish Inquisition, the pogroms against the Jews, the burning of 200,000 women at the stake as alleged witches, and countless wars and more wars--culminating with giving the world all three of the great totalitarian ideologies: Communism, Fascism and Nazism.
You're right, modern civilization is shit. We should return to the wild and run naked in the fields.
Posted by: Jesus Christ Supercop at September 13, 2006 5:43 PM
Little Denmark has been showing the way how to deal with the problem of Islam. It has one of the toughest laws on immigration, tackled head-on the cartoon jihad without any support from the USA, and now this
A Warning to Would-Be Honor Killers In the first case of its kind in Western Europe, a Danish court has prosecuted an entire family for the honor-killing of an 18-year-old Pakistani immigrant. Will the case set a precedent for other European countries dealing with similar incidents?
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,425023,00.html
Thanks to
http://uppompeii.blogspot.com/
which keeps an eye on Jihad in the UK.
at September 13, 2006 5:51 PM
Europe is almost lost! it seems the people have lost faith in the future - speaking to them is just depressing - cowards and appologists - I dont see any way back and it will end in a war which will devastate the planet - the muslims will most probably be anhialated and the continent be devasted - I personally will be dead before this happens but my children will see it. So I will be moving to the states soon, where most of my extended scottish family already live - the USA is, as always the last best hope for mankind
at September 13, 2006 6:15 PM
jacques_de_molay
The question you ask about the lefts unnatural alignment with Islam is interesting .
The first thing I think we have to understand is that the left after the fall of the Soviet Union was devasted and rudderles - I mean socialism was demonstrated to be one big pipe dream - people are conservatives naturally - so what do millions of lefties do ? accept the lesson of history change their views accordingly and move on ? No of course not - they cast around for any other alternate anti-western culture available that they can use as a substitute and find it in the up and comming multiculturism/victim-aggrievance/its-all-the wests-fault etc etc view of the world and consequently after they have infiltrated the media, politics we end up with the awful society the we now have.
Of course once they have created this big lie they have to keep on supporting it even when it means having to justify the unjustifyable - ergo - lefty civil rights with islamic views on Homosexualty - freedom of religeous thought - equality of the sexes - etc etc etc they are lying with the devil now - may history forgive them because I cannot - An ex left guardian reader!!
at September 13, 2006 6:32 PM
Good News.
Russia: Muslims Complain about conversions to Christianity
Damir Mukhetdinov, first deputy mufti of the Nizhegorodsky region along Russia's Volga river, complained that there are more Muslims, especially Tatars, converting to Russian Orthodoxy than Russian Christians converting to Islam.
``A huge number of Tatars enter mixed marriages (with Russians) and their children loose their sense of religious and ethnic identity, and even call their children by Russian names,'' said mufti Mukhetdinov, reported Newsru, a Russian web newspaper. ``And the next generation even accepts Russian Orthodoxy. Such people are more numerous than Russians accepting Islam.''
Mufti Mukhetdinov was further concerned by the fact that many of the Russians who accepted Islam were young women who only did so, not because they were sincere and had spent years studying the Mohammedan cult, but because they were forced to do so by their husbands.
Muslims Complain about conversions to Christianity
Posted by: DP111 at September 13, 2006 6:39 PM
FedUp:
"willing family planning is not comparable with plagues such as diseases cutting people's number"
You're right. I'm just saying that any reduction in population that isn't thought out ahead of time, including careful and prudent thought given to the global picture of how it will likely affect the ability of the country in question to respond to population pressures and other challenges from various other regions of the world, can generate problems that might make things worse rather than better.
Citing the Chinese as you do is problematic because even though you're right that they needed to reduce their population, they failed to anticipate the problems that deeply ingrained cultural attitudes would cause them, and to head these off by seeking to re-educate their people and eliminate these attitudes, which they should have done before implementing the program. There are at least two of these that I know of:
1. The many Chinese families that now have only one child have typically doted on these children so much that they often become overindulged "brats" with poor social skills, bad manners, lack of respect for self and others, and otherwise badly adjusted if not sociopathic, and this to a point that traumatically undermines the better aspects of the traditional Chinese value system and culture, perhaps imperilling China's future progress.
2. Because of the traditional Chinese cultural preference for male children, many Chinese girls have been either aborted or killed after birth with the result, among other traumatic effects, that many Chinese men find it difficult to find a partner in their society and have had to immigrate or find other difficult solutions to this problem, or face life alone.
"If it wasn't for the muslim threat it wouldn't be morally wrong for me if world population reduced its number gradually. If you think there was a time where world population was 2 billion, you wonder if 6 billion or more is a better number, of course it isn't"
No, I don't think that 6 billion is a better number. Perhaps I've overlooked something in your earlier posting or otherwise misunderstood you, but I was unaware that your call for population reduction was qualified by the muslim threat. In fact, the following statement left me with the impression that you yourself regard the population imbalance between the Islamic and the non-Islamic world as problematic:
"the nazis at worst were 60 millions, the muslims are 1.5 billion"
Either way, the fact that Europe succeeded in lowering its birthrate but then perceived its success as a problem that required open immigration speaks for itself. These people were brought in to provide labour in sectors which were lacking an effective labour pool.
