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| 2006/1/2-4 [Politics/Domestic/911, Politics/Domestic/RepublicanMedia] UID:41198 Activity:very high |
1/2 It'€™s the demography, stupid.
http://www.newcriterion.com/archives/24/01/its-the-demography
\_ Wow, what in inchoerent racist screed. I salute you sir.
\_ What's racist and/or incoherent about it? Did you have
difficulty understanding it?
\_ Just off the top of my head, the equation of Western genes
with Western culture. --!pp
\_ Except it doesn't do that.
\_ Just pulling something out at random: "Radical Islam is what
multiculturalism has been waiting for all along." It reads
like Ann Coulter or Joseph McCarthy, but less coherent. --!pp
\_ You haven't answered my question. And what is wrong with
that sentence? You seem incapable of formulating an
explanation of your ideas.
\_ Let me give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that
you're not just trolling. Probably a bad assumption,
but anyway...an example of an equally specious argument
from the other side of the political spectrum would be
something like, "Abortion clinic bombings are what
Christians are all about." Even that doesn't really
do it justice, since at least in that case some of
the bombers were (nominally at least) Christian.
[I said something much more imflammatory after this
in response to your last sentence, but then I realized
that was a bad idea and self-censored. ok tnx]
\_ You're not really doing a good job explaining
yourself here but from what I can tell you are
misinterpreting the article. As regards that
sentence, it refers to the possibility that
"multiculturalism", in equally accepting other
cultures, is susceptible to accepting a culture
which, in the author's opinion, is "bad" ('radical
Islam'), and which he notes is not politically
correct to judge and talk about as such. Note that
I could come up with various criticisms of the
article myself but yours aren't valid IMO. The
author knows that attacking multiculturalism (and
Muslims... since he implies that the "radical"
and intolerant brand of it is large and becoming
more widespread, even in Europe) is against the
mainstream and will antagonize people like you.
I'd like to see you actually explain yourself
however instead of dumbly shouting racism in
response (which the author also expects). The
two main "asshole" opinions of his are 1. "western
culture" is superior and should be acknowledged
as such and 2. "Islamist" culture should not
be tolerated. While these cultures are associated
with certain races they do cross racial boundaries
as is mentioned.
\_ I'm not the person who shouted racism. Give it
a rest.
\_ There was a specific accusation of racism. Please
post example(s) from the article to substantiate
the characterization of "racist screed". If there
are no specific example(s), please retract the claim
of racism.
the bombers were (nominally at least) Christian. It's
not that the article is difficult to understand, it's
that it's not saying anything of substance or
trying to construct any kind of coherent argument.
It's just a rant. Political arguments can be more
than just opinionated rants, ya know - or did you learn
Rhetoric 101 from Michael Moore?
\_ If you hadn't noticed, I said "!pp" in my first
post. I didn't say anything about racism - the
article is too incoherent to express an idea
that well-formed. It's possible to talk to more
than one person on the motd, ya know.
\_ 1. That some post-4 was signed "!pp" does not
not imply that the unsigned post-2 was also by
the same or some other "!pp". 2. Nevertheless
you are in a thread branched off the claim
that the quoted article as "racist screed".
3. "Racist" has a specific meaning, and
incoherence or speciousness does not mean
racism. 4. I take it that no one is able to
defend the original claim that the article is
racist.
\_ I take it that you're not able to counter
the claim that the article is incoherent,
and based a combination of strawman and
ad hominem argument.
\_ Please present examples of ad hominem or
strawman arguments from the article.
\_ I already did. Do I have to spell it
out for you even more carefully?
\_ You didn't mention why you thought
it was ad hominem or strawman.
\_ It sets up an argument against
a concept called
"multiculturalism," but doesn't
define it in any meaningful
way, other than perhaps guilt by
association with a conservative
buzzword that is used as a
hammer to beat liberals (see
also "political correctness").
I guess it is left as an
exercise for the prejudices of
the reader, but this nebulous
definition then allows him room
to assign all kinds of supposed
motives to a movement which he
has not defined. It's the old
"Liberals love terrorists,
you're a liberal, therefore you
love terrorists" argument.
\_ Are you reading the same
article? The one I'm half
way through and still reading
focusses on demographic
math, not knee jerk
conversative vs. liberal
bullshit. It seems like you
stopped on page 5. Down
here at 60 of 71 screens,
I've got 55 extra screens of
demographics I don't think
you bothered reading.
\_ So I can write whatever
bullshit screed I like,
so long as I attach a
bunch of demographics to
the bottom of it?
\_ So you didn't read it.
Ok thanks for letting
us know.
