Berthold Brecht’s bitterly satiric poem “The Solution” has now and again been quoted here, usually in regard to some towering idiocy on the part of a government given to complaining about a lack of support among citizens for some particular national objective. Note that I specified citizens in the once-commonly-accepted American sense, and not the citizens-as-subjects in the European sense, which seems to imply that the ordinary people of a particular nation are there merely to serve as a kind of sheep to be sheared economically, or as metaphorical cannon-fodder to be marshaled up and flung to the front of whatever national objective that the national ruling class has ruled must be the focus of the effort of the moment.
After the uprising of the 17th of June
The Secretary of the Writers’ Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?
Nasty old Commie that he was, he did have a way with words. The irony in this is so thick that I am surprised that it hasn’t coagulated, and dropped all the way through to the center of the earth. And it is only ironic again that Germany’s ruling class (analogous to our very own unholy alliance among elected politicians, the bureaucracy, the intellectual and media elite) appear to have decided to take the opportunity of unrest in the Middle East, to dissolve the people and elect another, welcoming them in with balloons, banners and stuffed toys.
Yep, opening the doors to any refugee with the energy and wherewithal to flood into Germany, that will likely end well. Note that only a few of them appear to be genuine refugees from the Syrian civil war. Note to, in contrast to the pictures of innocent, doe-eyed children and their mothers plastered across the main-stream media outlets, those pictures of the refugees in mass appear to consist largely of men. Young men of military-service age, pretty fit-looking, and nicely dressed, at that. I can’t pretend to know what Angela Merkel was thinking when she opened the floodgates and seemingly expected ordinary Germans to cooperate when her government seems to favor the newcomers at the expense of ordinary citizens … evicting long-time residents from rental apartments so that refugees can be parked there? Coopting school-children as volunteers to help feed and clean up after refugees in railway stations and refugee centers? Demanding that ordinary Germans whose devotion to order, cleanliness and quiet is legendary stand by and submit while public spaces are trashed, and women are sexually-harassed or worse? And never mind the almost certain possibility that ISIS/ISIL terrorists have slipped into Europe along with the refugees.
No, this will not end well, especially as the ordinary German citizens, (and British, French, Danish, Dutch, Italian and Swedish, just to name a few) begin to feel the bite of having been dissolved by their ruling classes in favor of economic and political refugees from the Middle East. The Camp of the Saints may be the best-case scenario the worst would be Caliphate. Discuss.
Hungarians on the front lines are taking matters into their own hands. Now it looks like we need to bring him here to serve in Minnesota.
Perhaps contributing to the arson problem in Sweden
For a long time, Europe has been haughty about our problems but still somewhat accepted we assimilate others better. We are now going to see exactly how well they do – and I doubt it will bring out the best in those Sharia-desiring immigrants they already possess nor the ones storming the border. I also doubt it will bring out the best – but it may bring out the survivalist – in the “natives” as they are now beginning to describe the citizens of these countries. And the survivalist may be the best they can do.
As I have noted elsewhere:
I would note that this is Europe, where the population does really not have any rights against the government. Even if their national charter grants such rights, it is the norm for the government in power to over-ride the charter “due to the emergency”. If the people act against the invaders, the government will use the armed forces of the state [civil or military] against the people. It is how things are done there.
Which all but guarantees a 3 way civil war.
The people -v- the invaders and their government protectors.
The invaders -v- the people, and as is their original goal the government.
The government -v- the people and possibly in the end state if they get their heads out of their fundamental orifices OR if the people defeat the government -v- the invaders.
There is no mechanism for this to be resolved other than war. It just does not exist.
I leave it to the Gentle Reader to ponder any possible extensions of the concepts to the New World.
