Bloodthirsty Liberal

Shouldn’t Mark Steyn receive a royalty check for this?

More than 30 years after China’s one-child policy was introduced, creating two generations of notoriously chubby, spoiled only children affectionately nicknamed “little emperors,” a population crisis is looming in the country.

The average birthrate has plummeted to 1.8 children per couple as compared with six when the policy went into effect, according to the U.N. Population Division, while the number of residents 60 and older is predicted to explode from 16.7 percent of the population in 2020 to 31.1 percent by 2050. That is far above the global average of about 20 percent.

The imbalance is worse in wealthy coastal cities with highly educated populations, such as Shanghai. Last year, people 60 and older accounted for almost 22 percent of Shanghai’s registered residents, while the birthrate was less than one child per couple.

I was having a friendly discussion with someone the other day, during which the other person claimed that socialism did have a successful model, in Europe. I had two responses (and chose the third, to nod thoughtfully): one, that Europe does not have true socialism, but just a spectrum of welfare states; two, that whatever you call what they practice, it’s successful only in the short term, if at all.

Again, to credit Steyn, you can ratchet up all the yummy, generous social programs you want if you don’t have to pay for your self defense (thanks to Uncle Sam), and if you have no kids to take care of. Just don’t think you can get old. The European welfare model is good for one generation, tops. But retiring at 55, after maybe twenty years of working (those advanced degrees take time), and ample vacation time, works only if there’s another generation—your kids—to pay for your golden years (all three decades of them, thanks to medical advances).

Oops, did I write “kids”? I meant “kid”—or 1.3 kids, give or take a freckle or two. Hey, at least they didn’t abuse the recklessly generous maternity and paternity leaves offered throughout Europe. All well-meaning and humane—but none of it affordable.

China can just crush its swelling geezer population with tanks (they took out the wrong demographic in 1989); does Europe even have nay tanks?

Aunt Agatha and I have noted the virulent strain of anti-Semitism now thickly settled over the sceptr’d isle of Britain.

I wonder if these observations from Mark Steyn are coincidental?

Here’s another one of those stories about that demographic transformation that Newsweek, the BBC, and all the other experts insist isn’t happening.

In Britain, many “public” (in the American sense) primary schools fall under the aegis of the Church of England or the Roman Catholic Church. But, increasingly, only nominally. Because these days the only children in the neighborhood are of, ah, other persuasions:

Christian Pupils Outnumbered By Muslims Even In Roman Catholic Schools.

The Tablet, a weekly Catholic magazine, found that in Oldham, Blackburn, Wolverhampton and Birmingham there has been a sharp decline in the proportion of Catholics being educated in local faith schools.

At English Martyrs in Sparkhill, Birmingham, just 36 of the 410 pupils are Catholic while the vast majority are Muslim.

At Sacred Heart Primary in Salford, there are only seven Catholic pupils and moves are under way to remove it from the diocese’s jurisdiction… An inspection by the diocese in 2007 said the situation was “seriously affecting the school’s ability to provide a traditional Catholic education”.

You don’t say.

Last year the Catholic Education Service said Catholic schools should provide multi-faith prayer rooms for Muslim, Jewish, Hindu and Sikh students.

It also suggested bathrooms should be adapted to accommodate ritual cleansing.

In further nothing-to-see-here news:

In inner London, 54 per cent of primary pupils and 48.5 per cent in secondary institutions do not speak English as their first language…

He added: ‘In inner London it’s hard to know who immigrant children are supposed to integrate with since they heavily outnumber local children.’

There’ll always be an England, to be sure, although it may soon be a colony of Pakistan.

Proponents and opponents of immigration (in England and elsewhere in Europe, as well in the USA) ought at least to discuss what sort of country they wish to leave for their children. Be a sanctuary for economic and political refugees if you wish. But don’t expect your new Muslim and Sikh neighbors (as hard-working and God-fearing as they may be) to put up with Marmite, Benny Hill, real ale, or the gap on the Northern Line trains. What you see as traits defining your national character they rightly see as defects to be ignored or “ritually cleansed”.

If having a baby is fascistic, only fascists will have babies (via NRO)

Do condom ads reflect the mind-sets of nations? In the U.S., we get faux-patriotism and soft-core porn, while the French have safe sex on the beach. Now, from Germany, comes a dour dose of angst via Grey in a campaign for Doc Morris Pharmacies. The message: Use a condom, and be sure you’re not bringing the next Osama bin Laden, Adolf Hitler or Mao Zedong into the world.

That’s right:

All entirely reasonable.

But why not a spermatozoon with this familiar coif on its crown?

Ladies, don’t get into the back seat of a car—or front, for that matter—with anyone carrying this seed.

