Posted on 02/23/2006 11:40:15 AM PST by Wombat101
Not bad for a Belgian (or as I like to call them "French-Light").
"a civilization that no longer believes in its own future also rejects procreation" if this were true secular China would see its population fall. This is not true.
A sober assessment of the situation.
Indeed.
"This is not the beginning of the end. It is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." -- Churchill
Notre Dame cathedral will be a mosque in our lifetimes.
Europe started dying when the killed so many Jews. A race know for its scholarship, hard work, and ingenuity. And replaced it with Muslims.
I doubt any civilisation or culture will last forever. Obituaries can be written for all.
--Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (1874-1965),_The Gathering Storm,_bk.I ch.19 p.348 (Houghton Mifflin, 1948)
Dude, the Chinese don't even PRETEND to be Communists anymore. They're now embracing capitalism with both hands, or hadn't you noticed?
All that remains left to do for China to become a true "superpower" is for the people to realize that a modicum of economic freedom MUST with a corresponding modicum of political rights.
Once that connection is made, the Chinese "Communist" Party is doomed.
I'd hardly compare the two (Europe's demographic and cultural collapse and China's continuing quest for a system that actually works) in quite that way.
Please. French lite.
Yes, this is an excellent article. And, as it says, America will follow Europe unless we learn from Europe's fate.
But the problem with that is that you cannot become a real Christian for political purposes or because it's a winning strategy. You have to believe in it. For that, we have to rely on God.
The early Englightenment rationalists agreed that, for political purposes it was important that the mass of people should believe in the afterlife, because without that threat of divine reward or punishment, what would make them behave morally? But when belief in the afterlife becomes a method of political control, not a true Christian belief, it is bound to grow feeble and evaporate.
If a miracle were to take place in Europe and reverse their decline and fall, it would have to be a divine miracle. No use saying that it would be expedient if people would act like Christians. Expediency doesn't cut much ice.
With the forced abortions and family size limitations, China's population is not increasing.
as you would expect, Brussels, the seat NATO bureaucrats and of the EU Parliament, is well inside the French side of Belgium.
Clarification on the point:
The One Child Policy is the natural result of a totalitarian government that finds itself unable to cope with the related problems of population growth and food production.
The future of a combined economically- and industrially- liberated China will go much further in INCREASING the population then the Commies ever did in DECREASING it. It's a turism that when people can afford, and support, more people, they do. Two primary steps in creating the conditions under which this can occur are political freedom and a strong economy.
China is beginning to get the former (although the government drastically exagerrates the rate at which economic growth is occurring for political reasons), and it's only a matter of time before the latter occurs.
The chicoms are still murdering thugs. How can anyone not notice that?
Cool. French Lite and Phlegms (old Python joke). Where do the Walloons fit into all of this, btw?
"China would see its population fall"
____________________________________
Their religion is communism. Regardless........wait till the Muslims get to them.
yes they are. But there are several things working against them:
The overall goal of the Communist government is to maintain it's position. It cannot do this without allowing economic freedom, but it must be positioned to control the conditions under which it is granted (they will not repeat the disaster of Glastnost).
However, that loosening of economic conditions has some unforeseen consequences: China now has sattelite television. It has internet access. Cellphones. Legions of younger-generation Chinese educated abroad. China is more connected to the outside world than ever before. With the explosion of all of these communication technologies, and a population that is simply more aware of the world outside their borders, it's only a matter of time before the words "Chinese" and "Communists" no longer appear in the same sentence.
The Government might control who makes the money and where it gets spent, but it cannot totally control the flow of information, nor it's sources, and even more eventfully, it's consequences.
I submit that China is very high on it's future. They along with India will be the next world power. Europe is on the skids and America is slowly choking itself with PC and diversity stuff.
China has strong beliefs in Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism. I wouldn't call then secular.
Weren't they a high-wire circus act?
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