Simple question: Why would a government actively pursue importing culturally-incompatible people?
The European multi-culti liberal commentariate is exploiting the Norway carnage to their advantage. Here's a typical scold:
But some commentators argue that despite his deplorable methods, Mr. Breivik has a point: "Multiculturalism" has failed and Europe should turn back toward the narrower, traditional national cultures of the region. (CS Monitor)The “narrower, traditional national cultures” comment is laden with implications.
Are “narrow, traditional” cultures inferior to broader, newer ones? If so, why?
The phrase “turn back” implies doing so would be a step backwards. As C.S. Lewis reminded us, if you're going in the wrong direction, turning around is not a step backwards.
Another question: Who decided to move western nations away from their narrow, traditional cultures, and why? Who or what gave them the right to do it? Why is it only being done in the West?
Here is how the Norway mass murder aftermath is playing out in Europe:
In a society where anti-Islamic sentiment and isolation were tolerated “naturally on the margins of society there will be crazy people who feel legitimized in taking harder measures,” he said.Get it? If a subject is placed beyond the bounds of civil conversation, it is protected from analysis, critical thinking and criticism. The American left dreams of bringing the rightwing heretics to heel as their European brethren do.
“The center of society has to make clear that there is no room for this with us, even for sanitized versions,” Mr. Gabriel said. “There is a deep feeling in society that the pendulum has swung too far toward individualism.” (NY Times)
Socialism has killed over one million times as many souls as the Norwegian murderer did, so why have liberals not declared that horrible ideology beyond the pale?
CS Monitor
52 comments:
Across the Pond, we will see a clamping down on any who criticize multi-culturalism. Multi-culturalism now has the upper hand, thanks to mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik.
Meanwhile, before Breivik's deeds, THIS is happening in Tennessee.
There is no longer objectivity in the pres of Europe or America. Pamela Geller wrot e powerful peice for American Thinker yesterday:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/07/mumbai_vs_oslo.html
Here is her opening paragraph:
Just days before a barbarian (alone and belonging to no one, no group, just the twisted sickness of a legend in his own broken mind) murdered over seventy people in Norway, the city of Mumbai was attacked in a brutal jihad by Muslim extremists, again. Hear about that? Not so much.
"Not so much" is an understatement.
"Are “narrow, traditional” cultures inferior to broader, newer ones? If so, why?"
If they are, it would be because of the degree to which we allow propriety to restrict liberty.
To that end, multiple "narrow, traditional" cultures operating in parallel are less effective than a generally tolerant background culture. Libertarianism, if you will. :)
"Who decided to move western nations away from their narrow, traditional cultures, and why?"
I think you can trace it back through punk, rock & roll, all the way to the renaissance. It is not an imposed top-down movement, but a spontaneous popular one.
"Why is it only being done in the West?"
Maybe I've missed the nuance, but this might be an uncharacteristically thoughtless question. Where in the world is culture not broadening or at least shifting. Japan? China? India? Only in a handful of reactionary (& often revolutionary) Islamic pockets, plus a few otherwise blighted countries which have more immediate problems to prioritise, is increasing personal liberty not a persistent demand.
"If a subject is placed beyond the bounds of civil conversation, it is protected from analysis, critical thinking and criticism."
Well, I like analysis, critical thinking and criticism, and will gleefully apply them any ideas however unthinkable. What I dislike is tabloid-style foment through thoughtless sensationalism. So I'm perfectly fine with you talking about it; Murdoch etc. has a track record of abusing the privilege.
Free speech is great, but thoughtful speech is better.
I agree with Jez on this one. At one moment you deride eastern/Muslim culture, but then you ask why we're the only culture that is trying to be okay with diversity.
Is lack of diversity, or cultural homogeneity something you admire from those cultures that you constantly chide as being backwards?
Why do we insist on multiculturalism in the west? Because western culture understands that in order to not be a close-minded xenophobe, you need to drop the assumption that all other cultures are inherently bad because they're not your own.
Yes, there are elements of Eastern culture that are harmful, but tell me with a straight face that western culture doesn't have any harmful elements. Wastefulness, reletivism, celebrity worship, and delcining emphasis on the importance of a challenging education system.
