Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Sandwich on October 23, 2006, 08:25:26 pm
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http://www.opinionjournal.com/jer/?id=110009137
Gigot: Welcome to "The Journal Editorial Report." I'm Paul Gigot.
"America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It" forecasts a dark future in which the nations of Old Europe fall to Islam fundamentalism, and the United States remains the last Western democracy. Earlier, I spoke to the author, columnist Mark Steyn.
Gigot: In your book, you write that "much of what we loosely call the Western world will not survive the 21st century, and much of it will effectively disappear within our lifetimes, including many, if not most, European countries," end quote. That sounds like a doomsday scenario. Why don't you explain that?
Steyn: It is. I've tried to be cheerful, but it is hard to be cheerful about apocalyptic-type stuff. And this is what it is. Basically, 17 European countries have what demographers call lowest-load fertility, from which no society has ever recovered. That means they are basically not having enough babies.
And the way Europe is set up, they have these unsustainable social programs and welfare, and they imported the babies that they didn't have. And they imported them essentially from the North Africa and the Middle East. So we're seeing one of the fastest population transformations in history, whereby an aging ethnic European population is being replaced by a Muslim population. And the Muslims understand that, in fact, Europe, as they see it, is the colony now.
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Yep, I'm not surprised.
Get out there and start knockin em' up!
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Not surprising. Not sure how that will all go down...but I know that France's population has been falling for a long time. It was a problem before WWII. The thing is...the highest educated and most well off countries seem to have the fewest babies while the lowest educated with the fewest resources and money tend to have the most babies. Its kind of silly as it should be the other way around although I fully understand the reasoning...
Thing is...I wouldn't exclude the US from that tally there. Ever growing immigrant population from places outside of Europe.
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Not surprising. Not sure how that will all go down...but I know that France's population has been falling for a long time. It was a problem before WWII. The thing is...the highest educated and most well off countries seem to have the fewest babies while the lowest educated with the fewest resources and money tend to have the most babies. Its kind of silly as it should be the other way around although I fully understand the reasoning...
Thing is...I wouldn't exclude the US from that tally there. Ever growing immigrant population from places outside of Europe.
No no, the white people here are still having on average like two or three kids so it's basically a slow growth. You've also got to rememver Canada, they're almost purely of European descent, aside from a few Asians and Blacks. North America still has a little time on it's hands.
Oh, and also, many people of a different ethniicity usually have kids that act very very Americanized. Whether that be a good or bad thing. :p
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Europe Needs to Start Having Babies
Can continents do that ?
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Not surprising. Not sure how that will all go down...but I know that France's population has been falling for a long time. It was a problem before WWII. The thing is...the highest educated and most well off countries seem to have the fewest babies while the lowest educated with the fewest resources and money tend to have the most babies. Its kind of silly as it should be the other way around although I fully understand the reasoning...
Thing is...I wouldn't exclude the US from that tally there. Ever growing immigrant population from places outside of Europe.
No no, the white people here are still having on average like two or three kids so it's basically a slow growth. You've also got to rememver Canada, they're almost purely of European descent, aside from a few Asians and Blacks. North America still has a little time on it's hands.
Oh, and also, many people of a different ethniicity usually have kids that act very very Americanized. Whether that be a good or bad thing. :p
Depends on where you are in Canada. Quebec is nearly all european, the prairies tend to be european, chineese, and native. Ontario is a mix. My town is very white but the nearby city is much more multicultural from all over the world. I guess I still live the campus life so I'm exposed to more diversity than normal.
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Thing is...I wouldn't exclude the US from that tally there. Ever growing immigrant population from places outside of Europe.
The thing about the US is, that although it was founded by Europeans, the demographic has always been much, much more mixed than Europe - in fact, Europe is just now starting to deal with the problems of socially integrating it's different ethnicities. All the new immigration in the US really isn't changing the demographic's too much (I think), so they are the only industrialized country that's undergoing a population boom.