\_ What sort of
rational argument is
it that assigns
beliefs to a group
while providing not
a shred of evidence
that this belief
exists? His
argument is based
entirely on quotes
from one English
baroness, hardly
a government
authority nor a
good standin for
the "liberal
multicultural"
bogeyman his entire
article is ranting
against.
He does mention some poll purporting that _/
like 60% of Muslims in Britain would like
Sharia. (can't be bothered to look at article
again.)
\_ Thanks. I had forgotten about the 2020 Project.
\_ Looks like jblack finally figured out people won't delete his
links if he posts the direct link instead of the freeper discussion
link.
\_ Looks like the hosting service censored it.
\_ I'm guessing it was the Mark Steyn article of that title:
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110007760
\_ The WSJ editorial page! Shocking.
\_ While WSJ is one fine newspaper, which counts me as
as a daily reader, it's editorial page has been pure
trash as long as I can remember. - motd stock fanatic
\_ "There will only be very few and very old ethnic Germans and
French and Italians by the midpoint of this century. What will
they leave behind? Territories that happen to bear their names
and keep up some of the old buildings? Or will the dying European
races understand that the only legacy that matters is whether the
peoples who will live in those lands after them are reconciled to
pluralist, liberal democracy?"
Ah, the old "pure" Germans, French, and Italians fallacy again.
Run, little fearmonger, run!
\_ Nicely pulled out of context. He's talking about culture, not
DNA based racial characteristics. But you knew that.
\_ so why did he keep mentioning about "races"?
\_ because, duh, those "races" already have the modern
western democratic culture he's talking about.
\_ huh? if the key thing is culture, why does he
mention about races? he needs to make up his mind
what he thinks the crisis is.
\_ Are you being purposefully dense? It's specifically
about the influx of Muslims from Algeria et al who
allegedly resist western culture. If it makes you
feel better, try coming up with a better word to
differentiate the predominant "native" populations in
those countries. "Races" is proper usage even if it
triggers little kneejerk alarms in your mind.
\_ Races is the right word, and racist is the
proper description of the author. Why are you
so against the use of the term "racist"? Do not
let the PC cops define what terms you can or
cannot use. You should be proud of being a
racist.
\_ Who said I was against the use of "races"?
Learn to read. Look how stupid you are.
\_ Where did I say that? Are you stupid?
\_ Wow, you made so many edits to your
post I replied to an earlier revision
and now you claim you never said it.
It's in mehlhaff's archive. And I never
stated my own position on the subject
so have no basis to call me racist.
But all you're concerned with is
winning your little motd battle.
Why should people be proud to be
racist BTW? And again, this whole
useless diversion is completely beside
the point; you haven't shown that
anti-radical-Islam is racist. I'm
done with this thread.
\_ Yes, I haven't finished writing,
and you started spewing invectives.
\_ So, what does "self-extinction
of the races" has to do with anti-
radical-Islam? Extreme Wahabism
is a problem that stretches all
the way to Indonesia and the
Phillipines, and is a global
problem and threat to many,
including the 90% of muslims who
do not subscribe to it. Do tell us
how would a mis-characterization
of it as a threat to the survival
of the "European races" help?
\_ Yes, I haven't finished writing,
and you started spewing invectives.
\_ And similarly, racist is a proper description
of the author. Why are you so against use of
the term "racist"? It's not necessarily bad,
depending on what races you belong to.
so against use of the terms "races" and
"racist"? Do they trigger little kneejerk
alarms in your racist little brain?
\_ As I understand it the point was
1. multiculturalist tolerance
allows it to grow, 2. demographics
indicates it may become the
dominant Eur. culture. That's where
the "races" come in (under the
suggestion that these groups aren't
acculturizing to western standards)
Unfortunately we have to spend
pages of motd on the irrelevant
subject of racial purity.
\_ As I understand it, the
author is just using extreme
Islam to spread fears and
push his right wing agenda.
What's the point of mention-
ing New Zealand and
Australia's birthrate, for
instance. Do these countries
have a large muslim
population? I don't think so.
\_ Oddly enough, a friend is
dating a Persian chick from
Australia. Anyway, 2.3%
Muslim in Australia. Muslim
population growing by 40% a
year, versus 5.7% for Aus.
population as a whole.
Projecting that growth rate
linearly (so this is obviously
a simplistic and wrong
calculation), in 10 years
~1/3 of Aus. will be of the
Muslim faith.
Another example:
"Pigs are valued assets and sleep in the
living room in rural China--and next thing you
know an unknown respiratory disease is killing
people in Toronto, just because someone got on
a plane. " Talk about being irrelevant. It's
so obvious that the author just wanted to do
some "liberal"-bashing, throwing in jabs against
environmentalists, feminists, etc. I don't
understand how anyone reasonably intelligent
can fail to see through the facade unless he
has his own agenda himself.