And now it would seem that we have yet to escape the evils of close-mindedness and xenophobia. Anyone who believes in the true cornerstone of western thought--a liberal arts education--should weep at the notion of becoming "narrower" in our view of culture and the world.
Here is the knee-jerk response I gave to a friend who sent an article from the New York Times by one Thane Rosenbaum arguing a need for both mercy and vengeance -- as if the two could ever be reconciled.
"With Mercy Freaks and Grievance Junkies in charge of the world, all we can do to defend ourselves is try learn how to catch bullets with our teeth.
It's sad to realize that the kind of "enlightened" thinking Norway and most other European countries have adopted has caused them to open their doors in warm welcome to evil and potential trouble of all kinds. In my opinion that is because the Norwegians and others like them make the great mistake of assuming that everyone is just like them once you get past "superficial" differences.
Had Norway not encouraged the build up of hostile foreign elements within her borders, it's very likely this Breivik would never have become unhinged the way he did, and nearly eighty innocent people would still be drawing breath today.
I certainly don't approve of what Breivik did, but I can understand the kind of rage and frustration he must have felt to see his country being slowly but-surely altered beyond recognition by invaders who have been encouraged by his own government.
The liberal notion that all people are equal in the most literal sense, and should, therefore, be treated identically is clearly untrue. It may be a lovely, idealistic dream to imagine that mutual suspicion, distrust, resentment, competitiveness, ethnic and religious pride, and the desire to be regarded as singular-if-not-unique might someday be dissolved in the sweet sticky syrup of rhetoric that asserts Schiller's claim that "all men are brothers," but clearly that is impracticable.
It's long past time the high-minded idealists, who are in truth just as bigoted and potentially despotic as any other group who has ever sought political power, were subjected to a Reality Check.
~ FreeThinke
Unfortunately our birth rate is not so good. Unless we get busy busy busy making babies, the outcome is foretold. Even if immigration was stopped today in ours as well as European countries we are losing our culture.
The question centers around immigration and assimilation.
We've historically done a good job in the US. Immigrants come in and assimilate usually within one generation. They become Americans in the truest sense and spice up the melting pot with bits of their culture.
It's almost as if it were an unspoken bargain: Immigrants strive to "fit in" and natives accept them to the degree they do.
Being the host country, newcomers bear the greater burden of conforming.
It appears more and more groups are forming cultural pockets in Western Christendom and stubbornly refusing to fit in, even spitting on our "narrow traditional" cultures while clinging to their own "narrow traditional" cultures.
Once we let them people have a right to behave however, so far as they don't break the law. I just tire of progressive apologists telling me Western civilization's culture is no better than anyone elses.
My culture is better, and I don't like foreign barbarians battering down its gates. Of course, Europe did it to itself, refusing to breed and disdaining scrubbing toilets and other manual labor.
What worries me is that the US is headed down the same path.
Jack: There you go again with the "but we're bad too" defense. Otherwise, your riposte is a good one.
Measured by most yardsticks, Western Christendom is superior: We assimilate people like no other, lift more out of poverty (including those outside our realm), Medicine literature, science... Our contributions to the world are legion and unprecedented in human history.
You ask a good question about me on one hand criticizing other cultures for being bigoted, and on the other protecting our own "narrow" culture. You make a good point, but in the preceding paragraph I explain why I see our culture as superior. We do expand, but progressive forces are taking a good thing and now putting it in overdrive.
As for other cultures, the people are entitled to it, in their own lands. We have no right to go into anyone elses nation and tell them how to live.
I criticize other cultures as a point of reference to say I don't want that illiberal obscurantist freakshow going on here, in my country. It's fine over there if that's what they want, but don't bring it here.
In many ways, I am a classical liberal, and Islamic influence seems to have a negative correlation with classical liberalism.
Geert Wilders was put on trial for insulting Islam. Could you imagine we Christians bringing you up on similar charges for your picture of Jesus flipping the bird?
I don't like that picture, but it's your blog, I believe in free speech, and I am advanced enough to know that no human work can demean my Lord and Savior.
JEZ: "Are “narrow, traditional” cultures inferior to broader, newer ones? If so, why?"
If they are, it would be because of the degree to which we allow propriety to restrict liberty.