Subotai Bahadur
I would like to speak up in favor of peace, or at least in favor of a soft kill in the case of America. For european readers, the same points apply if you substitute your nation where I use America. To achieve victory and avoid bloodshed and war, we must first of all tell the truth. The truth is that the West offers a number of things that are special. To take advantage of those things demands things from us both as life-long members of the West and as immigrants. Largely we do not say this anymore and even when we say it, we do not say it with any significant specificity. That is a luxury that is available to a society that is carefully crafted to teach the necessity of assimilation without the need of specific, frequent exhortations.
Before we opt for war, the option of speech, of teaching, of mentoring immigrants to americanize needs to be explored and tried. At 2AM on any given morning, immigrants start lining up at the INS in order to get in and out and have something left of their day. They are a captive audience who might very well be receptive to a well crafted program of assimilation. Is anybody talking to them? I’ve stood in that line a few times for my wife’s case and it’s boring as hell. The prospect of an american coming out during those odd hours to help teach them to succeed in this country would be impressive.
I don’t think anybody is showing up. It would be immoral, unreasonable, and cruel to spill blood before we try just showing up.
I didn’t hear anybody speaking up for war, only fearing its inevitability given the policies the EUro-elites are imposing on an unwilling populace. The problem EUrope faces, unlike America, is that it is being invaded by unassimilable youths who are bound to create nothing but trouble.
Mrs Davis – I was referring to this, “There is no mechanism for this to be resolved other than war. It just does not exist.” It’s an argument that rubs me wrong as whenever I encounter it, I reflexively come up with counterexamples.
I would expect that mentorship and guidance that break these youths out of their rut will make some of them assimilable. It’s tough to say when there are so many who preemptively have given up on trying.
Erdogan, Turkey, and the Refugee Racket
http://gatesofvienna.net/2015/10/erdogan-turkey-and-the-refugee-racket/#more-37639
“I would expect that mentorship and guidance that break these youths out of their rut will make some of them assimilable”
Christians maybe, and some might be Christian. Muslims, no.
Interesting, Newrouter. Richard Fernandez has also suggested that Turkey might have had designs on Syria and Putin has thwarted them with the new offensive.
I guess it was someone else making the comparison. There are some who do so.
After that, we will have talks with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin. Naturally, the Syria question will be at the heart of our talks. ”¦ The news we receive [from Moscow] is not pleasant. We do have a special relationship with Russia and having such a relationship and then hearing the unpleasant news naturally made us unhappy. I hope to leave Moscow after reaching an agreement with Putin.”
Whenever Erdogan speaks without a written text, it is particularly difficult to interpret his words accurately, yet their meaning is easily understood. His visit to Moscow came on the heels of Russia’s latest military buildup in Syria. To have Putin boosting the chances of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s survival would further complicate Turkey’s quest to create a safe zone within Syrian territory. The strong Russian military commitment to redress the military balance on the ground would jeopardize Erdogan’s calculations concerning Syria.
“the government will use the armed forces of the state [civil or military] against the people”
That presupposes they have one. Recent revelations are that Euro militaries are not equipped to do anything. German units are parading with broomsticks, for want of rifles.
The world has not experienced so much idiocy and irresponsibility from the political classes since the 1930’s.
Indeed, Michael – indeed. I don’t think for a moment that Frau Merkel had any earthly clue as to what this would set off. Supposing that all these supposed refugees are settled in Germany, and send for their families … how close to ten percent will that bump up the number of Muslims? And how employable will they be in highly developed, detail-oriented, technology-based industries? And how long until they begin demanding that native Germans forswear Christmas markets, beer and sausage-fests, and that Christians conceal their affiliations?
And what will be the reaction of native Germans when they do?
Mike K – One of the great unanswered questions I have is how much of the muslim world remains muslim because they fear being beaten or killed by their family or neighbors? How assimilable are *those* people once they are in a western country and have a mentor who will quite cheerfully show them how to get out with their life intact? I don’t know the answer to this question. I don’t think anybody knows. I don’t think that Chancellor Merkel has the slightest clue as to the need to set up those exit ramps out of Islam for those who stay in it due to fear and that is possibly the most worrisome bit about her policy.