\_ Oddly enough, a friend is
dating a Persian chick from
Australia. Anyway, 1.6%
Muslim in Australia. Muslim
population growing by 40% a
year, versus 5.7% for Aus.
population as a whole.
Projecting that growth rate
linearly (so this is obviously
a simplistic analysis), in
10 years ~1/5 of Aus. will
be of the Muslim faith. I
am too lazy to do the research
of NZ, but if Kiwis and
Islamic Kiwis are similarly
(un)fecund, the results should
not be so different. Thus is
the power of compounding.
Perhaps you shouldn't be so
sure of things you are so
sure of.
\_ I question your 40%
a year figure. Source
please.
\_ Mea culpa. I misread
in haste. It was
actually "40% in
five years, while the
Australian population
as a whole grew by 5.7%
in the same period."
http://csua.org/u/ehj
So it will be 2.9% in
10 years and 4.8% in
20 years.
\_ Since when is German/French/Italian a race?
\_ Would you deny they are ethnicities? Why wouldn't they
be races? dict race
\_ Is Chinese a race? American? How about Nigerians?
Is that a race? (Ob. I happen to know a family of
Chinese-Nigerians.)
\_ Ya know, being smug doesn't help you win arguments.
\_ Less pulled out of context than his Toynbee quote. Toynbee
would have had no use for the shrill Mr. Steyn:
"We intend to modify the violence of the fight, and to
prevent the weak being trampled under foot." -AT
\_ Then his point is doubly worthless, since the great unwashed
masses that stream into Europe and America are greater
converts to secular capitalism than most native Europeans.
\_ That's an interesting claim. While I can see a claim
that *some* immigrants are more capitalistic than the
existent population, I have trouble believing all or
even most would be more capitalistic. Do you have a
reference for the claim, or is this just invention?
\_ I agree with this article. For instance, the Great Chinese
Civilization is superior to the backward cultures you find in
Southeast Asia, or the stone-age buddhist cult culture you
find in Tibet, or the violent Islamist culture in northwest
China. We should always civilize them and not become
lazy and primitive like their backward cultures.
-gcc (Great Chinese Chauvinist)
\_ Some of the "facts" listed in the article are total bullshit,
for example the claim that the Club of Rome book Limits to Growth
predicted oil, natural gas, etc., would run out in the 1990s. The
Limits to Growth said no such thing. They just said that you cannot
grow consumption of a finite resource indefinitely, and they
theorized that many extracted resources would run out within 100
years ... Which is 2070, not 1990. They identified as oil as the
years ... Which is 2070, not 1990. They identified oil as the
first resource to no longer be able to be extracted more quickly
(peak). All they did was take the current reserves of each
resource, multiply it by 5 to account for new discoveries and
apply a yearly growth of x% and see how long the resource will
last ... Limits to *growth*.
\_ Apparently this is a common mistake re the Limits to Growth.
See "Plenty of Gloom" (Economist 12/18/1997) for example.
http://csua.org/u/eh8
Your own characterization of Limits of Growh is equally
misleading. In fact, the Limits of Growth presented 3 possible
scenerios. Scenerio 1 assumes status quo and presents the 550
billion barrel quantity. Scenerio 2 doubled that to 1.1T
barrels, and scenerio 3 5x'ed the 550B barrels. So in fact it is
true that 1 scenerio of the 3 presented in Limits of Growth
predicted the exhaustion of oil in 1990. Obviously scenerio
1 is wrong. Current world reserves is around 2T barrels I
think, so scenerio 2 is probably off. I think scenerio 2 calls
for exhaustion of oil by 2015. The jury on scenerio 3 is still
out. Fortunately we should all still be around to see even
scenerio 3 of Limits of Growth vindicated or discredited.
Again, I must say I find the general level of mischaracterization
of information (and sometimes outright deliberate deception)
both else where and on MOTD to be disappointing.
\_ OBTW, given the existence of Fischer-Tropsch et al, scenerio
3 is almost certainly also incorrect.