FT: What do you mean by “propriety,” Jez? And by “liberty” surely you don’t mean that influences hostile to indigenous cultures should be given freedom to do their worst aided and abetted by governments supposedly elected to protect the best interests of those indigenous cultures?
JEZ: To that end, multiple "narrow, traditional" cultures operating in parallel are less effective than a generally tolerant background culture. Libertarianism, if you will. :)
FT: Tolerance is one thing. Suicidal impulses are another. The former is desirable; the latter deplorable.
JEZ: "Who decided to move western nations away from their narrow, traditional cultures, and why?"
I think you can trace it back through punk, rock & roll, all the way to the renaissance. It is not an imposed top-down movement, but a spontaneous popular one.
FT: I believe it is naive to assume that the degenerative aspects of the despicable pop culture that has overtaken the West and rotted it from within have taken root and spread “spontaneously.”
The cultural Marxists plotted this very craftily and implemented it with cunning and guile by pandering to humanity’s basest instincts. They did this by infiltrating the universities and seductively portraying sin as virtue and vice versa -- a position that could not help but appeal to the child in all of us. The moguls of entertainment, popular music, and those who control the of content and flow of news and information have foisted these deleterious influences on us using the art of public relations through the machinery of mass communication.
JEZ: "Why is it only being done in the West?"
Maybe I've missed the nuance, but this might be an uncharacteristically thoughtless question. Where in the world is culture not broadening or at least shifting? ... Only in a handful of reactionary (and often revolutionary) Islamic pockets, plus a few otherwise blighted countries ... is increasing personal liberty not a persistent demand.
FT: Changes, if they be spontaneous and evolutionary, are acceptable. When they are the product of obvious manipulation on the part of agenda-driven moguls whose ultimate aim is to destroy personal liberty, they are not, and are apt to be downright evil.
JEZ: "If a subject is placed beyond the bounds of civil conversation, it is protected from analysis, critical thinking and criticism."
Well, I like analysis, critical thinking and criticism, and will gleefully apply them to any ideas however unthinkable. What I dislike is tabloid-style foment through thoughtless sensationalism. So I'm perfectly fine with you talking about it; Murdoch etc. has a track record of abusing the privilege.
FT: Then I hope you would agree with me that no topic should be taboo, and that even the most unpopular views -- such as those that might at times question claims of “anti-Semitism” or the wisdom of establishing The Jewish State in the immediate aftermath of World War Two should remain open for discussion?
Imposing taboos is what got us into this mess in the first place.
"We can never be sure that the opinion we wish to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still."
~ John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)
JEZ: Free speech is great, but thoughtful speech is better.
FT: Well, that would depend on who is doing the thinking, wouldn't it? ;-)
Cheerio!
~ FreeThinke
Silver Fiddle, I agree with everything you said (just in case you had any doubts ;-) and you said it very well.
Here, I think, is the crux of the argument:
"As for other cultures, the people are entitled to it, in their own lands. We have no right to go into anyone else's nation and tell them how to live.
"In their own lands" is exactly right.
Why should anyone assume a "right" or a "duty" to make it their business to change the way others choose to live their lives?
By the same token, however, any host culture has a right, I should think to demand respect for and adherence to their particular customs from foreigners.
My feeling is that if you don't like what's going on here or there, GO SOMEPLACE ELSE.
~ FreeThinke
Just thought of a quip:
There's a world of difference between
1. The good of INdividuality
2. The bad of SINdividuality.
One letter can make a huge difference in meaning, can't it?
Cheerio!
~ FT
Islam = Judaism
Multiculturalism = Miscegenation
... we've been there before.
It's fascinating reading bloggers defending the slaughter in Norway. Kill a bunch of unarmed kids at an outing, that's how they roll except they let the military and silverfiddle's favorite, Blackwater, do their wet work.
And then they talk about who is incompatible. The lasting outcome in Norway may be the fringe right finally exposing themselves just as the Baggers are being outed as idiots in Washington.
My purpose for pointing out our own flaws was to show that as "superior" as we may be to them in some ways, in other ways we are inferior.
You're right that they shouldn't demand their host country to change their own culture, but the host country that allows them should also respect their culture so long as it doesn't cause any real harm to anyone.
It would probably be off topic to dialogue with you about how you felt on my Jesus flipping the bird picture, but that would be off topic. Perhaps I will write an article about that for tomorrow on CFGM.
