Sympathy for the Douchebag(s)
Now then, let me pick up where I left off. I’ll talk about what I got right and what I got wrong in everyone’s favorite UO entry. Before we get started, I want to reiterate that it was stupid and wrong to misattribute a quote from Mullah Krekar in Mark Steyn’s book excerpt to Steyn himself. When I talk about what it does and doesn’t mean for the thrust of the original piece, I want to make clear that I’m not claiming that it wasn’t a major lapse in conduct, even though I will be arguing that it has a finite impact on the argument. Feel free to decide that, “Heck, Jim, you can’t even get your quotes right, so who cares what you think?” Regardless. Mark Steyn’s putative status as “douchebag” aside, I’ll certainly own the label for myself.
Now, let’s recapitulate “Sympathy for the Devil” in terms of beats, and then see how the beats stand separately and then together:
1. Steyn’s argument in the America Alone excerpt is fundamentally bigoted, and just another entry in the tradition of “scientific racism” stretching back at least as far as Lothrop Stoddard and Madison Grant. In bloggy fashion, the argument for this was en passant in the form of the Tom Buchanan reference and link.
2. Beyond the structural bigotry of Steyn’s argument, his language was openly bigoted in ways I hadn’t expected to see. Specifically, Steyn’s language went beyond “code words and deniability feints.” The only example I provided of this was the breed like mosquitoes quote, that I wrongly attributed to Steyn himself rather than Krekar.
3. I could see why 1 and 2 would piss actual existing Muslim Canadians off.
4. Notwithstanding 3, it was outrageous that Steyn might face legal sanction for what he wrote, even though Steyn was “a racist douchebag in addition to being a ridiculous figure.” It wasn’t just wrong that Steyn might lose a suit; it was outrageous that he should be subjected to one at all.
5. Leftist readers sympathetic to communitarian arguments for the suppression of “bigoted” speech are naive and wrong. Here I was thinking particularly of a recent Chris Bertram piece at Crooked Timber, but didn’t bother calling it out specifically.
6. It was particularly galling to me that obnoxious formal grievances against free speech allowed people like Mark Steyn to cloak themselves in martyr’s raiment.
That’s the skeleton of the post in my head as I was writing it. So let’s see what’s left of my argument once I remove the bad attribution.
1. This I stand by, and I’ve got plenty of company. See Johann Hari’s review of America Alone, and various other readers of Steyn, some antagonistic, some not. Steyn reduces “Europeans” and “Muslims” to breeding pairs – “demography is destiny” – and says their different rates of breeding alone mean a future of Sharia law. Steyn credits no Muslim with being other than demographic weight on the Islamist scale, a witting or unwitting accomplice in bringing post-Christian Europe under Muslim rule:
On the Continent and elsewhere in the West, native populations are aging and fading and being supplanted remorselessly by a young Muslim demographic. Time for the obligatory “of courses”: of course, not all Muslims are terrorists — though enough are hot for jihad to provide an impressive support network of mosques from Vienna to Stockholm to Toronto to Seattle. Of course, not all Muslims support terrorists — though enough of them share their basic objectives (the wish to live under Islamic law in Europe and North America) to function wittingly or otherwise as the “good cop” end of an Islamic good cop/bad cop routine. But, at the very minimum, this fast-moving demographic transformation provides a huge comfort zone for the jihad to move around in.
The “of courses” are grudging and Steyn is at pains to minimize them. He grants no material variance in the constituent parts of the “remorseless” “Muslim demographic” no internal difference that makes a difference. They’re young; they have “will”; end of story. The birthrate is a given, amenable to linear projection. The welfare state that Steyn believes throttled Christian birth rates apparently won’t have any effect worth mentioning on Muslim birth rates.
Steyn’s use of demography in the piece is sweeping and reductionist. Compare a copiously sourced analysis of “France, Its Muslims, and the Future,” by Randy McDonald. (See also: The Crossed Pond.) McDonald considers intermarriage rates, reported identification with religions, assimilation markers and the rise of dissent against radicalism and criminality within the immigrant Muslim community, exemplified by the group Ni Putes Ni Soumises. McDonald doesn’t deny that France has an assimilation problem, a crime problem based in the immigrant-heavy banlieus, and a problem with radical Islam. But he locates these problems within the sweep of historical crime and assimilation problems rather than outside it, and he acknowledges the complications within France’s Muslim population. In a different way, Philip Jenkins – who argues that Europe is undergoing a demographic revival of Christianity – does too. (According to a review on Gene Expression, Jenkins presents figures in God’s Continent claiming that there are already as many charismatic Christians – fundamentalists and evangelicals – as there are practicing Muslims.)
In the excerpt from Maclean’s, Steyn doesn’t even nod toward these issues. It’s simplistic demography. The question is, simplistic in what direction? Answer: in a racist one – if you prefer, in a religiously or culturally bigoted direction. James Joyner, in a slightly kinder piece on the mis-attribution issue than I deserve, argues that “racism” is the wrong word, that the argument is about culture. I see his argument. We lack a really good term for anti-Muslim bigotry, the way “Anti-Semitism” serves as a marker for the various flavors of anti-Jewish bigotry. But in my opinion, “racist” is a good enough term for Steyn’s comparative schema of European whites, “Anglosphere” whites and predominantly nonwhite and immigrant Muslims.
For the record, Steyn instead considers himself a “culturist.” So lets consider a passage about local Canadian politics from October:
Let us zip across the Dominion, to Etobicoke, a corner of Toronto I know well. Or I thought I did. The other day a reader sent me the list of candidates for the Etobicoke North riding in this month’s provincial election. They are as follows:
Shafiq Qaadri, Liberal; Mohamed Boudjenane, NDP; Mohamed Kassim, Progressive Conservative; Jama Korshel, Green; Teresa Ceolin, Family Coalition
“Teresa� What kind of cockamamie name is that for an Etobicoke politician? This is the first riding in Ontario in which every major party is running a Muslim candidate. But not the last. To the casual observer, this would seem to be statistically improbable. Etobicoke is not 80 per cent Muslim, nor even 50 per cent Muslim. Yet every major national party already feels obliged to defer, in its candidate selection process, to Islam’s political muscle.
Steyn calls himself a “casual observer,” which doesn’t suggest there’s a lot of research behind his assumption that “every major national party already feels obliged to defer . . . to Islam’s political muscle.” Steyn clearly thinks it’s sinister that in a heavily ethnic district, parties would run ethnic candidates. This is standard urban democratic politics and always has been. But since it involves Muslims, Steyn finds it sui generis. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s one of those random variations in populations that crops up.
Now, I’m no expert on Canadian politics, but I have the impression that Canada’s different political parties believe different things – that that’s why there’s more than one of them. So one might take the fact that Muslim candidates ran on, and Muslim and non-Muslim voters supported, four different tickets as a sign of diversity of belief within Canada’s Muslim immigrant population. Otherwise, why not just form the Sharia Now! Party and save campaign expenses by running one guy? If nothing else, maybe they’ll fight over spoils like ISCI and JAM in Southern Iraq. Then Anglo Canada can sneak up behind and conk them on the noggin while they’re distracted. But that’s not how Steyn sees it. He sees Canada’s native power structure knuckling under to “Islam’s political muscle.” Does Steyn even know or care how religiously observant each of the four candidates are? Not that I can tell. He and his reader only seem interested in the candidates’ suspect monikers. Perhaps I should call him a “namist.”
2. My misquote directly affects the merits of point 2. James Joyner charitably suggests that it does not, but I think he really means that it doesn’t affect point 1. (He wasn’t working from the above breakdown.) James says Steyn quotes Krekar because he agrees with Krekar’s point. That’s true as far as it goes. But Krekar can’t have meant, when he compared Muslim birth rates to “mosquitoes,” to liken his fellow Muslims to vermin. Krekar in fact did this, and if I were a European Muslim, I’d be pissed at the bastard. Since Krekar didn’t mean the mosquito metaphor to suggest that Muslims were like insects, parsimony demands that I not assume Steyn quoted Krekar because he wanted to liken Muslims to insects. Had Steyn said what Krekar said, as I incorrectly implied that he did, it would be a fair inference. Steyn didn’t say this, so it’s an unfair one.