\_ Come to think of it, a claim that Limits of Growth predicted
the exhaustion of oil in 1990 is strictly true, and a claim
that Limits of Growth "said no such thing" is completely
false. Shameful. |
| 5/24 |
|
| www.newcriterion.com/archives/24/01/its-the-demography The New Criterion The New Criterion The New Criterion is overhauling its web site to better serve our readers. While we make the transition to our new site, the old archives are still available. Mark Steyn Most people reading this have strong stomachs, so let me lay it out as baldly as I can: Much of what we loosely call the western world will survive this century, and much of it will effectively disappear within our lifetimes, including many if not most western European countries. There'll probably still be a geographical area on the map marked as Italy or the Netherlands-- probably--just as in Istanbul there's still a building called St. Likewise, Italy and the Netherlands will merely be designations for real estate. The challenge for those who reckon western civilization is on balance better than the alternatives is to figure out a way to save at least some parts of the west. One obstacle to doing that is the fact that, in the typical election campaign in your advanced industrial democracy, the political platforms of at least one party in the United States and pretty much all parties in the rest of the west are largely about what one would call the secondary impulses of society--government health care, government day care (which Canada's thinking of introducing), government paternity leave (which Britain's just introduced). We've prioritized the secondary impulse over the primary ones: national defense, family, faith, and, most basic of all, reproductive activity--"Go forth and multiply," because if you don't you won't be able to afford all those secondary-impulse issues, like cradle-to-grave welfare. Americans sometimes don't understand how far gone most of the rest of the developed world is down this path: In the Canadian and most Continental cabinets, the defense ministry is somewhere an ambitious politician passes through on his way up to important jobs like the health department. I don't think Don Rumsfeld would regard it as a promotion if he were moved to Health & Human Services. The design flaw of the secular social-democratic state is that it requires a religious-society birth rate to sustain it. Post-Christian hyper-rationalism is, in the objective sense, a lot less rational than Catholicism or Mormonism. Indeed, in its reliance on immigration to ensure its future, the European Union has adopted a twenty-first-century variation on the strategy of the Shakers, who were forbidden from reproducing and thus could only increase their numbers by conversion. The problem is that secondary- impulse societies mistake their weaknesses for strengths--or, at any rate, virtues--and that's why they're proving so feeble at dealing with a primal force like Islam. Speaking of which, if we are at war--and half the American people and significantly higher percentages in Britain, Canada, and Europe don't accept that proposition--than what exactly is the war about? Nor is it, at heart, a war against Islam, or even "radical Islam." The Muslim faith, whatever its merits for the believers, is a problematic business for the rest of us. There are many trouble spots around the world, but as a general rule, it's easy to make an educated guess at one of the participants: Muslims vs. Like the environmentalists, these guys think globally but act locally. Yet while Islamism is the enemy, it's not what this thing's about. Radical Islam is an opportunist infection, like AIDS: it's not the HIV that kills you, it's the pneumonia you get when your body's too weak to fight it off. When the jihadists engage with the US military, they lose--as they did in Afghanistan and Iraq. If this were like World War I with those fellows in one trench and us in ours facing them over some boggy piece of terrain, it would be over very quickly. They know they can never win on the battlefield, but they figure there's an excellent chance they can drag things out until western civilization collapses in on itself and Islam inherits by default. That's what the war's about: our lack of civilizational confidence. As a famous Arnold Toynbee quote puts it: "Civilizations die from suicide, not murder"--as can be seen throughout much of "the western world" right now. The progressive agenda --lavish social welfare, abortion, secularism, multiculturalism--is collectively the real suicide bomb. Take multiculturalism: the great thing about multiculturalism is that it doesn't involve knowing anything about other cultures--the capital of Bhutan, the principal exports of Malawi, who cares? It's fundamentally a fraud, and I would argue was subliminally accepted on that basis. Most adherents to the idea that all cultures are equal don't want to live in anything but an advanced western society: Multiculturalism means your kid has to learn some wretched native dirge for the school holiday concert instead of getting to sing "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" or that your holistic masseuse uses techniques developed from Native American spirituality, but not that you or anyone you care about should have to live in an African or Native-American society. And bizarrely the reaction of just about every prominent western leader was to visit a mosque: President Bush did, the Prince of Wales did, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom did, the Prime Minister of Canada did... The Premier of Ontario didn't, and so twenty Muslim community leaders had a big summit to denounce him for failing to visit a mosque. Maybe there was a big backlog, it was mosque drivetime, prime ministers in gridlock up and down the freeway trying to get to the Sword of the Infidel-Slayer Mosque on Elm Street. But for whatever reason he couldn't fit it into his hectic schedule. Ontario's Citizenship Minister did show up at a mosque, but the