Posted on 01/09/2007 5:57:13 PM PST by quidnunc
If you ever wanted to see Paris or Rome before you die, but haven't had a chance to do so, you might want to hurry. Soon enough, most of what we now think of as Western Europe will be transformed into a branch of the Muslim world, which is sure to make it an even less welcoming place for Americans, Israelis and for Jews.
That, at least, is the unpleasant, yet entirely unavoidable conclusion to be drawn from Europe's headlong demographic drive toward oblivion.
Think I'm exaggerating? Consider a few cold hard facts.
According to a recent report by the Rand Corporation, "Across Europe, birth rates are falling and family sizes are shrinking. The total fertility rate is now less than two children per woman in every member nation in the European Union."
Needless to say, demographers consider a birthrate of 2.1 children per family to be the replacement level at which a society's population size remains stable. Barring large-scale immigration, anything less means decline and dissolution.
A research study published last year in the International Journal of Andrology found a similar trend, concluding that, "Fertility rates have fallen and are now below replacement level in all European Union (EU) Member States. In the 20-year period since 1982," it noted, "most EU Member State countries have had total fertility rates continuously below replacement level."
At the bottom of the list are Spain, Italy and Greece, where birthrates hover around just 1.3 per couple, leading some forecasters to suggest, for example, that Italy's population could shrink by one-third by the middle of the century.
Others, such as Germany's 1.37, the UK's 1.74 and Sweden's 1.75, aren't all much better.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at jpost.com ...
This makes it far less likely that Israel and the US can count on Europe — if they ever really could — at times of crisis in the decades ahead. Just pick an issue, from the war on terror to Palestinian statehood, and you'll see what I mean.
For however unbalanced Europe's stance has been until now, it will likely only grow worse in the years to come.
Europe as we know it is a thing of the past, and it is time for Israeli and American decision-makers to take this into account as they plan for the future. The face of Europe is changing rapidly, and with it the continent's social and political make-up.
My dad was in France during WWII. My favorite quote of his was " They should have left the Germans in France for two years after the war. They would have cleaned it up. The people were pigs .!"
Heard this news from a Belgium friend now living in U.S., more than 8 years ago. Muslims changing the face of Europe, lurking about, causing trouble, bloated socialist states don't know what to do.
Kind of a preview of what's happening here.
I hope that means I can get an Italian villa in Tuscany for a song.
Pretty much sums up one of the three main themes in Steyn's book.
The current demographic trends of the muslims combined with our PC, multicultural mentality make me very fearful for the future.
Guess I need to make another trip down to the gun shop.
A more frightening thought is the concept that having a low birth rate would ultimately shrink military size..... in a matter of years, unless the population were to suddenly boom, there would be an awfully large stock yard filled with all manner of: Tanks, Jets, and WMD's, with relatively no guards at all. with the population so low, what would be stopping Jihadist Muslims from taking our european allies weapons technology.
Europe has a lot of technology similar to our own.
Now i don't want to cause a panic or anything, but what i'm trying to say is that we may be looking at another War on terror, but this time with a foe that has an equal potential to our own military......
You'll have to fight some sand nazi for it.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
I'm really getting sick of reading opinion pieces that suggest that Europeans (and Americans) should undertake some sort of breeding contest with the Arabs. Maybe we should also start grooming our young men to undertake suicide-homicide missions in which they fly airplanes into skyscrapers and blow themselves up in the middle of crowded shopping areas. Hey, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em, right?
The Arabs breed like feral cats, and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that high volume breeding doesn't translate into a civilized society. The trouble with Western Europe and to a growing extent the US, is S-O-C-I-A-L-I-S-M. Competent, responsible people are ceasing to reproduce because half or more of their earnings are being confiscated to support irresponsible adults and their offspring, and to fund all sorts of idiotic government prorrams that have no benefit to competent, responsible people. And people are too busy working to support all the irresponsible people and government programs, to put much energy into dumping their governments and shutting down the government-run brainwashing centers that have caused otherwise intelligent, rational people to believe that letting hordes of refugees from uncivilized countries swarm over the borders into civilized countries is a good thing -- gotta be "compassionate", musn't be "ethnocentric", and all that crap.
There's nothing wrong with reproducing at replacement rate, or even with gradual population decline, as long as the freeloaders are kept out of the pockets of productive people and foreign freeloaders are kept out of the country.
From which my conclusioin is. .. we either 'heed' the warning - NOW - and make some cultural shifts; of Mind as well as policy. . .
OR. . . we can just beg to get it over with.
I am leaving for Germany in the next couple of weeks, I will be there until just before Christmas. I fully intend to take full advantage of my 6+ weeks of paid vacation to see all the major sites.
I agree with this article, went for the first time to Europe, 1990. UK had too many Indian restaurants there to see authentic to me back then.
That continent is drastically changing and it is not necessarilly for the better...
we have everything in the planet coming here. What made this country great, is disappearing as third world nations who have no concept of our history throw themselves here.
DIVERSITY is NOT our strength, it is our DEMISE.
And you'd think that in a democracy, if the people of the nation voted for that, then that's what they'd get.
But not here.
The gist of this article is true. For example, Paris looks more like the Middle East and North Africa every day. It is really disconcerting when you see it, especially when it was only a bit like that 15 years ago and not at all like that 30 years ago. I would estimate that something like 1/3 of the people in Paris are from those the ME and Africa.
And it is truly bizarre to be searched by an Asian at the checkpoint at CDG, at least an Asian who is not Vietnamese, but appeared ethnically Chinese.
I'll let all the 70 year olds know that you consider them "freeloaders". You're missing the point. If native Europeans are having 1.2 children per couple, and European immigrants who are Muslim are having 4 or 5 children per couple, how long before the continent is primarily Muslim? Muslim majority plus democratic goverment = Muslim government.
