The war supporters have retreated about as far as they can go. They’ve brought out their last argument to salvage their reputation for sagacity.
“I supported the invasion of Iraq, and the rest of the terror war, because I think the alternative would have been something much, much worse down the line, resulting in far more deaths for all concerned. And fearing something worse is the opposite of advocating it.”
– Glenn Reynolds (2/19/2007)
Reynolds said this in the context of defending the Serbs’ actions against the Bosnian-Muslims. Other Europeans who are not culling the herd of Muslims within their ranks are “are ineffectually waffling in full Weimar mode.” We are seeing a concerted effort at a Final Solution to the Euro-Muslim Problem. Here is how Mark Steyn put it in his book America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It:
Why did Bosnia collapse into the worst slaughter in Europe since World War Two? In the thirty years before the meltdown, Bosnian Serbs had declined from 43 percent to 31 percent of the population, while Bosnian Muslims had increased from 26 percent to 44 percent. In a democratic age, you can’t buck demography — except through civil war. The Serbs figured that out — as other Continentals will in the years ahead: if you can’t outbreed the enemy, cull ’em. The problem that Europe faces is that Bosnia’s demographic profile is now the model for the entire continent.
Now, once criticized, Steyn falls back on this:
My book isn’t about what I want to happen but what I think will happen. Given Fascism, Communism and ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, it’s not hard to foresee that the neo-nationalist resurgence already under way in parts of Europe will at some point take a violent form. That’s pretty much a given.
It is pretty much a given that Europe will revert to the 1930’s and carry out a Serbian inspired genocide on their internal Muslim population; that is essentially what Mark Steyn is arguing.
I have to admit that I am concerned about a resurgence of neo-nationalism in Europe. I believe we are seeing an uniquely American version of it as we speak. And I’ve read and talked enough to my brother to understand the demographic changes that are going on Europe. White europeans have stopped reproducing at replacement levels and Europe will see a sharp drop in population throughout the 21st-century. This drop in population will be mitigated by immigration and the higher fecundity of immigrants. But the racial character of Europe will not survive. The question is not whether Europe will remain white, but whether it will retain its unique secular culture and political systems. And should they (and we) do a preemptive strike to perserve their system of government?
Mark Steyn seems to think a lot of things are a given. But what he is really doing is bastardizing my brother’s work to justify the war on terror. I don’t agree with many of my brother’s political views, but I don’t like to see his research turned to genocidal purposes. Here is the essence of my brother’s argument:
What’s the difference between Seattle and Salt Lake City? There are many differences, of course, but here’s one you might not know. In Seattle, there are nearly 45% more dogs than children. In Salt Lake City, there are nearly 19% more kids than dogs.
This curious fact might at first seem trivial, but it reflects a much broader and little-noticed demographic trend that has deep implications for the future of global culture and politics. It’s not that people in a progressive city such as Seattle are so much fonder of dogs than are people in a conservative city such as Salt Lake City. It’s that progressives are so much less likely to have children.
It’s a pattern found throughout the world, and it augers a far more conservative future — one in which patriarchy and other traditional values make a comeback, if only by default…
…Tomorrow’s children, therefore, unlike members of the postwar baby boom generation, will be for the most part descendants of a comparatively narrow and culturally conservative segment of society. To be sure, some members of the rising generation may reject their parents’ values, as often happens. But when they look for fellow secularists with whom to make common cause, they will find that most of their would-be fellow travelers were quite literally never born.
Many will celebrate these developments. Others will view them as the death of the Enlightenment. Either way, they will find themselves living through another great cycle of history.
Nowhere does he advocate culling Muslims. He makes his own mistakes. In my opinion, advocating a return to patriachy is akin to burning a village in order to save it. In that way, my brother’s analysis suffers from a similar flaw to Steyn’s. But my brother advocates that progressives have more children, not that they get on with the killing of social conservatives.
And that is what Reynolds and Steyn ultimately want. They want to our social conservatives to kill their social conservatives, all in the name of perserving the liberal state.
It’s a pattern found throughout the world, and it augers a far more conservative future — one in which patriarchy and other traditional values make a comeback, if only by default
i’ve seen that argument before, and it always strikes me as being incredibly stupid. haven’t these guys ever heard of children having different political views as their parents? there are five people in my immediate family (parents, two siblings, and me). i don’t think any two of us agree on everything.
conservatism isn’t genetic. nor do people only acquire their political views from their parents. sure, later in the same paragraph they acknowledge some children may “reject their parents values”, but they don’t seem to realize that parental rejection is the norm, not the exception. in one form or another it’s part of growing up.
It’s backed up in his research.
If we have a secular family that has two children, the chances that one of them will become a social conservative is fairly low.
If you have a catholic or muslim family that has twelve children the chances that one of them will become secular is very high.