Ducky,
After you've lived five years in one of the Socialist Workers' Paradises you seem to admire so greatly, please come back and tell us how superior it is to life here in the good ol' USA -- especially for someone who has independent means like yourself. [If I'm wrong about that, please correct me, but I believe you've confessed to being something of a trust fund baby in the past.]
There's nothing wrong with having independent means. In fact, I highly recommend it, and believe everyone should aim toward achieving that goal, BUT when wealth is conferred upon someone who has never had to scrounge for a living in the real world, it tends to give the one so blest a distorted view of reality -- and very possibly a misplaced sense of guilt.
There's nothing more irksome than a rich liberal preaching to hardworking, highly successful people about how those achievers ought to apportion their money and place it in service to others.
ALSO: Weren't you the one who told us just the other day that Sharia is practically indistinguishable from Rabbinical Law -- that devout Muslims and Orthodox Jews were in effect identical twins?
After reading the first five books of the Bible yet again, I tend to agree with that evaluation -- primitive Judaism shows every sign of being as savage and fiercely barbaric as any other primitive tribal religion.
We must remember that Judaism and Islam both spring from SEMITIC roots. Jews and Arabs appear ethnically to be one people. Sibling rivalry appeared very early when Cain slew Abel. The fierceness continues unabated, apparently. Semitic peoples seem to have a lust for vengeance, lots of trouble with the concept of forgiveness and an infinite capacity for nursing grudges -- over millennia. They never seem to realize that this ill-natured propensity is very likely the thing that sets them part and holds them back.
The Advent of Jesus Christ meant profound change towards a loving, forgiving, more positive approach to human relationships. Salvation is to come not from the bloody conquest and annihilation of one's enemies, but from loving one's enemies and giving them the benefit of the doubt.
"The merciful shall obtain mercy."
"The meek shall inherit the earth."
That Christianity so far has failed in its mission to stop the cycle of violence -- attack, revenge, retribution ad infinitum -- does not obviate it's message. All it means is that stubbornness, willfulness, captiousness, and a passion for hatred and revenge are still stronger than any need for prayer, contemplation and constant examination of one's own fault's instead of dwelling on those of others.
It's always easier to look outside oneself to find others who appear blameworthy than it is to do the hard work of looking inward and facing the evil, the obtuseness and the opacity that surely lurk there.
I see Christ's message as this: Conquer yourself, and you have conquered the world.
The Semitic peoples don't appear to want even to consider such an approach as yet.
But that doesn't let you off the hook, Ducky, for sending mixed messages designed to confuse your interlocutors, and put them on the defensive when it's not warranted. You are the very model -- prototypical -- of a Nattering Nabob of Negativism.
The act has long grown stale. No one with an ounce of sense or sophistication could possibly believe you mean more than a tenth of what you say. we are not affronted. certainly not "cheesed off" (your stated aim, I believe), instead we are amused. Do you wish to be regarded as The Court Jester?
I think you were cut out for better things, myself.
~ FreeThinke
Funny, I don't remember anyone defending the Norwegian murderer, maybe a quote and link would help...
There are many similarities among religions, so what? A cursory examination of the contemporary landscape shows quite a divergence of actions, especially in magnitude.
I could be wrong, but I think Muslims lead the Jews in head cutting, stoning and blowing things up.
Jack: My disliking something on your blog is not the point. It's my problem, not yours, and you don't owe anyone an explanation or apology.
My point was to put yourself in Wilders' shoes and imagine being prosecuted for posting a blasphemous image.
"... Muslims lead the Jews in head cutting, stoning and blowing things up."
Absolutely true, SilverFiddle. I realized I should have elaborated a bit after posting that. I was, of course, referring to primitive Judaism as it characterizes God in the Old Testament. I said that, but should have emphasized it more.
The Jews today have certainly come a long way from their days as a group of twelve fractious tribes wandering in the deserts of Sinai after their release from bondage in Egypt. Unfortunately, their Arab cousins have not -- or so it looks to this Westerner's eye.
Even so, I think sincere Christians (not that easy to find unfortunately) are way ahead of either group.
The human race, as a whole, still has a very long way to go before it could hope to reach The Millennium.
~ FreeThinke
You guys will use any excuse to justify your xenophobism.