THAT goes back to the UK's relationship with occupying India for so many years. Same for the Dutch, who have had trade relations with that area for CENTURIES.
Agreed. The divorse rate isn't helping either.
I know, just when I go to England, want to see british things, not Indian things.
just found it foreign. when we went to Kensington gardens, the park in the afternoon was filled with nothing but Indian children. Not that I don't like them, just breaks the mood.
There is something to be said about being true without being hateful and racist.
What about anti-semitism in Europe? Anyone have thoughts on this?
Don't let facts get in the way of paranoia. France is the only one of the countries specifically mention that even has a Muslim population that breaks out of the low single digits.
Internment camps and deportation would take care of this nicely.
Eventually, someone will finally admit that this is an ideological war and act accordingly. Saying that its a 'War on Terror' is the same as saying its a 'War on Mortars' or a 'War on Bayonets'.
Terror is a weapon, not an enemy. The enemy is the adherents of the moon cult - those who are actively engaging in agression against the West, and the rest who acquiesce.
Tell them you are a friend of The Maestroes'.
Did that a long time ago.
Sure, as long as you sing it in Arabic ;-)
"Say Goodbye to Europe
Goodbye Europe.
Did you hear that Angelina Jolie is worried about adopting new children because of the expense of a big family? lol
Solution: stop all income redistribution programs.
will be transformed? Has anyone seen how prevelent the Muslim comunities in France already are? Beleive me, it's already happened
Unfortunately,there will be a new Mosque just up the street.THAT will really lower property values.
btt
Note that I said GRADUAL population decline is okay. 1.2 children per woman results in extremely rapid decline. BUT if those 70 year olds sat by in their younger years and let socialism take over their country and economy, and had 1.2 children, they're just reaping what they sowed.
I just hope people in the US wise up and fight back before it's too late. Medical care is going to be the make or break or issue IMO. The costs are limitless, and as long as productive people are too weak in their commitment to true liberty to draw the line and just say "No!" to medical care entitlements, sooner or later a truly violent revolution will come about. When responsible are forced to work long hours (both parents) to pay sky high taxes to provide cradle-to-grave medical care for utterly irresponsible people and their offspring, while having no choice but to dump their own children in the same dangerous, poisonous "schools" that the government is warehousing all the irresponsible people's damaged offspring in, they'll eventually break. They'll be willing to tolerate, even to support, a totalitarian government that brutally eliminates large swaths of the population without regard to individual merit. It's happened in lots of other countries in the past century, and it can happen here.
And the first reality that "conservatives" are going to be forced to face is that abortion on demand is absolutely essential. You can try to reduce it by handing out free passive contraceptives and sterilization procedures, and you can try to incentivize irresponsible women into having their abortions very early rather than later. But without abortions, there is no way to enforce individual financial responsibility, and no way to stop the relentless march towards full-blown socialism, and ultimately the sort of totalitarian state where it's "abortion whether you want it or not" whenever it suits the government (think China). Every time some welfare&drug addict squirts out another baby, to be beat up and molested by her latest long-rap-sheeted boyfriend, it's another $1 million or so confiscated from the earnings of responsible people. Some of them are squirting out 4, 6, 8 or even more children. And most of the children grow up to do nothing but commit crimes and have more children -- and riot if they don't get free food/housing/medical care.
The math just doesn't work. It's unsustainable. Eventually, you either have to just leave hundreds of thousands of these kids to be tortured, starved, and sometimes killed by the adults they live with, and kill each other when they inevitably dump their "families" in favor of violent gangs (often the same gangs their biological fathers and series of live-in men belong to), or you do whatever you have to do to make sure they don't get born in the first place. Frankly we have much less of a problem now with supporting elderly people who were productive during their working years, than with supporting the ever-growing underclass as it bounces around welfare, public housing, rehab programs, prisons, public schools, appalling foster care systems, etc. When I look at where the proceeds of my colossal tax bills are going, very little of it is to elderly people who have retired from a productive life. In fact, those elderly people are also having their meager retirement incomes taxed to support the fast-breeding inhabitants of inner-city public housing projects and meth-infested trailer parks.
Wouldn't that be nice. Something near Volterra, perhaps?
Probably so.
But...you'd be surrounded by Islamist neighbors...and I don't think Italy has a Second Amendment/RKBA!
Awesome statement!
«applause»
It's the western world collapsing. We're next.
As long as you don't mind that the song is a muezzin's call to prayer from the tower of the local minaret (formerly a Christian campanile).
It's not only the economic impact of socialism. It's that socialism saps optimism. At some level, it takes away a fundamental reason for and joy in living. It makes sense that people who, on some level, feel life is futile are not drawn to the hard work and expense of having children.
Maybe it's for the best. Islam probably is not as bad--or as untruthful--as the atheistic, Marxist, self-destructive decadence into which Western Europe has sunk.
It's hard to feel sorry for nations of people who lack the will to survive, who are so consumed with self-hatred that they willingly invite destruction and intend to preserve nothing of themselves for future generations. It's probably best that such people cease to exist; they have nothing to offer anyway.
The freeloaders breed while the productive folks slave away. What a horrible recipe for disaster.
I submit that we will have Mexicans "separatists" committing terrorist acts in the hopes of splitting off the SW United States.
I believe when this point is reached, we will have a federal government that is even more ineffectual and inclined to appease the illegals than we have now.
Israel is facing a position, no longer as an outpost of civilization on the edge of the Islamic Sea but as a tiny island in the middle of it.Art some point Israel is going to have to conquer large areas in North Africa and Arabia in order to maintain any links with the outside world.
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