imams took that as a great insult, like the Queen sending Fergie to open the Commonwealth Games. So the Premier of Ontario had to hold a big meeting with the aggrieved imams to apologize for not going to a mosque and, as The Toronto Star's reported it, "to provide them with reassurance that the provincial government does not see them as the enemy." Anyway, the get-me-to-the-mosque-on-time fever died down, but it set the tone for our general approach to these atrocities. The old definition of a nanosecond was the gap between the traffic light changing in New York and the first honk from a car behind. The new definition is the gap between a terrorist bombing and the press release from an Islamic lobby group warning of a backlash against Muslims. In most circumstances, it would be considered appallingly bad taste to deflect attention from an actual "hate crime" by scaremongering about a purely hypothetical one. Needless to say, there is no campaign of Islamophobic hate crimes. If anything, the west is awash in an epidemic of self-hate crimes. A commenter on Tim Blair's website in Australia summed it up in a note-perfect parody of a Guardian headline: "Muslim Community Leaders Warn of Backlash from Tomorrow Morning's Terrorist Attack." Radical Islam is what multiculturalism has been waiting for all along. In The Survival of Culture, I quoted the eminent British barrister Helena Kennedy, QC. Shortly after September 11, Baroness Kennedy argued on a BBC show that it was too easy to disparage "Islamic fundamentalists." "We as western liberals too often are fundamentalist ourselves," she complained. Well, said the interviewer, what exactly would those western liberal fundamentalisms be? "One of the things that we are too ready to insist upon is that we are the tolerant people and that the intolerance is something that belongs to other countries like Islam. Lady Kennedy was arguing that our tolerance of our own tolerance is making us intolerant of other people's intolerance, which is intolerable. And, unlikely as it sounds, this has now become the highest, most rarefied form of multiculturalism. Anyone can be tolerant of fellows like that, but tolerance of intolerance gives an even more intense frisson of pleasure to the multiculti masochists. In other words, just as the AIDS pandemic greatly facilitated societal surrender to the gay agenda, so 9/11 is greatly facilitating our surrender to the most extreme aspe... |
| www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110007760 Register for MarketWatch THE CENTURY AHEAD It's the Demography, Stupid The real reason the West is in danger of extinction. BY MARK STEYN Wednesday, January 4, 2006 12:01 am EST Most people reading this have strong stomachs, so let me lay it out as baldly as I can: Much of what we loosely call the Western world will not survive this century, and much of it will effectively disappear within our lifetimes, including many if not most Western European countries. There'll probably still be a geographical area on the map marked as Italy or the Netherlands--probably--just as in Istanbul there's still a building called St. Likewise, Italy and the Netherlands will merely be designations for real estate. The challenge for those who reckon Western civilization is on balance better than the alternatives is to figure out a way to save at least some parts of the West. One obstacle to doing that is that, in the typical election campaign in your advanced industrial democracy, the political platforms of at least one party in the United States and pretty much all parties in the rest of the West are largely about what one would call the secondary impulses of society--government health care, government day care (which Canada's thinking of introducing), government paternity leave (which Britain's just introduced). We've prioritized the secondary impulse over the primary ones: national defense, family, faith and, most basic of all, reproductive activity--"Go forth and multiply," because if you don't you won't be able to afford all those secondary-impulse issues, like cradle-to-grave welfare. Americans sometimes don't understand how far gone most of the rest of the developed world is down this path: In the Canadian and most Continental cabinets, the defense ministry is somewhere an ambitious politician passes through on his way up to important jobs like the health department. I don't think Don Rumsfeld would regard it as a promotion if he were moved to Health and Human Services. The design flaw of the secular social-democratic state is that it requires a religious-society birthrate to sustain it. Post-Christian hyperrationalism is, in the objective sense, a lot less rational than Catholicism or Mormonism. Indeed, in its reliance on immigration to ensure its future, the European Union has adopted a 21st-century variation on the strategy of the Shakers, who were forbidden from reproducing and thus could increase their numbers only by conversion. The problem is that secondary-impulse societies mistake their weaknesses for strengths--or, at any rate, virtues--and that's why they're proving so feeble at dealing with a primal force like Islam. Speaking of which, if we are at war--and half the American people and significantly higher percentages in Britain, Canada and Europe don't accept that proposition--than what exactly is the war about? Nor is it, at heart, a war against Islam, or even "radical Islam." The Muslim faith, whatever its merits for the believers, is a problematic business for the rest of us. There are many trouble spots around the world, but as a general rule, it's easy to make an educated guess at one of the participants: Muslims vs. Like the environmentalists, these guys think globally but act locally. Yet while Islamism is the enemy, it's not what this thing's about. Radical Islam is an opportunistic infection, like AIDS: It's not the HIV that kills you, it's the pneumonia you get when your body's too weak to fight it off. When the jihadists engage with the US military, they