It is one of those unanswered questions, isn’t it? I’ve often wondered myself, how many ostensibly-Muslims in the west are actually quiet apostates. There was an article a couple of weeks ago, regarding a Protestant church in Berlin (IIRC) who were collecting converts right and left among the refugees from the Middle East. Some converts were likely doing it to better their chances of getting asylum … but quite a few may be genuine. They felt freer to choose honestly, once they were in Europe.
I had also read while ago (can’t remember where), that when organizations like CAIR are counting up the number of Muslims in the United States, they assume that ethnic Middle Easterners are 100% Muslim, which inflates the total considerably. The truth is that Middle Eastern immigrants in the US, especially those who have historically here for a long time are more likelier to be Christians than anything else.
“I don’t know the answer to this question. I don’t think anybody knows.”
There are some indicators in Scandinavian states where fathers are murdering daughters who get too “westernized.
Britain, too.
More cases. Mother was part of the killing.
David Goldman has reported that Mosque attendance in Iran is down to 2% of the population. They might be better candidates for secular conversion but Obama has empowered the regime which is probably suicidal.
A program of mentorship, while desirable, faces several insoluble problems. I do note that the American culture used to default towards assimilation, but that Political Correctness has put paid to that, of which more below.
1) Time frame. It takes years, even in a culture that is trying to assimilate foreign newcomers, for those efforts to take effect. Usually a generational change is involved. And that usually involves a local native legal sponsor for each individual or family group to push them towards assimilation. There are not that many sponsors. There is no way that there is that much time before the friction becomes violent.
2) Numbers. We are talking [and the EU is demanding] millions of Muslim refugees in a very short time span. Apparently, unlike other refugee flows consisting of mostly women, children, and the aged; these are 80% military age males with no family ties with them to moderate their conduct. Not the most emotionally stable or law abiding grouping to deal with. And in fact, it can be argued that with this influx there are now more Muslim military age males in the EU, than there are non-Muslim military in the entire EU, which should be giving pause to someone.
This deluge is ongoing, and even with the best of intentions is going to overwhelm Europe. Assimilation, even in the best case, has a numerical limit for any population grouping. And we are well past that. The only way to stop a wave of humanity like that will involve the use of deadly force as needed at some point of the migration. Said use will trigger violence in Europe.
3) Assimilation is advanced if a society has a record of successful assimilation in the past, and becomes more difficult if there is a large population of those whose assimilation has been blocked. A not so quiet secret: Europeans are real good at mouthing slogans, talking about Liberté, égalité, fraternité, criticizing the US which has successfully integrated more races, cultures, and religions than any other country in history. But deep in their hearts, they are the most ethnocentric b*st*rds you will ever meet outside of my Chinese ancestors.
Europeans have NOT assimilated Muslims. Germany has over 4 million [about 5% of the German population] Gastarbeiter/Vertragsarbeiter (the East German equivalent) who have been there for generations. Mostly Turkish they came to work in the 1960’s-70’s, have NOT been assimilated, in large part because German citizenship is by blood [Jus Sanguinis] and not by birthplace. Their fluency in German is limited, and they are a despised sub-class.
France limits the demographic information it releases, and will not formally say what percentage of its population is Muslim. But extrapolating from birth rates and names given they are a large [5-10% population] and growing group. And they are not assimilated. Leaving aside the regular “Carbeques” by Muslim “youths” and the existence of segregated and isolated banlieus; the French government has listed over 700 Zones Urbain Sensibles [ZUS] or Sensitive Urban Zones where French law does not run, and Sharia law does. And the number has increased since the list was issued and are growing. Paris itself has no-go areas where infidels take their lives in their hands if they enter.
http://sig.ville.gouv.fr/Atlas/ZUS/
The rest of Western Europe has been colonized, and crimes against the native population by Muslims are common, not prosecuted, and officially ignored and covered up by government officials.
This is what the invaders are reinforcing, and this is the local Muslim culture that they will encounter.
