Johann Hari's travelogue of the National Review cruise is a fantastic read and it's hard to pick the standout section. Andrew Sullivan focuses on a tiff between Norman Podhoretz and William Buckley. The running theme of total panic about Muslim birthrates might be even weirder.
This is the Muslims Are Coming cruise. Everyone thinks it. Everyone knows it. And the man most responsible for this insight is sitting only a few tables down: Mark Steyn. He is wearing sunglasses on top of his head and a bright shirt. Steyn's thesis in his new book, America Alone, is simple: The "European races"--i.e., white people--"are too self-absorbed to breed," but the Muslims are multiplying quickly. The inevitable result will be "large-scale evacuation operations circa 2015" as Europe is ceded to Al Qaeda and "Greater France remorselessly evolve[s] into Greater Bosnia." He offers a light smearing of dubious demographic figures--he needs to turn 20 million European Muslims into more than 150 million in nine years, which is a lot of humping--to "prove" his case.
But facts, figures, and doubt are not on the itinerary of this cruise. With one or two exceptions, the passengers discuss "the Muslims" as a homogenous, sharia-seeking block--already with near-total control of Europe. Over the week, I am asked nine times--I counted--when I am fleeing Europe's encroaching Muslim population for the safety of the United States.
At one of the seminars, a panelist says anti-Americanism comes from both directions in a grasping pincer movement--"The Muslims condemn us for being decadent; the Europeans condemn us for not being decadent enough." Midge Decter, Norman Podhoretz's wife, yells, "The Muslims are right, the Europeans are wrong!" And, instantly, Jay Nordlinger, National Review's managing editor and the panel's chair, says, "I'm afraid a lot of the Europeans are Muslim, Midge." The audience cheers. Somebody shouts, "You tell 'em, Jay!"
It's unclear how much this phobia was building among NR's high-toned audience before Steyn's book came out. If his work is responsible, well, then, damn. At one point he claims that the population of Yemen will outstrip Russia's in the not-too-distant future.
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|6.26.07 @ 9:39AM|#
How did you restrain yourself from throwing them all overboard??
Earplugs?
|6.26.07 @ 9:50AM|#
There is a lot of scary stupidity in there, but I'd have to confess that there is a kernel in there that bothers me. Fundamentalism wins elections. Moderates lose everywhere all the time. If nothing else, they get blown up.
Now, you can't talk about The Muslims with any greater accuracy than you can talk about The West, but can't you legitimately talk about The West as a group of people with some basic sets of assumptions in common?
I dunno. I just worry sometimes that the glue of common understanding in the middle east is something like The Goodness of Theocracy or The Evil of Choice. I want to believe that is absurd and that there is a minority who feel that way, but is that hope empiricially borne out?
|6.26.07 @ 9:52AM|#
Hey you! Gen Y-ers! You heard the man. Now get out there and start screwing your brains out and pushing out pups.
And don't start whining about "I can't support that many kids on my McJob salary" The great US Conservative welfare system has got your back. Have they ever lied to you before?
Or do you hate America?
Bhh|6.26.07 @ 9:53AM|#
At some point there was coup at NR and high-functioning retards took the place over. I'm not sure if the audience for NR devolved and it followed along or if it was a more synergistic process where dumb + dumb = a lot of dumb. WFB with his big city fancy talk is a relic they wheel out every once in a while but no one remembers why. Lowry? Podhoretz? Goldberg? I wouldn't trust those dorks to wash my car.
I think conservatarians are looking for something. "Small government" and all that BS went out with the Macarena. The Brown Hoard provides something with some real guts to get agitated about.
JasonL - There seems to be a global counterrevolution against the Enlightenment underway. It's not quite accurate to make like it's just taking place in the islamic world though.
Alan Augustson|6.26.07 @ 9:58AM|#
Wow. This is nearly as insane as the "Commies are coming" BS I heard up until the Soviet Union shattered.
So who will take the place of "the Muslims" after they've had their run? Just wondering. Hey, maybe it'll be "the Christian Fascists"! Can I shoot? Can I?!
Jack|6.26.07 @ 9:59AM|#
The excerpt Sully quoted about Buckley being shouted down by dittoheads whipped into a Rumsfeldian fury by Podhoretz was vaguely depressing
So is the thought of a cruise where nobody gets laid
|6.26.07 @ 10:02AM|#
Was Midge Decter wearing a veil when she said "the Muslims are right"? Why was she allowed to speak in a group of men anyway? Weird.
lunchstealer|6.26.07 @ 10:05AM|#
At one point he claims that the population of Yemen will outstrip Russia's in the not-too-distant future.