Furthermore, I can assure you that I am not a "fascist", as you seem to imply in this comment:
"Funny that you say that, Mussolini did it during his regime"
If you want to engage in polemics please at least read what your "opponent" (I sure hope such a rivalry is not what is opening up here) has actually said. Population policy has been a concern of governments of all ideological stripes throughout history. (Even some of the radicals of France's revolutionary period wanted the clergy to marry in part to ensure that they would help increase the number of that society's "patriotes"). Under the influence of such considerations, governments have sponsored both increased immigration and increased birthrates. There is nothing "racist" (a necesary component of "fascism") in my call for governments to address the problem in part through support for an increased birthrate, since I distinctly recall referring to non-Europeans who meet the criteria for admission to Europe as "others capable of being properly assimilated into European society and willing to do so".
Population reduction to numbers that lead to a lighter "ecological footprint" on the planet is desirable, but it will succeed best when in comes about by the broad agreement and cooridinated action of the entire world. For Europe or any other place to reduce its numbers so quickly and so drastically in the present climate, while the Islamic world expands, places it at great risk. Despite the inferior training and equipment of Chinese forces during the Korean war, they easily overwhelmed the Allied forces and stemmed the tide of the approaching allied victory when they invaded the Korean peninsula by the sheer force of their numbers alone. This could eventually happen to Europe, even if it were to somehow contain the Islamic world by quarantine of the Middle East, if Islamic nations at some point decided to launch an all-out military invasion rather than rely on their demographic strategy.
Finally, to end a note of agreement, you said:
"there are quicker ways to reduce the islamic immigration. simply stop islamic immigration. there is non-islamic immigration that's more suitable for us, non-islamic people have no problem working with meat, working with elders, with animals, with jews etc"
I see "eye to eye" with you on this entirely.
Posted by: templar at September 13, 2006 6:54 PM
A worthwhile article to read.
Fifth column
Listening to President Bush speak, on Monday’s anniversary of 9/11, after a day of distastefully sentimental memorials, my question was not what have we achieved in the last five years, but rather, what have we learned? Bush and Blair -- the captain and vice-captain of Team West in the war against “the terrorists” so far -- are both now in the twilight of their political careers. Both have recently broken with habitual discretion, and made attempts to name the enemy. This has, if anything, added to their unpopularity, for when they mention that the enemy presents himself as Islamic, there are shrill cries not only from radical Muslims, but across the spectrum of the Left in the West.
http://www.davidwarrenonline.com/
Posted by: DP111 at September 13, 2006 7:25 PM
your point 1 about the chinese seems to me exaggerated. I do believe asian people (except muslims) have a philosophy of life that is not as materialistic as ours, even if china is communist.
Look at the economic power they are becoming and the hard work behind it, they are not going to stop it because of the policy of one child.
I agree that money (esp easy and quick money) can go to people's heads but many chinese newly rich are travelling and although they are not overly-critic of their communist regime, they are not AGAINST the west, they are intelligent enough to appreciate art, culture, nature etc. Don't forget they are former buddist and if china loosen up a little freedom they will get back being buddist.
And I was exactly talking about the disproportion between muslims and non-muslims. Italy started having low birth rates in the 80s, but back then we had virtually no immigration and very few immigrants from muslim countries. There were reports and calculations that within X number of decades there wouldn't be ethnically italians anymore therefore I used to think "no big deal, it's nature, it's hystory, but I am sure whoever will peacefully take over will keep our churches (which are also art pieces and architecture pieces), keep our artistic value, cultural values etc, our colusseum, our greek temples in sicily etc". I wasn't worried AT ALL. I didn't want a panda situation where you keep the specie alive by forced breeding in special areas. Dinosaurs disappeared, well, we all obey to nature.
But at this point I am totally sure muslim will destroy like they destroyed the buddahs.
A priest in italy said we should favour immigration from non-muslim countries, this to show you how much people understood that an ignorant and poor romanian or chilean is to be preferred to an "educated" and richer muslim.
"Furthermore, I can assure you that I am not a "fascist", as you seem to imply in this comment: "
not at all in my intention, it was a funny remark rather than anything else. It was done in italy last year too and nobody complained that it arrived from the fascist era, not even die hard communists. The problem is that somehow immigrants (and muslim immigrants) found a bureaucratic way to put their hands on the money too.
So I don't think it was a good idea after all. That's why I didn't support it. Basically the money could be taken by people with work permissions, not only full citizens, therefore you can imagine what happened and how much money went to the wrong people instead.
------------------------
as a side note, about the term islamo-fascist, the worst part is still islamo, not fascist.
Do you want a funny note? During the fascist regime they set up a law that prevented people to go around with covered face. Which means you cannot walk around with a motorbike full-helmet or... a burka. I don't know how many other countries has something like that.
This law is still on nowadays after almost 100 years and it is already useful as you can imagine. We have to thank the fascist years for that. Bad luck often brings good luck.
Posted by: FedUp at September 13, 2006 7:31 PM
about bush and blair.
