16 Comments

1. Anthony (Los Angeles):

His book, While Europe Slept, is excellent reading, too, albeit sobering.

Jan 29, 2008 - 9:55 am 2. heather:

I agree. Bawer’s article is excellent.

I have always been fascinated with ‘the Dark Ages” in Europe and I’m learning a lot about those times, by watching current events. One interesting symptom is widespread breakdown of law in what we in the West know as ‘the public arena.’ Since this thuggishness is driven not only by ‘broken windows’ (a la New York), but by Islamic ideas and guidance, the process of disintegration will probably be much more rapidly than it was in 5th century Europe.

Mark Steyn believes that the US cannot maintain Western Civilization all by itself. One hopes that India will prove to be a strong ally in the coming century…

Jan 29, 2008 - 10:02 am 3. Lem:

After driving homophobia into the closet, multiculturalism invites homophobes to come out thru Islam?

Skin heads may now be covered.

I’m very confused

Jan 29, 2008 - 10:53 am 4. ras:

I am having a hard time deciding if:

a) the multiculturalists’ spiritual emptiness causes them to be weak (since they have nothing to defend); or

b) their weakness causes them to be spiritually empty (since having beliefs would require defending them); or

c) both of the above (but in what relative amounts?)

Jan 29, 2008 - 1:30 pm 5. LarryD:

Multiculturalism come from Marxism, it’s an attempt to undermine Western society so as to be able to overthrow it via a Marxist revolution.

That’s why multiculturalism holds that every civilization except the West is good.

I think the spiritual emptiness come first, but it is a mutually reinforcing cycle.

Jan 29, 2008 - 2:32 pm 6. vnjagvet:

Here’s the deal:

There will be no multiculturalism under Islam.

Sharia is nothing if not unicultural.

Wake up multiculturalists or your culture (you do have one, you know) will be a thing of the past.

Jan 29, 2008 - 2:59 pm 7. ms anne:

Thanks for publishing this piece.

I’m baffled that intelligent people refuse to acknowledge this immediate danger to people we love. Do Europeans think that vicious attacks will dwindle and fade away? That public murder and mayhem can’t be really happening? That appeasing a bloc of islamic votes will keep current snivelers in power? That defending historic principles in the face of an implacable enemy now within the walls is scary and unfashionable?

Hatred and lawless brutality are not religious or spiritual expressions–these abusers are criminals to be stopped with courage, strength, and response that upholds civil freedom.

Frankly Europeans are acting like abused wives, excusing the throttling, broken bones, and deaths, hoping they won’t get hit again, refusing to oppose bullies, seek refuge, or believe that their battered lives are worth saving.

Just shut your eyes. Pretend it isn’t happening. How’s that working for ya?

Jan 29, 2008 - 5:51 pm 8. Mark Razak:

LarryD is correct. The demoralization of the people of Europe is the result of nearly a century of socialist assault on their political, social, and cultural institutions. In order to lay the foundation for socialism all existing structures underlying society had to be destroyed. The left laid siege on European society and institutions mocking their democracies, ridiculing their culture, and belittling their accomplishments. The result is a people who are ashamed of their history, their culture and who believe that they have nothing good or positive to offer the world. Thus the timidity in the face of a philosophy that forcibly proclaims its superiority in all things. Europe’s only hope is that an overwhelming majority outright reject the entire edifice of socialism. This is unlikely. Europe will go out in a whimper. Young Europeans will either emigrate to escape the coming Islamic hell or convert.

The same process is occurring in America but is about 20 years behind. Look to Europe to see our future if we do not change course.

Jan 29, 2008 - 9:59 pm 9. docweasel:

Great article, but disturbing. I am aware of the problem already, but what is the solution? Like you, I am ‘left’ I guess of Republican orthodoxy on gay marriage. No one I’ve ever read or talked to has given me a coherent reason why committed, monogamous gays shouldn’t be sanctioned and welcomed as stable units by government as much as heteros. Maybe it has to do with the fact that many of the people making the argument don’t actually know many gays, but get their attitudes via various media.