The rest of what Steyn wrote is thin sauce for my original claim in point 2, that Steyn went well beyond “code words and deniability feints” in his “frank bigotry.” I consider the variations on “remorseless” to be dehumanizing and the approving riff on Robert D. Kaplan’s “Indian territory” trope retrograde, but on reread, I don’t find any of Steyn’s own words that are in the same league with what the mosquitos passage would have meant if Steyn had actually said it. I withdraw the claim; I acknowledge that there is no passage from Steyn’s own words in the Maclean’s piece as inflammatory as the mosquitos passage would have been; and I apologize for the assertion.
3. That means point 2 does not exist to “piss Muslim Canadians off.” Point 1 stands, in my opinion. Is it reasonable for a Muslim to take offense at the structural bigotry of Steyn’s overall argument? Yes. Does it have that extra measure of infuriation that comes from a white pro-Christian guy calling people like you insect-like in a national magazine? It does not. This leaves the four law students with even less “cause” than in my first, erroneous interpretation of Steyn’s article. 3 is weakened, but not ruined.
4. That’s a shame for me, because I wanted to argue that even in the worst case, pursuing legal sanction against Steyn and Maclean’s for the article was wrong, even outrageous. Now I have less than the worst case to work with. Even if Steyn had said what I wrongly claimed he said, I would oppose not just their case against him, but the fact that a case could be brought at all. 4 is weakened, but not ruined.
5. My mis-attribution does not affect 5.
6. I still have no use for Steyn, but as a separate issue, I look like an idiot.
That’s my response. I’ll be closing the other threads and pointing people here. There’s a very real assimilation issue in Europe. Liberal society needs to stand up for liberal values. That means standing against gang rapes and legally mandated religious impositions. But a core liberal value is recognizing that the crudest measures of group membership don’t define the essence of all of its individual members. Steyn’s particular take on demographics does this. I consider that not just wrong in several senses but counterproductive.
Comment by Gsnorgathon —
December 10, 2007 @ 12:21 am
Not just wrong, but counterproductive? Unfortunately, Steyn’s no sirree not at all racist yowlings about the evil alien brown horde outbreeding the pale flower of Western virtue are just the opposite of counterproductive. They’re very productive indeed, as we’ve seen.
Comment by Richard Aubrey —
December 10, 2007 @ 12:27 am
Steyn doesn’t say that group membership defines all individuals. Wrong again.
But you knew that.
Problem is, when you have 1.2 billion people, even a tiny minority by percentage comes out to a fair number of people.
It appears that a poll following the breakup of the Canadian Muslim plot to blow up Parliament found that 12% of Muslims surveyed thought it was a good idea. That amounts to about 84,000 people in Canada, with one or another propensity for supporting the actual perps. Even a reluctance to call the authorities is a real convenience to the perps.
And, unfortunately, it appears the radical notions are particularly concentrated in what are known in Paris as “youths”, and in Australia when perps are reported without description as “men of no appearance”.
Sudan’s bloodthirsty mobs yowling about a teddy bear are a small minority of the population, and probably represent a small minority of the population. But the point is, that small minority is absolutely HUGE in historical terms when it comes to showing up for such “offense”.
Unfortunately, again, these bad people come FROM the Muslim cultures. From which some have speculated there might be something about the Muslim culture which generates more mass murderers than, say Mormons do. Even if it’s only a dozen blowing up a bunch of people in a subway.
Comment by Master Cranky Hucklebubble —
December 10, 2007 @ 12:32 am
Mr. Henley,
While I do not entirely agree with the above I can’t help but feel that it is hands down better written and better argued than your first piece and shows a modicum of decency that was lacking before.
Comment by Chris Vanoostveen —
December 10, 2007 @ 12:41 am
As someone born and living in Etobicoke (though not in Shafiq Qaadri’s riding), I thought I might point out some of his recent comments (accidentally recorded on someone’s voice mail): “there’s just too many white people” in the provincial government.
I wonder if Mr. Henley would agree that this sounds kind of sinister, racist even? Maybe Mark Steyn just might have a point about Shafiq Qaadri?
Comment by E. O'Neal —
December 10, 2007 @ 12:43 am
As I suspected, you were using the time to find a replacement “racist” quote actually written by Steyn. Which you couldn’t do. At least you agree that Steyn shouldn’t be sued and you agree with the classical liberal values he wants to protect from the jihadists. Did you see the recent poll where a majority of western Muslims agreed that Muslims who convert to another religion should be killed, as the Koran prescribes? Can you name a majority Muslim country where non-Muslims have full rights? And why aren’t demographics destiny?
Comment by dhex —
December 10, 2007 @ 12:46 am
demographics aren’t destiny because culture isn’t an unchanging monolith.
Comment by KRYPTODYNE —
December 10, 2007 @ 12:49 am
WHILE WE DO NOT AGREE WITH THE ABOVE, WE CANNOT HELP BUT FEEL THE POSTER IS SPENDING TOO MUCH TIME WITH HIS HANDS DOWN IN AREAS LEFT UNMENTIONED FOR REASONS RELATED TO DECENCY AND MODICUMS.
Comment by E. O'Neal —
December 10, 2007 @ 12:53 am
Islamic culture is much stronger than western culture today in one sense, and one sense only: They actually believe in something. The idea that huge numbers of Muslims can be assimilated into Europe is a fantasy. The longer they’re there, the more alienated and radicalized they become. The second and third generations are the most susceptible to jihadism. This is an established fact.
Comment by Jim Henley —
December 10, 2007 @ 12:55 am
Off to bed in a minute, but:
Master Cranky – I thank you.
Chris V. – Sounds, again, like standard ethnic politics. I don’t like litmus tests like that myself, but they’re as old as immigration. See ethnic political machines in US cities since forever. Meanwhile, “Rupinder Nannar” sure doesn’t sound like a very Muslim name, does it?
E. O’Neal – Can’t your complaint be rephrased as, “As I suspected, you were using the time to reread and rethink?” No, I don’t think Muslims who convert to another religion should be killed. What’s your cite for the “majority of Western Muslims” figure btw?
Comment by Thoreau —
December 10, 2007 @ 12:55 am
The longer they’re there, the more alienated and radicalized they become. The second and third generations are the most susceptible to jihadism. This is an established fact.
Perhaps this says something about Europe, not Islam.
America seems to do a pretty damn good job of assimilating Muslim immigrants.
Comment by Chris Vanoostveen —
December 10, 2007 @ 1:02 am
Mr. Henley,
Rupinder Nannar is the conservative candidate who received the voicemail by accident (and made it public), not the Muslim woman it was meant for.
Comment by Jean —
December 10, 2007 @ 1:05 am
Aubrey: compared to the percentage of Catholics in the Six Counties who supported violence against the British and the Ulster Governments in the 1970’s, is that figure unusually high or low?
As to the claim that Western Europeans don’t believe in anything: early days, better nation.
Comment by Chris Vanoostveen —
December 10, 2007 @ 1:11 am
But just to clarify, you say Mark Steyn is a racist, but Shafiq “too many white people” Qaadri is not?
Sorry, but it sounds to me that when a Muslim makes blatantly racist remarks, you’re willing to dismiss it as “standard ethnic politics.” But if Mark Steyn then quotes some racist remarks in Maclean’s, you condemn him as the racist. Do I have that right?
Comment by E. O'Neal —
December 10, 2007 @ 1:12 am
I was wrong. It’s 34% of British Muslims between 16 and 24, not a majority, who told pollsters that Muslims who convert to another religion should be killed. That’s still a lot of potential killers. There’s a case in the news currently about a girl in Britain who is hiding from her father and a gang of about forty Muslim men who have threatened to kill her for converting to Christianity.