I am not american or british but the pacifist are making everybody believe it's all about iraq etc.
The reason is that those people have been in power for long and when you do many things you have the chance to make more mistakes. They probably did wrong things in their policy such as economy, school, health service, transports, pensions, whatever but people with another political agenda are making us believe "it's all because of iraq".
western leaders are tied to political correctness.
Posted by: FedUp at September 13, 2006 7:35 PM
The situation in Europe will come to a crisis point much earlier than the end of the century. The immigrant population is disproportionately consuming welfare funds, and not producing taxable income. What will happen real soon (on the order of years, not decades), is the collapse of the welfare system as the tax base shrinks.
Visualize the likely effect of an announcement that "the welfare checks are not coming this month".
The collapse of the European birth rate comes from affluence and the modern financial system. A century ago, one powerful reason to have kids was to have somebody to take care of you in your old age. In current times, many couples have decided that buying stocks and bonds is less hassle than having kids. The problem with this line of reasoning is that, for stocks and bonds to have value, there must be a productive middle class in the next generation to work in the companies that generate the dividends. In economic and social chaos, there is no substitute for strong and intelligent sons and daughters, as this generation of Europeans will discover to their dismay.
Posted by: PapaBear at September 13, 2006 7:40 PM
If Americans had remembered that their cherished political system was steeped in a Western and European cultural tradition, and may not work just as well in all other cultures, they might not have embarked on the project of exporting democracy to a deeply Islamic country such as Iraq, at the cost of hundreds of billions of dollars. This happened because Americans believed theirs was a universal nation without any core culture of its own.
--- Fjordman
Whatever their motives were going into Iraq, it stands that --- after the Moslem activists detonate on American soil --- we'll have the requisite kitchen pass in that we tried to civilize them and it couldn't be done. After the detonation, the first question will be now what. And the what will of course be to go ahead and reply in kind, several times over.
That is, if there's real leadership in the White House and Pentagon at that moment. That's the project; to make sure the right leaders are in place by then.
Posted by: Alarmed Pig Farmer at September 13, 2006 7:49 PM
"A century ago, one powerful reason to have kids was to have somebody to take care of you in your old age. "
this is not correct, 100 years ago in rural areas kids meant arms to work in the farm, and in the industrialized area it meant help for the family, not much for the elders because life expectancy was a lot lower 100 years ago and average age was 60-70, therefore not much assistance needed.
Of course birth control after '68 had large effect. Women were allowed to decide when to have children adn not forced (like muslims) to breed and stay at home.
Why do you think the places with large number of kids are the places where women are in chains?
Culture and change of lifestyle have more to do with lack of children rather than money.
Posted by: FedUp at September 13, 2006 7:54 PM
Steven, the founding fathers were speaking of westerners, not all people on the planet. The founding fathers could never imagine something as backward and as anti-social as the tenets of islam. None of them studied islam, to any degree. The American constitution is meant for Americans, for those people who see themselves as Americans, it is not for every person of every civilization that ever existed on planet earth, much less for the ones of a culture and a religion whose very core is demonstrably hostile to progress and civilization.
Don't read too much universal romanticism into the constitution. It is a very practical document written by practical men for people of the western world.
Posted by: August22 at September 13, 2006 8:21 PM
JohnMac:
Thanks for your reply to my question. I understand and sympathisize with your disenchantment. I too am a "former" "leftist". I use the parentheses because, with regard to "former" I am not convinced that I have set this aside forever, nor that I need to entirely, since there are some, even if only a few values, that the Left has championed over the years, that are still very much worthwhile and very compelling to me, and that I wish to retain, even while I align myself and my vote with the Right as a temporary expedient for responding to the current Islamist threat because of the fact that, to its great credit, the Right "gets it" in regard to Islam, at least much more so than the Left, which is stuck in its ongoing attachment to a failed multiculturalism. With regard to the "left" part, I am not convinced that one need be of a fundamentally of a left wing mindset to see the value of some of the positions that the Left has historically stood for, and, in my own case, I suspect that for years now, most people would have considered me to be a "right winger", even though it so happens that I have usually delivered my vote to "left" wing candidates.
To a considerable extent, you're right (sorry for the bad pun - entirely unintentional) about the fact that the Left was shaken by the collapse of Communism, although I think that this connection is often somewhat overblown. There has always been a great deal of anti-Communism on the Left within parties such as Britain's Labour and Canada's NDP most of which historically disavowed and condemned Communism per se in their official policy and refuted a strict Marxist point of view, identifying themselves using terms such as "democratic socialist", "social democrat" and the like, and there have always been a fairly large of number of those who would call themselves "Christian socialists", etc., even while a few "soft" communists or "crypto-communists" persisted as fellow travellers within these movements. Those who would call themselves "Christian Socialists" could almost get away with it when you consider that some of the earliest socialist writers were people such as Robert Owen (also very much a capitalist and a businessman) who were motivated by a type of Christian Utopianism, although I, for many years prior to my recent awakening to the full extent threat of the Islamist menace, have rejected the term "Socialist" as something made thouroughly notorious by not only the monstrosities produced by Communism, but by the whole materialistic and deterministic world view espoused by most of the theorists identifying themselves by the term "socialist".
