Notes from "America Alone"

This is one that needs to be on your reading list...thought I would share some highlights with you:

“AMERICA ALONE: The End of the World as we Know It.”
By Mark Steyn

This is an excellent review of the demographic problem facing most of the civilized world. This sobering look at the emergence of a steadily procreating, radicalized Muslim majority in places like Russia and most of Europe should give everyone pause. America stands alone according to Steyn because we continue to have a positive replacement birth ratio. Here are the fertility rates in Europe (1.3 is considered the lowest possible rate…no human society has ever recovered from rates at or below that level):

-Greece – 1.3
-Italy – 1.2
-Spain -1.1
-Germany – 1.3
-Ireland – 1.9
-England – 1.6
-Russia – 1.14

The highest in Europe? Albania – 15.08…also a Muslim country.

Some others of note:

-Canada – 1.5
-USA –-2.1 (just above replacement rate)
-New Zealand – 1.9
-Australia – 1.7

Couple this demographic decline with a generous (and unsustainable) public welfare system and you have a dangerous situation. Add to that a zealous and radicalized religion and disaster awaits. Steyn formulates it as follows: Age+Welfare = Disaster for you // Youth + Will = Disaster for whoever gets in your way.

Steyn lays Europe’s decline on two factors. The first is the post World War II defense structure set up by the United States. In the face of the Cold War, we forward deployed forces to Europe to guarantee the safety of our “allies.” As a result, Europe never had to “grow up” and defend themselves. Spending a ridiculously low portion of their GDP on defense freed them up to create massive social welfare programs. This created the second factor in Steyn’s analysis- the European states took over all the responsibilities of adulthood from their citizens. It “effectively severed its citizens from humanity’s primal instincts, not least the survival instinct.”

Add to this mix, the corrosive effect of “multiculturalism” and you have a society that views itself as the same as any other, not worthy of continuation. Take away all responsibility and all hope and you have a culture on a terminal glide path. In Steyn’s analysis, Russia is a “dead man walking.” Most of Europe isn’t doing any better and the situation is worsening as they deal with the basic labor needs of a dying society by importing Muslim labor from disadvantaged countires in the Middle East and Africa. “Islam is now the principal supplier of new Europeans, and currently the second biggest supplier of new Canadians.”

Steyn feels one of America’s strengths is our enduring sense of self sufficiency. Despite a steady growth in the Federal Government, we have not lost our sense of independence: “…on September 11, 2001, when big government flopped big-time and the only good news of the day came from the ad hoc citizen militia of Flight 93.” I would add that this sense of self worth and importance is a product of our Judeo-Christian heritage…our view that we are all children of God and worthy of His love.

He excoriates the ignorance of the left in all countries that merely view Islam as an alternate culture and lump Evangelical Christianity in with the Islamonazis (my term not Steyn’s). “It’s the feminists and the gays who will have the tougher time. If say, three of the five judges on the Massachusetts Supreme Court are Muslim, what are the chances of them approving “gay marriage…”

Steyn sites Bosnia as the pre-cursor for Europe. In thirty years, Bosnian Serbs declined from 43 to 31 percent of the population while Bosnian Muslims went from 26 to 44. “In a democratic age, you can’t buck demography – except through civil war. The Serbs figured that out- as other Continentals will in the years ahead: if you can’t outbreed them, cull ‘em. The problem Europe faces is that Bosnia’s demographic profile is now the model for the entire continent.”

One of our problems we have in dealing with the Islamonazis is our inability to call the criminals by name for fear of being ethnically “insensitive.” This is a worse crime, in the liberal dictionary, than being killed. Organizations like CAIR craftily use our own freedom of speech against us and argue that Muslim calls for destruction of the infidel are just “alternate viewpoints.” Steyn argues that it is time we start calling this what it is: true hate speech and something that should be monitored and acted upon just like the person yelling “fire” in the crowded auditorium.

The book becomes somewhat repetitive towards the end, but it is a fine (and chilling) read overall. I would put it on a short list of “must read” books for people who truly want to appreciate the depth of the problems we face. It also sheds a frightening light on Europe and helps explain their lack of participation in our “war on terror.” The enemy is already well ensconced in their societies and has metastasized like a cancer.