But once you crunch the numbers you’ll quickly discover that retention of parents values exceeds fifty percent, and that for that reason, France, for example, will be shortly dominated by social conservatives. At the very least, they will be dominated by the children of social conservatives, and more than half of them will retain those values, and so on and so on.
It’s not s stupid argument. It’s an uncomfortable argument.
But Booman, that calls for the accepting of the idea that there will be 12 children, and that 6 of those children will be reproducing at that rate.
This figure implies time to reproduce at this rate.
Excuse me, but falling onto these “sexual” arguments is lame. Are we concerned about populations or people schtupping, with the result of a larger population? I read a lot of hysteria, and not much about corrective approaches.
We are looking at a trope. Will Europe change? Of course, and it must. Will Europe fall to “brown hordes of Wahabbists and Taliban fanatics?” I don’t think so, and if Europe is smart it will put its Islamic populations to work straight and away. As such work leads to the immigrant having a sense of being a part of the nation he has moved to. France’s problem has been a racism issue. Fix the racism and I think the problem will be far more manageable.
it’s a hard thing for people to accept but religious beliefs have a very, very strong relationship to family size. The religious beliefs of a child have a very high correlation to the beliefs of their parents (and more so among conservatives that but a premium on belief and orthodoxy).
Simply put, the children of large families are much more likely to have large families. And large families are much, much more likely to be socially conservative.
Everyone is autonomous and make their own choices, but most people choose, ultimately, to emulate their parents on issues of faith and family size.
And demographics is a science. They’re not guessing about this.
True, and similarly most people emulate their parents on political/philosophical identification as well. If you are raised in a conservative family, you are far more likely to identify as a conservative.
But it’s certainly not a given. That being said, the demographics have clearly supported this over time.
Demographics, of course, is a science of the aggregate. Statistical probability that someone is more likely to be conservative if raised in a conservative household doesn’t mean that that person absolutely will become a conservative. That’s the thing that is sometimes misunderstood.
As you mention a scientific approach, you have to take facts into account:
France has now a replacement rate a little over 2, which means the French population is growing, and immigration is only a small part of it.
After a few years, immigrants have a fertility rate very close to the families of French origin.
The vast majority of the French Muslims adhere to a moderate vision of Islam which preaches integration and the acceptation of the democratic values.
The probability for children to follow their parents ideology depends on the openness of the society and the possibility for them to meet people from other cultures/religions, at school, for example.
I come from a Catholic family of seven children, and only one of us is a practising Catholic…
A couple of questions:
How big are the families of your siblings?
How are traditional Catholic families portrayed in popular French media?
How much has church going and Catholic self-identification collapsed in recent years? By, say, comparison to Ireland?
France has always been unusual. The Revolution was overtly hostile to the church, going so far as to change the calendar. Any prospect of that kind of radical securalization taking place among Muslim immigrants?
I agree that it is too simple-minded to think people will just follow their parents. If that were always the case Europe never would have become secularized in the first place. But, as my brother points out, the differential family size only emerged post-pill. Prior to that, being socially conservative did not confer any reproductive advantage. So old models don’t work as predictive of new models.
Here are some stats for you.
Booman, this calls for blind acceptance of a notion that single child families are the norm among the Caucasian, and affluent minority communities, and I don’t agree.
Two children homes are much more common. Three child homes are also common.
The patriarchy issue of taking a wife is an a posteriori in terms of human social behavior. It’s ingrained. So, what is this patriarchy all about?
Booman, I find it highly ironic that conservatives are concerned about losing the democratic, liberal society. I think the matter revolves around WHO will be leading this more “socially conservative” trend, and not the trend itself. And that implies internal struggle between religious extremists, and social extremists.
Here’s a .pdf for you. It has his research. 54 pages of it.
haven’t these guys ever heard of children having different political views as their parents?
In my sixty years so far, I see children mimicking their parents religious and social values near 100% eventually as they age! There is some really strong imprinting going on here probably in the first few years of life that is not well understood, but I feel strongly is real!
In my family, two of us followed our parents, and two of us developed our own opinions. The one difference between us that I notice is that we both were avid readers. I found science fiction, and my sister was interested in eastern thought. I wish I knew why we were drawn to explore other ways of looking at life.
I’ve commented before on how well my children know and understand the reasons for my political opinions. And they’re happy to spout them off in social studies class.
On the other hand, my father foolishly watched Fox news and voted Republican all his life, so who knows how strong the imprinting process really is.
According to your point of view, we should all be painting mammoths on the walls of our caves…
Wait, I’m ageing and I feel more and more like doing that…
According to your point of view, we should all be painting mammoths on the walls of our caves
What you don’t take into account is that if one strong (or maybe dysfunctional) personality does manage to breaks away from the imprinted crowd, then a new group of habits starts with that soul’s children and followers (call it the Jesus effect). So yes, slowly some new cults if you will can evolve. However, I stand behind my anecdote for the vast majority of humans. One more thing, the imprinting is there in the subconscious even if for a while children try some new things. The pull to go back to the imprinting is very strong, IMH anecdotal opinion!
one in which patriarchy and other traditional values make a comeback, if only by default
Patriarchy will make a comeback?!!!!! It has never gone away!!!!
