Posted on 11/08/2005 7:53:22 PM PST by nickcarraway
Washington - France's explosion of rioting has captivated Americans, who tend to view the French as smug, snooty and quick to point fingers at what\'s wrong with the United States.
Now it's payback time, and influential media outlets and analysts can barely conceal their gloating.
Conservative newspapers like the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Times are proclaiming a blow to European self- righteousness and the continent's welfare-state economies, which they say are partly to blame for immigrants' misery.
'Just two months ago, the French watched in horrified fascination at the anarchy of New Orleans, where members of America's underclass were seen looting stores and defying the police in the wake of Hurricane Katrina,' the New York Times reported from Paris.
'Every night for more than a week, the suburbs of Paris have been a showcase of Europe's failure to integrate its immigrants,' said the Wall Street Journal.
U.S. politicians have publicly remained mum on the riots that have spread from Paris to all across France, though the State Department has warned U.S. citizens to stay away from the worst flashpoints.
But U.S. television networks are showing nightly images of burning cars and riot police - which Fox News TV reporter Greg Palkot said 'looked like nothing short of Baghdad'.
There's a sense of vindication among conservative writers who like columnist Mark Steyn have darkly predicted 'burning buildings, street riots and assassinations' in Europe's major cities, with their African and Arab minorities.
For the U.S. right wing, it's no coincidence that the violence is erupting in the European nation with the largest Moslem minority. They have long claimed that Europe has underrated the explosiveness of an immigrant population they view as nearly impossible to integrate into society.
Others even charge that Europe has become a breeding ground for international terrorism, alluding to the Hamburg-al-Qaeda cell that helped carry out the September 11 attacks on the United States.
Many U.S. politicians across the spectrum share political scientist Samuel Huntington\'s theory of a \'clash of civilizations\' - or the view of British essayist Theodore Dalrymple that \'the sweet dream of universal cultural compatibility has been replaced ... by the nightmare of permanent conflict\'.
Another reason cited in the U.S. for France\'s unrest is the economic system.
\'In a country where short workweeks and early retirement are sacred, there is little emphasis on creating new jobs and even less on grass-roots entrepreneurial activity,\' economist Joel Kotkin wrote in the Wall Street Journal.
He says the overregulated welfare state itself is an obstacle to integrating immigrants into France\'s society and economy.
Clearly, part of the problem is economic, said Stanford University political scientist Niall Ferguson. \'But the second problem is that Europeans do not try hard enough to make immigrants integrate culturally,\' he wrote in the Los Angeles Times.
Many commentators say that, at the very least, the French riots show that social problems and a bungled or aloof government response are not limited to the United States.
\'Yet until now, many in France assumed that what they regard as a superior \'social model\' protected them from the eruptions of lawlessness that in recent years have touched Los Angeles, Miami and New Orleans,\' said the Washington Post.
Some are also reminded of the argument that France\'s Moslem minority was a reason why Paris opposed the U.S.-led war in Iraq, a stand that infuriated the Bush administration and U.S. conservatives and led to a French-bashing orgy a few years ago.
'you had millions of seething unassimilated Muslim youths in lawless suburbs ringing every major city, would you be so eager to send your troops into an Arab country fighting alongside Americans?' Steyn said in the Washington Times.
More like ROTFLMAO.
"Thinly veiled"
We'll have to try harder.
I say we give the author the letters of transit.
Actually this event should provide ammo for plenty of future discussions about Frogland.
An old Polish proverb: "Tough sh*tski".
I confess (throws up hands) I'm gloating.
Someone should ping the Euroweenies to FR threads on the frogs, they would have a cerebral apoplexy.
I won't gloat because of French snootiness. But I will gloat because their ridiculous socialist worldview is crashing down around them: their policies have been non-assimilationist, muslim-collaborationist, anti-interventionist crap. All of it.
So climb slowly down off the high horse, Messr. Ministers and load the sniper rifles. Get it done.
What're they talking about Miami? That WTO type meeting a couple of years ago?
While other immigrants entering France have adapted the culture and found jobs (as much as possible with unemployment 10%+ ), the Muslims have not and will not, but want to force France to give them their own country.
And yes,
We have nothing to feel proud of as we are doing the exact thing.
France, renowned for their cuisine, has introduced the car-B-Q as their latest regional dish. Ah, and we do savor it so! Please pass the schadenfreude sauce.
Thinly veiled? Some of us have been pretty blunt! Leave it to the media to get it wrong, again! :-)
I think the question he should be asking is why in the world the French allowed "millions of seething unassimilated Muslim youths in lawless suburbs ringing every major city"?
I hope the politicos in DC are watching these events & connecting the dots. 10 million illegals floating around the US unassimilated could pose security problems. Ya think?
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