Next Sunday A.D.?
|6.26.07 @ 10:08AM|#
Midge Decter, Norman Podhoretz's wife, yells, "The Muslims are right, the Europeans are wrong!"
It's interesting to watch the little National Review civil war. The same magazine that publishes the "Exterminate the brutes" Islamophobia of Mark Steyn also publishes the Taliban Republicanism of Ramesh Ponorru and this Midge Decter person.
Though I must admit, the way these factions can come together to hate liberals is nothing short of inspiring.
D. Greene|6.26.07 @ 10:16AM|#
Dude, Midge Decter is fucking crazy. She spoke at my college at a seminar and claimed that only homosexual sex and heroin use cause AIDS.
rho|6.26.07 @ 10:18AM|#
WFB with his big city fancy talk is a relic they wheel out every once in a while but no one remembers why. Lowry? Podhoretz? Goldberg? I wouldn't trust those dorks to wash my car.
Buckley started a revolution; the others just want to get in on it. It's the difference between The Grateful Dead and Deadheads--one is hard, the other just requires you to wear the uniform.
|6.26.07 @ 10:21AM|#
JasonL,
Now, you can't talk about The Muslims with any greater accuracy than you can talk about The West, but can't you legitimately talk about The West as a group of people with some basic sets of assumptions in common?
Only to a certain degree of precision - a degree that falls well short of what's useful when discussion politics.
The West includes Reaganism, Naderism, and Fidelistas.
|6.26.07 @ 10:22AM|#
There seems to be a global counterrevolution against the Enlightenment underway. It's not quite accurate to make like it's just taking place in the islamic world though.
You can also place some of the blame for this on those espousing post-modernist ideologies.
|6.26.07 @ 10:24AM|#
Block Quote Works Special Edition of My Previous Post:
You can also place some of the blame for this on those espousing post-modernist ideologies.
|6.26.07 @ 10:27AM|#
The not so hidden agenda here is to pave the way for "the West" to accept that there needs to be final solution to the Muslim problem.
|6.26.07 @ 10:31AM|#
The Titanic went down, yet this ship of fools remains above the waterline? Where's the justice?
|6.26.07 @ 10:36AM|#
Bhh -- My hat's off to you.
|6.26.07 @ 10:39AM|#
Midge Decter, Norman Podhoretz's wife
Why isn't her name "Midge Podhoretz?" I thought the whole women-not-taking-their-husband's-name fad was just the kind of liberal-ACLU-feminist perversion that is destroying Western Civilization from within. If a neocon culture warrior like Norman Fucking Podhoretz can't even keep his wife in line, what hope is there for the rest of us?
|6.26.07 @ 10:40AM|#
Why do white people always have this nagging fear of being outnumbered someday by TEH BROWNZ?
This isn't recent, this fear has been around since the 18th Century.
The third rate Canadian fascist you mention is nothing more than the spiritual heir to Lothrop Stoddard, though given VDARE's praises of Stoddard that might be a compliment.
MORE AMERICAN THAN NATIONAL RE|6.26.07 @ 10:41AM|#
THESE GUYS ARE CRAZY ITS NOT THE MUSLIMS IT TEH MEXICANS!!
thoreau|6.26.07 @ 10:42AM|#
Jason-
A few things. First, I just have to ask a question about this:
Fundamentalism wins elections. Moderates lose everywhere all the time.
If moderates lose and fire-breathers win, then why are you always saying that libertarian ideologues need to moderate and compromise?
Mind you, I happen to agree about the need for compromise, but it was interesting to hear you say that it's the moderates who compromise and lose.
Anyway, moving on: Whatever generalizations might or might not be true about the Middle East (and I think such generalizations are probably quite dangerous), extrapolating to immigrant communities is even more dangerous. Sure, you'll find some radicals among those communities, but how representative are those crazies? And keep in mind that Europe is not as good at assimilating immigrants as we are. To the extent that the crazies reflect on anything other than themselves, I wonder to what extent they reflect on their host countries rather than their ancestral lands.
That's an important question to ask, because it may be that openness will defeat fanaticism better than walls.
|6.26.07 @ 10:42AM|#
Should read, "he might take that as a compliment".
|6.26.07 @ 10:43AM|#
But facts, figures, and doubt are not on the itinerary of this cruise.