One of the traps of formal logic is the false syllogism: an incorrect or misleading conclusion from two premises. My favorite example is Woody Allen’s: “All men are mortal. Socrates was a man. Therefore, all men are Socrates.”

So, when I come across two distinct stories, and find some disturbing conclusions, let’s understand up front that I could be wrong.

But I don’t think so.

Story #1 (from MyPetJawa):

A new poll from World Public Opinion pretty much confirms everything we thought we knew about the Muslim world: that while not directly supporting al Qaeda, large majorities of Muslims around the world support many of al Qaeda’s goals, hate the US, are clamoring to replace secular repression with religious repression, are paranoid conspiracy theorists, and have no problem with killing US soldiers.

…

The good news, of course is that large majorities in Muslim countries reject killing American civilians. But that’s about where the good news begins and ends.

The worst news? Support by Muslims for attacks against American civilians has actually increased over the past two years.

There follow gallons and hogsheads of data. Go there to read.

The next premise comes courtesy of Mark Steyn’s “Happy Warrior” column in National Review (picking it up in the middle):

[T]he remorseless Islamization of Europe will continue and accelerate while the deWildered political establishment stands mute.

When I talk like that, I’m assumed to be nuts – or, to use the preferred term, “alarmist” (The Economist et al). Brian Barrington, a Dublin blogger, recently concluded a review of my book by asking:

Is Mark Steyn a scaremongering fool indulging in Islamophobic fantasies..?

Answer: yes he is.

Here’s a 2008 headline from Le Figaro re demographic trends in Brussels:

La capitale européenne sera musulmane dans vingt ans.

For those who haven’t taken up President Obama’s urgings to learn another language, that’s French for “Nothing to see here, folks.”

Now here’s a 2009 headline from The Times of London

Muslim Population ‘Rising 10 Times Faster Than Rest Of Society’.

A little bit harder for that one to get lost in translation. According to the United Kingdom’s Office of National Statistics, the greatest number of “Christians” (whatever that means in a contemporary Anglican context) is to be found among the over-70s, and the largest number of Muslims is in the cohort aged four and under. Which is Britain’s past and which Britain’s future?

…

According to official statistics, of “white British Christian” households 16 per cent have two or more dependent children; among the UK’s “Pakistani Muslim” households, the figure is 50 per cent; “Bangladeshi Muslims”, 58 per cent. The British Government “sustainable development chair” (whatever that is) Sir Jonathon Porritt has just announced that he thinks parents are being “environmentally irresponsible” if they have more than two children.

That 16 per cent will listen to the sustainable baronet. The 58 per cent will fill the void.

So Britain and Europe are becoming more Muslim. The only question is how much more, how fast. And in that respect I think the only thing I got wrong in America Alone is that I was insufficiently “alarmist”. I’ll bet that “la capitale européenne sera musulmane” a lot sooner than 20 years.

To summarize: Muslims hate Americans; Europe is turning Muslim; ergo… well, you tell me why, in this case, all men are not Socrates.

Maybe you think a black man with a middle name of Hussein will charm the world’s 1.1 billion or so Muslims. Maybe you think Europe is different from Pakistan. Maybe you think Steyn is a “demography bore”. Any or all of the above (and more!) can be true, but while some people fret over a 0.075 degree increase in the planet’s temperature, I wonder about the future of our species from a different perspective.

Shouldn’t he get a royalty for every child born since the publication of America Alone?

Even before one reaches the front door of Canon’s headquarters in Tokyo, one can sense the virtual stampede of employees pouring out of the building exactly at 5:30 p.m.

In a country where 12-hour workdays are common, the electronics giant has taken to letting its employees leave early twice a week for a rather unusual reason: to encourage them to have more babies.

“Canon has a very strong birth planning program,” says the company’s spokesman Hiroshi Yoshinaga. “Sending workers home early to be with their families is a part of it.”

Japan in the midst of an unprecedented recession, so corporations are being asked to work toward fixing another major problem: the country’s low birthrate.

At 1.34, the birthrate is well below the 2.0 needed to maintain Japan’s population, according to the country’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.

1.34? 1.34??? If Japanese men aren’t up to the job, I know guys who like the company of Asian women. Some even pay for the privilege.

The two birds of recession and birth rate could be killed by the stones of Western men. Or words to that effect.

Stunned. Just stunned:

In formerly Catholic Spain, meanwhile, the land of the upside-down family tree (four grandparents, two children, one grandchild), they’re still going forth but they’re not multiplying:

Abortion Now Number One Cause Of Death In Spain

Under Spain’s practically nonexistent restrictions, abortions have more than doubled since the mid 1990s, climbing from 51,006 in 1996 to over 120,000 in 2007. The abortion rate is now approaching one in five pregnancies (18.3%), according to the report…

The IPF report also notes that the proportion of women having their second or later abortion has risen substantially since 2000, from 23% that year to 31% in 2006…

Spain’s abortion rate is a major contributor to the country’s worsening demographic problems.