4) Political Correctness. Any effort at mentoring and encouraging assimilation, especially with the background racial situation that exists will be decried by Muslims as attempts at conversion to Christianity and as cultural genocide. And they will be backed by every level of government in Europe. Conservatives in Europe are somewhere to the Left of American Democrats. The same American Democrats who are as we speak openly converting to a version of a “Peoples’ Socialist-Democratic” Party. European Conservatives do not run things. Those to the Left of them call the tune and have set up the templates of political discussion. Such an effort will not be allowed.
European elites would rather die than be publicly Politically Incorrect. Probably in the next few months some will.
I am not saying that this is a desirable state of affairs. I am saying it is the situation on the ground and it cannot be changed in the time frame remaining before human nature expresses itself.
We face a similar situation here with the Non-existent Southern Border. Our country has chosen to ignore its own laws for invaders, and penalize citizens. Just yesterday, the Democrats in the Senate voted in favor of cities being able to nullify Federal immigration law. At the same time that they constantly declare that unconstitutional Federal laws over-ride everything else for citizens.
All 4 factors listed above for Europe, apply here. The time frame is merely longer, and Americans are armed.
Subotai Bahadur
“and Americans are armed.”
And arming faster and faster the closer the Democrats get to power. Many are ignoring the law, such as The NY State “SAFE Act,” which bans assault weapons and large capacity magazines.
Fewer than 45,000 assault-style weapons have been registered in New York state since a landmark gun control act took effect in 2013, state records released Tuesday show, suggesting that Empire State gun owners are largely ignoring one of the signature elements of the watershed legislation.
In the years since Gov. Cuomo signed the New York Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Act, otherwise known as the NY SAFE Act, a total of 23,847 people have applied to register their assault-style weapons with the state, according to statistics provided by the New York State Police.
Those individuals themselves registered 44,485 assault-style weapons ”” a term whose definition under the law was expanded to include military-style features like a pistol grip and popular civilian models of the M16 and AK47 assault rifles ”” with State Police, the data, which was first obtained by the Albany Times Union, show.
So far the Act requires registration but banning is the assumption.
Mike K – The phenomenon of honor killings has to be eliminated, root and branch. It’s one of those things that, if you believe in it, the West is not really for you. The prickly blood feuds of the South and Appalachia don’t get a pass. Refugees deserve no less than safety from their bloodthirsty relatives and neighbors. Swearing off that should be part of the process of admission and lying about it should be grounds for citizenship stripping. But somebody has to tell them that. The forms have to be rewritten to accommodate the question in the computer databases. The freedom lovers that do exist in those communities (there are a few of them) need to be empowered to stand up and speak publicly and not live in fear for their lives.
Subotai Bahadur – A program for mentorship is not a silver bullet but it does exist as an alternative that needs to be exhausted prior to genocide. Have you read Richard Fernandez’ (Wretchard) three conjectures? I think there is a great deal of truth in that article and the longer book he made of it and that we are yet in the golden hour where we might safely avoid genocide but if we fritter away our opportunities time will run out. Immigrants fleeing middle east war are a major challenge but also an opportunity to get our assimilation game back up to snuff.
I agree with every one of your challenges as a real, true problem. I disagree that any of them are unsolvable.
1. We don’t know how many sponsors will show up. We don’t know if sponsorship is something that can be force multiplied. Has anybody made a MOOC for refugees?
2. Friction will become violent. This describes Friday night in most countries in Europe *before* the refugees showed up. Let’s not clutch our pearls. The metric to fear is different. No go zones for police, sharia courts maintaining street discipline, a state within a state, that’s what is the worrying problem.
3. If refugees want to eat, drink, get housing, and pocket money, they have to queue up. They have to stop being a human wave. When they’re no longer that human wave is the time to sort them out. Firearms usage is an option but it’s certainly not inevitable.
In short, the problem is serious, can be disastrous, but I don’t think that disaster is inevitable. For us in the US, we have a natural experiment, if we’ll pay attention to identify what works and what doesn’t. Let’s not waste it.