Nor are they on the itinerary of the Reason comments.
The rest of the post is excerpts from the long paper (lots of facts 'n' figgers and scenarios from the UN and other sources) below:
Timothy M. Savage: Europe and Islam: Crescent Waxing, Cultures Clashing.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The Washington Quarterly • 27:3 pp. 25-50.
http://www.twq.com/04summer/docs/04summer_savage.pdf
- Conservative projections estimate that, compared to today's 5 percent, Muslims will
comprise at least 20 percent of Europe's population by 2050. Muslims could outnumber
non-Muslims in France and perhaps in all of western Europe by mid-century
- European Muslims are not a monolithic group, however, Europe's Muslims are not so
diverse as to entirely exclude commonalities. The most important is Islam. This new
interest in faith is especially keen among Muslims born in Europe, mostly the children and
grandchildren of the immigrants who arrived in the 1960s and '70s. Indeed, surveys show
that many Muslims in Europe, especially the young, now identify with Islam more than the
country either of their heritage or birth - feeling accepted in neither place. The Muslim
world is overwhelmingly totalitarian; it does not share Western ideals on women or on
basic freedoms such as free speech, a free press, and freedom to worship as one sees fit.
- Studies in France and Germany find that second- and particularly third-generation
Muslims are less integrated into European societies than their parents or grandparents
were. The recent headscarf affairs in France and Germany underscore and further
exacerbate this basic clash. The influential German nationwide daily Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung depicts the situation as "frightening," questions the prospects of
integrating Germany's growing Muslim population into society, and maintains that at least
10 percent of Germany's Muslim population-400,000 individuals-are followers and
supporters of radical Islam, whose aim is the establishment of an Islamic state.
|6.26.07 @ 10:48AM|#
She spoke at my college at a seminar and claimed that only homosexual sex and heroin use cause AIDS.
Replace 'cause AIDS' with 'transmit HIV' and she's about 80-90% correct - according to the CDC and referring to the US, at least. Nearly all the rest is transmission by hetersexual anal sex between women and male junkies and MSM.
|6.26.07 @ 10:50AM|#
Cesar,
Most of us don't.
|6.26.07 @ 10:53AM|#
joe:
It isn't really politics per se that I'm worried about. This is more of a gaius marius sized look at things. I worry a fundamental inability to live with each other due to mutually exclusive value sets. What do you do if the guy downstairs is keeping slaves?
|6.26.07 @ 10:55AM|#
You can get AIDS from the mainstream media? I'm unplugging my television right now!
|6.26.07 @ 10:58AM|#
LeMur-
50-year Demographic projections are a step above fortune telling in their accuracy.
|6.26.07 @ 10:59AM|#
Jake,
Don't be silly. He meant MLM--multi-level marketing.
Or maybe MTM--Mary Tyler Moore.
|6.26.07 @ 11:04AM|#
Most of us don't.
Yes, that is true, But I've never seen a book by an African, East Asian, Or Latin American that talks of "Race suicide".
|6.26.07 @ 11:04AM|#
JasonL,
If he's hurting people, you call the police.
Short of that, you chill, and your kids teach his kids the lyrics to "The Real Slim Shady."
If we lived in a society that depended on cultural homogeneity and universal adherence among our populace to a central cultural vision, lots of people from other cultures coming here might a problem.
But we don't. Diversity and the constant acculturation of immigrants and their kids are, and always have been, two of the defining pillars of American culture.
Your slavery example is easy. We banned slavery a century ago. Slavers go to jail. It's the smaller, victimless differences that pose more of a challenge, because we can't impose order in the same manner, and because little conflicts will crop up a lot more frequently.
We'll deal. We always have. We've got a long, proud heritage as a mongrel society, and these problems take care of themselves.
|6.26.07 @ 11:04AM|#
JasonL,
You might find Danny Postel's recent essay/pamphlet of interest. Nick gave it a shout out here, with a few additional links.
Anon
thoreau|6.26.07 @ 11:14AM|#
Short of that, you chill, and your kids teach his kids the lyrics to "The Real Slim Shady."
This reminds me of a great article in the Onion last week:
After 5 Years In U.S., Terrorist Cell Too Complacent To Carry Out Attack
|6.26.07 @ 11:16AM|#
thoreau:
I was referring broadly to the popularity of fanatical crazies in the middle east. Fundamentalists don't win all elections in the west, clearly.