If I have to label myself ideologically I am reasonably comfortable with the term "Social Democrat" but I have always located the source of my political principles in Christian social teaching with its strong emphasis on compassion and the common good. It seems to me that despite the current sad floundering and corruption of these parties, compromised by their current "multiculturalist" connections, some of the achievements of the Left are very much worth upholding, although if its soul is to be saved the Left must acknowledge that it owes a great deal to the Right for the establishment of the enlightened traditions of democratic governance and for the creation of the market system of economics which has made the creation of the powerful and wealthy economies of the West possible in a way that no other system could have. (And it certainly must abandon the unprincipled pursuit of the "multiculturalist" and the Islamic constituences that it has adopted in recent years). The role of the Left has to be to serve as the "conscience" of that system, in very much the same way as one of the early Christian writers described the Church, in a letter to a Roman emperor, as the "soul" of the world. this is a role that involves humanizing it so as to ensure balance, to ensure that the whole of human life is not reduced to an impersonal and uncaring marketplace. A great example of this is the establishment of universal, public health care insurance that Left wing parties have ensured in Western societies (something which, by the way, they have in common with a small handful of conservatives such as Germany's Bismark, and even the Frankish Roman Emperor Charles the Great in the 9th century!)
The position of the Left can be quite clear on matters like this. The free marketplace is good - indeed a great blessing in some ways. But it can not be entirely left unregulated. It has to be moderated with a view to the common good and with a view to the well-being of future generations. And, the pre-eminence and dignity of the human person being the thing that it should exist for, it has to be buffered by measures that address suffering and misfortune. Those spheres of human life that alleviate hardship and that bring compassionate relief to those suffering misfortune as a normal part of life, can not be sacrificed to the market place's pursuit of profit for investors who have no direct role on the front line of the delivery of the service and should be guaranteed by society within the limits of its means. This is something that the Left historically has stood for, along with the legitimate rights of workers and others lacking power and therefore vulnerable to crude exploitation in the marketplace; there is no reason to abandon these accomplishments or feel somehow blameworthy for having supported parties that promoted them. You don't need to feel guilty as you seem to. Instead, you can, as I would encourage, acknowedge that from this platform, the Left has always been drawn into a certain wishy-washiness such as naive pacifism and mindless "tolerance" and work to limit this. But keep in mind that equally bad things could be said of the Right as well although that is not my purpose here. In any case, keep your chin up, and talk to your friends who are still on the Left; point out to them the inconsistency of their current policies. Many of them may be naievely unaware of the real teachings of the Koran and of Islam, and may be so because, like many leftists before them, sadly, they are unaware of the full force and influence of motivations for human behaviour other than material causes and class consciousness.
My hope is that eventually the Left will start to awaken to what is actually afoot in the world, and like they did in the earlier fight against Fascism, will get on board, and perhaps even start to lead the fight once they have shaken off their current blinders. I tend to think that the naive multicultural ethos that is presently so abasing the Left is rooted in something closer to the root of its philosophy than a mere cynical ploy for votes, especially given the fact that many of these parties have often been cited in the past as "too principled" in the sense that they have often been "purists" who would not compromise their views on what they regarded as core values in order to secure power through the ballot box. If I'm right about this, perhaps once its identified and brought under closer analysis, the Left can be argued out of its current naive position and prompted to develop more up to date, and more logical and consistent policies.
Keep working at it when you can, but in the meantime, be pragmattic about where you deliver your vote, awarding it to the parties that want to lead the fight that has be engaged against Islam.
Jacques_de_Molay (aka "Templar" & "Patriarchmichaelcerularius")
at September 13, 2006 8:51 PM
"None of them studied islam, to any degree."
Not true!!! George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and James Madison would be shocked at your ignorance. They had lots to say about Islam, or, as it was known in their day and until recently, Muhammadism. In fact, they waged the first TWO wars by the United States of America against Islam. Read about the First and second Barbary Wars!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Barbary Pirates, inveterate Muslim thieves and brigands caused the Americans to launch these wars against rapine filthy Muslims in North Africa. The Europeans had long surrendered themselves to paying these pirates to take it easy on European shipments, at first immediately after the Revolution, America uneasily followed the lead of the Europeans but sentiment began to turn under Washington until the Americans said NO. Upon Jefferson's ascent to power, one of the first things he did was wage war against the Muhammadans. This is part of the fabric of our Nation. We get the lyrics of the Marine Corps Hymn from these victorious engagements:
"From the Halls of Montezuma
To the shores of Tripoli
We will fight our country's battle
in the air, on land and sea."
- first stanza of the Marine Corp Hymn
(By the way, we wiped their asses, and the Muslims stopped attacking our ships...)
Posted by: jsla at September 13, 2006 9:02 PM
Back on topic... Another good and provocative essay by Fjordman on the issue of our times: Will the West survive?
It's ominous, but perhaps an indication of how complex the world has become that five years into this cataclysmic war, we're still trying to figure out WHO our enemy is, and WHO we are! We here largely agree on the enemy, so WHO are we? It's a central thing we had better confront or we are truly doomed.