Comment by wellbasically —
December 10, 2007 @ 2:23 am
Thanks for the Stoddard link, I have been back into Gatsby since Studio 360’s American Icons show on the book.
I guess I differ from Jim, I think it is better to take Steyn and his agree-ers at their word, and admit that the USA is in a real honest war with Islam.
But to the reverse-racism accusers, you have to admit that the casualty rates are about 10,000 of them for every one of us.
Comment by Myen Alhern —
December 10, 2007 @ 2:38 am
Heck, Jim, you can’t even get your quotes right, so who cares what you think?
Comment by jay tierney —
December 10, 2007 @ 3:12 am
WOW!!
talk about burying yourself. Why do you continue?
Jay
BTW: I am not afraid of you…
Comment by Johnathan Pearce —
December 10, 2007 @ 3:42 am
Hmm, this does not strike me as much of an apology Jim.
Comment by BL@KBIRD —
December 10, 2007 @ 3:55 am
The main pity is that the truth about Islam is very easy to uncover. A good scan of the Qu’ran, Hadith and Sunna would show a rational mind the nature of Islam in perhaps 4 or 5 hours of research at most. You won’t be a respected Muslim scholar but you will know more than you need to make a valid opinion and judgement. It’s like an inoculation against evil and stupidity at the same time, yet few take up the key to understanding.
I guarantee you will be astounded.
Comment by LifeTrek —
December 10, 2007 @ 4:46 am
Jim, I have followed this silently for the past couple days, anxiously awaiting your reply. Having read it, let me see if I have it correct. Just a couple of facts to start:
- America Alone is a 214 page book
- McCalls excerpt is 9 pages in MS Word, less then 5000 words.
- Steyn is noted on Amazon as probably the most widely read columnist in the English-speaking world and he has written an untold number of columns.
With that in mind here is what I understand:
1) You stated that, “I knew Steyn was a bigot, with a 1920s obsession with demographic decline… But I imagined Steyn was more adroit in his use of code words and deniability feints. No!”
However in this follow up you state that your point was, “Steyn’s argument in the America Alone excerpt is fundamentally bigoted.”
That is a very large difference and as you failed to address this, support it with facts, or to strike it from your original I am forced to believe that you stand by this.
As a matter of fact, you stated, “Mark Steyn is a racist douchebag in addition to being a ridiculous figure,” and have refused to retract, strike, or support this statement of fact (note, in your original post state this as a fact based on the misquote you already admitted.)
In addition in this follow up you repeat the accusation by stating, “it was outrageous that Steyn might face legal sanction for what he wrote, even though Steyn was “a racist douchebag in addition to being a ridiculous figure.’”.
Your only support of this is a reference to a Google search of a man who died in 1950 where the only reference or tie to Steyn I could find is your original post (and whose name does not appear in tme McCalls article).
2) For your second point you state, “Beyond the structural bigotry of Steyn’s argument,” and well you now claim this point has fallen this was not your initial argument. You never claimed Steyn’s ARGUMENT was bigoted you claimed Steyn was a racist (douchebag) See point number one above.
So lets see, you have built a strawman of your original post that you could shoot down rather then retract, withdraw, or support it, and it took you this long to do that.
In addition you repeat the most outrageous, unsupported statement in your original post.
What was the point?
I don’t need to go any further, but considering Steyn is a prolific writer and you still failed to support, withdraw, or properly apologize for your comments. Basing your post on a portion of a book that is a portion of the man’s work is just foolish.
To me, it seems you read what you wanted to see into Steyn’s piece. Rather then see an entertaining presentation facts even you failed to dispute you chose to attack and insult.
In addition let me add that for Libertarians your co-bloggers seem to have forgotten what that term really means. The true Libertarians I know don’t give up on their core values as easily as…., well, liberals. Exactly what strain of BDS do Libertarians catch?
DKK
Comment by Richard Aubrey —
December 10, 2007 @ 6:36 am
Jean.
What’s your point about the IRA?
That tying up a substantial portion of the British Army is not a big deal, or if it is, so what?
What portion of the Six Counties’ population would have supported beheading Margaret Thatcher on television–part of the Canadian plot–before blowing the place up?
There are not all that many people in the Six Counties, and they are not called by their religion to continue the fight against ALL other polities once they leave, if they leave.
Comment by Doug —
December 10, 2007 @ 6:40 am
Jim,
If you really wanted to base your defense of free speech on a worst case scenario why don’t you defend folks like Sheikh Riyadh ul Haq and his ilk who really are racist douche bags, then you don’t have to depend on arguing structural bigotry and racist “code words” you could use actual bigotry and actual racist words. But then pissed off Steyn fans won’t cut your head off. So there is that.
Comment by Steve B —
December 10, 2007 @ 6:56 am
Muslims want western society to cease to exist. They wish to impose the barbaric Sharia law on everyone, even you! They hate Western ideas and people and freedoms. They are willing to die in order to kill Athiests, Christians, Jews, Hindu, and Buddhists to satisfy the bloodlust of their ‘god’ who demands that all bow before him and surrender to his bloody ‘justice’. And while liberals are trying to shut down free speech the Muslims are breeding like rabbits as ordained in the Quran by Muhammad himself. It is in the Quran. Even if it weren’t there are Imams issuing fatwas every day calling for the death of westerners. They are blood crazed barbarians. Moderate Muslims don’t exist. I do not hear them speaking out agains the intolerance of the fanatics. Muslims never complain when muslims kill schools full of young children or throw a few girls in a fire for no hijab. Liberals love the intolerance of the muslim faith because it is just like their own intolerance. Look at the ‘bloogers’ at this site. They can hardly say anything without cursing and cussing. They have no facts and all they can do is call names. Liberals have just as much hate but are lacking the fatwas to kill conservatives.
Comment by Iron Lungfish —
December 10, 2007 @ 7:54 am
Looks like fun, guys. Can I play?
“Boo, Muslims! Hitler Hitler Hitler! Brown people are stealing my thoughtwaves! Jesus Jesus Hitler!”
Comment by Henry94 —
December 10, 2007 @ 7:54 am
Jim
You have failed to sustain your claim of racism, despite all the goggling. And you refuse to withdraw or apologise.
That puts you well outside the group of bloggers who are entitled to be taken seriously. I won’t waste any more time on this flatulent and fraudulent site.
Comment by Jim Henley —
December 10, 2007 @ 7:59 am
From what I can tell, the substantial arguments in the overnights are . . .
E. O’N’s amendation on the convert-killing issue. Thank you. I thought that’s what you were referring to. Someone posted a link to the Daily Mail article in another thread. If the facts of that case are as reported by the Mail, the British cops ought to clap father and brother in jail for all sorts of conspiracy and credible-threat charges. The reporting on the survey is a bit dodgy – no source given – but it’s entirely possible that a third of Muslim kids in that age range would give that answer. I’d be very interesting in other news reports on the threats against the girl, and a look at the original survey the Mail draws on.
LifeTrek. Actually, yours isn’t very substantive, just wordy. I said Steyn’s argument was bigoted. From there, the question becomes, what kind of person makes a bigoted argument, and indeed, turns it into a vocation.
Chris V. A valid correction on the accidental recipient of the voice mail. But why do you say the intended recipient was “Muslim?” Does this info come from another article? Because it’s not in the Blizzard piece. If it’s Muslims specifically the Qaadri is trying to pack commissions with, why does he cast his argument in racial terms rather than religious ones?
Doug. Is this Sheikh ul Haq fellow in fact under suit somewhere for allegedly harmful, bigoted speech? If so, I’m almost certainly against it. Other than that, I’ve never heard of the guy.
Myen. You win the thread!