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That would be a working theory were it not for the fact that whilst first-generation Middle-Eastern immigrants are quite set in their ways, by the time they get to the second or third generation, that has changed, and you see far more European attitudes from them. This is no different to the Hispanic population of the US, or, indeed, the African population of it. There are just as high a percentage of 'African English' for example, but they are still English,
As for the 'Islamicism' of Europe... Well, quite frankly that's an incredible level of 'reporting without bothering to look'. It's easy to talk of the few European muslims who have been pushed to extremeism, but there's a strange blind eye being turned by the media to the internal battle between moderate European muslims and their hardline elders.
Since the dawn of time society has been about population drift, there's some pretty bad science going on in that article if it's convinced itself that the native Europeans are going to 'breed themselves out of existence'. That's more scaremongering that scientific fact.
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there is a problem with immigration when you have large numbers of people who do not want to integrate, and who form there own communities. the old models of immigration are based on much smaller growth relative to the native population, and less of a tendency to accept people who refuse to integrate. the current situation in the west is much different than it was 50 years ago, and I fear there is a potential for a cultural collapse, and this fear is heightened by the fact that many westerners refuse to even consider these problems oftine deriding them as simple racism.
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The culture in America 50 years ago was different to the culture now, that's what culture is supposed to do, change over time.
I think scaremongering on the part of reports like this are far more of a problem than the imminent risk of the end of civilisation as we know it. Islam has been in Europe for decades, it's just that until 9/11 they were just another minority group, the number of Muslims coming into the UK from the Middle East, for example, is less than the number of Eastern Europeans of all denominations.
Personally, I find the fact the Author managed to squeeze in a comment about Europes 'unsustainable social programs and welfare' and seems to think that we 'imported the babies that they didn't have' just shows how little the Author has actually studied his subject.
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I didn't say better, I said diferent. when things change you cannot rely upon models based upon them anymore, that was my point.
look you have a tree pronged potential problem;
1)historically low birthrates below replacement level
2)historically high immigration
3)a prevailing culture that promotes and enhances cultural differences between the different subgroups, rather than attempts to bring everyone together.
if any one of these were different I wouldn't be so worried, but the combination is concerning to me.
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What is happening to europe right now is exactly what happened to it 1800 years before.
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Not to mention what happened in the US when the Europeans first arrived.
Let's deal with these one at a time.
1) Historically low birthrates. Not really, low birth rates compared to when we started recording them, certainly, but it's always interesting to see headlines reading 'Teenage pregnancies at highest for 40 years!' on the cover of a newspaper, and then hear something like this. Someone has to be wrong.
2) Same problem as above really, how long have we actually been recording immigration for? Certainly, the immigration of people from more distant countries has increased, but not to the level it is commonly believed to be.
3) As far as that is concerned, the lines are starting to be drawn between integration and tolerance, once again, the media brings you the nutty-nutty-muslim-with-a-hook(tm), but not the guy who owns a bedsit with two mates and is studying at university for a degree in Games writing, and thinks the 'Muslim Cartoons' incident was stupid and blown out of all proportion. I can assure you there are far far more of the latter than the former.
I will admit that birth rates in the UK are lower than they should be, but we are a lot lot further from any kind of massive 'cultural shift' in Europe than this report suggests, if anything we are seeing a massive cultural shift in those who come here, integration will happen over time, whether we like it or not, it's human nature. The University student is no more likely to vote for a government canditate that promotes Sharia law than I am, for example.
Thing is, the danger isn't Islam, it isn't fundamentalism, it isn't christianity and it isn't the US, the danger is ignorance. Most of the younger immigrants seek out education before anything else, and with that education comes free will, and with free will comes the belief in your right to have an opinion. Yes, sometimes that opinion is radical, even violent, but we've had that since before Guy Fawkes, and we've had our dose of fundamentalism under the Puritans and Oliver Cromwell etc.
I do understand the concerns, but a great deal of what people seem to believe about Europe is based far more deeply on assumption and generalisation than actually coming here and looking ;)
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1) Historically low birthrates. Not really, low birth rates compared to when we started recording them, certainly, but it's always interesting to see headlines reading 'Teenage pregnancies at highest for 40 years!' on the cover of a newspaper, and then hear something like this. Someone has to be wrong.