lose--as they did in Afghanistan and Iraq. If this were like World War I with those fellows in one trench and us in ours facing them over some boggy piece of terrain, it would be over very quickly. They know they can never win on the battlefield, but they figure there's an excellent chance they can drag things out until Western civilization collapses in on itself and Islam inherits by default. That's what the war's about: our lack of civilizational confidence. As a famous Arnold Toynbee quote puts it: "Civilizations die from suicide, not murder"--as can be seen throughout much of "the Western world" right now. The progressive agenda--lavish social welfare, abortion, secularism, multiculturalism--is collectively the real suicide bomb. The great thing about multiculturalism is that it doesn't involve knowing anything about other cultures--the capital of Bhutan, the principal exports of Malawi, who cares? It's fundamentally a fraud, and I would argue was subliminally accepted on that basis. Most adherents to the idea that all cultures are equal don't want to live in anything but an advanced Western society. Multiculturalism means your kid has to learn some wretched native dirge for the school holiday concert instead of getting to sing "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" or that your holistic masseuse uses techniques developed from Native American spirituality, but not that you or anyone you care about should have to live in an African or Native American society. And bizarrely the reaction of just about every prominent Western leader was to visit a mosque: President Bush did, the prince of Wales did, the prime minister of the United Kingdom did, the prime minister of Canada did . The premier of Ontario didn't, and so 20 Muslim community leaders had a big summit to denounce him for failing to visit a mosque. Maybe there was a big backlog, it was mosque drive time, prime ministers in gridlock up and down the freeway trying to get to the Sword of the Infidel-Slayer Mosque on Elm Street. But for whatever reason he couldn't fit it into his hectic schedule. Ontario's citizenship minister did show up at a mosque, but the imams took that as a great insult, like the Queen sending Fergie to open the Commonwealth Games. So the premier of Ontario had to hold a big meeting with the aggrieved imams to apologize for not going to a mosque and, as the Toronto Star's reported it, "to provide them with reassurance that the provincial government does not see them as the enemy." Anyway, the get-me-to-the-mosque-on-time fever died down, but it set the tone for our general approach to these atrocities. The old definition of a nanosecond was the gap between the traffic light changing in New York and the first honk from a car behind. The new definition is the gap between a terrorist bombing and the press release from an Islamic lobby group warning of a backlash against Muslims. In most circumstances, it would be considered appallingly bad taste to deflect attention from an actual "hate crime" by scaremongering about a purely hypothetical one. Needless to say, there is no campaign of Islamophobic hate crimes. If anything, the West is awash in an epidemic of self-hate crimes. A commenter on Tim Blair's Web site in Australia summed it up in a note-perfect parody of a Guardian headline: "Muslim Community Leaders Warn of Backlash from Tomorrow Morning's Terrorist Attack." Radical Islam is what multiculturalism has been waiting for all along. In "The Survival of Culture," I quoted the eminent British barrister Helena Kennedy, Queen's Counsel. Shortly after September 11, Baroness Kennedy argued on a BBC show that it was too easy to disparage "Islamic fundamentalists." "We as Western liberals too often are fundamentalist ourselves," she complained. Well, said the interviewer, what exactly would those Western liberal fundamentalisms be? "One of the things that we are too ready to insist upon is that we are the tolerant people and that the intolerance is something that belongs to other countries like Islam. Lady Kennedy was arguing that our tolerance of our own tolerance is making us intolerant of other people's intolerance, which is intolerable. And, unlikely as it sounds, this has now become the highest, most rarefied form of multiculturalism. Anyone can be tolerant of fellows like that, but tolerance of intolerance gives an even more intense frisson of pleasure to the multiculti masochists. In other words, just as the AIDS pandemic greatly facilitated societal surrender to the gay agenda, so 9/11 is greatly facilitating our surrender to the most extreme aspects of the multicultural agenda. For example, one day i... |
| csua.org/u/ehj -> www.dfat.gov.au/facts/islam_in_australia.html Site Index Australia Now Islam in Australia Australia is one of the world's most successful multicultural societies, built on parliamentary democracy, rule of law and a market economy. It comprises peoples from more than 200 different nations and encompasses all of the world's major languages, cultures, traditions and religions. Today, Muslims form an increasingly important part of Australia's diverse modern society. The most recent Australian Census in 2001 revealed a remarkable rate of growth in Australia's Muslim population. The Census listed 281 576 Australian Muslims, an increase of some 40 per cent in five years, while the Australian population as a whole only grew by 57 per cent in the same period. Some recent estimates suggest Australian Muslims now number more than 300 000. There are now Muslim communities in all Australian States and Territories (see Table 1). Significantly, more than one-third of Australian Muslims are born in Australia. These second- and third-generation Australian Muslims are playing an important role in bringing newly arrived Muslims from diverse cultural, sect, national and linguistic backgrounds into the family of Islam in Australia. Australia's Muslim community, drawn from more than 70 different countries, is a well-established and integral part