Comment by Joe Strummer —
December 10, 2007 @ 8:03 am
Even if it weren’t there are Imams issuing fatwas every day calling for the death of westerners. They are blood crazed barbarians. Moderate Muslims don’t exist. I do not hear them speaking out agains the intolerance of the fanatics.
You’ll get no argument from me. Happy? Now go back to LGF where you and your friends can wet your beds over the Mohammedans to your hearts content.
Comment by Anticorium —
December 10, 2007 @ 8:09 am
Muslims want western society to cease to exist.
What, even Mohamed Kassim? For someone who wants western society to cease to exist, he could have gone about it in a slightly more direct way than running as a candidate for a political party whose policy platform was built around sizable personal and corporate tax cuts, a muscular foreign policy with regard to rooting out terrorists and their sympathizers in Afghanistan, and the transition of the Senate from political appointees for life to six-year elected terms.
That is the fundamental question that Steyn dodges, but I give him enough credit to think that he is dodging it. You don’t even pretend the question exists. You can have a robotic Muslim hivemind, and that’s one way that things could possibly go, definitely. Or you can have Muslims fighting at the ballot box over whether the leading political force of the day should be a revitalized wonkish-yet-populist conservatism evoking the successful election campaigns of Klein and Harris, the social-democratic urge that produced Medicare in Saskatchewan and then exported it to the rest of the country, the nation-building dreams of the remnants of the Trudeau coalition, or market-based environmentalism shifting the tax burden from income to externalities.
Etobicoke shows that in the real world, the latter option affords. In fact, it is the only option that makes any bloody sense. If you are right, Steve, where is the Sharia Now! party? And if there is no Sharia Now! party, why shouldn’t we think you’re wrong?
Comment by Anticorium —
December 10, 2007 @ 8:14 am
(Those familiar with the minor political parties of Canadian federal politics are, by the way, asked to keep buried the joke hidden in my last question. Here, play with this one instead: there was an Ontario Libertarian candidate named Zork in the last provincial election. Swear to god.)
Comment by mds —
December 10, 2007 @ 8:51 am
I suspect that finally we have a Balloon-Juice-style spoof, thanks to Steve B’s comment. Yes, it says what most of the Steyn worshippers have been saying, but it does it in a breathless, spoofy way.
Heck, Steyn himself repeatedly uses white as a surrogate for “non-Muslim.” It’s unsurprising that non-racist Steyn supporters would assume that Muslim members of an ethnic group use the same logic when commenting about there being “too many white people” in government. Rational people would see this as a criticism that the government of a particular representative democracy doesn’t accurately reflect the racial demographics of those it represents. But in this case, it probably means that white Canadians should be brought under the Umma or put to the sword.
Yeah, I was totally rooting for Zork Hun and Green Party candidate Torbjorn Zetterlund. Even though he probably would have brought his riding under the Lutheran Umma.
Comment by Doug —
December 10, 2007 @ 9:48 am
Jim,
I misread your explanation of point 4 and thought you meant to find a worst case free speech issue. I stand corrected. However, you should consider that an argument against speech laws is stronger when the banned speech is less outrageous, not more. Surely, laws banning speech for pissing some people off are of a different class than those that, for instance, incite murder. In attempting to prove Steyn a racist you actually make your argument weaker. This assumes that your post is not:
1) An argument that Free speech should be absolute. In that case, defending some real head-choppa’ endorsing dirtballs might prove the point better.
2) An exercise in preening: “See everyone, I even defended the horribly racist Mark Steyn.”
3) You attempting a quick two’fer by defending free speech while slamming Steyn who you obviously dislike.
BTW: Even though I may disagree with you on many things thanks for the opportunity to comment.
Comment by Leonard —
December 10, 2007 @ 10:52 am
I read Hari’s peace and the supposed instances of racism he attributes to Steyn are laughable. Steyn cited a figure on white fertility in the USA? Please. Perhaps someone here could point me to some actual racist writings by Steyn? Not him quoting other racists, not other racists who like him. Something he actually wrote himself.
Jim, this ought to have been a learning moment for you vis-a-vis the word “racism”. I’m glad you seem to have backed off of it, some, but I would have liked to see a fuller apology for using sloppy language on that one word.
Steyn is bigot against Islam. Sho ’nuff. But what of that? Certainly the valence on the word “bigot” suggests irrational hatred, whereas Steyn gives clear arguments about what he does not like about Islam. If you disagree with his arguments, or his unstated premises, then fine, he looks like a bigot. I doubt he, himself, would care that much. He’d probably say words to the effect of, “if bigotry means disliking a religion which calls for subjugating and converting everyone else, I don’t wanna be right”. So, the argument here really turns on factual matters, most of which we cannot know. How much “staying power” against capitalism does Islam have? How much do some of the more unfortunate passages in the Koran really influence the thinking of Muslims generally, as well as their 3rd sigma outlying angry young men? Etc. Reasonable people can disagree on these. Yet how you answer them will change a great deal the threat you perceive from Islam.
This gets to the substance of the thing. While in our society “bigot” is a nasty thing to call someone, it’s still nowhere near as nasty as “racist”. And there’s a good reason for that. To hate someone for their race is to hate them for something they absolutely cannot change, even the slightest bit. For our race is our ancestry, and we cannot change our ancestors.
But to hate someone for their religion, or ideology, is to hate them for something they can change. Furthermore, religion and ideology are unlike race in that they have content. They contain memes, and memes sometimes motivate people. (This is just as you said: “Speech is dangerous. It does things. If it didn’t, why would we talk at all?”). Well, race does not “do things”, at least not to the first and second order of effects, whereas ideology makes first order changes in people’s behavior. In short, religion is unlike race in that it is highly meaningful and yet changeable.
Yes, we in the West do have a “truce” on religion, our tradition of religious tolerance. We have it because our ancestors determined via endless extremely bloodly pogroms and wars that religion was divisive and people really, really did not want to change. But at the same time, that religious accommodation happened in a context where the most egregious bits of the old religions were knocked off. We no longer burn people alive for witchcraft. Let me suggest that the adaptation of our old religions into tolerance ones was no accident. Any religion which did not so adapt would have been public enemy #1 after the other religions did adapt.
Steyn, and many on the right, view many aspects of Islam as the equivalent of burning witches (or perhaps more aptly, burning widows, as their love of that pithy British imperialist story makes clear). In their opinion, there are some ideas that cannot be party to the Western religious truce. Islam, in their opinion, must change before it can “sign up” to our truce.
Now, that opinion may be wrong, and I’ll be the first to argue that to any extent that Islam needs changed, we cannot do it. But nonetheless, hating on Islam is still vastly, vastly different from hating on race, because Islam can change. People’s God-given race cannot change. And it is vastly different in that Islam does have content, whereas, for example, being “white” has no content attached to it.
And thus, back to racism. To hate someone for their race is clearly irrational, and cruel, in a way that hating them for their religion is not. That is why “racism” is a far worst epithet than “bigot”, though usually they are coupled for greater effect. And that is why the modern left is so apt to call racism where there is none: all of us, left, right, bottom, and top, have sworn off racism as irrational and wrong. Racism is the kind of ad hominem that wins arguments, and winning arguments via words alone is power. “Bigot”, for all its negative qualities, does not have that power.
And that is why responsible wordsmiths have a responsibility to be very cautious about slinging around charges of racism.
IMO, you ought to clearly retract the charge of racism and just leave it at bigotry.
Comment by Scott Jacobs —
December 10, 2007 @ 11:05 am
At war with RADICAL Islam. There is a difference.
You pray to Allah? Good for you, have fun, at least you have faith in something.
You pray to Allah and want to blow me up while I do Christmas shopping? Well, see, now we have a bit of a problem…
You see the difference, of cource. The first group I’ll do anything to protect. The latter are possibly going to be part of the group I have to protect FROM.
