Do you think the governments of the West to have the belief in themselves to push such an agenda? Do you think that enough of their populations would forego welfare statism, embrace their lost Christianity, and put their, ahh, "nose to the grindstone?" Do the mainline churches in western europe even believe in G-d anymore? All the churches I saw in my tour through Switzerland were museums, save one.
europe? no. American? yes
eventually, they will be forced to
doubtful
Welfare states are a ponzi scheme. Our social security is a ponzi scheme. They are doomed to bankrupt the societies that go down that road.
true, but i didn't say they weren't. i was talking about western civilization, which doesn't itself depend on increasing population to sustain itself.
but to your point, what exactly do you think will happen when the welfare system of europe collapses? when they get to the point that the EU and UN can't borrow more money to make payments? it'll probably involve a lot of starvation and quite a lot of rock throwing and car burning, but that will peter out long before western civilization disappears.
Tell that to the Taliban, Al-Qaida and the Al-Qaida in Iraq. The guys down in Gitmo may have a different opinion also. The radical Islamists blowing people up in resturaunts, buses etc.. also have a different take than you.
sure, that's PART of the war, but it's not the whole war, which makes calling it a war on islam pretty stupid.
besides , the war on terror isn't addressing ANY of the concerns the author has about the demise of western civilization.
I am not saying you are wrong but you haven't provided any evidence that he is wrong. All you have done is spout off a bunch of your preconceptions.
i haven't set about proving he's "wrong". he made a claim and offered no support of that claim.
ok, let's take a different look at this issue
assume for the sake of argument that western civilization, euro and america are run by THRers. welfare is minimal, economy is fine, every citizen has at least a dozen fully automatic EBRs, the borders are closed, and freedom of speech and religion is held in high regard...
however, birthrates among WASPs are very low, and non-violent muslim citizens are breeding like rabbits. although they're non-violent and productive members of society (they'd have to be, as there's no welfare to support them otherwise), it's no secret that once they reach 51% of the population, women will be forced to cover themselves in public, religion will be regulated and you can kiss bacon and sausage biscuits goodbye, and christmas, too.
occam's razor, anyone? you see, the "problem" is occuring without multiculturalism or "tolerance" or welfare. welfare is a different and unrelated issue. look at GM's pension issues, where islam isn't involved, as an example. sure, it's bad. but it's still unrelated. same for multiculturalism.
thus, back in the real world, if we were all to implement Mr. Steyn's thinnly veiled suggestions:
- super-glue the 10 commandments to every government orafice
- take all the muslims off welfare
- institute the draft for christmas carollers
we would accomplish what exactly?
hey, i wouldn't mind if we did that, you know. it's just that it doesn't solve "the problem". at the VERY BEST, it briefly delays it.
so really, what exactly do you propose we do?
forbid them to reproduce?
make a law regarding their religion?
deny their right to vote?
hmm... those laws look familiar. i wonder where i've seen them before...