I have been a regular commenter at BELMONT CLUB for several incarnations before it became part of PJM and read Three Conjectures when it was first published. My view of the general consensus on that site, emphasizing I am a commenter and have no control of the site, is that the “Golden Hour” referred to in the Three Conjectures expired some time ago. We are well into the “aw Sh*t!” reaction to the Gods of the Copybook Headings returning. You have far more optimism about the situation than most.
For Europe, I am expecting the time frame to be severely compressed from what you seem to expect. As in weeks to months. Cold weather means that to shelter the significant fraction of a million invaders, plus the stream still en-route, there will have to be severe government mandated impositions on the civilian population. And there will be attacks on the local natives by the invaders. Then it will be Katy-bar-the-door. Once it starts, it will not be ended easily.
As an example of what the natural human reaction will be, let me cite something from my career as a Peace Officer [now retired]. Have you ever seen a riot in a detention facility? Inmates are by their very nature loners, or packed into gangs. And they don’t like each other. At all. Yet, when the home made knives come out they pack up, automatically, by race. And they kill or die on that basis. And it takes overwhelming outside force, deadly force if necessary, to break it up. We are dealing with a literal explosive situation, and the fuse is seconds from the explosives.
In reference to your numbered points, and I fully accept that you have every right to disagree and ignore my responses:
1) Germany, and Europe in general, has no historical concept or experience with sponsoring immigrants that way. America did, but has not for a generation. That was one of the ways the Old World differs from the New. Indeed, under German law, none of them can become citizens. As I noted, German citizenship law is Jus Sanguinis. And, a country in the middle of an invasion is not likely to be full of volunteers to welcome and mentor the invaders. It is not possible to create such a program in the very short time remaining, let alone assemble the infrastructure needed to create MOOC’s to do the mentoring. And even if they had the will, at some level, since when has the EU or any European government moved fast to cope with an emergency?
2) What is coming is not normal weekend mayhem. Not even in Chicago or Detroit. It will be full on, widespread mob violence with people defending their homes and families from masses of attackers. And those attackers will have both the protection of the forces of the State, and they will keep coming.
3) Who is going to get them to queue up, and keep them queued up? And how? Especially since the human wave is still coming and will keep coming. And for that matter, how are European governments going to furnish the food, drink, housing, and pocket money other than by taking it from the native population? It cannot be done for an unending stream, and it is going to take violence to break that stream.
Neither the time nor the resources exist to deal with this peacefully.
And if I may comment on what you said to Mike K [and he has no involvement in my comments]:
In Europe [and for that matter in the United States] before the invasion began, the authorities had absolutely no control of “honor killings”. They could sometimes punish the killer, but most of the time they prefer to ignore it, and other such Islamic peccadillos such as child rape of the natives [think Rotherham where the government conspired to conceal and abet it for years] and the now normal massive levels of rape of local women by Muslim invaders in Scandinavia. How, other than condign force is that to be done with the invaders? How, other than an imposition of force that they have refused to do to date, are “apostates” who obey Western law to be protected? And what threat is the “citizenship stripping” when they are not part of any naturalization process and in the case of Germany are barred from it by blood. The closest thing is deportation back to their place of origin, which the EU refuses to even think about.
The use of force is now inevitable, will be multi-polar, and will be out of control. The old, settled, order of the world is gone. There is no enforceable rule of law internationally other than military might, never has been. And in country after country there is no domestic law that protects the citizens of the country.
Europe cannot manage an open-ended problem in an ultra-short time frame. No one could.
They are facing a situation similar to our own.
The first aspect of being a national entity, or in the case of the EU a multi-national entity is control of the EXTERNAL borders. Control means being able to choose who comes in and who does not and who stays and who must leave. If you have lost that, you are just a victim waiting to be looted. The first priority, both here and there, is control of the border and stopping the invasion from getting bigger. That is going to require deadly force in both cases, applied repeatedly until it is respected and constitutes a deterrent to invasion.