I haven't thought this through, but part of my concern may be highlighted by your question. Interest groups form and shape American politics because our underlying common set of assumptions includes an individual persuit of your own interests and values. We would expect there to be a lot of interest groups. What does the popularity of a theocratic state say along those lines?
I don't know exactly how to figure immigrant populations into my concern. The crying about the numbers seems silly to me, just as the crying about hispanics domestically seems silly. That said, I don't like the word 'assimilated' much in the sense that you need to dress a certain way and eat non threatening food, but really the base line is that you buy into the ideas of tolerance, nonviolence, and fundamental rights.
thoreau|6.26.07 @ 11:22AM|#
What does the popularity of a theocratic state say along those lines?
The theocrats tend to be most popular in places where the local thugs are (1) allegedly allied with liberal Westerners and (2) caught with their hands in cookie jars. The theocrats always promise to not stick their hands into cookie jars, and it's quite likely that in the beginning they even mean it. Religious zeal can be a purifying thing in the absence of temptation. (And yes, that sentence is arguably nonsensical, or at least underwhelming, which is sort of the point.)
Of course, theocrats get power and then they stick their hands in cookie jars, because they are human.
I've heard that religious courts are also pretty popular in places prone to tribal warfare. However illiberal the religious judge might be, initially he is at least consistent and predictable, which is more than you can say for a situation where disputes are handled by blood feuds. People can generally prosper under illiberal but predictable laws better than they can prosper under chaos.
Of course, if the religious court goes from being the new alternative to the entrenched status quo, then the religious judges start sticking their hands into cookie jars too, because they are human.
As to assimilation, I completely agree with you: I don't give a damn what somebody wears or eats. Well, OK, fat people shouldn't wear spandex. And Norse immigrants shouldn't eat rotten fish if the wind will blow the smell toward me. But otherwise, I don't give a damn. I'm more interested in the values.
Alex|6.26.07 @ 11:23AM|#
No discussion of this is complete without Randy McDonald's post in which he did the, y'know, sums wrt France, and this one wrt Spain. Take-home message: Mark Steyn is wrong, not just a bit wrong, but so wrong that only deliberate mendacity or functional innumeracy are adequate explanations.
|6.26.07 @ 11:24AM|#
joe:
I don't think it is as easy as you suggest. Because I'm not necessarily talking about immigrants in particular. I'm talking about the kernel that what is wildly popular in a part of the world, not forced upon people but legitimately popular, may be at odds with our views as fundamentally as is slavery.
I'm as much worried about us getting along on the same planet as the same apartment building. So the answer is leave everyone alone and let the oppressed over there handle thier own situation. Immigration is a feature of the world that bring these two differing views into physical proximity on an increasing basis. Or something like that.
Mind you too, I don't lay awake at night worrying about this, I'm more voicing a concern about what it may mean when given an option, people choose violent theocrats.
SPD|6.26.07 @ 11:25AM|#
Where's a U-boat when you need one?
highnumber|6.26.07 @ 11:40AM|#
You ever notice that certain commenters and other people are always throwing out numbers to make their case for whatever craziness they're trying to spread?
Take the case of Muslims somehow forming a threat to whatever order the commenter is trying to preserve. Do you think he has had experiences that made him seek out and compile stats to "prove" his point? Perhaps Muslims swarmed his workplace and forced him to pray with them, or he had a dispute with someone who forced him to settle it in a sharia court.
What really sets someone off as a fraidy cat like that? If I want to get all spiritual, I could guess it's something like a contracting rather than expanding soul, but that sounds kind of flaky. Is it a lack of self confidence that leads to this fear? Anybody here who's gone from intolerant nutjob to normal? Can you give some insights to the mind of these nuts? I listen and listen to these people, but I cannot get my head around what is really at the root of their fear.
dhex|6.26.07 @ 12:00PM|#
i think it's basically the fear of an alien order being imposed upon them from outside. remarkably similar to the OBL communiques.
your confusion stems from their it being conveyed in racial and religious terms that have lost some of their freshness in many quarters. and i believe that works in both directions.
i suppose we should have some sympathy for those who seek to swim against the current of history and the continued mixture of people, places and things. (in that vein i guess we should hope others have sympathy for us, a voice in the mines in the age of the superstate.
|6.26.07 @ 12:26PM|#
Can you give some insights to the mind of these nuts? I listen and listen to these people, but I cannot get my head around what is really at the root of their fear.
highnumber,
I think you're probably overthinking it. I attribute this type of stuff to good old fashioned Paleolithic fear of the the other tribe mixed with a dose of paranoia.
|6.26.07 @ 12:34PM|#
But I've never seen a book by an African, East Asian, Or Latin American that talks of "Race suicide".
