Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Civilisation--How Long?

Demography argues for the decline of western culture, as the defenders of the west are replaced by the defenders of the true faith, Islamofascism. Look at what is happening to Russia:

There are ten million people in Moscow. Do you know how many of them are Muslim? Two and a half million. Or about a quarter of the population. The ethnic Russians are older; the Muslims are younger. The ethnic Russians are already in net population decline; the Muslim population in the country has increased by 40% in the last 15 years. Seven out of ten Russian pregnancies (according to some surveys) are aborted; in some Muslim communities, the fertility rate is ten babies per woman. Russian men have record rates of heart disease, liver disease, drug addiction and Aids; Muslims are the only guys in the country who aren’t face down in the vodka.

Faced with these trends, most experts extrapolate: thus, it’s generally accepted that by mid-century the Russian Federation will be majority Muslim.
Source.

As far as the rest of Europe, what to expect?

If Islam is incompatible with democracy, that's not a problem for Iraq, it's a problem for Belgium, you know, because Iraq until, you know, a few months back had no democracy to lose. They can easily adjust to the way it's always been.

For Belgium or for Denmark or for the Netherlands, they've got real democracies and they are likely to lose and as you see, I think that is really the issue here, that when these contradictions are pointed out, Europeans essentially refuse to acknowledge them. Yet at the same time they're making capitulations to the most naked form of political bullying --and that's when Islam is officially a minority of, you know, 10% or so. In those cities it's a lot higher already. What happens when it's 30%? I mean, this is a question they never, ever ask themselves and you're right, they do take a dim view. I think at some level there's something else going on there, too, that a lot of these countries, you know, -- we talk about the Middle East, democratize the Middle East - we forget Spain was a dictatorship 30 years ago, Portugal, a little over 30 years ago, Greece, same 30 years ago.

Italy and Germany and France, you've got to go back half a century, but in essence the idea of living under non-democratic regimes is not foreign to these people and I think they think of themselves, their identities less as Europeans are less bound up with ideas of liberty than it is for the U.S. You know, the U.S. is an ideological project in a way that Italy isn't and so I do think that also accounts for part of the way they look at it.
Source.

Science Fiction author Orson Scott Card looks at historical examples of falls of civilisation. He speculates about what will happen when the west falls to the barbarism that is always nipping at its heels:

Our global economic system is a brilliant creation, imperfect of course, but powerful and effective in creating more prosperity for more people than ever in the history of the world. It is a creation of America's military and America's benign government of the world -- so benign they pretend we don't govern it.

Our enemies and most of our "allies" and many of our own citizens are working as hard as possible to bring the whole thing crashing down, though that is not at all what they intend.

They just haven't learned the lessons -- the principles -- of how great economic empires are maintained. They only look at the political dogmas du jour and spout their platitudes. People like me are ridiculed for seeing the big picture and learning the lessons of history.

And if we're lucky, and get out of this intact -- i.e., if we go ahead and continue this war, break the power of Iran and Syria, and inflict crushing defeat on radical, expansionist Islamicists (which will require that Europe do the same with their own increasingly revolutionary Muslim populations, either expelling them or crushing their radical, Saudi-funded leadership) -- then I will still be ridiculed, because there will be no evidence that I would have been right.

Well, I'll be happy to be ridiculed for being such a doomsayer, if we are able to avoid collapse. I want to be wrong.
Source.

A global economic system is something of a house of cards. It wouldn't exist without the protecting power that guarantees global trade and shipping from piracy. Without the use of force to protect economic activity, the world descends into piracy, brigandry, and warlordism.