They’ve still got a ways to go to catch up with Russia, where two-thirds of pregnancies are terminated.

Some civilizations are conquered, others are buried in pyroclastic flows, others still die off in mysterious circumstances. But how many commit progenicide?

Hey, Democrats, where’s your baby Jesus now?

Early, unofficial results showed Democrat Steve Cohen with 79 percent of the vote to 19 percent for Nikki Tinker, a black corporate lawyer who was his chief opponent in the district that covers Memphis.

…

In the 9th District, in Memphis, the campaign turned ugly in its final days, when Tinker ran a television ad juxtaposing photos of Cohen, who is Jewish, and a hooded Ku Klux Klan member. Tinker’s supporters argued the district, which is 60 percent black and 35 percent white, should be represented by a black candidate.

This was too racially charged even for Barack Obama, who denounced such tactics.

But as we reported yesterday, some preachers part company His Oneness:

Mr. Cohen… was the object of boos and jeers at a meeting of the Memphis Baptist Ministerial Association last summer.

Anti-Semitic fliers — “Why do Steve Cohen and the Jews Hate Jesus?” one asked — written by an African-American minister from outside the district have also been circulating in Memphis.

I’m not a religious man, but my understanding of Christianity tells me that Jesus would not appreciate being used to scourge a Jew. Not that it doesn’t happen—we’re starting the third millennium of it happening—but if Jesus has any pull with the Man upstairs, this Tinker woman and her supporters had better stay indoors during a thunderstorm.

Bravo to the voters of the district for overwhelmingly rejecting this garbage.

Do you want to see some scary, arrogant youth? Check out this video from the NY Times, called “Tyranny of the Old”. The link takes you to the site, but then look at the boxes below the screen and choose Tyranny of the Old. Here we have two 20’s-somethings discussing whether or not grandma should be allowed to vote and even how long people should be allowed to live. You know, because youth are always so much more tolerant than the elderly and filled with such neat, new ideas.

I just want to remind people that the Third Reich (The Nazis, The National Socialist People’s Worker Party, in other words), was a youth movement. It was idealistic. It was environmentally aware. There were social programs galore. They all pitched in to make the world a better place. The government itself was young; I believe that Hitler was only 44 when he took power. Think about this and then watch these two smug young people discuss old people, by which they seem to mean people baby boomers and older. Really creepy.

- Aggie

When you were a kid, did you look forward to the new Highlights Magazine? It was the only fun thing about going to the doctor, that’s for sure. My favorite part was looking at the pictures that had hidden pictures inside of them, remember? And, when I could read, I graduated to those fun Hidden Word boxes. I loved doing those puzzles where you circle the hidden words. So I made one all about Barack Obama.

The words can run backwards, forwards or diagonally. Here’s the list: Tony Rezko, Michael Pfleger, Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers, Sweetie, bitter, cling, racism, Louis Farrakhan, Messiah, naive, inexperience, race, typical white person, change, hope, got hope, grandmother, bowling… and there are a couple of bonus points thrown in.

Enjoy. We’ll print the answers in a few days. I hope you have as much fun solving the puzzle as I had putting it together. (Hint: probably more fun to copy the page and print it, so you can actually circle the words.)

- Aggie

Chalk another city, another country, another culture up to the fertility rates among Muslims in Europe.

What is the most popular name for children born in the Italian city of Milan? The city’s municipality reported what some may find a strange turn of events on the subject: The names Mahmoud, Ahmad, and Hamid are currently the most popular names given to infants born in the economic capital of Italy.

The Saudi newspaper al-Watan reported that the reason for the names’ newfound Italian popularity is due to the rising birthrate among the city’s Muslim community.

According to al-Watan, the Milan Municipality did not overlook the figures, and directed the local media to report their concern for the issue, which is “worrying to Milan’s society,” in order to warn against the “growth of the religion of Islam and the Muslim community, which may change the cultural characteristics of the city.”

Immediately following the name of the Islamic prophet in order of popularity is the name Omar…

When Mullah Krekar said that Muslims were breeding like mosquitoes, he might have added that, given present attitudes, they would eventually grow up to suck what blood remains in European society.

Haul me before whatever human rights kangaroo court you wish, but this sort of development has not worked out well in Denmark, or Holland, or France, or Britain, or Sweden, or anywhere else you can name.

Fast forward about twenty years, and think about what the fashion runway shows will look like in front of an audience of Mahmouds and Hamids.