I think you now see the problem with your statement…
Comment by KRYPTODYNE —
December 10, 2007 @ 11:09 am
IN OUR HUMBLE OPINION, YOU OUGHT TO STOP POSTING COMMENTS AND RETURN TO THE DANK PIT OF YOUR MOTHER’S BASEMENT.
Comment by mds —
December 10, 2007 @ 11:55 am
And yet, the entire premise of Steyn’s hysteria about the death of Europe is premised upon the notion that Islam cannot change. Yet the religiously-motivated violence that once dominated Christendom did give way to secular social democracy (an evolution that Steyn actually abhors, preferring that a bloodthirsty permutation of his adopted faith once more dominate). Now, if Steyn were actually correct when he assigned bacterial reproduction rates to Muslims, then there indeed will probably not be enough time for more adherents to move towards moderation. But with an actual physically possible reproduction rate, we’re looking at a timescale of decades.
Though I’ll agree that one should be more careful about throwing around terms like “racist” to describe someone who uses “white” as convenient shorthand for “non-Muslim,” and mocks the victimhood of the Canadian “First Nations.”
Likewise “bigot” does usually imply “irrational,” and there’s nothing at all irrational about predicting the utter collapse of Western civilization into Muslim barbarism thanks to the combined threat of Islam, gays, feminism, and secularism (the latter three of which contribute to that distressing decline in the
white“Western cultural” birthrate).Perhaps you should inform Mark Steyn about this.
Comment by ajay —
December 10, 2007 @ 12:00 pm
But nonetheless, hating on Islam is still vastly, vastly different from hating on race, because Islam can change. People’s God-given race cannot change.
Heh. Of course your race can change. Race is a social construct – certainly doesn’t have any biological validity. (”God-given”? Please.)
Examples.
My name is Pavel. I have just immigrated to the US, from Warsaw. Am I white? (I wasn’t in 1900).
My name is Giacomo. I, too, have just immigrated to the US, from Naples. Am I white? (I wasn’t in 1920).
My name is Juan. I live in Brazil. Am I white? (I might be in Brazil; in the US I’m Latino. In apartheid South Africa, I might be considered mixed-race.)
What about Meyer, who grew up in the US? Again, depends when you ask him.
Or Mehmet, who grew up in Istanbul? He doesn’t look much different from Ivan from Sofia, but apparently one of them’s European and the other’s Middle Eastern – even though Mehmet has spent his entire life on this side of the Bosphoros.
Comment by BfC —
December 10, 2007 @ 12:05 pm
Woo… Pithy reply by Kryptodyne.
Obviously, I agree with much of what Lenoard typed.
People pick their religion/politics. They don’t pick their race.
And, since Islam is both a religion and a form of government–to not discuss Islam in terms of statistical models and observations on it roles and responsibilities within its realm because it automatically labels the person discussing it as a “racist douchebag” leaves us exactly nowhere.
Jim, in your first post:
“Nor am I surprised actual existing Muslim Canadians would take offense at the article. The article can’t touch me, an Anglo American, in the same way it can hit the emotions of a Canadian Muslim – it can’t feel as personal to me as it can to them.”
Why would somebody care if, when discussing politics, if it hurts somebody’s feelings. The Radical Muslims certainly don’t seem to worry about hurting my feelings (regarding either my governmental or religious options) in their discussions on how to “take over the world” with their one size fits all political+religious system.
And when one supports attacks on the person presenting the thesis instead of attacking the thesis–you are directly supporting the opposite side (Radical Islam in this case) without even having to take “ownership” of all of the baggage associated with it (i.e., Radical Islam).
And the funny thing is that nobody on the side of Radical Islam cares one whit about the elegance of your arguments… In fact, they laugh at them.
Take a look at what one former British Islamic Radical says about journalists that try to blame the “west” (link in my name)…
Quote:
My plea to fellow Muslims: you must renounce terror
As the bombers return to Britain, Hassan Butt, who was once a member of radical group Al-Muhajiroun, raising funds for extremists and calling for attacks on British citizens, explains why he was wrong
By Hassan Butt
Sunday July 1, 2007
Observer
When I was still a member of what is probably best termed the British Jihadi Network, a series of semi-autonomous British Muslim terrorist groups linked by a single ideology, I remember how we used to laugh in celebration whenever people on TV proclaimed that the sole cause for Islamic acts of terror like 9/11, the Madrid bombings and 7/7 was Western foreign policy.
By blaming the government for our actions, those who pushed the ‘Blair’s bombs’ line did our propaganda work for us. More important, they also helped to draw away any critical examination from the real engine of our violence: Islamic theology.
…
I left the BJN in February 2006, but if I were still fighting for their cause, I’d be laughing once again. Mohammad Sidique Khan, the leader of the 7 July bombings, and I were both part of the BJN – I met him on two occasions – and though many British extremists are angered by the deaths of fellow Muslim across the world, what drove me and many of my peers to plot acts of extreme terror within Britain, our own homeland and abroad, was a sense that we were fighting for the creation of a revolutionary state that would eventually bring Islamic justice to the world.
How did this continuing violence come to be the means of promoting this (flawed) utopian goal? How do Islamic radicals justify such terror in the name of their religion? There isn’t enough room to outline everything here, but the foundation of extremist reasoning rests upon a dualistic model of the world. Many Muslims may or may not agree with secularism but at the moment, formal Islamic theology, unlike Christian theology, does not allow for the separation of state and religion. There is no ‘rendering unto Caesar’ in Islamic theology because state and religion are considered to be one and the same. The centuries-old reasoning of Islamic jurists also extends to the world stage where the rules of interaction between Dar ul-Islam (the Land of Islam) and Dar ul-Kufr (the Land of Unbelief) have been set down to cover almost every matter of trade, peace and war….
Comment by Gary —
December 10, 2007 @ 12:06 pm
I think it’s fairly clear to most of us that Henley simply wants very much to believe that Steyn is a racist and/or a bigot.
Evidenced by his extensive reaching and stretching, which is common behavior for anyone who wants something very badly.
And of course, it’s very clear to most of us, who are familiar with Steyn’s writing and speaking, that if anything, he is bigoted against oppressive and destructive behavior and attitudes, as is most everyone, and quite rightly so.
Comment by U. C. Knott —
December 10, 2007 @ 12:10 pm
There can be no doubt that there are many decent individual Muslims in the world! That said, there can also be no doubt that there were many decent German citizens who lived, and even fought in the military for, the Nazis in WW2. Likewise, there were many honorable Japanese who also lived, and also may have fought for, Imperial Japan. The issue is not that all Muslims are evil! Rather, that the present Muslim world, much like Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, is utterly under the control of evil. We had no choice but to fight a total war against both Germany and Japan. Nowadays, their decendants are our friends. Likewise, we have no choice now but to fight a total war against Islamofascism. Once the Islamic world had rejected evil totalitarianism (such as was done by both the Germans and Japanese), then they too can be our friends. But so long as their leaders remain in power, and so long as those leaders seek to destroy us, we cannot afford to pretend that the “Islamic World” is in any way benevolent, anymore than foolish appeals to friendship with individual Germans or Japanese would have helped one iota back in WW2!
Comment by KRYPTODYNE —
December 10, 2007 @ 12:11 pm
WE THINK IT’S FAIRLY CLEAR TO MOST OF US THAT GARY WANTS VERY MUCH TO BELIEVE THAT HIS PARENTS WEREN’T SIBLINGS.
Comment by BfC —
December 10, 2007 @ 12:21 pm
Ajay is correct about perception of race too… My children are “mixed” race (from a US statistical viewpoint).
On their birth certificate application, I protested this by writing their race as other (American). For my wife, I had her right Han (as that is her race for a Chinese person from her region). Our application was changed to White+Asian–neither is a race or national origin.
I have a friend who is from Iran. They are very proud that they are Arian. They hate (as a general group) Arabs. They see the Wahhabi wing (Saudi) of Islam as believing that Sunni are not Islamic (see that Muslims kill more Muslims than have ever been murdered by any other person/religion/form of government–including the killings that are going on in Iraq right now).
