Mark Steyn: War between America and Europe

The Spectator (U.K.) ^ | 12/27/2001 | Mark Steyn

[Red Jones]

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[Carry_Okie]

No argument there. I am merely pointing out that the way the article put it, ALL Arabs (including those in Europe) were portrayed as intrinsically backward, especially when compared to cosmopolitan Jewry. It was a racist generalization that discounts the idea that things could be any different were Arab political institutions reconstructed by their citizens.

Such positions lend tacit approval to treating Arabs as chattel. They allow for a policies that don't appear to me to be constructive but are instead a sophisticated means of ethnic cleansing by bureaucratic fiat. Such means are particularly familiar to those in the American West where environmental laws are being used to dispossess landowners of their property.

You can't help people (or settle their ancient grievances) if you don't respect their worth and potential. That is just a fact of nature.

[Post Toasties]

Say what you like about the Jews, but they don’t sit around on welfare.

That's good. Does that mean they're now going to start supporting the Republicans instead of the Socialist Left which explicitly encourages people to 'sit around on welfare'?

[colorado tanker]

I agree. In fact, Bismarck invented the welfare state to preserve the German monarchy and the power of the Prussian aristocracy. His deal with the socialists was we will care for you from cradle to grave if you leave the property and power with us.

The welfare state was invented to preserve authoritarianism.

[colorado tanker]

Bump for brilliance and yes please to the ping list.

[Carry_Okie]

The fact is that people get the government they deserve

I am not certain that I buy this, because the idea of "deserve" is so subjective that it devolves to a tautology.

[hsszionist]

The last time I looked Israel was surrounded by black rock worshiping Islamics, and Europe is far away. Though I wouldn't really classify Europe as Christian, more secular

Pagan usually refers to religious practices not sanctified by the G-d of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. These are clearly listed in the Scriptures.

And what do you mean by you folks?

[cake_crumb]

"No argument there. I am merely pointing out that the way the article put it, ALL Arabs (including those in Europe) were portrayed as intrinsically backward, especially when compared to cosmopolitan Jewry"

True, it does give that impression. It's possible that he felt that Israel badly needs a vote of support from somewhere, given the frightening spread of anti-semitism, but he does go too far.

L.L.:

"The fact is that people get the government they deserve, and if the spark of freedom isn't strong enough in these people to initiate a revolution (like we did in 1776), then they deserve their fate."

These people have absolutely no cencept - yet - of what freedom is. Many of them think that the freedom offered by the US is hot water any time you want it, a job and enough money in your pocket to buy things...that's why they tend to fail at freedom.

It IS possible for American citizens to spread the deeper message to people hungry for a better way of life, and help them to understand that hot running water whenever you want it, a job and pocket money are only the BY PRODUCTS of freedom.

Going to the grocery store now...see y'all.

[Oschisms]

When this sentence is put back, that paragraph takes on a new meaning.:

This is perfectly understandable: a certain type of Englishman looks at an Arab and sees a desert version of his most cherished self-delusions. Where Jews are modern, urban and scientific, Arabs are feudal, rural and romantic.

The paragraph refers to the Englishman's self delusion, not the actual differences between Jews and Arabs.

[Oschisms]

I fell off the list, Pokey- put me back? pretty please?

[Dems_R_Losers]

A good read, as usual from Steyn, but I think he really misses the fact that there is real, true, and deep-seated anti-Semitism among the European elites. As I have said before, Israel is an affront to these elites because Jews who fight do not fit their stereotype of Jews as sheep who willingly shuffle off to the slaughter and thereby prove their inferiority as a people. If Israel is successful and shows that Jews can fight and win wars as well as establish a prosperous and progressive nation, this shatters the European fiction that Jews are only good for money-changing and tailoring and stand-up comedy. It also makes Europe guilty for allowing the Holocaust to happen. Demonizing Israel, by romanticizing the Palestinians and excoriating Isreal's treatment of them no matter what they do to Israel, is just another way for the Europeans to continue their delusions that the Jews are an inferior race and therefore deserve their eventual destruction.

[untenured]

The article was a nice read, but the author missed another point and that is there is a similar war going on inside america. It is about mostly what he talks about and that is a culture that values work, inventivness, independence and one that would like to have america be like Europe, that is a society where the elite rules because the commoner can't possibly know better.

I largely agree with this. But I think Mr. Steyn did hint at it here:

The result is a mirror image: just as Israel is the odd man out in the Middle East, so increasingly America is in the West, wedded as it is to such bizarre concepts as capital punishment, gun rights, free speech, etc.

He didn't explicitly mention entrepreneurial creativity, but it all springs from the same well. As bad as it is here, the individualist/collectivist battle is in much worse shape in Europe, where Caesar always knows best.

[Pokey78]

You have all been added.

Always remember....NEVER put off backing up your computer files! ;-D

[sphinx]

Here in Silicon Valley we have thousands of Arab and Muslim programmers, engineers, scientists, and businesspeople making a real contribution to technology. These people are not dumb, nor are they culturally illiterate.

It's the ancient story: when a society goes sufficiently toxic, the good people leave, and things go from bad to worse at home.

[MissAmericanPie]

Re: your post #43, you also can't help people whose culture says it is a shame for a man to do manual labor, as in Afghanistan. If this is a widely held belief in their culture throwing money at their problem is not going to remove it, it will just waste our money. Many Afghani men sell their services to one poppy growing war lord or another, as hired guns. I don't know how well they are going to take to a job.

2 Ths 3:10 "if any would not work, neither should he eat"

We should respect and apply this common sense approach to helping other countries.

[Texican72]

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