Regarding the article, however, I am also to the “left” I guess, of most Republicans in that while I of course favor secure borders, I would wish every immigrant who wishes it has the same opportunity my grandparents had, when they left their home country as middle aged parents with their children. There but for the grace of God and all that. Who are we, already here, to deny that dream to others?

But what if, instead of industrious, religious and family oriented Mexicans, the immigrant problem was maladjusted and socially alienated Muslims? Then the question becomes harder. That’s what they face in Europe. One of my main arguments to “nativists” is that I don’t see Mexicans negatively affecting “American culture” and maybe those now demanding assimilation will themselves be assimilated in a couple generations.

However, what if we had the same problem Holland, Scandinavia, Belgium and France have? I honestly don’t know how to justify my opinions on immigration in the face of their set of facts.

They may be assimilated as well, and we’ll have, instead of an enlightened group of democracies in Europe, a de facto caliphate enforcing sharia?

Jan 30, 2008 - 4:07 am 10. srlucado:

I’ve said many times that violence is the oxygen of Islam.

To those who foolishly believe that violence never solved anything, let them observe how Islam is now solving the problem of Western civilization.

It gives me no pleasure to make this prediction, but only greater violence is going to prevent the outright destruction of democratic Europe.

Jan 30, 2008 - 6:56 am 11. AlanC:

docweasel says “No one I’ve ever read or talked to has given me a coherent reason why committed, monogamous gays shouldn’t be sanctioned and welcomed as stable units by government as much as heteros. ”

If this is true you need to speak with more people or broaden your reading…..or admit to a bias where any disagreement is ipso facto incoherent or irrational.

Many conservatives (including Bush if you count him as conservative) have supported civil union style legislation that gives gays the kind of legal standing that heteros have. The problem is that that is not what is wanted by many in the movement. My personal contacts (a gay relative in a VERY gay area) admits that the main reason for wanting official marriage by many, so called, leaders, is to undermine the social constructs in a way that would lead to all sorts of deviant behavior getting government sanction.

The other primary reason is money. Get the government out of the financial equation of marriage and see how many gays want to get hitched.

Jan 30, 2008 - 8:34 am 12. docweasel:

Well, I don’t necessarily buy your theory, told to you in confidence by actual gays, that they just want marriage to piss straight people off. If that’s their secret plan, why tell the enemy?

Frankly, I think that’s bullshit. I think they want legitimacy as much as tax breaks, insurance, retirement benefits, inclusion on family medical benefits, legal status as family member (for things like death, hospitalization, decisions to be made in case of incapacitation, etc) basically everything a legal spouse has, and that’s eminently fair.

Where we differ is, I take you think homosexuality is a moral wrong, so it should get legal equality (civil unions) but should still have some sort of stigma attached to it, and to bolster your argument you quote gays who state nefarious reasons proving your point.

Well, no doubt there are gays who want to be here, queer, get used to it and in your face to people who call them hell-bound sinners, deviants, moral perverts, etc.

But there are people who want a lot of things for a lot of reasons. That doesn’t automatically mean there should be no auto insurance because some people use it for a scam.

Personally, the gay people _I_ talk to must just be paragons or something, but I’ve never heard the reasons you state- mostly, besides legal benefits, they want actual marriage because they believe it will help decrease the remaining stigma of being gay, as if it were something bad or immoral. I guess most of the people who don’t want gays married feel there is something wrong with it.

I don’t, and so I see no reason for the government to make a moral judgment.

Tradition? Bah. Tradition had laws against miscegenation and religions had bans on mixed marriages (some still do) and those traditions were found wanting and discarded.