of Australia's broader society. The community has a range of regional and national organisations as well as its own Islamic schools and mosques. Muslims have made contributions in a wide range of endeavours, including social, economic, cultural, religious and educational advancement. The Australia-Indonesia Institute is, for example, taking an active role in promoting understanding through its Inter-faith Program, which encourages contact between our countries' Islamic and Christian organisations. The Muslim community is an integral part of Australia's broader society - a message which has been reaffirmed by the Prime Minister of Australia, Mr John Howard. Speaking in November 2001 on an ethnic community radio station in Sydney, Mr Howard said: We are first and foremost all of us Australians and I want to say on this program in particular that it's very important for Australians of the Islamic faith and Australians of Arab descent to hear from me, their Prime Minister, that you are as much part of the Australian community as I am. We reach out to all our fellow Australians irrespective of their religion or their race or the country in which they were born. The community's organisational base includes well over 100 groups representing the interests of Muslims at the local or regional level. Additionally, Islamic councils representing the broader Muslim community have beenestablished in all Australian States and Territories. They come together in a peak national body, the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils. There are ten Islamic primary schools in Australia and a further 11 primary and secondary combined schools. At the tertiary level, Muslim Student Associations cater for Muslim students at universities and colleges and provide a familiar setting for newly arrived international Muslim students. Today there are approximately 100 mosques in Australia, mainly in New South Wales and Victoria. Table 1: Australian Muslims population by State/Territory New South Wales 140 907 Victoria 92 742 Western Australia 19 456 Queensland 14 990 South Australia 7 478 Australian Capital Territory 3 488 Tasmania 865 Northern Territory 945 Other territories 707 Total 281 578 Source: 2001 Census Table 2: Australian Muslims - country/region of origin Australia 102 566 Lebanon 29 321 Turkey 23 479 Southern Asia 26 757 Bosnia & Herzegovina 9 892 Indonesia 8 087 Iraq 7 749 Iran 6 353 Other 67 374 Source: 2001 Censu Australia and Islam a long history Muslims in Australia have a long history. Some of Australia's earliest visitors, pre-dating European settlement, were Muslims from the east Indonesian archipelago. It is thought fishermen and traders from the island of Macassar had been visiting Australia's north from as early as the 16th century. However, the first significant semi-permanent Muslim population came in the form of Afghan camel drivers in the 1800s. These camel drivers played a significant role in opening up Australia's vast arid inland areas, carrying explorers, developers and even the telegraph to places barely accessible by horse or on foot. Small numbers of Muslims were also recruited from Dutch and British colonies in Southeast Asia to work in the Australian pearling industry in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Australia's first mosque was built at Marree in northern South Australia in 1861. Another was built in Broken Hill (New South Wales) in 1891. The real basis for Australia's modern day Muslim population came in the wake of World War Two. Between 1947 and 1971 the Muslim population increased from 2 704 to 22 311, as European Muslims, mainly Cypriot Turks, sought a new life in Australia. Lebanese migrants, many of whom were Muslims, began arriving in larger numbers after the outbreak of civil war in Lebanon in 1975. |
| csua.org/u/eh8 -> mscserver.cox.miami.edu/msc491/Readings/PlentyofGloom.htm com Plenty of gloom Dec 18th 1997 From The Economist print edition Forecasters of scarcity and doom are not only invariably wrong, they think that being wrong proves them right new-images new-images IN 1798 Thomas Robert Malthus inaugurated a grand tradition of environmentalism with his best-selling pamphlet on population. Malthus argued with impeccable logic but distinctly peccable premises that since population tended to increase geometrically (1,2,4,8 ) and food supply to increase arithmetically (1,2,3,4 ), the starvation of Great Britain was inevitable and imminent. In 1865 an influential book by Stanley Jevons argued with equally good logic and equally flawed premises that Britain would run out of coal in a few short years' time. In 1914, the United States Bureau of Mines predicted that American oil reserves would last ten years. In 1939 and again in 1951, the Department of the Interior said American oil would last 13 years. This article argues that predictions of ecological doom, including recent ones, have such a terrible track record that people should take them with pinches of salt instead of lapping them up with relish. For reasons of their own, pressure groups, journalists and fame-seekers will no doubt continue to peddle ecological catastrophes at an undiminishing speed. These people, oddly, appear to think that having been invariably wrong in the past makes them more likely to be right in the future. The rest of us might do better to recall, when warned of the next doomsday, what ever became of the last one. Empty imaginations In 1972 the Club of Rome published a highly influential report called "Limits to Growth". To many in the environmental movement, that report still stands as a beacon of sense in the foolish world of economics. "Limits to Growth" said total global oil reserves amounted to 550 billion barrels. "We could use up all of the proven reserves of oil in the entire world by the end of the next decade," said President Jimmy Carter shortly afterwards. Sure enough, between 1970 and 1990 the world used 600 billion barrels of oil. So, according to the Club of Rome, reserves should have been