In any case, there are many statistics gathered via these check boxes. I would prefer if the US government stop racial classifications.
Comment by Henry Heavner —
December 10, 2007 @ 12:28 pm
Your argument is as good as your mad quote skills, douchebag. The intellect here is truly mosquito-sized.
Comment by KRYPTODYNE —
December 10, 2007 @ 12:33 pm
YOU’RE JUST UPSET THAT YOUR WIFE CALLED YOU MOSQUITO-SIZED LAST NIGHT, ALTHOUGH SHE WAS REFERRING TO MORE THAN YOUR INTELLECT.
Comment by Hektor Bim —
December 10, 2007 @ 12:33 pm
ajay,
You’re right and wrong at the same time. Some people race gets to change over time, and some doesn’t. The ever-increasing numbers of people who qualify as white in the US still leaves a lot of people out of the club. If you are recognizably African-looking and too dark to pass as white, then you _are_ out of luck. Race is a social construction, but the social constructions don’t always change quickly. In fact, the permanence of blackness in the US is part of the point. As long as there are people who are black, the people who are on the boundary get to be white, but a lot of people are out of luck. Religion is much easier to change quickly in practice.
This obviously isn’t all cut-and-dried, especially if you are black and foreign in the US.
Comment by BfC —
December 10, 2007 @ 12:45 pm
Hmmm… anyone else hear a small buzzing noise?
Comment by Chris Vanoostveen —
December 10, 2007 @ 12:49 pm
But why do you say the intended recipient was “Muslim?â€
Because I was told it was a Muslim by someone who heard the voicemail. And as I said I live in Etobicoke; I know the area and I know Qaadri.
If it’s Muslims specifically the Qaadri is trying to pack commissions with, why does he cast his argument in racial terms rather than religious ones?
Well, I’d say that’s because he’s a good deal more savvy than Omar Alghabra, an MP for the adjacent city of Mississauga. See this story for more information on him.
By the way, since you didn’t answer my questions, I’ll repeat them:
Mark Steyn is a racist, but Shafiq “too many white people†Qaadri is not?
Sorry, but it sounds to me that when a Muslim makes blatantly racist remarks, you’re willing to dismiss it as “standard ethnic politics.†But if Mark Steyn then quotes some racist remarks in Maclean’s, you condemn him as the racist. Do I have that right?
Comment by KRYPTODYNE —
December 10, 2007 @ 12:57 pm
HERE IS MY QUESTION: WHAT IS THE ONE SUBSTANCE MORE DENSE THAN OSMIUM? HINT: IT RHYMES WITH “TRIS STANOOSTVEEN.”
Comment by acm —
December 10, 2007 @ 1:10 pm
Mr. Henley,
Like commenter #3, I wanted to congratulate you on a better written, better argued piece that shows more generosity of spirit towards a political opponent than the original. I also appreciate your unqualified opposition to the HRC complaint being brought against Steyn and Maclean’s magazine.
I also appreciate the pointer to “France, its Muslims and the Future” and will be reading it with great interest.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
December 10, 2007 @ 1:32 pm
Can you source this, and what was the percentage of the general population who thought the same thing?
Comment by Eric the .5b —
December 10, 2007 @ 1:34 pm
Oh, noes! Even me?
So, the problem is that no imam’s realized he could issue a fatwas to liberals? And you’ve tipped them off by pointing this out to the IslamaCommieBadguy supporters (you know, those evil bastards who oppose the Iraq war)? You fool! We’re all gonna be slaughtered by rampaging yuppies in hybrids!
Comment by Leonard —
December 10, 2007 @ 1:44 pm
Scott Jacobs, Jim Henley is in fact a very responsible wordsmith. I’ve been reading him almost every day for years, unlike many of the people criticizing him in the last 2 days. I’ve seen him lose his temper but he does not misuse words.
In Jim’s partial defense, “racism” is a particularly commonly misused word. It’s so common, especially on the left, as a sort of reflexive ad hominem that I think in this case Jim slipped into using their argot. I’d prefer my people (libertarians) stay away from without very good evidence, because using it as a synonym for “bigot” or to mean “person I don’t like” will turn off a substantial number of people who you could otherwise reach. Not to mention the whole “laws being all flat” thing as applied to mau-mauing. Libertarians, being a small and mostly despised minority, should be really, really careful before allying with left or right in endorsing any kind of popular ad hominem.
ajay, your race is determined by genes. Race is about who your ancestors were, and you cannot change that. If you have dark skin, it’s almost certainly because a very substantial fraction of your ancestors lived in the more equatorial parts of the world.
Yes, there’s (some) cultural overlay too, in terms of what other people perceive about your race. And that can change, theoretically. However, (a) in fact perceptions of race are very stable, (b) to the extent they change, they don’t change quickly nor under anyone’s control, and [c) unlike one’s religion, which is under one’s own control, what other people think about your race is, by definition, outside of your control. You cannot simply renounce being black, even if you might want to, and suddenly be non-black in the eyes of the masses.
But I really don’t think I have to explain any of that. If you really think that race is equivalent to religion, and thus “racist” is a perfect (or adequate, or even acceptable) word to describe someone bigoted against religion, make the argument. If you don’t think they are equivalent, then our disagreement is immaterial to this thread, although it is interesting enough on its own.
mds:
I disagree. I think Steyn thinks it will not change, but cannot? Where does he say that? My guess is Steyn thinks Islam won’t change because it is “winning”. In poker, one can dump a natural straight. But people don’t (and won’t!) because they know it’s an odd-on winner as it is.
If Islam does not change, and all trends stay as they are, then Europe will eventually turn majority Islamic. These are big ifs, but nonetheless something worth discussing, don’t you think? I mean, straight line approximations may be a stupid way to project the future, but they are, at least, a projection. If you want to do better, you’ll have to lay out a whole series of assumptions about how modernity will affect birthrates of muslim and non-muslim Europeans. Got any data on that?
In any case, there is certainly an argument that Islam is considerably harder to reform than Christianity was: it is uniquely textually based. (I’m sure you’ve seen this argument, but I can find an instance of it and link if you want.) And I think this argument has something to it, although not as much as many of its adherents. So there is, at least, some reason to think that Islam won’t change, at least not fast enough to suit Mark Steyn, as well as many other people that rather like their societies as they are.
Comment by mds —
December 10, 2007 @ 1:46 pm
Silence, leftist!
The only way you can earn forgiveness for your insolence is to condemn the racism of Shafiq Qaadri, who (1) is at least as widely-read and familiar a public figure as Mark Steyn, and (2) thinks that his own ethnic / cultural group is [GASP!] underrepresented in Parliament, which is at most one step removed from Etobicoke being brought into the Umma. The whites of Rosedale really need to breed more, or they’re next.
Comment by Chris Vanoostveen —
December 10, 2007 @ 2:25 pm
mds, my point is that if you’re going say someone is a “racist” (whether they’re as famous as Mark Steyn or just some Canadian MPP like Shafiq Qaadri), you should (a) have some evidence to back it up (like a quote, correctly attributed), and (b) be consistent (i.e., don’t dismiss charges of racism against Mullah Krekar or Shafiq Qaadri just because they’re Muslims).
Comment by LifeTrek —
December 10, 2007 @ 2:30 pm
“Actually, yours isn’t very substantive, just wordy. I said Steyn’s argument was bigoted. From there, the question becomes, what kind of person makes a bigoted argument, and indeed, turns it into a vocation.”
This from the same man who said, “Speech is dangerous. It does things. If it didn’t, why would we talk at all?”
I didn’t think I needed to point this out to you, having said that already, or will it now be – well, that isn’t what I meant – so he is still a racist even though I can’t prove it.
DKK
Comment by Iron Lungfish —
December 10, 2007 @ 2:36 pm
“Silence, leftist!”