Demeans the sanctimony of marriage? More than heteros like Anna Nicole or Elizabeth Taylor or you name it, since 80% of new marriages end in divorce. It couldn’t be anymore discredited. That doesn’t mean it can’t be a positive thing. It has nothing to do with gay or straight, its people.

So, long-windedly, if your argument is they just want it to stick it to straights, I still don’t see that as a valid reason. Say black slaves wanted the vote just to piss of their old plantation owners- would that mean they shouldn’t get it?

Its a right, there’s an equal protection clause in the Constitution. Eventually, they’ll get it. The next generation, I believe in my heart, is a lot less homophobic and racist, and better days will get here.

I wrote a post about how gay rights aren’t really an issue this election, at least not yet, and that I’d heard that gays were piping down because its thought that support for gay marriage, even Kerry’s tepid support, lost him the election, so they agree to shut up and Queen Hillary will give them marriage on the sly.

Of course, that doesn’t work out well for constituencies who shut up and just support the Clintons (see the Welfare Reform Act and NAFTA, programs Reagan would have loved)- more likely she’d sign another Defense of Marriage Act to get her 2nd (and Bill’s 4th) term.

Jan 30, 2008 - 10:06 am 13. AlanC:

Doc, did you read what I wrote? “…by many, so called, leaders…”

Didn’t say that this was a majority position. But in the very gay area that I have been around with gay relatives (aka P’town) that is very much heard when chatting off hand.

RE: moral. Nope moral doesn’t play into it. My personal opinion is that Homosexuality is a mental condition. The low end of a continuum that includes any of the various trans-gender issues (unless you consider wanting your genitals re-engineered a life style choice) on up to the people that want their arm or leg cut off because it “doesn’t feel right”.

Many of the people pushing gay marriage are on board with a whole raft of things that are, if not designed to, going to undermine the whole system of traditional family values, from incest to Nambla to polygamy. Not all, and probably not most of the gays that would get married feel this way. But the people pushing it?

Tell me, in this day and age what where several churches would marry gays, what would a civil-union law lack?

Oh, BTW, what would a civil union law for gays mean for non-gay couples?

Jan 31, 2008 - 1:39 pm 14. AlanC:

Doc, did you read what I wrote? “…by many, so called, leaders…”

Didn’t say that this was a majority position. But in the very gay area that I have been around with gay relatives (aka P’town) that is very much heard when chatting off hand.

RE: moral. Nope moral doesn’t play into it. My personal opinion is that Homosexuality is a mental condition. The low end of a continuum that includes any of the various trans-gender issues (unless you consider wanting your genitals re-engineered a life style choice) on up to the people that want their arm or leg cut off because it “doesn’t feel right”.

Many of the people pushing gay marriage are on board with a whole raft of things that are, if not designed to, going to undermine the whole system of traditional family values, from incest to Nambla to polygamy. Not all, and probably not most of the gays that would get married feel this way. But the people pushing it?

Tell me, in this day and age what where several churches would marry gays, what would a civil-union law lack?

Oh, BTW, what would a civil union law for gays mean for non-gay couples?

Jan 31, 2008 - 1:40 pm 15. docweasel:

If you are asking should people merely shacking up get all the amenities of marriage, the answer is no, unless they are willing to commit to a monogamous partnership in a very real and legally binding fashion. That’s why I back gay marriage, plus I’m of the same opinion that it will help remove some of the stigma of homosexuality and evidence our society’s acceptance of homosexuality as “normal”.

Since you think its a mental condition, I guess we disagree. Of course, there is a definition of mental condition of which you suffer, as well, its a type of phobia.

Feb 2, 2008 - 10:50 pm 16. AlanC:

Doc, my mental condition is just fine. Unfortunately your educational condition….not so good.

Need to read up on what a phobia really is.

You do know that the entire medical community used to hold the same view that I do not all that long ago, right? Seems there was this politically correct movement that got things changed.

Were all psychiatrists circa 1965 phobic?

Feb 3, 2008 - 6:25 pm

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