This is 1955! I said to him, Dad, youre nuts! The Crusades have been over for hundreds of years!
And he said, Well, I know, but militant Islam is on the rise again. And you will see it in your lifetime.
Hes been dead some years now. But theres not a day that goes by that I dont think of him and think, God, I wish you were here, just so I could tell you that you were right.
What is unconscionable is that too many of your fellow journalists do not understand how precarious Western civilization is and what a jewel it is.
How did we get the sort of real democracy, how did we get the level of tolerance that allows me to propound something that may be completely alien to you around this table, and yet you will take it and you will think about it and youll say no youre wrong because of this and this and this. And Ill listen and Ill say, Well, actually, maybe I am wrong because of this and this.
[He points at a female reporter and adopts an authoritarian voice, to play a militant-Islam character:] You should not be in this room. Because your husband or your father is not hear to guide you. You could only be here in this room with these strange men for immoral purposes.
I mean
the abolition of slavery comes from Western democracy. True Democracy comes form our Greco-Judeo-Christian-Western experience. If we lose these things, then this is a catastrophe for the world.
And there is a demographic catastrophe happening in Europe that nobody wants to talk about, that we darent bring up because we are so cagey about not offending people racially. And rightly we should be. But there is a cultural thing as well.
By 2020, 50% of the children in Holland under the age of 18 will be of Muslim descent. You look and see what your founding fathers thought of the Dutch. They are constantly looking at the rise of democracy and Dutch values as being the very foundation of American Democracy. If by the mid-century the bulk of Holland is Muslimand dont forget, coupled with this there is this collapse of numbers ... Western Europeans are not having any babies. The population of Germany at the end of the century is going to be 56% of what it is now. The populations of France, 52% of what it is now. The population of Italy is going to be down 7 million people. There is a change happening in the very complexion of Western civilization in Europe that we should think about at least and argue about. If it just means the replacement of one genetic stock with another genetic stock, that doesnt matter too much. But if it involves the replacement of Western civilization with a different civilization with different cultural values, then it is something we really ought to discussbecause, g**dammit, I am for dead white male culture.
You do realize in this town what Ive been saying [is like] blasphemy
but weve got to get a bit serious. By and large our cultures and our society are resilient enough to put up with any sort of nonsense. But if Tolkiens got a message, its that Sometimes youve got to stand up and fight for what you believe in. He knew what he was fighting for in WW1."
[With that, he departed our appreciative and applauding table, saying:] Try and put verbs in my sentences.