Shrinking population threatens West's culture

Cape Cod Times ^ | 8/2/02 | PATRICIA STEBBINS

[Dakmar]

Japan has recently, also with alarm, told the nation that they are starting to run out of people and "women need to work less and have more children to save their culture."

Pardon me for perhaps being a bit obtuse, but I'm having trouble believing that Japan is anywhere near threatened by underpopulation. JMVHO.

[Torie]

This competitive cultural breeding argument (we need more of us than them) is profoundly dispiriting and negative and insular. I dissent and reject it. The human spirit is eternal, and universal truths are eternal, and in time, they will be found. That is my leap of faith, and I am sticking with it until I suspect I depart this mortal coil.

[Torie]

Per acre of inhabitable land, Japan is the most densely populated place on earth. But its population is dropping. Beyond the issue of the solvency of the senior citizen pension program, isn't that horrible?

[Dakmar]

We just need to explain to them how they should let in a few million Chinese to stabilize their population, eh?

[thegreatbeast]

Sorry, friend, but don't expect me to join you in the march to cultural and ethnic oblivion. Ours is one of the few cultures on this planet where people with your views don't end up ON the dinner menu. My gawd, look how sophisticated the Saudis are. There is slavery, SLAVERY, practiced in the Sudan. You should, as I do, consider it a good day when you don't fall victim, or revert, to cannibalism.
Do you know what radical Islam wants to do to infidels? Do you know that anyone who isn't a radical Islamist is an infidel?
You be careful.

[Torie]

I am not at all religious, but I suspect Christ would be more optimistic than you. I am optimistic, because I think the human spirit is genetically wired towards more good than evil, even though evil is always attendant. In the end the angels win.

[cicero's_son]

I am not at all religious...I am optimistic, because I think the human spirit is genetically wired towards more good than evil.

Oh goodness me. Only an irreligious person could possibly think such a thing!

I'm not sure how a person could take such a view of human nature and still be a champion of Western civilization and a conservative.

[MissAmericanPie]

Number one, I don't believe for a second that Euro's are a vanishing breed in the USofA. Just another scam to over run the population with those foreign to our culture, history, and desired future of Constitutional, Bill of Rights protected government.

[MinorityRepublican]

Meanwhile, as Western populations dwindle, the birth rates in Arab/Muslim countries are booming as they fan out all over the world, spreading their culture and religion.

Oh great, I get to see this in my lifetime. I'm only 18 years old now. Maybe I was just born at the wrong time, and at wrong place. But it's not too late, yet....

Baby Boomers could care less about what happens to my generation. All they want is their Social Security. There's no doubt that they are the worst generation in the American history.

These new citizens are building countless mosques and demanding their social, cultural and religious beliefs be incorporated into (or replace) existing laws. It is even said that in Muslim religious schools they are teaching that Jews and Christians are scum and must be eliminated.

Gee, for the whole time I thought that Islam is the religion of peace! C'mon, we can't allow this crap to happen to the Western Civilization. If things are already like this now, what would it be like for the next generation?

If there is one, that is.

[Torie]

I have certain liberal tendencies. I bear watching. But on this point, I and Bill Buckley are as one. We are both conservative optimists, although he is religious, and I am not.

[JMJ333]

Of course the populatio os shrinking. We're feeling the effects of the evils of birth control, abortion and casual sex. There'd be 45 million more people alone in this country without abortion, for starters.

[JMJ333]

eek...populatio os = population is

[MinorityRepublican]

There'd be 45 million more people alone in this country without abortion, for starters.

Yeah, and I'm lucky to be alive. Many folks just don't realize that if they were born after Roe vs. Wade, a fair number of them won't even be alive!

[JMJ333]

I would call it more of a collapse than a shrinkage.

[cicero's_son]

Well more power to you both!

Is Bill really an optimist about human nature though, or his he just a little more certain about the ultimate outcome of history?

[MinorityRepublican]

I would call it more of a collapse than a shrinkage.

Agreed. Hence, The Death of the West

[Torie]

The former. Buckely waxed poetic about the human spirit, and how it would destroy tyranical Communism from within. He said that in the darkest days, long before the glimmering of the dawn. And of course, he was right.

[JMJ333]

Another good book on the subject is "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, by Samuel P. Huntington.

[MinorityRepublican]

Another good book on the subject is "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, by Samuel P. Huntington.

Sounds interesting, according to Amazon.com.

The thesis of this provocative and potentially important book is the increasing threat of violence arising from renewed conflicts between countries and cultures that base their traditions on religious faith and dogma. This argument moves past the notion of ethnicity to examine the growing influence of a handful of major cultures--Western, Eastern Orthodox, Latin American, Islamic, Japanese, Chinese, Hindu, and African--in current struggles across the globe. Samuel P. Huntington, a political scientist at Harvard University and foreign policy aide to President Clinton, argues that policymakers should be mindful of this development when they interfere in other nations' affairs. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

The most significant struggle is the Western Civilization aganist Islamic Fundamentalism, obviously.