Second, those inside the EU, European nations, or the US have to obey local laws, and those laws include immigration and laws controlling the presence of FOREIGN nationals. They are foreign and have no automatic right to be there. Some may be kicked out immediately because their presence is, under local law, undesirable. Some may be kicked out because of criminal acts committed once there. Some may be kicked out because they do not meet the acceptable criteria for staying as defined locally. But the sovereignty of the local law, made by the local citizens, has to be paramount.
There are no good answers. And there is much … unpleasantness that is to come.
I remain a fan of “The Fourth Turning” by a pair of academics, and I suspect they’re correct.
The entire sociopolitical structure of the United States- and the various nation-states it has dominated since 1945- is collapsing.
In the Eurabian Yoonyun this manifests in the idiotic importation of muzzie refugees, who think they’re actually a conquering army, although they are suing to get welfare benefits, if not immediately bestowed. In the US we get an imbecile political establishment that thinks it’s governing the world, which leads them to confuse the national interests of the United States with the national interests of everyone else, because we’re all…primates?
Anyway, this won’t last. In Europe, or here.
Much unpleasantness coming up, but it’s already baked into the cake.
Yum.
Subotai Bahadur – Let me give you a taste of my “optimism”. I actually was glad to hear that ISIS has started screwing around with our power grid. They failed of course, in the same way that they failed to take down the Eiffel Tower by ordering a western pilot to crash into it. The western reaction has been exactly the same as has, no doubt, been the islamist reaction. For those who weren’t around the first time, we laughed at their incompetence and they learned from their failures and picked a bigger target in the USA a few years later. Sometime within the next decade or two we’re going to lose a power grid to their attack. Casualties will possibly exceed 9/11. That attack is orders of magnitude simpler than creating a nuke and will possibly give us another golden hour, an hour of national unity where we might solve this long-term threat before we lose a city and have that awful math problem kicking in and demanding genocide in response.
Most people call that disturbingly dark pessimism but if you want to call it optimism, have at it.
As for Europe, Germany has a reputation for kink and they’re going to need it as they’re f*cked. Once again they’re a battleground as they were during the Cold War but things are likely to be a bit hotter and the relevant geography is unlikely to include the Fulda Gap. If we don’t want to join them in a nihilist civilizational death, we must support the good guys (and there are good guys there) as best we can and learn our lessons at the cost of their skin instead of our own. The appearance of National Salvation fronts that tried to create a generational communist handover is instructive. Whoever was organizing those behind the scenes kept trying to set one up and got better and better at it until one of them one and then the Russians had their template going forward.
This is not going to be pleasant. On this we absolutely agree. But part of the fight is to be a happy warrior that absolutely will not succumb to burn out and doesn’t down everybody around them into defeatism either. You might want to work on the last part, which is probably our most fundamental disagreement. In the end they lose, we win, period. The big question is how long until we win and how high will the butcher’s bill be? I would prefer to fix this on my watch, not my grandchildren’s. I would also prefer the butcher’s bill to be zero. Apropos of that last point, I would also like a pony.
Now getting back to reality from that little divergence into humor MOOC infrastructure can be assembled in an afternoon with a credit card. There are active open source projects being used by major universities at present. Amazon will rent you the cloud capacity necessary to do this (or even bigger projects) within an hour’s time. Filling the MOOC will take longer but there are refugee processing institutions with decades of experience. If they haven’t already done it, they can be paid to do the necessary knowledge loading and the grunt work will be supplied by refugees to a good sized degree. These sorts of exercises are not perfect (see Wikipedia) but they are useful (see Wikipedia).
If the attackers are human wave continuously attacking with the protection of the state, this German government will fall. Every government will fall where those conditions happen and the next government is going to be either a coalition of national unity or national socialist. If the coalition falls, the next government will likely be national socialist. The temptation to climb up the short leg of that particular J curve will be very hard to resist. Pinochet will be about the best we can hope for at that point. That does not make me happy.