No, they just fly planes into buildings or commit genocide by wiping out the competing tribe. The publishing royalties must not be that good overseas.
Honestly, do you think that cruise-happy right-wingers are the only ones who have tribalistic tendencies? Midge Decter is low on my list of people to worry about. Fanatics and thugs with loyal armies rank a bit higher.
|6.26.07 @ 12:37PM|#
JW-
No, they just fly planes into buildings or commit genocide by wiping out the competing tribe. The publishing royalties must not be that good overseas.
Thats very true, I think the poster that said this kind (Muslims taking over Europe) is very similar to OBL's complaints about western influence in the Middle East is a very valid one.
SPD|6.26.07 @ 12:46PM|#
Ah yes, "they." Who exactly are "they," anyway?
|6.26.07 @ 12:47PM|#
Paranoid westerners always fear they are going to lose in demographics, paranoid non-westerners tend to fear that their cultures will be "westernized" and their culture will be forever lost even if they remain by far the numerical majority.
|6.26.07 @ 12:49PM|#
highnumber: I came from the sticks where xenophobia reigns. I don't know that I was a nutjob exactly, but I fell into the category of intolerant in younger days for sure.
To wit:
1. it is easier to hate and fear rather than investigate and tolerate.
2. utter lack of intellectual curiosity
3. people don't read...anything besides the local rag's obits and police blotter
4. specifically in my case, I came from the real upstate NY (within a stone's throw of Canada, eh) where the number one industry is prisons (NYC crooks) and law enforcement (Homeland Security and NYSP). When folks are exposed to only the worst that society has to offer for generations and do so under the gaze of the over-armed, over-zealous, over-staffed NYSP army, their ability to understand the world at large as anything other than one big goddamned fearful mess is reduced.
Thank you for reminding me why I don't care if I ever go back to that shithole again.
VM|6.26.07 @ 12:53PM|#
Cecil-
we've probably discussed this before - Plattsburgh? Malone? Massena?
From yer answer, I'd guess Malone... (prison there)
I do object to JW's "they fly planes into buildings". How many attacks have been like that? More than one? Is it a consistently used tactic? If not, for me that phrasing plays into the hands of the "kill 'em all" crowd.
Wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube men paid for this space.
|6.26.07 @ 12:56PM|#
VM - Plattsburgh was the closest city.
The best laughs us townies ever got was when we would call Plattsburgh "the city" in the presence of some Long Island brats attending Plattsburgh State.
I thank the stars every day for the decision to get an education and get the hell out with some sanity intact.
VM|6.26.07 @ 1:01PM|#
Ah - I've driven Route 11 from Rouses Point to Watertown many times... beautiful, if not forsaken country...
Just be thankful that you weren't across the cute little lake in West Virgina (Northern Version) - you'd have no sanity, and you'd be culturally programmed never to leave... :)
[ducks. runs off]
Alan Augustson|6.26.07 @ 1:02PM|#
The danger of a theocratic state is not absent. I just perceive it as coming from a different direction.
As the combined effects of Peak Oil and global warming work their magic, resources such as food, fuel and especially water become more and more scarce. The US will not be immune to the resulting hardship.
And hard times, as I've said elsewhere, favor dogma over reason. Demagogues will blame science for failing to protect us (when, in fact, it will be the failure of governments and the market to heed science).
Fundies will step in, offering to "save us from ourselves", and then the ridiculing of intellectuals, the constraints upon the press, the suspicion cast upon professors... which most of us won't notice, as we'll all be hypnotized by the endless parade of flags-n'-eagles.
VikingMoose|6.26.07 @ 1:07PM|#
But fortunately, you're the said intellectual who will notice (or has noticed) the flags-n-eagles. Thank you for popping in and protecting us. The XK Red 27 technique you're employing really makes Vizzini seem like a moron!
Wow. oh! It's Dr. Ehrlich - welcome to these hier forums! How is your work with Dr. RosenRosen?
*drinks*
(wait - Norbert and Giggles the Midget S&M Klown have informed me that Alan Augustson's post was only unintentionally funny)
|6.26.07 @ 1:09PM|#
Alan Augustson,
Thank you for your story outline. It is interesting, but I am afraid that it is too similar to Margaret Atwood's reply to this