printThe excerpt is from “Beck, Wilders & His Boosters’ Blind Spot,” now on WND.COM”:
“The ‘One-Man Global Content Provider’ [Mark Steyn] is wrong. Demographics need not be destiny. The waning West became what it is not by out-breeding the undeveloped world. We were once great not because of huge numbers, but due to human capital – people of superior ideas and abilities, capable of innovation, exploration, science, philosophy.
Declining birth rates – and their antidote; the mass immigration imperative – are the excuses statists make for persevering with immigration policies that are guaranteed to destroy Western civil society and shore up the State.
If, as Geert Wilders and Mark Steyn contend, “Islam is a problematic religion; every school of Islam is basically at its core jihadist; and the religion is much closer to a conventional imperial project than to a faith” – its religionists must be kept away. State-engineered mass immigration must be halted.
Yes, postmodernism, PC and relativism hobble the West. Post-colonialism, however, affords it the opportunity to redraw the frontiers at the borders. This is the Wilders project. It has yet to be embraced fully by his American boosters. As Steyn has openly confessed, ‘For a notorious blowhard, I can go a bit cryptic or (according to taste) wimpy when invited to confront that particular subject head on.'” …
The complete column is “Beck, Wilders & His Boosters’ Blind Spot.”
And do read my libertarian manifesto, Broad Sides: One Woman’s Clash With A Corrupt Society.
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Update: Declining birth rates – and their antidote; the mass immigration imperative – are the excuses statists make for persevering with immigration policies that are guaranteed to destroy Western civil society and shore up the State.
To add to “Anon’s” dazzling examples of small (First World) populations that produced genius second to none, another erudite gentleman spoke of “quality, not quantity,” and offered the examples of the Scottish Enlightenment and modern Jews.
I suspect that this article might be Ilana Mercer’s best yet, and is certainly her bravest. It’s good to see Mark Steyn and co called out over the way they talk the talk without walking the walk.
If demography really were destiny, and if the “revenge of the womb” had an invariably positive impact on civilization (on condition that it’s carried out by White People), then how do we explain the overlap between tiny populaces – tiny by modern standards, that is – and cultural achievement?
The Leipzig of Bach; the Weimar of Goethe and Schiller; the London of Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Bacon (along with admirable composers of the same era such as William Byrd and John Dowland); the Athens of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides: these places all had very small populations indeed. Yet their artistic productions will be cherished as long as lovers of the arts exist. Who can say the same about the artistic production that derive from such Third World megalopolises as modern New York, modern London, and modern Cairo?
Ms. Mercer, what a splendid article. However, I have a question. You criticize Steyn’s notion of Europeans needing to engage in a breeding war, but what do you think of sub-replacement birth rates? Do you think that in the absence of mass immigration alleviating the labor needs of a nation, that a nation with a sub-replacement birth rate will correct itself? Or do you think that population reduction is needed, and that it would be in the interest of Europeans to continue to shrink in population until they hit some ideal number?
Fascists are socialists, not right wing.
Hitlers political party was the National Socialist party.
Also of interest – Diane West takes Fox News Network to task on Wilders:
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0310/west031210.php3
and she notes the Saudi/UAE connection.
My issue is that rather than just fling a name at someone, why not note SPECIFICALLY what the disagreement is over. I am sure that I disagree with Wilders (or Al Sharpton) on various XYZ issues and that I agree with Wilders (or Sharpton) on ABC issues but to merely fling an accusatory name out says nothing. To me, I would like to know what elevates some of these media-anointed blowhards into PUNDITS? Most neoconservatives also consistently fail to distinguished between the accused and convicted OR between potential threat and reality, believing (apparently) that any proclamations by the Federal Government (especially Republicans) are to be treated as coming from Mount Sinai.
Lastly, how many of these neocon advocates of unlimited integration support the Palestinian “Right of Return”??? {Interesting aside – have any people talked about the right of Jews to 10% of Poland, 40% of Baghdad, 10% of Spain, 16% of Vienna… in an inverse “Right to Return” – ever wonder how all these rights are always a ONE-WAY flow when a certain ethnic group is involved?? }
As usual your insight is without peer. I am a fan of Steyn, and like you, wondered why he was only preaching doomsday on the Islam problem. I never did agree that demographics were the inevitable doom of the modern world takeover by Muslims. Or that we needed mass immigration to “look after the old folks with no babies!”
The success of the USA was quite simply individual freedom of association, ideas, speech and enterprise. That is no longer there, or what little is left is rapidly being obliterated by the Obamanation.
Thanks again for a voice of reason in a wilderness of ideas. I always look forward to reading your articles. And always learn something.
I like Glenn – for the most part. BUT he seem to have a subconscious ‘need’ NOT to appear as his critics contend; ignorant right wing whacko, nativist, etc. His contrary statements re ‘global warming’ at USA Today or on MSM TV come to mind; as do his comments about open immigration to Sarah Palin. He will not go in the direction the facts and realities take him particularly on immigration and on occasion, his lobotomized version of history. Re legal immigration; he prefers to salute political correctness and conventional wisdom. {More Buckley than Buchanan or Sam Francis for sure]. With members of the MSM, Glenn usually caves to some extent or acts the red-headed-step-child. He barely survives the one on one’s with Bill O”Reilly who routinely condescends, obvious he thinks Beck is an uneducated putz.
The fact that he can’t or won’t see the STRONG stand by Wilders is NOT a recurrence of Adolph indicates he is doing what his critics are doing towards him. Glenn routinely builds up some individuals, movements, present and historical: But has a blind side when it comes to others. Glenn is a work in progress; farther along than Hannity, Rush or Levin.
Having given all the support I feel warranted Steyn on a related post, I have to ask; Anonymous, what the are you talking about?
This London of Shakespeare, et al., did not have a supporting population growth in numbers sufficient to continue a dominance of a like-minded culture?
Spot-on writing. You are clear on all points. So refreshing and so accurate. Maybe there is still hope!
I tend to agree that demography is destiny, for the most part. However, belief in the former does not necessarily make one a mass immigration cheerleader. Wilders is to be commended for his stand against mass immigration in his homeland. Mass immigration is a quick cultural death, declining demographics a slow one. Cultures survive by passing values from one generation to the next; without a new generation the West will not keep the barbarians at bay for long.
Mr. Pauli,
Thank you for your always good and hilarious comments. I think you answered your own question when asking,”I would like to know what elevates some of these media-anointed blowhards into PUNDITS?” And then observed, correctly I think, ” Most neoconservatives also consistently fail to distinguished between the accused and convicted OR between potential threat and reality, believing (apparently) that any proclamations by the Federal Government (especially Republicans) are to be treated as coming from Mount Sinai.” So long as one is willing to defend any republican party initiative—expanding government of health, education and warfare, or what republicans called prescription drug benefits, no child left behind and regime change in Iraq and Afghanistan, one can be transformed from a self -anointed blowhard into a PUNDIT upon arrival.” Consistency, clear thinking and integrity are the vices of little poeple in the world of duopoly. Thank G-d there are a few like you who can find humor in the hypocrisy. It helps lurkers like myself to keep their sanity.