I found this observation interesting that "Western civilization in Europe has the advantage of being native to the soil, where it has grown organically for centuries, whereas it has been transplanted to Australia, Canada and the USA and superimposed on top of other cultures."
First thought that comes to mind is: "being native to the soil" doesn't seem to offer much of a home court advantage... does it? In fact, the Europeans seem more determined than anyone else to jettisone history and pretend that 'war is over!' Plato might have a thing or two to say about that...
Second, I strongly disagree that the USA originates as a graft or superimposition on top of other cultures. The culture which developed here is far too complex to address here, but it organically evolved over centuries on our continent, and culminated in a The United States of America -- a Revolutionary nation -- and came about as a vital process of constructive rejectionism of old bad ideas and systems, and revolutionary innovations for new modes and new systems, all drawing on ancient and modern world history. It was no cultural overlay. It's accurate to say, though, that without revolutionary advances like the Magna Carta (1215) English Bill of Rights (1689) among many others, the USA would not have come into being as it was constituted.
We are still a Revolutionary nation. We rejected the notion of King as we rejected the notion of aristocracy. Our system rejects the idea that any elite should ever be allowed to entrench themselves and lord over us in any manner... While some will suggest that we have drifted from these revolutionary ideals, and allowed far too many unchecked powers to manipulate us and situate themselves beyond The People's reach, I think this revolutionary precept is still very alive today in the USA. I'm never sure our European, or even our British friends ever quite grasp this about Americans.
Today, Europeans are permitting their so-called 'leadership' to rob them blind, to craft a neo-imperial unaccountable project called The EU, inventing new classes of aristocrat bureaucrats, and new forms of princes and Kings (Jacques Chirac Rex, or worse, Dominique Marie François René Galouzeau de Villepin Rex, etc.)
So Europe's new kings, princelings, and aristocrats are foisting on their peoples a revolting casserole made up of the dead remnants of Louis XIV, Napoleon Bonaparte, Karl Popper, and Karl Marx, with truckloads of sugar (extracted from Joseph Stalin's corpse) to conceal the rottenness.
But Fjordman eloquently spells out our blunders. The fact that Muslim immigration is picking up steam is the most ominous thing I can think of -- they must not come here in larger numbers -- in fact, we must do everything to turn their black tide back -- they must not feel welcome here to wage their multi-pronged Jihad against us. Islam must be BEATEN back. If our government is unwilling to do this, then the American People must do this. The Europeans would be wise to start loving our wild American ways, or they will find themselves paupers and slaves in their own dominions.
at September 13, 2006 9:07 PM
PS -- the only good thing that would come of the EU Regency under the detestable Dominique Marie François René Galouzeau de Villepin Rex would be the inevitable reinstatement of royal beheadings. Hopefully it wouldnt' be for Sharia exegencies, but because Europe had finally thrown off the shackles of the notion that their sovereignty should ever be handed over to amorphous supra-sovereign unaccountable self proclaimed lords such as those cooking up that casserole I mentioned above...
Posted by: jsla at September 13, 2006 9:14 PM
That goes DOUBLE for the decrepit UN and her despicable little runtling King Kofi...
Posted by: jsla at September 13, 2006 9:15 PM
Welcome back Jeff.
Islam does not threaten the West. It threatens the concept of democracy.
Fjordman's essay was excellent.
Posted by: limes at September 13, 2006 9:26 PM
JSLA, you jumped the gun on my ignorance. None of the founding fathers studied islam. None of them read the Koran. They had dealings with islamics, but knew not of their holy book, upon which all their actions were based.
Posted by: August22 at September 13, 2006 9:33 PM
August22, what makes you think the founders didn't read the Qur'an?
Consider the words of John Adams—signer of the Declaration of Independence, two-time Vice-President under George Washington, and second President of the United States—written in 1756: “Suppose a nation in some distant region should take the Bible for their only law book and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited.... What a Eutopia, what a Paradise would this region be” (1854, 2:6-7, emp. added). And in a letter to Thomas Jefferson on Christmas day, 1813, he wrote: “I have examined all [religions]... and the result is that the Bible is the best Book in the world” (1854, 10:85, emp. added). Patriot Patrick Henry declared: “[The Bible] is a book worth more than all the other books that were ever printed” (as quoted in Wirt, 1818, p. 402, emp. added). The first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, John Jay, affirmed in a letter in 1784: “The Bible is the best of all books, for it is the word of God and teaches us the way to be happy in this world and in the next” (1980, 2:709, emp. added). Noah Webster noted: “The Bible is the chief moral cause of all that is good and the best corrector of all that is evil in human society; the best book for regulating the temporal concerns of man” (1833, p. v, emp. added). U.S. Supreme Court justice Joseph Story, a Father of American Jurisprudence, insisted: “The Bible itself [is] the common inheritance, not merely of Christendom, but of the world” (1854, p. 259, emp. added). What do such statements imply about these Founders’ opinion of the Quran?
http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/2784
Posted by: Susanp at September 13, 2006 10:24 PM
Fjordman goofed again: "After all, Western civilization in Europe has the advantage of being native to the soil, where it has grown organically for centuries, whereas it has been transplanted to Australia, Canada and the USA and superimposed on top of other cultures."