“Cull” them???
Is that what the Germans did to the Jews during WWII then , Mr Steyn??
What a fucked up argument – my only response is to apply the Golden Rule, & desire to do unto Mr Steyn as he would have done unto others.
Booman,
Have you noticed a trend towards eliminationism? I have.
Have you noticed a general anti-Muslim, “Brown Peril” trope spreading, aided in no small measure by say, Hirsi Ali’s book “Infidel?”
It looks like the failing of neo-conservative ideology and the terrible price the United States has paid for the follies of Rumsfeld, Cheney, Perle, Wolfowitz, and so many others is leading to ever greater bets, like a gambler trying to recover losses by doubling up on his wagers.
Dear God almighty, the price we have paid for Bush….just look at his supporters and what they believe America should do….Murder, plunder, enslave, and it is all over religion and the madness some extreme religious ascetics living in the wilds of Pakistan and Afghanistan juxtaposed against the madness and blood-lust of seemingly “ascetic” extremist Americans who appear to be just as terrifying, and just as crazy.
What troubles me is the people verging on the “white man’s burden” theme. As far as I know, no one has used the phrase yet, but I hear it unspoken in a lot of talking points.
I didn’t want to use that term, but the issue has that feel.
Not unlike the arguments in Britian concerning the Indian population at the turn of the 20th century.
Yes, demographic change is coming. However, are we to be filled with fear or hope or neither?
I sense that the American neo-conservative community is in the “we fear it!” camp.
It’s not as subtle as you might think. Even Steven Colbert (on Valentine’s Day) devoted a hunk of his show to trying to convince his faux conservative audience to have more children.
It doesn’t surprise me that the future minorities (White European Conservative Americans) are trying to convince their women that the “quiverful” approach is a good one. But it’s simply not working; our former “minorities” in this nation and in Europe are having at least one more child per family.
Europe is a different story. In tiny areas, distinct languages and cultures have been preserved by very deliberate effort for over 1000 years. The EU is a tacit admission that this is no longer economically practical in today’s world. But like our nation, European nations have narrow-minded, old style conservatives who refuse to enact the measures that would ensure that the new immigrants are economically integrated as well as culturally integrated. The unemployed Muslim youth living in the suburbs north of Paris want to be French, but they want jobs more.
Breed!Breed! Breed!
Okay, maybe not all of you — and you know who you are.
Progressives reproduce at lower rates than conservatives partly because (or so I suspect) our lives are not as empty as theirs and therefore one major reason for having children is eliminated, but mostly because progressive women are not household slaves. We don’t refer to “our” women the way conservatives do.
I’m not sure that the idea of hereditary liberalism holds any water, though. The wave of young conservatives in my generation were descendants of boomer liberals. Dick Cheney’s father was a leftist, for crying out loud. My father is an unrepentant Nixon voter who ended up raising two socialists. All modern liberalism emerged from reactions against pre-modern conservatism, not breeding programs. That’s what makes us human, after all: our ignorance need not be hereditary.
Any proposed increase in reproduction rates should be viewed as a non-starter in a dangerously overpopulated world. It won’t do us any good to have more children than conservatives if the end result is that liberals and conservatives alike end up starving in a denuded and polluted world.
The liberal bias was that with education and economic development women would chose to have fewer children. This was the case for Europe and North America. The counter force is the industrial Robber Barons who refuse to pay living wages and hire illegal workers. Together with outsourcing, the US economy no longer supports four person families except for the few well educated multi-national high achievers. Those at the bottom are reverting to their old time religion and culture. White Males are a minority. In a democracy, control will shortly flip over to the high birth rate minorities. This is why Virgil Goode (R-VA-5th District) is full force ahead demonizing the invading brown heathens.
The well educated paid by the multinationals and politicians subsidized by corporate wealth all avoid acknowledging the radical change in the expectations for America’s future. They continue to act as if the hoi polloi will never storm their gated communities.
Ummm, Jim, I hate to break it too you but as of 2000 we Caucasians numbered 226 million in our population. There is no shortage of Caucasian men. What’s the next group? I think you will find it is Hispanics. And for all the culture and language hassles, Hispanics and Whites get along pretty well if both sides give it half a chance.
One thing I think we should watch out for is the idea that all of this will unfold with lock step ridigity, for it won’t. Why? Inter-racial activity is on the rise. I think this is as frightening to the social cons as is the “brown horde” trope.
society changes, and we will change with it.
Inter-racial activity is on the rise
I would add to this that interfaith marriages seem to be on the rise. Both these trends thankfully would/should result in a more tolerant society eventually, IMO!