Exquisite – simply exquisite. Giblets himself would applaud.
Comment by KRYPTODYNE —
December 10, 2007 @ 2:43 pm
SOME DANGEROUS SPEECH FOR LIFETREK: I SAW HOW YOU VIOLATED THAT POOR INNOCENT SANDWICH. YOU ARE A DIRTY PERVERT WHO BELONGS ON THE SUBWAY OFFENDER LIST.
Comment by Ikram —
December 10, 2007 @ 3:04 pm
I love that this is a Canadian politics topic.
First, Steyn depicted all major party candidates as Muslim in Etobicoke North as a sign of a Muslim Takeover. Next door, in Mississauga-Brampton-South, all major pary candidates were Sikh, despite a Sikh population under 30%. Just west, York Centre, where both the Lib. and Con. candidates were Jewish. Steyn doesn’t call it a Judeo-Muslim-Sikh takeover. Relying on his readers’ ignorance of Ontario provincal polltics, he singles out only Etobicoke North, in order to drum up feeling out the Muslim Menace ™
Which get me to the reason why Steyn is so successful — beacues he writes in multiple countries, he can rely on the ignorance of his readers. I find Steyn’s Canadian articles shallow, uninformed and (when talking of Canadian Muslims) filled with animus. I suspect that his US, UK, and Aus. articles are the same, but I don’t have the local knowledge to fact check him. Neither do most of his readers.
Steyn can peddle bad analysis of Canada to Americans. Bad analysis of Australia to Brits. Bad analysis .. well, you get the point. It’s a great gig — I wish I had it.
Comment by megapotamus —
December 10, 2007 @ 3:10 pm
Jim Henley is unfit to suck Mark Steyn’s ass although he could benefit roundly from such a brush with humility. “Douchebag, douche thyself!” (note quotation marks) is more coherent and intelligent than anything you have to offer. Screams of racism are so 25 years ago. Pathetic. Like this sort of talk? Well, maybe in the future you will practice a bit of the intellectual respect you want to enjoy. Those poor folks who congratulate you on your recently developed maturity are doomed to dissappointment. You got caught out indisputably here. You will be more careful for a while but the bad faith, bad practices and bad manners you exhibit will be back with a vengeance once the heat is off. You are thoroughly forgettable but have performed one decent service: you have sold a copy of America Alone. Punk.
Comment by Ikram —
December 10, 2007 @ 3:11 pm
This is not relevant to the Steyn-bigot issue but here goes…
Dr. Shafiq Qaadri may be a twit, but certainly not a representative of some sort of Muslim takeover. He is a graduate of Upper Canada College, the private school of choice for middling-intelligence kids of elite Torontonians. His biggest claim to fame is heckling NDP MP Marylin Churley in the provincial legislature with the line “Her hot flash is over now”. He later explained that he was a doctor, and his mother a gynecoligist, so he understood these things. Really…
Dr. Qaadri is also the author of the books “The Testorone Factor” and “The Manhood Chemical”. Yes, the jokes write themselves.
(Here) is Churley’s response.
Anyway, the concern that there are not enough visible minorities (aka non-wites) in the Public Service is not restricted to the Dr. Foot-in-mouth Qaadri. Senator Donald Oliver held hearings on the same issue this past year. Obviously views will differ on this topic, but it is far from being a crazy, controversial issue in Canada. And, in general, people who raise this issue in Canada are not considered racists.
Comment by KRYPTODYNE —
December 10, 2007 @ 3:18 pm
YOU CAN SUCK MY ASS ANYTIME, MEGAPOTAMUS.
Comment by Jackmormon —
December 10, 2007 @ 3:30 pm
Dr. Qaadri is also the author of the books “The Testorone Factor†and “The Manhood Chemicalâ€. Yes, the jokes write themselves.
Oh, awesome.
Comment by R Totale —
December 10, 2007 @ 3:47 pm
hmmm. That was supposed to be an insult but I don’t see why. Perhaps megapotamus can explain why sucking Mark Steyn’s ass is considered a badge of honor in his household?
Comment by Making Sense Of It All —
December 10, 2007 @ 3:54 pm
Why does Steyn and others of his point of view always assume that all Muslims are mutually coordinate? He and others quote a radical Imam, or some stupid Muslim politician, and it’s “SEE! SEE! Told ya! They’re plotting a takeover! Batten down the hatches!” You see, assuming that a few individual Muslims represent the views, opinions and actions of the entire group IS bigotry. But point this out to Steyn and he claims that the PC cops are after him. He IS a racist douchebag, it’s implicit in his assumptions that all individual Muslims act in tandem with a single hive mind. Some careless misattribution of a quote doesn’t make him any less a racist douchebag.
Hey, Steyn – Individuals are self-interested, though I know your collectivist world view can’t comprehend it. The reason for the flood of Muslim immigrants to the West is that for about 50 years the US, in its aspirations to be the continuation of the British Empire, has pretty much f-ed up their countries as to make them practically unlivable (as the US is doing in Iraq right now). They’re fleeing the conquered provinces and heading to Rome, where it’s comparably much more livable.
Like you, Mr. Henley, I don’t agree with any legal action being brought against anyone for any expression, but I have to wonder how Steyn might react if that shoe was on an Islamic foot.
Comment by arminius —
December 10, 2007 @ 4:14 pm
Bored now.
Comment by Barry —
December 10, 2007 @ 4:31 pm
Comment by BL@KBIRD —
December 10, 2007 @ 3:55 am
“The main pity is that the truth about Islam is very easy to uncover. A good scan of the Qu’ran, Hadith and Sunna would show a rational mind the nature of Islam in perhaps 4 or 5 hours of research at most.”
Have you ever read the Bible?
Comment by Joe —
December 10, 2007 @ 4:44 pm
What a self-serving equivocating idiot you are.
Comment by BumperStickerist —
December 10, 2007 @ 4:47 pm
A plain reading of Jim’s blog posts show that Jim felt, indeed feels, good about his slagging of Mark Steyn – for reasons that may run the gamut of dislike to jealousy.
Mark pointing out fundamental demographics does not, in and of itself, constitute racism – it provides nothing other than an indication of the end state of the system.
If Jim is inclined to produce an analogue he could find one in in Hitler’s Germany which awarded women medals based on the number of children produced – Jim’s problem is that he might not want to consider the reality of the results.
While the plural of anecdote is not ‘data’, Jim would do well to consider the implications of a demographic shift which results in systemic change.
Jim may not be worried about living in a Muslim controlled, Sharia-based governance, but – then – he’s never experienced one.
-
Comment by Bob Willams —
December 10, 2007 @ 5:09 pm
Congratulations! You’re becoming famous! But not in a good way!
Comment by Jean —
December 10, 2007 @ 5:16 pm
You guys are making the Orangemen look like models of tolerance and open-mindedness.
You really should read about the impeding demographic time bomb in NI, and how the Catholics will impose Popish laws on the God-fearing Protestant population.
My point about the Catholic alienation in NI was to point out that no-one here thinks that the British should have exterminated the Catholics in NI, despite the fact that elements of that group were actively waging a terrorist campaign against British civilians. Look at Sinn Fein’s election results, and remember that SInn Fein’s acronym is IRA, to get some idea of the acceptance of violence amongst NI Catholics.
Essentially, you’re peddling the same Orangeist bullshit, just with Catholic swapped out for Muslim. It was crap then, and it’s crap now.
Comment by Trofim —
December 10, 2007 @ 5:30 pm
Endless discussions about the difference between Islam and Islamic fundamentalism, Islamism and so on, and the whole “it’s just a few bad apples†argument are red herrings.
If you look at how Islam behaves historically and geographically only then will you can see what Islam really is. It’s what Muslims do en-masse that matters, particularly when they manage to achieve a majority. Wherever Muslims create a critical mass, they are increasingly enabled to treat non-Muslims with, to put it at its mildest, varying degrees of institutional discrimination. In other words, they establish what is commonly known as a “Muslim countryâ€, which, to be accurate, should be known as a “Muslim-dominated countryâ€.