Our culture was not superimposed on another culture - the other culture was bushed aside and the new inhabitants started over. Which means that our ancestors got it right the first time.
The original inhabitants had previously brushed aside a culture before the Europeans arrived. What happened to the Mound Builders of the Ohio Valley and the Anasazi of New Mexico? But I digress.
How long does a culture have to exist before it becomes "native to the soil?" I have ancestors who were living in Virginia Colony in 1690. Yes, Fjordman sounds elitist and insulting at the same time. It's natural for a European.
at September 13, 2006 11:07 PM
I hope I haven't started an avalanche of criticism of Fjordman's fine commentary. Lest my posts (if anyone ever reads them) is interpreted as negative towards him, NOTHING could be further from the truth. I was simply making a nuanced critique of one isolated (albeit important) part of his post regarding the origins of the United States of America.
I agree with almost everything he wrote (and writes), and learned several things from his excellent essay above as well. By the way -- he solicits funds in order to continue his splendid writing efforts - something I encourage all who are in a position to do so to consider doing - I find few commentators who have a better knack for pondering the intricacies of today's Jihad than Fjordman.
Since I didn't express it adequately above: Thanks! Fjordman, for your thorough thoughts and contributions on the menace of our time!
Posted by: jsla at September 13, 2006 11:38 PM
The key to resolving this dilemma lies in the global community understanding that Islam incorporates first-degree murder into its core doctrine, something which is at the root of jihad and Islamic-perpetrated violence all over the planet. And, since rooted in the core of this ideology, this violence and propensity for murder cannot be excised.
Islam violates the legal codes of nearly every non-Islamic society on earth. It is therefore appropriate and civil to deny its entry into non-Islamic societies. Doing otherwise has proven to be quite dangerous as been proved over and over again.
I do not see any reason for the dithering. We discriminate against pedophiles, is it really so terrible to discriminate against potential murderers? I think not.
Posted by: pythagoras at September 13, 2006 11:43 PM
"Our unwillingness to uphold our physical boundaries is closely related to our unwillingness to define our cultural boundaries."
That is so true. But just what is our cultural identity in the West? I would be interested to hear your opinions on this, but it would seem to me that the very core of Western culture is defined by Christianity. If we jettison that faith, we lose our core and our will to fight.
Fjordman hints at this point (or so it appears to me) by saying that he hopes the US will not follow Europe into nihilism.
I have some further thoughts on this topic here: http://www.clashofcivilizations.net/?page_id=10
Do you agree? If not, I'm interested to know what you think the West will fight for. Islam is a spiritual force. I would argue that it can only be ountered by another spiritual force. Defending an economic system (socialism) or something as vague as pluralism just isn't enough....
Posted by: AnotherPerspective at September 14, 2006 12:10 AM
"The Left resisted Fascism militantly in the 1930s and '40s and is often critical of religious authoritarianism. Why is this case different?, I often ask myself. "
Melanin. And victim-culture. If you have a bit more melanin than the average westerner, and can present yourself as a victim, you immediately trigger the unthinking guilt-ridden ex-colonialist response. And then you can do and get whatever you want, however anti-liberal, misogynist, anti-gay and anti-democratic your aims are.
Imagine if everyone in the Arab world suddenly turned pale and European-looking. Do you think they would still be able to trigger the guilt response? Do you think a blond, blue-eyed Ahmadinejad would not be immediately labelled as what he is: a racist fascist?
This whole western response is a kind of reverse racism.
Posted by: Lili at September 14, 2006 4:10 AM
Yes Lili, the fact that most Muslims are brown and non-Western is one crucial factor in the pathological resistance of PC Multiculturalism -- which is the paradigm that regulates all debate and all thought on the problem of Islam -- to rationality.
It will do us no good to keep on denying this fact.
But it will be denied for years, possibly decades, as we stumble along collectively in our mush.
Posted by: remote_control at September 14, 2006 5:04 AM
I will suggest this concern will soon be moot if we do not decide to do some real undercover work and some political strong-arming on the Soviets, Syrians, and Iran starting yesterday.
I am convinced that the Soviets moved what WMD's were in Iraq, and believe sincerely they WERE ample. I know it is pretty much a decisive assessment that Iraq had been "contained" after 1992. I believe from information I have seen in UN reports and eye-witnesses, as well as satellite images, that we KNOW the weapons were moved to Syria prior to our invasion. We coddle Russia for Sanctions support against Iran. Stop It! They are not going to pressure Iran in the UN, will abstain at best. We need to know where the chemical weapons are stored in Syria. They have probably been "dried" in a process to extend the shelf-life if stored properly.
I am convinced that when Iran obtains a few nuclear weapons either on their own or from Korea or where ever, they WILL move to destroy Israel. If we are under Democratic leadership, it will be interpreted as a 'regional concern' and I fear we may not respond militarily, but through a UN Resolution. Our military and International business concerns will be attacked. The center of the 'Muslim concern' will be focused there if anything is left to dispute.
