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It's Still the Demography, Stupid... Mark Steyn
Steyn Online ^ | 19 Jan 2016 | Mark Steyn

Posted on 01/19/2016 12:46:21 PM PST by Rummyfan

Ten years ago this month - January 2006 - The Wall Street Journal and The New Criterion published my first draft of what would become the thesis of my bestselling book, America Alone. The Journal headline sums it up: "It's the Demography, Stupid." Opening paragraph:

Most people reading this have strong stomachs, so let me lay it out as baldly as I can: Much of what we loosely call the Western world will not survive this century, and much of it will effectively disappear within our lifetimes, including many if not most Western European countries. There'll probably still be a geographical area on the map marked as Italy or the Netherlands--probably--just as in Istanbul there's still a building called St. Sophia's Cathedral. But it's not a cathedral; it's merely a designation for a piece of real estate. Likewise, Italy and the Netherlands will merely be designations for real estate. The challenge for those who reckon Western civilization is on balance better than the alternatives is to figure out a way to save at least some parts of the West.

(Excerpt) Read more at steynonline.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: civilization; marksteyn; steyn
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1 posted on 01/19/2016 12:46:21 PM PST by Rummyfan
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To: Rummyfan

” The challenge for those who reckon Western civilization is on balance better than the alternatives is to figure out a way to save at least some parts of the West.”

never misses


2 posted on 01/19/2016 12:48:14 PM PST by stephenjohnbanker (My Batting Average( 1,000) since Nov 2014 (GOPe is that easy to read))
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To: stephenjohnbanker

Well, that’s going to require one heck of a ground game. And a lot of ammo.


3 posted on 01/19/2016 12:54:05 PM PST by JudyinCanada
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To: Rummyfan
The idiot men who caved and granted women the right to vote spelled the beginning of the end of the West.

Most women - 90%? - are rabid anti Westerners that have systematically destroyed our very foundations, leaving us wounded and ripe for a take over.

4 posted on 01/19/2016 12:54:47 PM PST by deadrock (I is someone else.)
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To: JudyinCanada

Accent grave on the ammo...LOL


5 posted on 01/19/2016 12:55:40 PM PST by stephenjohnbanker (My Batting Average( 1,000) since Nov 2014 (GOPe is that easy to read))
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To: deadrock

All civilizations that have allowed women a voice in the political realm will be destroyed by those that haven’t. It’s no different now than it was 10,000 years ago. It’s just nature. Go against it at your own peril.


6 posted on 01/19/2016 12:58:55 PM PST by The Toll
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To: Rummyfan

To me the interesting feature of the ongoing death of the West is the fact such death was achieved solely through means of words; i.e. “Racist,” “Bigot,” “Hater,” “Homophobe,” “War on women,” “Sexist,”etc. etc.


7 posted on 01/19/2016 1:02:38 PM PST by AEMILIUS PAULUS
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To: deadrock
Most women - 90%? - are rabid anti Westerners that have systematically destroyed our very foundations, leaving us wounded and ripe for a take over.

I would never say this around my wife. She'd kick my ass if she heard me say it.

8 posted on 01/19/2016 1:04:03 PM PST by JusPasenThru (but if not...)
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To: JusPasenThru

I don’t think that’s an indictment against women that DO have their head on straight. It’s an unfortunate assessment of the overall number of them.


9 posted on 01/19/2016 1:05:48 PM PST by The Toll
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To: deadrock

I agree and in the past have posted on FR that I’d be happy to give up the vote in order to secure a safer future for my children.


10 posted on 01/19/2016 1:09:31 PM PST by MeganC (The Republic of The United States of America: 7/4/1776 to 6/26/2015 R.I.P.)
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To: Rummyfan
Japan is in many respects essentially a Western nation which suffers the same demographic challenge that Mark Steyn has so accurately described for Western Europe and America but Japan has not subscribed to the Ponzi scheme of admitting immigrants. Instead Japan is betting its future on technology, especially robotics, in the hope that they can preserve their homogenous society and maintain and grow their standard of living.

Because I believe that diversity is not our strength but our Achilles' heel, my money is on Japan. It might be the only nation to survive and prosper.


11 posted on 01/19/2016 1:11:31 PM PST by nathanbedford ("Attack, repeat, attack!" Bull Halsey)
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To: Rummyfan
Steyn's article references birth rates as critical.

The Democrats, as led by Obama and Clinton, possess a utopian view of a forced and false "equality" which reduces all to a level of mediocrity well known throughout history and in the modern world.

Americans should have held fast to the Founders' ideas of liberty instead of allowing its leaders to plunge it into European-style socialism, such as that being promoted by the current Party leaders, for the policies which go along with that ideology have their own set of consequences, some of which are described in Steyn's piece.