You want to make an eruption?
The same thing will happen if you take a majority population and introduce another population that threatens to overwhelm it. Feelings of religious, racial, and national pride and solidarity will arise in reaction and defensiveness.
It is very predictable. America is actually better at digesting people from different religious and racial backgrounds and economic classes because that is what we’ve always done. We don’t have an aristocracy and we’ve built ecumenicalism into the constitution (as opposed to the official Anglicanism of England, Catholcism of Ireland, Luteranism of Sweden, and so on).
But there is a reason that the minutemen have grown up in Arizona and not in Iowa or Vermont. It’s as predictable as dropping that baking soda into the vinegar.
Therefore, the concern is not so much about immigration but in the potentially ugly responses to it. And that is a two-sided argument. It will not do to say that people shouldn’t react badly anymore than it would do to say the volcano should not erupt. Nor should we deny that there is a real potential for liberalism and secularism to be undermined by differential reproductive rates.
Just because these issues are controversial doesn’t make them non-issues.
What are the chances that Europe will become increasingly reactionary in response to the rising political and demographic power of social conservatives? What are the chances that Europe will see social conservatives take power and undo the secular state?
And, what should be done about these things, if anything?
That’s what is being grappled with here. But for anyone to suggest genocide as the solution is totally unacceptable and should be called what it is….neo-nazism.
…Americans today referring to the “invasion” of California and other border states by Hispanics. Replace a few nouns and you have the same arguments. Same diary also could have been written in the early 20th century by white American Protestants talking about Irish and Italian immigrants. I must say, however, that the anti-religion element of the left is equal opportunity in their biases whether speaking about Muslims in Europe or Christians in America.
I don’t know what you mean.
Hispanic immigration causes a backlash. Islamic immigration in Europe also causes a backlash.
What is being predicted is that differential (greater) reproductive rates among Muslims and Christian conservatives within Europe will eventually lead to an erosion of the secular state there. And, while this is not inevitable, that rather than see this happen, that white, secular, Europeans will start to embrace racist, anti-religious and neo-nationalist politics.
Steyn and Reynolds fear that Europe will become an unreliable ally and move away from western liberal values. They predict that, but it doesn’t look like they will be too upset if Europe decided to act like Serbia as a preventive measure.
My brother, on the other hand, has a different solution, which is to educate progressives about actual population decline (we’re all trained to think in terms of overpopulation) and encourage the government to enact policies that encourage larger families. He also delves into more coercive measures to promote larger families. We disagree on those since I see them as self-defeating. But nowhere does he advocate culling people.
…throughout the past 150 years. One major argument against immigration in the late 19th and early 20th century was because many thought that too many Catholics were coming into the U.S. Same arguments concerning the ‘values’ of the nation being threatened by the high birth rate of the (largely Catholic) immigrants at the time. Same arguments concerning the influence of ‘Rome’ in the ‘secular’ U.S. were made.
One of the motivations for the creation of Planned Parenthood was so white Protestants could encourage a reduction in the birthrate among those who have ‘different values.’ The ‘progressive’ Protestant elite at that time certainly weren’t going to start dropping more babies because they probably thought the same as one poster above so crudely stated, “Progressives (and the term is subjective in a historical sense) reproduce at lower rates than conservatives partly because (or so I suspect) our lives are not as empty as theirs and therefore one major reason for having children is eliminated.”
Yes, these same fears have been around forever.
But there is a difference now. Forget immigrants and forget racial minorities. There is a growing white evangelical movement right here in the United States that is a threat to our Constitution and the rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights and case law.
Their demographic power is already being felt and Bush states are reproducing at a substantially higher rate than Kerry states.
This will be reflected in the 2010 census, just as it was in the 2000 census, where PA, NY, MA will cede electoral votes to GA, TX etc.
Just look at the Supreme Court and you’ll know what is at stake.
…are primarily the result of immigration and domestic relocations rather than higher birth rates of long time residents. The average American moves more often and further distances than people in other nations. Shifts in population centers reflect this in-migration. The mobility of the American electorate has already resulted in some Bush states turning into swing states (e.g., Virginia and Nevada) and has a far more profound effect on politics than the reproduction rates of evangelicals.
As I pointed out elsewhere in this thread:
That’s my brother’s research. Do some basic exponential analysis of that data and see what it means for the future.
I don’t dispute migration to the sun belt. That’s not what I’m talking about.
Delusional thinking, ideology and propaganda abound in the Iraq War. But, the Class and Racial divisions within the USA will have an even greater catastrophic effect when Americans realize that their children’s lives will be worse than their own. “Better Days Ahead” is just propaganda.
Still, the foundation of my belief system is that scientific experimentation, effective health system and small families with long lives is an ideal to strive for and introduce to all cultures around the world.