3) As far as that is concerned, the lines are starting to be drawn between integration and tolerance, once again, the media brings you the nutty-nutty-muslim-with-a-hook(tm), but not the guy who owns a bedsit with two mates and is studying at university for a degree in Games writing, and thinks the 'Muslim Cartoons' incident was stupid and blown out of all proportion. I can assure you there are far far more of the latter than the former.
Thing is, the danger isn't Islam, it isn't fundamentalism, it isn't christianity and it isn't the US, the danger is ignorance. Most of the younger immigrants seek out education before anything else, and with that education comes free will, and with free will comes the belief in your right to have an opinion. Yes, sometimes that opinion is radical, even violent, but we've had that since before Guy Fawkes, and we've had our dose of fundamentalism under the Puritans and Oliver Cromwell etc.
Three GREAT points. Thank you Flipside.
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so your saying that a birth rate that is lower than the death rate is something that has probably happened repetadly over large stretches of time? I've heard similar arguments about how global warming is made up because it only takes into account what we've recorded for the last 300 years.
Come on, it's a _BAD_ thing, and I think the records are good enough to talk about the current situation.
the demographics of a region have a large number of variables, and you can only integrate when there is a culture to integrate into, it has not reached the point of being a problem yet, but it could. The low birth rate is by far the most troubling aspect, as so long as there is a vastly larger native population your assumptions are correct, the minority will eventually integrate, but what happens 50-100 years from now if these trends continue? cultures that are alien to Europe, namely Muslims, are at all time high percentages and have much higher growth rate than the larger population, this clearly leads to the potential for problems in terms of the long term survival of current European cultures. and this isn't a simple change in a culture, it's the importation of one culture into another.
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Given that there are already quite enough people on this rock we call Earth, I really don't think population increase is particularly desirable.
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So your saying that a birth rate that is lower than the death rate is something that has probably happened repetadly over large stretches of time? I've heard similar arguments about how global warming is made up because it only takes into account what we've recorded for the last 300 years.
Come on, it's a _BAD_ thing, and I think the records are good enough to talk about the current situation.
Let's put it this way, would you consider less people being born than dying as such a bad thing if you took into consideration that most of the Baby-boomers are now well into their 60's? Couple that with the fact that we only really started recording births and deaths properly after WWII and you start to get the answer.
Edit : To be honest, I don't really get the Global Warming comparison, Global Warming was hypothesised through a huge amount of various data sources, not just global temperature scales, but also atmosphere/core samples, scans of the atmosphere in various spectrums, and, most importantly, years of comparing and analysing data from multiple sources. What this Author has effectively done is looked at one source of information and drawn a vast doomsday of Europe conspiracy from it.
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perse no. however in the context of competition with other groups yes.
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While we're tossing around BSG quotes, here's a nice one for the occassion.
All of this has happened before. All of this will happen again.
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Europe needs babies? I can give some help :lol:
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Why would a europe with a substantial muslim population be a bad thing, again?
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Because of that age-old social equation.
Muslims -> '?' -> Trouble.
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Muslims -> '?' -> Trouble.
You stole this off South Park's Underpants Gnomes didn't you.
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Yeah, he did.
Step 3: Profit
On topic: While it's true that the first generation of immigrants sometimes refuses to integrate themselves in any form, they're children and grand-children don't seem to give a rats ass about their heritage.
The current generation of 15'ish old kids all want to be suburb-hiphop-gangstas. They all speak the same wannabe-slang and emulate hiphop-video behavior. Ethnic background doesn't play a role there, everybody can be a wannabe-homie, yay !
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Muslims -> '?' -> Trouble.
You stole this off South Park's Underpants Gnomes didn't you.
Veeeery observant. :rolleyes:
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The answer to most problems... make birth control illegal!
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It's easy to fix his version so it works though:
Muslims -> Trouble.
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The answer to most problems... make birth control illegal!
heck no. just look at italy. *shudders*
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1) Historically low birthrates. Not really, low birth rates compared to when we started recording them, certainly, but it's always interesting to see headlines reading 'Teenage pregnancies at highest for 40 years!' on the cover of a newspaper, and then hear something like this. Someone has to be wrong.
