A first-hand report on the Marching Morons, from Mark Steyn:
The money-no-object Metropolitan Police had helicopters whirring non-stop over Central London during today’s mass hallucination (they’re still overhead as I write), but, as usual, not a lot of competent policing on the ground. As is their wont, they did little to prevent property damage – or the general intimidation of visitors to the capital by so-called “anarchists” (an odd term for pro-government welfare-funded thugs).
An odd term indeed.
[Late Sunday evening update]
More thoughts on the oxymoron of leftist “anarchists.”
It’s interesting that this “Earth Hour ‘celebration'” takes place contemporaneously with (the widely reported) suffering in Japan resulting from the loss of major chunks of their electric power generating capacity. Hey, they’re livin’ the dream over there…what’s all the fuss about?
I never got the communist anarchist thing either. Politics is full of grating contradictions like that.
The two factor political axis for example – logically, you shouldn’t be able to be for “social” freedom and against economic freedom – the latter is a necessary precondition for the former. And yet, the mainstream political axis runs perpendicular to this seemingly obvious logical requirement.
Oh yeah, Earth hour.. let’s burn candles instead of electricity like the good old coal fueled 19th century.
The problem with Mark Steyn is that he’s full of sad regrets about what was, but has absolutely no prescriptions for trying to defeat the people who are causing the problems.
What makes it worse is his tendency to try to laugh about it. The fact is, if things are as hopeless as he says, we shouldn’t be laughing. We should be committing suicide. (Note that I said if they are as hopeless. I don’t think they are).
Another problem is that he’s one of the “foreign policy is everything” types. He actually said several years ago that if he were a British voter he’d vote for Tony Blair, because he was right on the only important issue: the Iraq War. While I despise the cut-and-run types, I can think of several issues that were and are more important than winning in Iraq. I’d rather lose in Iraq than have the 2nd Amendment shredded, for instance.
The fact is: any small victories we win overseas will not last long if we do not remain free at home.
“Another problem is that he’s one of the “foreign policy is everything” types.”
You clearly haven’t been reading Steyn for the last few years.
His claim is that Demographics is is everything…or as near to everything as you’re going to get.
Well, that’s crap. If demographics were everything, Christian conservatives would be in control of all levels of government, simply by outbreeding the opposition. Yet Obama carried the youth vote by a huge margin. Why? Because kids voted differently than their parents.
Steyn seems to accept a sort of domestic Brezhnev Doctrine, in which every group that votes D once will vote that way forever, as will all their descendants. This is crap from a historical perspective, and even if it weren’t, it’s depressing and defeatist.
I doubt Steyn even recognizes how depressing he is any more; I get the impression that he spends a great deal of time abroad. In fact, I remember about a year ago he had a column about the Tea Party movement, which generally seemed confused since he’d been outside the country. As near as I could tell, he was saying something to the effect of “Well it’s good they’re out there, but let’s get back to the real story, which is that Obama is undefeatable.”
We do NOT need defeatism.
You know I have to agree with Ken here. We’re not going to solve the problems afflicting Western Civilization by trying to outbreed people from Third World countries. Western Civilization is based on the small, nuclear family where the stable marriage of a man and a woman is the center and they only have a few children. Countries where the people tend to have large families also tend to be poorer. Why should we emulate poorer countries?
The demographic problem they’re having in Europe is that they invited a lot of people from countries with a very different way of life and did not insist that those people change in any way to adapt to their new surroundings. Instead the governments in Europe have more or less supinely allowed the newcomers to “be themselves.” These same governments have treated their own native citizens with contempt for not wanting their lands to be gradually taken over by strangers with strange customs. When your own government treats you as if it had no use for you and seems to want to replace you with these other “cooler” people, why would you bother marrying and having kids?
“Well, that’s crap. If demographics were everything, Christian conservatives would be in control of all levels of government, simply by outbreeding the opposition. Yet Obama carried the youth vote by a huge margin. Why? Because kids voted differently than their parents. ”
You CLEARLY haven’t read any Steyn in years. But here’s a hint: muslim young’uns in the banlieus are not as independent as your typical US suburban Wii player. That’s just a hint.
And don’t forget my qualifier at the end:
“or as near to everything as you’re going to get.”
Which isn’t very near. Meaning there is no ONE thing. But if you want an overarching theme to Steyn it would be demographics. And, Andrea he wrote on large immigrant populations allowed to not only be themselves, and how dangerous that can be. But in addition he also pointed towards the negative birth rate of Europeans and the huge birthrate of the immigrants. And while you are correct that poorer countries have huge families he is:
a) not advocating huge families and
b) pointing out that if things keep going the way things are going now you will end up with a poor muslim Western Europe.
But to think that’s all he says would be displaying a lack of reading or reading comprehension.
Ever read his article on the two bridges in New Hampshire?
Maybe he’s a bit negative but the first step is to recognize and admit the problem. There are a lot of him and neither Steyn nor I limit the problem set to demographics.
Don’t forget there is roughly 50% of the country that does not see a problem..except maybe there’s not enough redistribution going on.
His humor doesn’t bother me in the slightest. In fact it entertains. I love a good turn of phrase and he turns quite a few of them. Do you dislike iowahawk, Kahane and and P. J. O’Rourke as well?
I wrote:
“There are a lot of him and neither Steyn nor I limit the problem set to demographics.”