Bd: But as long as we have your substance-free missives for comic relief, we'll be ok...
bd, loves to use that word. I wonder if he knows the definition.
It was dancing with wolves, not dancing with alligators for a reason. The social structure of wolves is much different than that of alligators. It doesn't mean wolves are better than alligators, or I hate alligators, it just means I have the intelligence to realize I have a much better chance of survival dancing with wolves than dancing with alligators.
You on the left, far to often judge and declare people to be racist or xenophobic when they are not. Your logic is overly simplistic and childlike: Bill doesnt not like banannas...OMG BILL IS A BANANNACIST!!!
As far as outing idiots, I think the only idiots being outed are those juvenile enough to use the term 'Baggers'.
Silverfiddle...having lived in Europe, I can tell you how fast it's becoming slum; gorgeous cities like Paris and Munich are fighting and winning, so far, but the fight's getting tougher and there's far more theft, more beatings in the Metros, French people getting beaten in the suburbs going from their car into their home; it's nonstop. Those cars on fire we all saw in Paris are nothing new; it happens EVERY SINGLE NIGHT in the French suburbs but it's only when the media picks up larger fires do we hear of it.
Think it's the Christian French doing all of that?
As one example of how things have gone; Germans have to attach bikes to their porches now; they could leave them unlocked 20 years ago.
THey're fed up with paying for those who come illegally and make such astonishing demands, all while not learning the languages of their host country and holding up signs that they're going to take over and the Germans (or French or Brits must LEAVE).
This isn't about immigration; let's quite kidding ourselves.
>your xenophobism
Yeah, I hate my Japanese wife, my half-Japanese kids, my half-Mexican daughter-in-law, her Korean mother, my Japanese-Korean-Mexican-Scandinavian granddaughter, as well as my Indian cousin and my black sister-in-law.
Oh, wait. Never mind. I like all of them. Hmmm...I wonder...Maybe it's because not a single one of them has issued an official declaration of the intent to kill me or enslave me?
B... in the liberal mind you are just like a gay man with a wife. You're still a xenophobe, you're just attempting to cover it up and are overcompensating and probably oppressing all those relatives while you are doing it.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Freethinker, I earned what I have.
When my dad died all he left me was his union card and I'm happy to have it.
The Jews today have certainly come a long way from their days as a group of twelve fractious tribes wandering in the deserts of Sinai after their release from bondage in Egypt.
-------------
First of all the exodus is a myth, nothing, absolutely nothing in the historic record supports it.
Second you should really check out the ultra orthodox sects in Israel. The only reason they aren't out stoning adulterers is that they simply aren't in sufficient number but they exert a very negative influence in Israeli politics.
>I earned what I have.
...he said with a wink.
Sorry, Ducky. I guess I was misinformed. At any rate however you got it, I hope you are well off. I've had it both ways, and I can tell you having financial independence is much better than being poor -- especially as one gets older. I wouldn't wish poverty on you any more than I'd wish myself to live in The People's Republik of Whateveria.
It would sound self-righteous if I told you all the generous things I do for others with my extra bucks, but I imagine you'd be very much surprised if you knew. We libertarian-conservatives are among the more charitable people on earth. FYI: I do routinely give away 25% of my income to those less fortunate and those in serious trouble -- but only to individuals I know, personally. And none of my gifts are tax-deductible.
Believe it or not whe I was very young I was deeply impressed by the March sisters, who lived in genteel poverty, when their Marmie asked them give away their Christmas breakfast to neighbors who were much poorer than they. That and many other influences taught me that it is, indeed, more blessed to give than to receive.
But I don't believe in "charity" extorted from us by despotic forces, however well-intentioned they may like to think they are.
~ FreeThinke
If the Bible is nothing but myth -- or at least the Pentateuch -- why do you suppose any group would choose to identify themselves with anything so hideous and so stupefyingly tedious, Ducky? That's one hell of a way to practice the art of shameless self-promotion.
But then you go on and contradict yourself by claiming that Orthodox Jews today would behave like their Old Testament forebears, if they thought they could get away with it. So where does that come from?
Have you spent a lot of time reading The Talmud?
I fail to see the logic in your position. Would you care to elucidate?
~ FT
By the way, I hate to be the one to say it, but there is no such word as "xenophobism."