Since when did pregnancies equal birthrates in the abortion-happy countries? :wtf:
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1) Historically low birthrates. Not really, low birth rates compared to when we started recording them, certainly, but it's always interesting to see headlines reading 'Teenage pregnancies at highest for 40 years!' on the cover of a newspaper, and then hear something like this. Someone has to be wrong.
Since when did pregnancies equal birthrates in the abortion-happy countries? :wtf:
Based upon a 1999 study, Western europe has the lowest abortion rate in the world.
EDIT; for example, the 2004 UK abortion rate is about 16.9% (of pregnancies); including a 50% rate for 15-17 year olds. The US rate as of 2002 was 24.6 for every 100 live births. A quick hand wavy calculation gives that as a rate of ~19.74% - higher than the UK (and reportedly rising in recent years due to rising unemployment leading to financial insecurity for pregnant women).
Israel, which has tighter abortion controls (requiring 3 people from a limited pool of those allowed to make the decision, I think, to permit the operation) as of 1995 (hard for me to find statistics on this, I'm afraid) had ahigher ratio of abortions than Scotland, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, Belgium, Iceland, and other such 'abortion happy' countries. (http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/25s3099.html)
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1) Historically low birthrates. Not really, low birth rates compared to when we started recording them, certainly, but it's always interesting to see headlines reading 'Teenage pregnancies at highest for 40 years!' on the cover of a newspaper, and then hear something like this. Someone has to be wrong.
Since when did pregnancies equal birthrates in the abortion-happy countries? :wtf:
You know, if I started turning round and saying that America is 'War Happy' or 'Fundamental' I'd be called anti-american and would be told to learn about America before generalising, same for comments about Israel. Yet comments like 'Europe is abortion happy' don't even raise an eyebrow.
This board is REALLY starting to take the piss with it's attitude towards Europeans. And most of it is based in pure ignorance.
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Europe Needs to Start Having Babies
is that an order?
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Europe Needs to Start Having Babies
is that an order?
It may be before too long.
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Europe Needs to Start Having Babies
is that an order?
It may be before too long.
"We'll need an army of extra virile men scoring round the clock! I'll do my part!"
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You know, if I started turning round and saying that America is 'War Happy' or 'Fundamental' I'd be called anti-american and would be told to learn about America before generalising, same for comments about Israel. Yet comments like 'Europe is abortion happy' don't even raise an eyebrow.
Wow. Just... wow.
I freely admit that the term I used isn't the nicest, most accurate, etc etc. My apologies if I offended you.
However, don't be a hypocrite. :) Both replies to my saying that were definable as slightly more than an "eyebrow raised", so don't pretend that my comment went unnoticed just because your claim that it went unnoticed put a more poignant touch to your response.
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You know, if I started turning round and saying that America is 'War Happy' or 'Fundamental' I'd be called anti-american and would be told to learn about America before generalising, same for comments about Israel. Yet comments like 'Europe is abortion happy' don't even raise an eyebrow.
Wow. Just... wow.
I freely admit that the term I used isn't the nicest, most accurate, etc etc. My apologies if I offended you.
However, don't be a hypocrite. :) Both replies to my saying that were definable as slightly more than an "eyebrow raised", so don't pretend that my comment went unnoticed just because your claim that it went unnoticed put a more poignant touch to your response.
What Flipside is saying, is that normally such baseless (actually directly oppositional to the truth) stereotyping would be met with an absolute bollocking in response.
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Yes... it's all because of abortions.
:rolleyes:
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Kind of on a side note, I think that in 100 years or so, Americans will actually be a seperate ethnic group. Intermarriage between all the different ethnicities here will propogate until Americans will have become their own ethnicity, part white, part black, part hispanic, part Asian, all brown. This will cause ethnic tensions between Americans to dissappear, but new immigrants will probably be treated with even more hostility than typical today.
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Sorry Sandwich, I wasn't attacking you personally, it's just the general attitude towards Europe by a lot of people. If I were to distill it out it comes across as...
'Because Europe has an open mind towards homosexuality and an open mind toward abortion it must therefore be filled with women who have abortions and homosexuals.'
In part I think it is the difference in the term 'Liberal' between various countries. In Europe it mostly adds up to Education rather than Regulation, i.e., educate people about abortion and let them make up their own mind, the laws about abortion are minimal because most governments trust people to be intelligent.