Intimidation will prevail in further dealings with cultural disputes from that point on, if there is any future to dispute. Never forget that there is an active 'anti-zionist' movement here and many might not mind an elimination of the "political nuisance" of Israel.
Dump a bunch of Petro Bucks and George Soro's millions and the money machine he is creating and we may well see an impeachment of our president and vice president. Nancy Pelosi assumes the leadership of our nation in a bloodless coup. Soros is a self-loating Jew who would probably rejoice in the elimination of a Jewish Nation. I do not see the liberal democrats doing more than calling for a "smarter" war on terror and call for a hug and mug convention with the personification of EVIL.
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. EVERYDAY/EVERY HOUR; "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." Eph. 6:12
Posted by: Grateful1 at September 14, 2006 8:35 AM
Let us not forget the support we are now NOT receiving from our good ole boy club of NATO. Some 250,000 trooops available and they say they can't send 2,500 to Afganistan to assist in heading off the Taliban resurgence.
I think if and when their crisis is faced in their territories, our response should be DUCK! And don't come out until the smoke clears.
Posted by: Grateful1 at September 14, 2006 8:39 AM
Fjordman writes: "I sometimes wonder whether the West at the beginning of the 21st century is mired in an ideological civil war, which in Western Europe in particular is getting so serious that it could well lead to physical civil wars. "
I would not discount the possibility of a physical civil war on this side of the Atlantic as well.
Posted by: Infidel33 at September 14, 2006 3:16 PM
I think that an intelligent discussion of paradoxes, might answer some questions Templar. Being of the right (a Goldwater conservative), I have an understanding of the mentality and mindset of the right, late in life I found myself in company of and befriended of and by Leftists (despite my strident anti Marxian attitude), and came to understand them as well.. And my critique of the Right is that they are totally ignorant of the left, and what opinions they have are ACQUIRED (not arrived at) from the demigogues who tell them what to think and how to think and even when to think.
As an example, "conservatives" are flumoxed by this paradox (from aka Templar)
Although I recognize this materialist determinism as axiomatic for the Left I am always surprised that the left, precisely BECAUSE of its embrace of ideologies such as socialism, feminism, multiculturalism, all of which are themselves surely negated by radical Islam,
I think I can answer that, although you skirted against it.. we in the west (left or right) are economic men..There is in the Christian Right the foundations for the "free market" and economic determinism, there is in Judaism and Calvinism the belief that god bestows on the faithful, wealth and prosperity. Be "moral", work hard, obey god (meaning his human stand in aka ventriloquist) and you will prosper here and now and in the afterlife.
The roots of the left, are actually in original Christianity, the pacifisim of Christ (turn the other cheek, love thy neighbor - a statement taken out of historical context and time, as one's neighbor in Jerusalem was of one's tribe, not some bedouin, or person in Syria or Greece or Italy).
"From each according to his ability to each according to his need" was not invented by Marx (he actually borrowed it from another) but is right out of the Gospels.
Although I recognize this materialist determinism as axiomatic for the Left I am always surprised that the left, precisely BECAUSE of its embrace of ideologies such as socialism, feminism, multiculturalism, all of which are themselves surely negated by radical Islam.
The "leftists" are eqalitarians and motivated by estrogen..anti racist, anti classist.. they perhaps perceive in Islam a utopian world in which there is no racism or classism, no nation states to war with each other.. and in that they are ignorant of Islam. But let's blame this ignorance about Islam on the ego centric attitudes of the west, self centered, self obsessed the west has never felt that any other culture was worth studying or paying attention to.. after all we are God's chosen, we have manifest destiny and are the center of the universe.. And Islamists once meant those that study Islam, or as they were known "Orientalists".. an arcane and unproductive field of study which netted no rewards or attention.. thus names that pop up here regularly were until 9-11, unknown (and still are to most, names like Goldhizer).
These ignormasus on the left, see muslims as being scapegoats (the new Jews) of the Christian Right, just as the support and backbone of the Das Reich was drawn from the Catholics and Lutherans who supported from beginning to end, the NSDAP and it's fuhrer.
Many on the "left", and I dare say the very leadership, backbone, intelligentsia of the left are Jews, secular Jews, who know that social oppression and the Shoah originated in the breast of the Christian Right (puhleeze no arguments like the Nazi's were really pagans or some such, while true for many and a movement towards perhaps, the groundswell of support, the appeal to, the politics were Catholic and Lutheran, Pope B16 belonged to the Hitler Youth did he not, that doesn't make him a NAZI, but it does mean that he was typical of the German of the time).
The promise of Islam is that it is raceless (everyone is subsumed under the category "Arab"), classless (if you subtract the elite, the rich, the heirarchy called tribal leaders, Imam's and Mullahs) and where property is not privately owned (in theory all land is owned by the ummah, and is doled out by the clerics, and families are allowed to retain the property so long as it is kept productive..which is feudal).