The word you wanted to use is xenophobia.
I looked it up.
No one likes to be corrected, but I saw the misuse repeated i another post, and that's the way crap gets into the language, so I felt I ought to speak out.
Hope no one is offended? It's unfashionable these days to correct others -- even students -- which is one of the seasons everything's going to hell on roller skates in my never humble opinion.
~ FreeThinke
Silver and most of the rest of you:
The problem with the American conservative argument against Muslim immigration to Western Europe is, as usual, it's over-simplifications.
First we have to look at how and why these immigrations began and gained steam.
Take Germany (let alone the many other examples).
Germany has an age old relationship with Turkey. Since the days of the Byzantine Empire's problems with the Holy Roman Empire during the rise of the Turks in Asia minor, to the battles of WWI, to today, the Germans have had a close relationship with the Turks.
It went beyond wartime politics, of course. The countries had common interests and each had natural demand for goods and services they each could not produce themselves.
In modern times, the Turkish connection to Germany has devolved into a cheap, low-to-high skill labor market. Think of it as similar to our connections with the Asian Sub-Continent today.
That's just a quick, simplistic, synopsis of the Geramn/Turkey relationship. There are hundreds, thousands even, other examples.
This brings up one sort of "simiplistic," but right, finger we could point - and that's at cheap labor. This is most certainly not a "socialist" or "liberal" prerogative. Cheap labor is a prerogative of unrestrained captialism. It is capitalism at the expense of the national good.
You anti-immigration, "narrow" culturalists, your eyes are not on the prize - and NEVER HAVE BEEN.
You're idiotically blaming the herd for damaging the soil instead of blaming the ranchers.
It's - I'm sorry, but I'm just speaking honestly hear - INSIPID.
Grow up and see things for what they are - and stop blaming "liberals" and "socialists" for THINGS CAPITALISTS ARE FRIGGIN' OBVIOUSLY DOING.
JMJ
I was in a store, in the mall. I saw on the wall, a painting of Mao. I asked the salesmen if he thought it would be appropriate to have a painting of Hitler on the wall. Of course, he said no. I then asked him why it was appropriate to hang a painting of a man who killed several times as many people in much more brutal fashion whie pointing at Mao. He had no idea that Mao was such a psychopath.
The German situation with Turks is a tough one; I've lived there. MANY won't learn the language and mosques are being built everywhere, even in small villages with no muslims ...waiting for the EU to accept TUrkey and the absolute onslaught seemingly planned for years by Islam. The Eu acceptance of Turkey is something which I pray to God never happens and which, being of Armenian descent, I'm thrilled to say the genocide they won't admit to is a big sticking point keeping them out. I hope they NEVER admit it; it won't bring my relatives back if they do and I won't get the acreage and beautiful homes and antiques back, either, believe me. Kurds live in those homes now, by the way. And it'll kill Europe if they do.
There are upstanding Turks who've appreciated their host country, learned the language, don't take welfare and do very well; good people, but the majority? It's a very tough situation.
Germany's suffering from Germans being beaten in the S-Bahns, theft, filth on the streets........and they're supposed to bend over MORE backwards than they already have to BE NICE.
My German stepkids turned from being such "ACCEPTING, lovely liberal minds" to having had QUITE ENOUGH...having changed after seeing more closely what's happening to Germany.]
It's CONSERVATIVES who're the only people who see signs by Muslims saying "WE ARE TAKING OVER YOUR COUNTRY...GET OUT!" REALLY? Get some glasses, folks.......wake up and see reality.
There are good Muslims living in those countries who have never dreamed of what Islamists are planning; for either group to turn their faces from the truth is dangerous for everybody. It only takes one terrorist to REALLY RUIN YOUR DAY.
Odd, I rec'd this email from my stepson just recently and am glad I saved it...because people need to hear these things we don't hear here:
"...the same TV station reported in the evening news about 200 Lebanese people in Bremen that committed over 900 crimes and have connections to other 2000 Lebanese, Arabic and Turkish people who terrorize the complete city of Bremen. But, they officials can't kick them out because Lebanon refuses to take them back. How cool is that? We have to deal with these insulting people, pay their social welfare, have to deal with their crimes and can't even get rid of them. And they know nothing can happen to them and keep on going on."
so, what do we in the West do? Tell Conservatives they're not realistic, we 'over simplify', and allow these people to "keep on going on"?