I meant to write “There are a lot of THEM…”
Andrea said,
“These same governments have treated their own native citizens with contempt for not wanting their lands to be gradually taken over by strangers with strange customs. When your own government treats you as if it had no use for you and seems to want to replace you with these other “cooler” people, why would you bother marrying and having kids?”
But isn’t that exactly what we have going on now, right here?
It’s obvious that the left, meaning the majority of career bureaucrats, would much rather have Juan, his wife, their four kids, his and her six aunts and uncles, his parents, her parents and her idiot, drooling, needy brother Julio here, having crossed into America in a 40′ Sea/Land cargo container, than have US, here giving the bureaucrats a hard time for siding with Juan, his wife, four kids, six aunts and …blah, blah, blah. Because they can mostly get the ‘newcomer’ vote, and preserve their jobs and control.
The difference is, the EU has seen the error of their way on this. We still think, AS a country of leftist bureaucrats, that WE can solve the problems the EU did not.
As to the big government anarchists, they are obviously just tools for the Soros & U.N. led open society types. And are they dictionary challenged? Or irony challenged? Or both?
Big Government Anarchists!!
Hell, it sounds like a Punk Band name from 1982. And their monetary theory is frightful. Just spread the money about, and we’ll be fine. (except for the snooty people who owned the Ritz Restaurant obviously, or those who worked there)
Any school child can figure out that IF Country “A” has a gazillion dollars or rupees or marks, no matter how many times you move that gazillion from the left hand to the right hand, throw it up in the air and let it fall to the ground, restack it and put it in your right hand again, it’s STILL just a gazillion dollars or rupees or marks. If the problem is that you NEED a gazillion and a HALF, your still going to be short no matter how you spread it around.
The poor, simple, math challenged tools!
Well yes, we seem to have been afflicted with an administration that has a “cool kids only” mentality. Fortunately this isn’t Europe — yet.
The theftists have a couple problems:
– They are under the illusion that the extra half gazillion they need exists, but is being sheltered by the “rich”, who they see as having stolen it from the common pie.
– They are oblivious to how what they demand is wasting away the pie of wealth.
The elites in both Europe and the US seem to find white Westerners rather tiresome, what with our obsession with our “rights” and all.
Far better to import Third Worlders who harbor no such illusions.
“When your own government treats you as if it had no use for you and seems to want to replace you with these other “cooler” people, why would you bother marrying and having kids?”
I think, if people often thought this way, The Fiddler On The Roof would have been a very different sort of musical.
rickl,
you said, “…Third Worlders who harbor no such illusions”
Seriously? You don’t remember May Day, 2006?
Tens of THOUSANDS of illegal immigrants openly marched, all over the country, to DEMAND changes to our immigration laws!! If that’s not ‘harboring such illusions’ I don’t know what is.
And if these people AREN’T aligned with Communists WHY do they always pick May 1st as the day to march, protest, or bark? I’m just askin’.
They’re just Anarcho-Communist Chernoe-Znamia groups. They have existed since the early 20th century.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Banner
Anarchist communism (also known as anarcho-communism and occasionally as free communism) is a theory of anarchism which advocates the abolition of the state, private property, and capitalism in favor of common ownership of the means of production, direct democracy and a horizontal network of voluntary associations and workers’ councils with production and consumption based on the guiding principle: “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need”.
Leninism was a derivative of this movement, but headed into the concept of dictatorship of the proletariat.
One core problem with “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need” is that it destroys the incentive to develop and employ ability to produce.
Exactly, peterh. As a Vietnamese man explained to me in Saigon a couple weeks ago, “Following reunification in 1975, we were socialist. You know what socialism is? It’s where if I work hard and you don’t, we get the same thing. So no one worked hard. After 20 years, the government changed things and now we’re much better off.”
The desire by many people to get something for nothing explains why socialsm doesn’t die despite its repeated failures. That, and the desire of many academics and political classs types to dictate how everyone else must live despite their own failures.
Based on my observations on that trip, Vietnam and China may be two of the most capitalist countries on Earth. Based on their rapid construction, I’d also speculate that if they have any environmentalists in those countries, they’re told to sit down and shut up. One day, I think we’re going to need to file a RICO action against many of the environmental activist organizations before they cripple us all.
Der Schtumpy Says:
March 28th, 2011 at 3:16 am
rickl,
you said, “…Third Worlders who harbor no such illusions”
Seriously? You don’t remember May Day, 2006?
Tens of THOUSANDS of illegal immigrants openly marched, all over the country, to DEMAND changes to our immigration laws!! If that’s not ‘harboring such illusions’ I don’t know what is.
And if these people AREN’T aligned with Communists WHY do they always pick May 1st as the day to march, protest, or bark? I’m just askin’.
What I was driving at (but failed to state clearly) is that many Third World immigrants are used to being ruled by corrupt oligarchies, and have little or no concept of individual rights. Thus they are more attractive to the elites. Many illegal Mexican immigrants are illiterate in both English and Spanish, and are not political ideologues.
I think most of those demonstrators you mentioned were American leftists first and foremost, both white and latino, with some illegals mixed in.
It’s sort of like the way that the people who agitate against using American Indian names for sports teams tend to be leftists, many of whom are white, rather than actual American Indians, who mostly don’t care.