From the Liberty Fund Library is "A Plea for Liberty: An Argument Against Socialism and Socialistic Legislation," edited by Thomas Mackay (1849 - 1912), Chapter 1, excerpted final paragraphs from Edward Stanley Robertson's essay:

"I have suggested that the scheme of Socialism is wholly incomplete unless it includes a power of restraining the increase of population, which power is so unwelcome to Englishmen that the very mention of it seems to require an apology. I have showed that in France, where restraints on multiplication have been adopted into the popular code of morals, there is discontent on the one hand at the slow rate of increase, while on the other, there is still a 'proletariat,' and Socialism is still a power in politics.
I.44
"I have put the question, how Socialism would treat the residuum of the working class and of all classes—the class, not specially vicious, nor even necessarily idle, but below the average in power of will and in steadiness of purpose. I have intimated that such persons, if they belong to the upper or middle classes, are kept straight by the fear of falling out of class, and in the working class by positive fear of want. But since Socialism purposes to eliminate the fear of want, and since under Socialism the hierarchy of classes will either not exist at all or be wholly transformed, there remains for such persons no motive at all except physical coercion. Are we to imprison or flog all the 'ne'er-do-wells'?
I.45
"I began this paper by pointing out that there are inequalities and anomalies in the material world, some of which, like the obliquity of the ecliptic and the consequent inequality of the day's length, cannot be redressed at all. Others, like the caprices of sunshine and rainfall in different climates, can be mitigated, but must on the whole be endured. I am very far from asserting that the inequalities and anomalies of human society are strictly parallel with those of material nature. I fully admit that we are under an obligation to control nature so far as we can. But I think I have shown that the Socialist scheme cannot be relied upon to control nature, because it refuses to obey her. Socialism attempts to vanquish nature by a front attack. Individualism, on the contrary, is the recognition, in social politics, that nature has a beneficent as well as a malignant side. The struggle for life provides for the various wants of the human race, in somewhat the same way as the climatic struggle of the elements provides for vegetable and animal life—imperfectly, that is, and in a manner strongly marked by inequalities and anomalies. By taking advantage of prevalent tendencies, it is possible to mitigate these anomalies and inequalities, but all experience shows that it is impossible to do away with them. All history, moreover, is the record of the triumph of Individualism over something which was virtually Socialism or Collectivism, though not called by that name. In early days, and even at this day under archaic civilisations, the note of social life is the absence of freedom. But under every progressive civilisation, freedom has made decisive strides—broadened down, as the poet says, from precedent to precedent. And it has been rightly and naturally so.
I.46
"Freedom is the most valuable of all human possessions, next after life itself. It is more valuable, in a manner, than even health. No human agency can secure health; but good laws, justly administered, can and do secure freedom. Freedom, indeed, is almost the only thing that law can secure. Law cannot secure equality, nor can it secure prosperity. In the direction of equality, all that law can do is to secure fair play, which is equality of rights but is not equality of conditions. In the direction of prosperity, all that law can do is to keep the road open. That is the Quintessence of Individualism, and it may fairly challenge comparison with that Quintessence of Socialism we have been discussing. Socialism, disguise it how we may, is the negation of Freedom. That it is so, and that it is also a scheme not capable of producing even material comfort in exchange for the abnegations of Freedom, I think the foregoing considerations amply prove."
EDWARD STANLEY ROBERTSON

If all of us here today understand Robertson's 1800's conclusions about socialism's absolute "negation of freedom," then other Americans are capable of understanding them too--if they were clearly articulated to them by a presidential candidate!

12 posted on 01/19/2016 1:12:10 PM PST by loveliberty2
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To: JusPasenThru
My wife agrees, so I am good there.

Saying that ALL women are idiot liberals or ALL New Yorkers are idiot liberals are both stupid comments.

But the numbers for both are closer to ALL than to NONE.

13 posted on 01/19/2016 1:12:51 PM PST by deadrock (I is someone else.)
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To: nathanbedford
Because I believe that diversity is not our strength but our Achilles' heel, my money is on Japan. It might be the only nation to survive and prosper.

The Japanese have not abandoned their identity, nor their legitimate pride in their own civilization & culture. This preserves their actual "diverse" existence as a unique nation. The Left, in pursuit of monolithic new world orders has used what they call "diversity," as a battering ram to destroy what is left of human diversity & the freedom of any people to preserve their own. (See Diversity In Context.)

Properly understood, what is babbled about as "diversity," is a war on all that makes any people unique. Conservatives need to recognize the hideous intolerance for all that any nation once held sacred, that is behind the babble.

14 posted on 01/19/2016 1:21:39 PM PST by Ohioan
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To: Rummyfan

Westernism is primarily hedonstic, while radical Islam is almost the opposite. At some point, the liberals are going to start being afraid that their self-indulgence is coming to an end, and they’ll ask the conservatives to help them fight back. Hopefully, by then, we’ll have carved out a few sane and safe states that we can keep from both kinds of crazies. Let the battles be in New York and California. By then, the South will rise again. On our terms.


15 posted on 01/19/2016 1:31:20 PM PST by Repealthe17thAmendment
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To: nathanbedford
Agree 100%. Thank goodness for them they are an island nation.

Britain has the same advantage but they are in the process of throwing it away.

16 posted on 01/19/2016 1:41:11 PM PST by Ken H
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To: deadrock

Women are biologically wired to turn over their safety to someone else...to look for a protector. In the absence of a good man, government will do.


17 posted on 01/19/2016 1:51:40 PM PST by ez (Abashed the devil stood and felt how awful goodness is... - Milton)
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To: Rummyfan
Muslims are basically parasites

If it wasn't for oil they ME would be NOTHING

Europe and the West may not survive but neither will the Muslims
18 posted on 01/19/2016 2:10:38 PM PST by uncbob
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To: deadrock

Most women? Maybe where you live.

I am a woman, and, while I agree that a lot of women act stupid and vote for Rats, I think your figure is ridiculous.


19 posted on 01/19/2016 2:18:47 PM PST by Bigg Red (Keep calm and Pray on.)
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To: nathanbedford; Ohioan

UnfortunTely I think they’ll be overrun by the commie Chinese before the century is out identity or no they don’t have the numbers or population growth... Much like the rest of the west demographics will be their downfall.


20 posted on 01/19/2016 2:24:05 PM PST by reed13k (w)
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