Anyone who thinks capitalism is going anywhere is an idiot, unless of course they are proposing swapping eggs for milk or medical care. There is no other system.
Some of the more extreme libertarians advocate Anarcho-Capitalism in which the mechanism of the state is eliminated.
What I think you'll find advocated on this blog is Free-Market Capitalism or Laissez-faire Capitalism.
And no, to correct the more Marxist among us, we have never had free-market capitalism in the United States. A free-market does not pay people not to grow soybeans, subsidize sugar and ethanol, or buy or bail out manufacturers.
What our more socialist leaning brethren are advocating is not a retreat from capitalism; it is a switch to state capitalism. They may dream of us all living together in communes sharing everthing, but the reality is a completely different.
The harsh reality is that all they are ever going to end up with is a state capitalist society like the former Soviet Union, in which the state is the new and sole corporation exploiting the workers.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. You'll simply switch one set of overlords for another, although in this case your business success will be less dependent upon individual merit and skill and more dependent upon towing the party line. Appease your new political overlords, if sucessful these are the political officers you'll be kow-towing to.
Perhaps the more idealistic among them see themselves as striving towards a Social Market economy, yet they are unable to point towards a long-term successful state that has proven that concept. All the ones existant todat are going broke, some just faster than others.
All of there small scale attempts at utopian societies have failed miserably. These are the utopian idealists of the 19th century reincarnated today. The Rappites, Fourierists, Owenites, and the list of their failed experiments is virtually endless; Ephrata, New Harmony, Brook Farm, Oneida, Amana, Lomaland, Llano del Rio, Drop City, Twin Oaks.
So they've convinced themselves that it will only work on a grander scale. They are admiringly idealistic, operate with the best of intentions, and have absolutely zero practical experience whatsoever, and you my friends are to be their grand experiment.
Their larger scale attempts, the social democracies of Europe are hemmoraghing debt worse than we are. Riots and protests in Britain, Spain, Greece, and France illustrate that those given entitlements come to think themselves entitled. We see demonstrated on the streets of the capitals of Europe how truly dedicated to the common good socialists are.
The challenge for anyone to identify a successful communist or socialist state goes unanswered.
Jersey: Thanks for the historical recap. You left out the statist fascism that Hitler's helpers in the Muslim world learned from Germany and Italy.
Mein Kampf and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion still sell briskly in Muslim lands.
I'm sorry, but I found the world much more interesting when each country had their own customs, language, national dress and foods. It was because of that, people would often tour foreign countries, to get away from the mundane and see and experience something different.
When I was a little kid, there were various ethnic neighborhoods where they were a microcosm of the homeland the people originated from. Then, the liberal do gooders decided that it was and began to force everyone to mix and blend in ways that have had a disastrous effect on neighborhoods all across America, much like is being don to Western Europe.
We went from neat little ethnic neighborhoods, each with their own old world flavor to despicable dilapidated, crime laden hell holes. Again just like we are now seeing in Western Europe.
There was nothing wrong with the way things were when I was a kid. Even though each ethnic group lived with their own, which was by chose, they were still all Americans at heart.
No matter what liberals say, forced integration is wrong, be it on a local or a national level. It is truly sad when whole cultures, customs and ethnic groups are destroyed, because once gone you can never get them back
If we were to turn this situation on it's head, and look at it like liberals do, we would have to say that multiculturalism caused the mass murder.
While it might have been the catalyst of the deranged mind that committed the acts, isn't this what the left accused Sarah Palin of?
Rev Gregori, I couldn't agree with you more. Having seen Germany 25 years ago and much more recently, the difference is profound and sad. I was living in Paris when the Euro came into existence and that was so sad.....I'd finally mastered figuring out the franc :-)
One of the only things my husband and I really disagreed about was the EU; I was against it, he(A German) was for it. Shortly before he died, he said he agreed with me, that this had been a disaster.
Countries deserve to have their own customs and, at least, not have them mocked by those who break in and take their money! How that's difficult to understand is beyond me.
\Germans have high taxes but they get a LOT for them and they had wonderful retirement and health care (never 'free' as Americans are led to believe, by the way) until their economy suffered so greatly thru paying welfare to immigrants by the millions...