Ours is a government based on Trust over Authority, that is why we get annoyed every time something like the ID cards comes up, it breaches the covenant that has existed between voter and representative since the start of Government. We don't tell people what is right or wrong in their personal lives, only when it negatively affects other people does societies opinion step in, that is why we are more accepting of homosexuality or abortion, we rely on our authorities to provide us with the facilities to educate ourselves and make our own decision, not only does it stop government interfering in personal lives, but actually lets them get on with important considerations, and when a Doctor advises you not to have an abortion, you know it is for a decent medical reason, not personal opinion.
And the fact is, it works, we have low abortion rates not because of laws and dogma, but because people aren't as stupid as most authorities like them to think that they are, as long as the information is available.
I get annoyed because, and it's not particuarly you, I'm afraid you just got the brunt of a late night and a headache, there is far too much flinging of comments about the European Union that seem to be garnered more from Fox News than from research, and just as people from other countries find it annoying when people generalise about their country or union, there's a line for Europeans too.
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Yeah, he did.
Step 3: Profit
On topic: While it's true that the first generation of immigrants sometimes refuses to integrate themselves in any form, they're children and grand-children don't seem to give a rats ass about their heritage.
The current generation of 15'ish old kids all want to be suburb-hiphop-gangstas. They all speak the same wannabe-slang and emulate hiphop-video behavior. Ethnic background doesn't play a role there, everybody can be a wannabe-homie, yay !
Explain the Jews then.
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People only notice them when they are dressed up for temple, same as a lot of Muslim teenagers, when they are just another kid hanging out with his mates, he's invisible. That leads to the assumption that all Jews ever wear is temple gear.
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Yeah, he did.
Step 3: Profit
On topic: While it's true that the first generation of immigrants sometimes refuses to integrate themselves in any form, they're children and grand-children don't seem to give a rats ass about their heritage.
The current generation of 15'ish old kids all want to be suburb-hiphop-gangstas. They all speak the same wannabe-slang and emulate hiphop-video behavior. Ethnic background doesn't play a role there, everybody can be a wannabe-homie, yay !
Explain the Jews then.
What Jews ?
I was talking about the immigration waves from the last few decades here in Switzerland, which came from Italy, Portugal. Spain, Ex-Yugoslavia, Sri Lanka, North-Africa, Turkey and recently Germany. The last jewish immigrants came here during WWII, and all the Jews I know are at least 3rd generation here, wich I wouldn't consider immigrants anymore.
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And I'm talking about how the jews maintained their identity over the course of 2 millennia no matter what. I'm not saying the muslims emigrating into Europe have anywhere near that level of cohesiveness, but there are also a lot more of them. Instead of brushing it aside with rhetoric, try actually considering whether they might not assimilate at all, which means they'll be forming a pocket nation inside the european countries. If that is true, then all that has to happen for Steyn's worse case scenario to occur is for the muslim birth rate + immigration rate to outrun the original population's birth rate. End of story.
EDIT- on top of that, the european countries (especially France) aren't exactly welcoming towards the muslims, which makes assimilation much less likely.
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Well, it does also need to be taken into account that America still has a 'Hispanic community' and an 'African American' community, for example, people will habitually group together with people who dress and act as they do, you can see that kind of behaviour from teenagers onwards, and not just by nationality, groups form all the time regarding musical style, favourite pastimes even make of car or whether you prefer a Harley Davidson, and each of those groups will remain a little bit 'seperate' from other groups, sort of like an Elite club.
France gets a lot of stick, one minute they are anti-semitic, the next they are anti-Islamic, when, in truth what France is, is Pro-France, who can blame them really? I don't hold with all their practices regarding immigration, but they simply use a different approach. Does it work? Time will tell, the riots recently have suggested otherwise, however, I've heard people in France saying there was far far more to that than the media were reporting.
Edit : I'm sure each of you has at some point been in one group that has a member that another group you hang around with doesn't like. If you have been in that situation, you'll know the strength of group ties and the difficulties with dealing with conflicting interests.