overdrawn by 50 billion barrels by 1990. In fact, by 1990 unexploited reserves amounted to 900 billion barrels--not counting the tar shales, of which a single deposit in Alberta contains more than 550 billion barrels. The Club of Rome made similarly wrong predictions about natural gas, silver, tin, uranium, aluminium, copper, lead and zinc. In every case, it said finite reserves of these minerals were approaching exhaustion and prices would rise steeply. In every case except tin, known reserves have actually grown since the Club's report; "Limits to Growth" simply misunderstood the meaning of the word "reserves". The Club of Rome's mistakes have not tarnished its confidence. It more recently issued to wide acclaim "Beyond the Limits", a book that essentially said: although we were too pessimistic about the future before, we remain equally pessimistic about the future today. But environmentalists have been a little more circumspect since 1990 about predicting the exhaustion of minerals. Dr Ehrlich would later claim that he was "goaded into making a bet with Simon on a matter of marginal environmental importance." At the time, though, he said he was keen to "accept Simon's astonishing offer before other greedy people jump in." Dr Ehrlich chose five minerals: tungsten, nickel, copper, chrome and tin. They agreed how much of these metals $1,000 would buy in 1980, then ten years later recalculated how much that amount of metal would cost (still in 1980 dollars) and Dr Ehrlich agreed to pay the difference if the price fell, Dr Simon if the price rose. indeed, he would have won even if they had not adjusted the prices for inflation, and he would have won if Dr Ehrlich had chosen virtually any mineral: of 35 minerals, 33 fell in price during the 1980s. Dr Simon frequently offers to repeat the bet with any prominent doomsayer, but has not yet found a taker. The 1983 edition of a British GCSE school textbook said zinc reserves would last ten years and natural gas 30 years. By 1993, the author had wisely removed references to zinc (rather than explain why it had not run out), and he gave natural gas 50 years, which mocked his forecast of ten years earlier. But still not a word about price, the misleading nature of quoted "reserves" or substitutability. Consider two quotations from Paul Ehrlich's best-selling books in the 1970s. Agricultural experts state that a tripling of the food supply of the world will be necessary in the next 30 years or so, if the 6 or 7 billion people who may be alive in the year 2000 are to be adequately fed. Theoretically such an increase might be possible, but it is becoming increasingly clear that it is totally impossible in practice. In the 1970s the world will undergo famines--hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death. Lester Brown of the Worldwatch Institute began predicting in 1973 that population would soon outstrip food production, and he still does so every time there is a temporary increase in wheat prices. In 1994, after 21 years of being wrong, he said: "After 40 years of record food production gains, output per person has reversed with unanticipated abruptness." Two bumper harvests followed and the price of wheat fell to record lows. Yet Mr Brown's pessimism remains as impregnable to facts as his views are popular with newspapers. The facts on world food production are truly startling for those who have heard only the doomsayers' views. Since 1961, the population of the world has almost doubled, but food production has more than doubled. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation, calories consumed per capita per day are 27% higher in the third world than they were in 1963. Deaths from famine, starvation and malnutrition are fewer than ever before. "Global 2000" was a report to the president of the United States written in 1980 by a committee of the great and the good. It was so influential that it caused one CNN producer to "switch from being an objective journalist to an advocate" of environmental doom. "Global 2000" predicted that population would increase faster than world food production, so that food prices would rise by between 35% and 115% by 2000. With two years to go, prices may yet quintuple to prove "Global 2000" right. Perhaps the reader thinks the tone of this article a little unforgiving. These predictions may have been spectacularly wrong, but they were well-meant. But in that case, those quoted would readily admit their error, which they do not. There were people who in 1970 predicted abundant food, who in 1975 predicted cheap oil, who in 1980 predicted cheaper and more abundant minerals. Today those people--among them Norman Macrae of this newspaper, Julian Simon, Aaron Wildavsky--are ignored by the press and vilified by the environmental movement. Hot headed Meanwhile, environmental attention switched from resources to pollution. Cancer-causing chemicals were suddenly said to be everywhere: in water, in food, in packaging. Last summer Edward Goldsmith blamed the death of his brother, Sir James, on chemicals: all cancer is caused by chemicals, he claimed, and cancer rates are rising. The rate of mortality from cancers not related to smoking for those between 35 and 69 is actually falling steadily--by 15% since 1950. Organically grown broccoli and coffee are full of natural substances that are just as carcinogenic as man-made chemicals at high doses and just as safe at low doses. In the early 1980s acid rain became the favourite cause of doom. Lurid reports appeared of widespread forest decline in Germany, where half the trees were said to be in trouble. By 1986, the United Nations reported that 23% of all trees in Europe were moderately or severely damaged by acid rain. The biomass stock of European forests actually increased during the 1980s. A similar gap between perception and reality occurred in the United States. Greens fell over each other to declare the forests of North America acidified and dying. "There is no evidence of a general or unusual decli... |