by dai bread » Fri May 12, 2006 1:25 am
Some comments on Mark Steyn's article:
..."I don't think Don Rumsfeld would regard it as a promotion if he were moved to Health and Human Services."
That's a pity. Defence of the Realm is one thing; actively waging war is another.
..."We've prioritized the secondary impulse over the primary ones: national defense, family, faith and, most basic of all, reproductive activity--"Go forth and multiply," because if you don't you won't be able to afford all those secondary-impulse issues, like cradle-to-grave welfare."
"Go forth & multiply"? Is Steyn saying the State should get involved in the bedrooms of the nation? The biggest driver of falling birthrates is a high standard of living, and this connection was made years ago as standards rose substantially after WW2 and birthrates dropped inversely.
...."reliance on immigration to ensure its future"...
The E.U. doesn't have this on its own. You'll all be aware of the recent furore in the U.S. over illegals.
The whole question of transnational migration is difficult & complex. A lot depends on which countries you're talking about for a start. I've often been intrigued by the fact that migrants who make it to France don't want to stay there, they want to go on to Britain. Why? I would have thought France was a decent country to live in. Plenty of British people think so.
The Aussies have more or less solved their problem by making their holding pens extremely uncomfortable. Illegals are held in them for years. As well, Islamists soiled their own nest by bombing Bali, thereby depriving Indonesia of huge tourist income, and allying the Indonesian Govt. with the Australian one to curb illegal migration, among other things.
..."the smarter Islamists have figured out. They know they can never win on the battlefield, but they figure there's an excellent chance they can drag things out until Western civilization collapses in on itself."
Guerilla warfare has always been like this. Just ask what's left of the French Resistance. So far in history, military strength has eventually prevailed, as it did in France in 1944. In Iraq, Iran & Afghanistan, it may not. Afghanistan in particular is a known historical problem. If the British couldn't take it when their empire was at its height, what chance has anyone else? The Soviets couldn't hold it either, much later and with much better technology than the British had. It could be said in both cases that the occupying powers didn't want to hold it. That raises the question of why they invaded in the first place.
..."Civilizations die from suicide, not murder"... I've always thought they died from old age. As I know only too well, having just helped a carrier haul a big chunk of Axminster upstairs, we get weaker as we age. This applies to nations & empires as well. Mind you, sometimes old people lose the will to live, and I expect this applies to nations & empires as well. I'm not sure how to categorise the demise of the British Empire, but I wouldn't call it suicide. Sundry colonised people, educated in British values, rebelled against colonial regimes. There was a certain inevitability about the end of the British Empire. The cost of holding it would have become astronomical, both financially & in lives & injuries.
..."Multiculturalism means your kid has to learn some wretched native dirge for the school holiday concert instead of getting to sing "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" or that your holistic masseuse uses techniques developed from Native American spirituality, but not that you or anyone you care about should have to live in an African or Native American society."
Hear, hear. In NZ, this is called Political Correctness, and is loudly derided whenever it rears its ugly head. That doesn't stop some people, though.
I would add another comment: the multi cultures never interact much with us. We're always expected to interact with them. This includes accepting their values where they conflict with ours. Political correctness rears its head often in this context. When a Chinese murders another Chinese here, it's our fault.
..."I believe that once you are a Canadian citizen, you have the right to your own views and to disagree." The poor guy was between a rock & a hard place. I'm sure his country's law doesn't allow for discrimination against Canadian citizens at all, so he has no choice. Mind you, he would have got much more respect from his normal constituents if he'd said so instead of pussyfooting.
Even if the returnees were tried & found guilty of treason, they are still citizens. I hope the law is being studied with a view to amending it appropriately, but I don't know what an appropriate amendment would be. If war is not declared, are the people you're fighting, your nations enemies, & does the law relating to treason apply? How does it apply in respect of peacekeeping operations?
..."I would say socialized health care is a good marker"... Socialised medicine again. It's been discussed to death on this board. It's a pity Steyn doesn't have better marker. In this country, I'd suggest the proposed compulsory microchipping of dogs, or the proposal to charge a toll on anyone entering Auckland's isthmus area by car.
....why wouldn't you fancy your chances against the Belgians and Danes and New Zealanders?"... An interesting concept. The French came unstuck when they tried some state terrorism here in 1981 (if I remember rightly). Their agents were caught by police work and an observant populace, and that's why I think the "war against terror" should be a police matter, not a military one.
..."When it comes to forecasting the future, the birthrate is the nearest thing to hard numbers"... The imbalance between the poor & the rich is the problem here. Even on a local community level, poor people tend to have bigger families than rich ones. China's one-child policy is necessary to our well-being as much as it is to China's. 1.3 billion growing exponentially? I'll let someone else work it out, but to a non-mathematician like me it's scary. However, as living standards rise world-wide, birthrates will fall, as I said above.
..."The "free world," as the Americans called it, was a free ride for everyone else." Americans insist on being the world's policeman. I've said before, it will bankrupt you.
..."Europe by the end of this century will be a continent after the neutron bomb: The grand buildings will still be standing, but the people who built them will be gone. We are living through a remarkable period: the self-extinction of the races who, for good or ill, shaped the modern world." This does seem remarkably pessimistic. Comment from lliam?
..."If China ever takes its place as an advanced nation, it will be because the People's Republic learns more from British Hong Kong than Hong Kong learns from the Little Red Book." The Chinese have been traders & businessmen for millennia. They don't need to learn from anybody. They just have to revert to their usual ways, and this they are doing very quickly.
..."British Muslims want to live under Shariah--in the United Kingdom. " therein lies the contradiction of these people. They want it all. There's nothing new in that, but the U.K. was built by Western values. Maybe there's enough overlap between Christianity & Islam to keep a Western nation like the U.K. going, but from what I read about Sharia law I doubt it. But then, there are all sorts of Muslims, just as there are all sorts of Christians, and non-Christian Westerners. Indonesia, for instance, poses none of these problems. It poses others, which I won't go into here. This post is already too long.
As you may have gathered, it's a cold, wet day here and I have the time to read and comment on, a long article. Mark Steyn seems a bit pessimistic, at least from this side of the world. Others who live nearer the action may have a different view.
We have no money; we must use our brains. -Ernest Rutherford.