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Sorry for the double post, but I thought this would help clarify my point...
http://encarta.msn.com/media_461544073/U_S_Birth_and_Death_Rates.html
If you look at that, you'll notice that since 1970 there have been higher birth rates and lower death rates in non-white communities. Using this data alone, I could hypothesize that in around 200 years the white population of America will be pushed out by the non-white population.
Of course, in order to come to that conclusion, I have to ignore several other facts. Mixed-race marriages aren't all that common even these days, so a blending of societies is still a fair distance off, but they are one factor I've not bothered to include. As well as the number of people from each ethnic group in the country (i.e. out of the US's 300 million people, approx 235 million are of European/White ethnicity)*
So, a simple 'Birth to Death' chart can say all sorts of things, depending on how you look at it.
*http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0762156.html (http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0762156.html)
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I confirm that.Everyone has sex but with condoms...
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I confirm that.Everyone has sex but with condoms...
Sweet!
*adds Italy to holidays list*
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When did The Pill go out of fashion?!
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When did The Pill go out of fashion?!
Because it makes more sense to encourage use of a barrier contraceptive.
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I confirm that.Everyone has sex but with condoms...
me, I like sex with women, but to each his own...
and wtg ****ing up the quote.
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I confirm that.Everyone has sex but with condoms...
me, I like sex with women, but to each his own...
and wtg ****ing up the quote.
*Chuckle*
kode, you so crazy.
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When did The Pill go out of fashion?!
Because it makes more sense to encourage use of a barrier contraceptive.
But it's less fun.
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When did The Pill go out of fashion?!
Because it makes more sense to encourage use of a barrier contraceptive.
But it's less fun.
If it was supposed to be about fun, they'd be handing out furry handcuffs and whipped skooshy cream at family planning clinics.....
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When did The Pill go out of fashion?!
Because it makes more sense to encourage use of a barrier contraceptive.
But it's less fun.
And so are STD's. ::) :p
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I get annoyed because, and it's not particuarly you, I'm afraid you just got the brunt of a late night and a headache, there is far too much flinging of comments about the European Union that seem to be garnered more from Fox News than from research, and just as people from other countries find it annoying when people generalise about their country or union, there's a line for Europeans too.
...yeah, but Europeans are all the same!!12
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When did The Pill go out of fashion?!
Because it makes more sense to encourage use of a barrier contraceptive.
But it's less fun.
And so are STD's. ::) :p
If it's someone you know well enough and trust then they're not an issue. If you want to sleep with anything, well thats a whole different ball game... I'm not big on man-whoring. :nervous:
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...yeah, but Europeans are all the same!!12
LOL :p
As for the whole STD's thing, yes, there are some stupid people out there at the moment, chlamydia is a big problem, but then, it is a worldwide problem, mainly because people are so paranoid about their 'private parts' that most do not go to the Doctor with problems until much later than they should have. This is often worse in countries where people are encouraged to think of those parts as 'dirty' in the first place.
However, once again, the push here is to educate teenagers to the danger of having unprotected sex rather than simply throwing regulations at them, and it is slowly working.
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sure as hell aint working here.
they taught us abstinence.
yeah. that worked.
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Abstinence was a stupid idea, that, I would say, is a classic example of what happens when you simply try to regulate sex by telling people not to do it instead of educating them why they should take precautions.
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Why would a europe with a substantial muslim population be a bad thing, again?
For the same reason that Egypt with 20% of the population being first or second generation European would be a bad thing - it would cease being, or if not cease than decrease the degree to which it is, Europe. Say what you will, from any scientific POV Europe's identity is white and Christian. It also has a distinctly different heritage than most African and Middle-Eastern countries, not better or worse just different - the Renaissance, enlightenment, industrial revolution, a specific form of government etc. Different places have different identities, and if you mix them together too much you end up losing the uniqueness of the place. I am as opposed to immigration from Algeria to France as I am from France to Algeria. A sort of nationalism is favour or no one and everyone.
If you think that there's nothing wrong with unlimited immigration, ask yourself what Syria would think about having 2 million Germans living in the country. Or what
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Why would a europe with a substantial muslim population be a bad thing, again?