To a certain extent, you’re engaged in drawing sharp lines and eliminating grays. Of course police will have to use force. Of course the military should be drilling on handling riots and uprisings right now. If it doesn’t go without saying, I’ve now said it. But these are temporary band aids that kick the can down the road a few hours, days, or weeks. The underlying, fundamental problem is not helped by that. The underlying problem is a long term collapse in the West’s civilizational confidence starting in WW I. This is only exceeded by the long term collapse in civilizational confidence of Islam which started around 1798 when Napoleon initiated his Egyptian campaign.
In point of fact, the EU has just passed a minor bit of deportation reform and will be picking up the pace of returns so the news is not entirely bleak:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34471858
They have a long way to go.
Honor killings *must* be suppressed as they are a terrorist tactic, like cross burning.
Actually, I agree that we are going to be attacked again. And hurt worse than we imagine. The problem is, like in Europe, that the response will be counter-productive. The political classes, both here and in Europe, are not on our side. And yes, they will have to be overthrown.
Before they are overthrown [remember, this is Europe where the ruling elites view their populace more as the enemy than the invaders, and more dangerous if they get the idea that they might have a say in running things] the civil and military forces will be deployed against the local people to protect the invaders. That is the Statist way. Of course they are training, but to what end?
How to support the good guys [and to the politically correct on both sides of the Atlantic, they will not be the good guys] is probably beyond us. Our military is stretched beyond the breaking point, with the exception of the ability to rain nuclear death at will. Which probably is not the tactic needed in Europe at the moment. Years into the Obama Recovery, we are in a functional Depression mediated by false statistics, propaganda, and government transfer payments based on kiting checks. Europe is on its own. It is a European problem to solve, and like us their government is the cause of the problem, their party structures are in such agreement that there is neither time nor capability of replacing those governments with someone who will do better by electorally means, and time presses.
Which is my point, things are going to have to involve the overthrow of their governments. We seem to agree on that. The overthrow is going to be violent beyond comprehension. And probably beyond forgiving for the respective sides regardless of who wins. Europeans are even better than me at holding grudges.
Whatever emerges on the European side is going to be Totalitarian. It will be forced to be by the nature of the civil war(s); and if it is not explicitly Leftist and if it is against the invaders, the US government will oppose it.
In a roundabout way we have a form of agreement here. While Western European societies as currently structured are not capable of meeting the civilizational challenge of this Islamic invasion, if Europe can defeat its own governments and unify against the invaders, they may push them back. It will be bloody. Elsewhere today I wrote that Germany is responsible for both Holocausts, the one under Hitler, and the one coming under Merkel. The invaders will not be cast out without a bloodbath, a literal bloodbath. And if the repelling of the invaders is successfully done it might be another blow to the Islamic civilizational confidence akin to the defeats at the Siege of Malta, the Gates of Vienna, and Lepanto.
And yes, I prefer that the blood shed be over there. I am realistic enough to view the obstacles to victory over the invaders, to note that the Europeans themselves are the biggest obstacles, and that victory for the Europeans is far from certain and in fact unlikely. Civilizations can reach a point where they are not overthrown by force of arms as much as their interior decay. The Roman empire in Gaul fell less to barbarian armies defeating Roman armies, than to a general feeling that it was not worth fighting for. Cities in Gaul looked at the impositions of Rome and compared them to what were in effect barbarian kingdoms with courts, laws, lower taxes, and less random oppression and threw open their gates. I have doubts about the willingness of Europeans to resist enough to win. Win or lose, war is inevitable. What will emerge will be either a European Caliphate, or a patchwork of totalitarian states.
The concept of mentoring the new arrivals to make good Socialist Europeans out of them is moot because of numbers and time. Plus, any mentoring program is going to be set up only with the sanction or direct control of the exact same governments who are causing the problem. If the subject matter is not politically correct, it will not be allowed. And the setting up goes far beyond accessing the Cloud. The mandatory bureaucracy to run it will not be set up quickly, nor will the creation of the actual mentoring program once there are bureaucrats to argue about it and arrange kickbacks for the purchase of the physical equipment and authority over the spaces. These are EUrocrats, for pity’s sake.