Islam is feudalism, a medieval concept, rule by a hereditary elite (Sheikhs and Imams and Mullahs) Marxism is feudalism, rule by a hereditary elite.
In theory Islam and Marxism negate the ideas of race, class and private ownership of property, (control is substituted for ownership..and for the elite ruling class control is superior to ownership). Thus the attraction of the left to Islam.. on the other hand Islam and "conservative Judeo Christianity" has more in common with Islam in practise and theory.. both are patriarchial, both are misogynistic (read Acts, Corinthians and Romans and Leviticus and Deuteronomy and get back to me), both are traditionalists, (aka family values, anti homosexual, anti choice) and Christianity came from a theocratic origin, a Shi'ite like relationship twixt Church and State, and many in Christianity (like Pat Robertson, Falwell, and the Pope) would like to see and have on their agenda the return of state to control by religion ..especially true of Christian Reconstructionists/Dominionists who are legion, though they don't know it or express it outright.
Islam is of course a theocratic ideology.
So from this libertarian's point of view, both the left and the right are allies of Islam.. the left from an economic, social, class point of view, and the right from a "values", "morality point of view.
And that heroine of the right Ann Coulter herself said that she would form an alliance with muslims for the purpose of the culture war..when asked that question on Hardball she answered yes.
Here it is
Unidentified female:HI, if we‘re fighting Islamic fascism in the war on terror, I‘m wondering if we can American Muslims to fight the war on culture in the United States.
COULTER: I‘m not sure what you mean by that.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They tend to be socially conservative like against abortion and against gay marriage.
COULTER: Yes Source
So here we have the hypocrisy of "conservatives" (proto fascists in the words of John Dean) ranting against Islam, yet simultaneously sharing the same values and for sake of a culture war...eliciting their votes (Bush 2000 and 2004) and allying with them (e.g. Ann Coulter).
And you guys have the chutzpah to criticize and demonize the left?
at September 14, 2006 5:11 PM
Nariz -- your OT post seems oddly out of place -- oh yeah -- it's Off Topic - that's why.
You may have a nostril on the right side of your nose, as well as your left, but everything you exhale is clearly out of the left side.
Now you're a centrist 'libertarian'? Then why are you always defending the indefensible aspects of leftism, conflating the right with Islam, and generally bolloxing up the threads?
I've told you many times before, this is JihadWatch. Why don't you go and start your own blog? I just checked and right_wing_radical_christian_proto_fascist_watch.com. is available! Better hurry! After Rosie's incisive commentary, it's gonna be a hot HOT site.
Posted by: jsla at September 14, 2006 6:01 PM
Well thanks for your thoughts on my question, Nariz. There is much that I find reasonable in what you say, as well as some that I might not agree with. I don't have the time to make a detailed analysis of your response here, so just one or two quick points.
In the end, I may be wrong in even looking for any one particular cause for the Left's indulgence of Islam. You're right though about all parties in the West being "economic men", and socialists as well as other left wing thinkers certainly, to a much too great extent at least, as I see it, tend to analyze every movement through that lens. Therefore, most of them would undoubtedly see Islamic extremism as prompted by conditions of poverty, disadvantage, environmental factors and the like, and somehow persist in the hope that Muslims will transcend this once their socio-economic position improves. One would think, however, that their faith in this idea should be wearing pretty thin by now, especially when one considers that, very often, Islamist radicals are relatively priveleged. (Of course, they might resolve this "philosophically" by noting that the same was true of many Russian revolutionaries, as it often is in many revolutionary movements).
Your point about Muslim "egalitarianism" and economic communalism ("feudalism" was the word you used I think), or the appearance thereof, attracting their favourable attention also rings true to me, but I just find it hard to believe that they would be willing to sacrifice all of the gains that have been made, the real, concrete achievements on the ground, in areas such as women's rights and gender equality, as well as rights for other minorities in order to build a coalition on the basis of something so abstract and theoretical, though maybe some of them actually still believe that Marx's dialectic guarantees that the Umma will eventually evolve a capitalism of its own that will lead to the conditions resulting in the victorious socialist revolution and workers paradise (talk about a blind religious fundamentalism if its so!). Whatever, the truth of this may be, however, I can't help but think, at least at this point, that eventually, they will come to their senses, if for no other reason than the fact that they will realize that whatever "admirable" egalitarian characteristics it may have, Islamic fundamentalism is simply so unbelievably obscurantist, anachronistic, and plain backward that it does not deserve any sympathy.
Incidentally, I do know of some leftists, though not too many at this point, who do understand the threat, and who want the same kind of action taken as most of the readers in this forum, but they're far too few at the moment. Nonetheless, I hold out hope. Left wing leaders in the Americas and elsewhere were largely pacifist and anti-war in the years leading immediately to World War II, but this eventually changed. Also, there were many left wing members of the early Nazi party until Hitler had them all purged. Perhaps the experience of being similarly betrayed when the Jihadists no longer find them useful will help bring them around and awaken them. Hopefully this doesn't have to happen to them before they realize the true nature of what they're dealing with.
In any case, that's it for the moment. Thanks again for your interest in my question.
Posted by: templar at September 16, 2006 2:18 AM
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