For the same reason that Egypt with 20% of the population being first or second generation European would be a bad thing - it would cease being, or if not cease than decrease the degree to which it is, Europe. Say what you will, from any scientific POV Europe's identity is white and Christian. It also has a distinctly different heritage than most African and Middle-Eastern countries, not better or worse just different - the Renaissance, enlightenment, industrial revolution, a specific form of government etc. Different places have different identities, and if you mix them together too much you end up losing the uniqueness of the place. I am as opposed to immigration from Algeria to France as I am from France to Algeria. A sort of nationalism is favour or no one and everyone.
If you think that there's nothing wrong with unlimited immigration, ask yourself what Syria would think about having 2 million Germans living in the country. Or what
:rolleyes:
Cut off?
A country is nothing more than a reflection of the individuals comprising it. What is 'europe'? Can you distill it and put it in a bottle? Write it down and stick it on a label?
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Why would a europe with a substantial muslim population be a bad thing, again?
You're an enigma to me Aldo. You're clearly very intelligent. You put across your arguments effectively and eloquently. The thing that confuses me is what you choose to argue about. Take the above quote for example. I mean you can't actually be serious? You would have to have been walking around with your eyes shut and your fingers in your ears for the last decade to need to ask that question. Or are you just playing devil's advocate?
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Why would a europe with a substantial muslim population be a bad thing, again?
You're an enigma to me Aldo. You're clearly very intelligent. You put across your arguments effectively and eloquently. The thing that confuses me is what you choose to argue about. Take the above quote for example. I mean you can't actually be serious? You would have to have been walking around with your eyes shut and your fingers in your ears for the last decade to need to ask that question. Or are you just playing devil's advocate?
Explain to me why Muslims are Bad People to be worried about. Why should I be scared of one religion above another? Why is a substantial Muslim population bad? Is a substantial Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Sikh or Hindu population bad?
More importantly, why not answer the question rather than ask whether I'm serious?
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You are serious.
:jaw:
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Still no answer, I see, just smart-arsed smilies.
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Debating the question with you would be pointless. I've read enough of the threads you've participated in to know that I will never change your opinion on anything. Neither do I feel there's a need to try and convince others reading this thread to think the way I do as I am reasonably sure they do already. So sorry. You're not going to get a long drawn out debate out of me. Just smilies ;).
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Thank you for your eternally useful, illuminative and insightful contribution, then. I'm gad I gained such a rich and extensive understanding of your clearly well thought out set of opinions, thanks to the welter of explanation & support offered for such a concise and fact-filled statement. It's so refreshing to see someone with such strength of conviction as to place their positions under the microscope for discussion.
Oh, wait........
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ok, let me answer, what would be so bad about a world were you have died? nothing per se, however, a world with you in it would be better from your perspective I would assume, a world were Europe has been over run by any outside culture be it Muslim, Chinese, Martian is bad, not because the new culture of Europe is bad but because the old one is gone.
I think you have now proven my thesis on why ethnocentrism is a required trait for a culture to survive for me better than I ever would have myself, thank you.
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ok, let me answer, what would be so bad about a world were you have died? nothing per se, however, a world with you in it would be better from your perspective I would assume, a world were Europe has been over run by any outside culture be it Muslim, Chinese, Martian is bad, not because the new culture of Europe is bad but because the old one is gone.
I think you have now proven my thesis on why ethnocentrism is a required trait for a culture to survive for me better than I ever would have myself, thank you.
huh?
A cultural shift created by an altered demographic is not an 'invasion'. An invasion is short, sharp, and sudden. All cultures have underwent seismic changes throughout history due to immigration, social changes, and many other factors. Singling out Muslims as bad in this respect is no fairer than stating allowing hispanic or black people to emigrate to the United States is bad.
But I'd like to hear the 'old culture' defined for europe; what is being 'overrun', anyways? Culture undergoes continuous flux from the introduction of new ideas and historical events.
Why is there this assumption that immigration automatically causes schism rather than adaptation. for all the noisy protests by Muslims - or other ethnic or religious groups - there are 10 times more Muslims quietly living their lives out, perfectly settled and happy, who do nothing more than contribute to European (select specific country here...) culture than a similarly quiet, settled white Christian.
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I'm not at all surprised by this development.