And the concepts that we are trying to get across to them are not culturally understandable in the short term. They have been raised in cultures where Taqqiya, honor killings, infidels as sanctioned victims, women as subhumans, and oppressing those weaker than you because they are weaker than you have been the norm. This is not something that you can overcome with a computer self-test certification. Much of what we want to teach, needs time, cultural exposure, and the societal enforcement of norms to become comprehensible. Languages and cultures do not translate well all the time.
As an example, when British Lord MacCartney made his disasterous embassy to Ch’ing Dynasty China, one of the things that horrified the Chinese government and turned them against Britain was the word “liberty”. The concept in the western sense that it was used in the documents and discussions did not exist in Chinese at that time. The closest they could come to it was “License” as in “Licentiousness” or “Libertine”.
There are a lot steeper barriers than that in mentoring this ongoing and growing invasion. And the very governments that would be doing it already have enforced policies to look the other way at Islamic violations of law for literal generations.
We face similar problems here, and lessons probably can be learned for application here. We face invasion. We face what is becoming more openly an authoritarian government that is not under any popular control. Political correctness in the service of those in power is the rule. Functionally we have NO opposition party in this country, and the rule of law was foregone by the Supreme Court in King -v- Burwell last June when the text of a statute became irrelevant. The Executive rules by decree, unopposed, and the Legislative really has no function now that the power of the purse has been given up.
Here also, electoral politics have become increasingly moot because there is really only the Governing Party. Connections outweigh the law, and the Courts are compromised.
What resources we have probably better be conserved for use here, because we cannot really affect the battle in Europe and our own dance card is gonna be full. We can root for a European victory [acknowledging that it will be bloody and dictatorial] but we cannot affect it in the short to medium term.
Now, I fear that I have overused my tendency towards wordiness, and to avoid further imposing on the good graces of the Blog, I will leave this thread unless specifically asked back.
Subotai Bahadur
“The underlying problem is a long term collapse in the West’s civilizational confidence starting in WW I.”
Yes. I am pessimistic but think that eventually we can win through to the other side but it will be very very hard. I am probably too old to see it, especially the good result if possible.
Food for thought:
The 0bama admin approved moving nuclear weapons back to US bases in Germany.
Hmm … wonder how the usual German luvvies will feel about that?
One of the characters in Caliphate (in the alternate story, showing how Germany got to where it was in the main narrative) was an artist and near-professional grade anti-American protestor. Whatever Americans did, she was agin’ it. Almost a cliché, really, but many of the sentiments that she gave voice to, I have read in various news and blog venues. The viciously ironical part was when she begged for a visa to the United States, and the consular officer in Switzerland said … ummm, no. You made that bed, you lie in it.
Wonder also — since it is the Obama administration doing this, will it make any difference to the luvvies?
I don’t know. I saw this mentioned once in several blogs and other sources. I’ve heard nothing since the last week in September.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-09-22/us-will-station-new-nuclear-weapons-germany-against-russia
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/09/u-s-will-station-new-nuclear-weapons-in-germany-against-russia.html
Russia certainly dropped the ball spreading the horrors of socialism throughout the world. Suddenly the Soviet Union renounced socialism in 1989 because socialism oppresses the working class and enriches the ruling class. Instead the Russian Federation embraced capitalism. Putin remarked “A gold mining contest in Eastern Siberia might start a new Gold Rush”.
Sadly communist socialism has been reborn. The US Progressives and the SJWs have embraced that socialism (that the Soviet Union and China renounced) together with all the horrors only socialism can bring.
The USA is the most powerful nation in all the world! The USA has dedicated itself to forcing every nation on the planet Earth to implement American Democratic Socialism. Marx smiles. The Syrian refuges are a taste of the future.