My stepkids' generation has been robbed. And they're supposed to smile with stupified political correctness and, if they don't, they'll be accused of Nazism; wait for it.
I too lived in Europe and went back a few times after returning to the states, so my experience is similar to yours, Z.
The Europeans brought this on themselves. Refusing to breed, too good to scrub toilets, they had to import third-world manual labor to do their dirty work and keep their expensive social program ponzi schemes afloat.
Unless the get fiscal religion and the cosmopolitan muslims overwhelm the nutball obscurantist ones, Europe is cooked.
I just wish we in the US could learn the lesson before it's too late.
I agree, SF, there are a LOT of cosmopolitan muslims (good name for them, by the way) in both Paris and Munich, where I've lived, who abhor the islamists as much as any thinking person of any religion should. I just wish they'd find the guts to speak out.
Will you scrub my toilet for me? Multi-culturalism has been so successful in my country I just forgot all about it, and I've been a bit busy this week.
Get back to me on whether my foreign-born wife is "incompatible" too, will you?
I'll just explain it to all the patients whose lives she's saved that you deemed her culturally inferior and that she had to leave.
Magpie:
If people's rights are not being violated and everyone can peacefully and lawfully enjoy their own lives and culture, then ipso facto there is not a problem.
It heartens me to hear that New Zealand is successfully integrating people from other lands. I pray the US can continue to do the same.
We're all from somewhere else after all. I don't want to get into it, but my very-variegated family did not come over on the Mayflower. And I have scrubbed toilets.
I'm in and from Australia, but New Zealand is close enough.
I have scrubbed toilets too. Not my own either.
My apologies for putting you on the wrong land mass!
Flimflam, if you're unhappy, get out. Move to a Libertarian paradise like Afghanistan. Silverfiddle can hook you up with some mercenary companies who are hiring.
Ducky: I never pegged you as an "America, love it or leave it" type.
Liberty loving conservatives and libertarians don't run. We dig in and fight, unlike you latte leftists and Hollywood libs who are always crying about how you'll move to Canada if a conservative gets elected.
I wish, for once, you guys would actually make good on your whiny threats. Of course, you'd have to pick another place, Canada has wised up and elected a conservative government after seeing the hope and change nonsense careening out of control down here.
One reason the left have coddled immigrants and especially illegals is because they need their vote. A lot of these illegals and muslim immigrants are on welfare and will only vote to continue the gravy train.
"Socialism has killed over one million times as many souls as the Norwegian murderer did, so why have liberals not declared that horrible ideology beyond the pale?"
Wasn't it stalin or some other communist piece of shit who dismissed a few million as just a statistic. How many millions has communism killed and yet liberals celebrated communism in new york recently. So don't hold your breath expecting liberals to take a dim view of totalitarian ideologies. Only when it's them kneeling before a ditch or up against some wall facing a row of kalashnikovs will they grow some sort of moral compass.
Liberals are quite happy with mass murder in the west too, just look at how many unborn babies have been slaughtered because liberals can't bring themselves to keep their legs closed.
Ducky "Flimflam, if you're unhappy, get out."
Nice... Incapable of responding otherwise to a rational argument?
I'd have expected better, but then again... I think that's the second time you told SF and I to move to Afghanistan. If the alternative were Newark, I might take you up on your offer.
Cheers!
" ... a state capitalist society like the former Soviet Union, in which the state is the new and sole corporation exploiting the workers."
That's the Central Problem of Existence for Mankind.
We seem to have a deep-stead need to adhere to The Hive Mentality. We ALWAYS revert to authoritarian, hierarchical structures where a "Queen" and a select few of her "aids" give orders to all the rest.
I wonder if living any other way is even possible? We are after all an INTERDEPENDENT species. "No man is an island," and all that.
So if it isn't King or an Emperor or a Pope or a Cardinal, it is sure to be a corrupt Leader or a tyrannical CEO.
It's a nasty job, but SOMENE always has to be BOSS. The idea of self-government given the fractiousness and irresponsibility of human nature is never going to become a reality.
With the possible exception of artists and authors Everybody needs a whip-cracking overseer, or nothing would ever get done.
~ FreeThinke
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