While in western countries hte people are well off, the cost of raising a child and educating it are sky-high.
What can you expect - in a capitalistic world the goal is to get every last penny from the sucker you call customer.
And what better way to earm money than on things parently will practicly never skimp - children.
Just look at the cost of baby/kids stuff and tell me they aren't overinflated.
Just look at the cost of College today.
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Don't bother Aldo, I've already pointed out the faults in the research and the arrogance in assuming that Europe is like the Stereotypes assume, but that doesn't sound as 'juicy' so everyones ignoring it.
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The concept of 'europe' as some sort of homogenistic culture alone is laughable.
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not because the new culture of Europe is bad but because the old one is gone.
If a culture requires special protection to maintain it, then perhaps it is not worth keeping in the first place.
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The concept of 'europe' as some sort of homogenistic culture alone is laughable.
Better still is the original authors assumption that ALL of Europe has a 'unmanageable' welfare system. And I'm still convinced that he used the phrase 'importing babies' purely because it sounds borderline offensive and has no relation whatsoever to what actually happened.
I'm half surprised the Author of that report didn't add 'It's full of Fags and French people too!'.
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About those pesky (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6086418.stm) French...
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Yeah, France had a bad run of things, there were the riots, then they tried to put in the employment laws that the rest of the youths didn't like, and now on the anniversary of the riots you always get a few. Unfortunately, once you make it 'trendy' to riot, it becomes more of a problem :(
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The concept of 'europe' as some sort of homogenistic culture alone is laughable.
Better still is the original authors assumption that ALL of Europe has a 'unmanageable' welfare system. And I'm still convinced that he used the phrase 'importing babies' purely because it sounds borderline offensive and has no relation whatsoever to what actually happened.
I'm half surprised the Author of that report didn't add 'It's full of Fags and French people too!'.
It's interesting looking into his background; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Steyn and some of his quotes;
"We're told the old-school imperialists were racists, that they thought of the wogs as inferior. But, if so, they at least considered them capable of improvement. The multiculturalists are just as racist. The only difference is that they think the wogs can never reform: Good heavens, you can't expect a Muslim in Norway not to go about raping the womenfolk! Much better just to get used to it." — "Battered Westerner Syndrome inflicted by myopic Muslim defenders," column, 23 August 2002
To all extents he's racist against people from Muslim countries and views them as having an inferior culture which, er, 'superior' western culture cannot withstand competing with. Or something.
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Lots of you guys really ain't into this whole multi-cultural thing are you?
This whole thing is mostly bunk anyway, just the usual migration pattern of 'stuff'.
Hell, in the UK we've seen a surge of Polish guys coming over here to find work. There's lots of complaining because they put UK guys out of work, but that's just the way capitalism works.
I find it amusing that some of you complaining about 'muslims taking over' are the same ones that were wailing on the UK for not wanting to adopt the Euro as the primary currency.
They are both similar assimilatamatory events.
Groups merge and groups divide, that's just the way of the world.
The trick is in influencing what does and what doesn't to your (or your country/religion/organised crime syndicate/other arbitrary affiliated-group)'s advantage...
Personally, I think we need a good bit of global thermo nuclear war! :D
Nothing like a bit of life-threatening adversity to pull people together! ;)
(Disclaimer: Since there are people out there who probably are that stupid, this is for you: That was a joke. And also I have been playing DEFCON too much... :nervous:)
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Yup, of the 58 million people in the UK, an astounding 4million come from other ethnicities, and that's all ethnicities, Pakistani, Indian, Non-English European, not just the Middle East.
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Yup, of the 58 million people in the UK, an astounding 4million come from other ethnicities, and that's all ethnicities, Pakistani, Indian, Non-English European, not just the Middle East.
There was an anecdote I read in a recent Herald anecdote, about an MP in Falkirk accosted by a constituent loudly complaining about 'Polish immigrants stealing our jobs'.
Rough immigration levels to Falkirk; 0
The problem is that all this 'information' comes from a media which focuses on crises and controversy, and which is often dominated by middle-England,somewhat bigoted reactionaries (and which panders to the same type of people). It's easier to sell 'multiculturalism dooms us all' than 'well, we're actually ok' on the newstands, after all.....