Freedom diminishes in correlation with the proportion of Muslims in society.
Islam is all about domination. Why do you think that Muslims are barred from changing their religion and from marrying non-Muslims? These are not arbitrary ad-hoc rules. They are formulated to ensure that the proportion of non-believers in society is constantly diminishing. Acid can be quite innocuous when diluted to 1 part in a thousand. At stronger dilutions, it is hazardous. Undiluted it is deadly. So it is, I’m afraid, with Islam.
Comment by Making Sense Of It All —
December 10, 2007 @ 6:00 pm
Another ignorant bigot raises his ugly head.
Trofim: I take it that your conception of Islam is a single hydra-headed creature, not a billion or so INDIVIDUAL HUMAN BEINGS?
I’m really having a hard time fitting my head into your universe. At a time when the US gov’t is attempting to dominate not 1 but 2 “Muslim countries” and basically dictating to THEIR governments, you’re wringing your hands that the US or Canada may come under Muslim domination???? Are you serious???
For all of you ringing the alarm bells of the coming Muslim hordes, now that you’ve diagnosed the problem, would you be good enough as to let the rest of us know what should be done about it? What constructive solution do you suggest to remedy this grave problem? Just curious.
Comment by Ben —
December 10, 2007 @ 6:02 pm
There’s something very interesting but, frankly, crude about arguments that Steyn is “anti-Muslim” or “racist.” A common trope of the left (with which I happen to agree) is that it is a crying shame to see American (or more broadly, Western) cultural icons invading every corner of the globe. Who wants a McDonald’s everywhere in the world from Paris to Jakarta? Yet imagine the uproar if whites from America or Europe were colonizing Mongolia or Tanzania, bringing with them their religion, laws, etc. It would be to the left an outrage, a return of colonialism, a horrendous example of cultural hegemony and blatant racism. Yet this is precisely what is happening now in much of the Western world. Say what you will, but it is just a fact that much of the Muslim world has been radicalized by Wahabi propaganda. When they emigrate to the West, they bring their radicalized culture and religion, neither of which tends to mesh well with liberal Western democracy. And as bad as the first generation often is, statistics show that in Europe, the second- and third-generation immigrants are, if anything, even more radical due to Wahabi funding of jihadist European mosques. To blithely dismiss concerns over this threat to democracy as “racism” is not just simplistic, but willfully asinine and culturally suicidal.
Comment by Avram —
December 10, 2007 @ 6:08 pm
Thing is, Leonard, Steyn seems to be talking about religion, but his arguments are all racist — there’s some nasty group that’s going to outbreed all the white folks. Steyn’s arguments themselves blur the line between race and religion. And that line’s not all that sharp to begin with, as anybody who’s had a Jewish education knows.
Steyn’s playing Wilhelm Marr’s game in reverse. In the 19th century, Marr coined the word anti-Semitism to replace the old-fashioned Judenhass (Jew-hatred) in order to dress up traditional anti-Jewish religious bigotry in the clothing of scientific-sounding racism. Steyn has a fundamentally race-oriented argument (note that his argument seems to assume that religion breeds true), but dresses it up as an argument about religion.
Comment by Donald Johnson —
December 10, 2007 @ 6:14 pm
Actually, most of us agree that Islamic extremists are a threat. We just don’t trust the loudest shriekers about this threat, because many of them appear to go well beyond the genuine danger and sound remarkably like the racists of the past. My impression is that many of them also tend to dismiss legitimate Muslim complaints about Western crimes. There was a real danger from Japan in 1942, but that didn’t justify the internment camps for Japanese Americans.
And yeah, there’s that word racist. As I’ve complained and as Jim complains, the problem is there is no word specifically designed to be used about Muslim-hatred. There’s one for hatred of Jews (who aren’t a race)–it’s called antisemitism. We don’t have to go with the weaker word “bigotry” for that. So we need another one for those who hate Muslims.
Comment by Arthur —
December 10, 2007 @ 6:25 pm
“I’m really having a hard time itting my head into your universe. At a time when the US gov’t is attempting to dominate not 1 but 2 “Muslim countries†and basically dictating to THEIR governments”
Same tired retoric said about Kuwait. At least get some new propaganda.
Comment by Kenneth —
December 10, 2007 @ 6:27 pm
I’m not clear on why Steyn’s book is titled “America Alone”. Why not at least include all the Western hemisphere? And isn’t it a bit hysterical to say, And then think, “Boy howdy, I sure don’t want what happened in Britain…a few times…to happen [insert where you life here].†When people extrapolate demography and birth rates in America, is ‘Muslim’ really the first thing that enters their mind?
Comment by Donna —
December 10, 2007 @ 6:29 pm
There once was a blogger named Jim
whose brain was a little bit dim
When called on his lie,
Jim let out a cry:
“Why, I’m not the douchebag, it’s him!”
Comment by Leonard —
December 10, 2007 @ 6:45 pm
Avram, there’s that word again. You’re devaluing it by using it in that way, and leaving yourself open to easy attack. Religion is not race, even though both tend to be passed down to children.
Discussing fertility rates is not racist. Reality is not racist.
As for correlations of race and religion, so what? They are still entirely different things, and to talk about one is not to talk about the other.
Donald, I’m sorry that there’s no good word for what you want. But rather than opening yourself to attack, scorn, and easy dismissal by half the population, I think it’s better to just write “anti-Muslim bigot” if that’s what you mean. Yes, it does take 11 more keystrokes than “racist”. This is the heavy price we pay for civilized discourse.
Comment by Donald Johnson —
December 10, 2007 @ 6:51 pm
We’re not talking about civilized discourse, Leonard. We’re talking about the equivalent of antisemitism. Nobody to my knowledge gets bent out of shape when antisemitism is regarded as the moral (and darn near logical) equivalent of racism. Somehow it’s only when Muslim-haters are called racist that we have to be careful with our language.
Racist, antisemite, Muslim-hating bigot–morally speaking they’re pretty much the same.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
December 10, 2007 @ 6:54 pm
No, your lack of paragraphing and proper punctuation annoys.
Don’t call it a comeback – he’s been here for years!
Comment by Eric the .5b —
December 10, 2007 @ 6:57 pm
No, the frothing Reds are very clearly talking about a particular sort of swarthy people who practice a scary religion. They’re not talking about converts, they’re talking about breeding.
Comment by BL@KBIRD —
December 10, 2007 @ 7:00 pm
You should really do some research on Islam before you make your witless pronouncements.
Barry… yes I have read the bible, whats your point? Moral equivalence? If we lived the book of Leviticus, you would have a something, but we don’t.
I gather Kryptodyne is the “sargetard at arms” for this fount of knowledge.
Comment by Making Sense Of It All —
December 10, 2007 @ 7:16 pm
Earlier I wrote:
“For all of you ringing the alarm bells of the coming Muslim hordes, now that you’ve diagnosed the problem, would you be good enough as to let the rest of us know what should be done about it? What constructive solution do you suggest to remedy this grave problem? Just curious.”
For those several of you who have posted a defense of Steyn or what he wrote since I asked this question, I’ve noticed that none of you have answered it yet.
So…?
Comment by Gazoo —
December 10, 2007 @ 7:31 pm
Man, this thread has become a trainwreck!
The original article was inaccurate and, in an attempt to salvage the last shred of his crediblity, Henley attempts to pull together cobbled “facts” that support his original assertion all the while ignoring the glaring point that the article was BASED on the original false assertion.
Douchebaggery or no, my humble suggestion would be just to make a blanket apology and move on. You’ve already lost the moral highground. Now you’ve got to make the best of it and go on to other topics.
Comment by Avram —
December 10, 2007 @ 7:32 pm
Yes, Leonard, there’s that word again, because there’s that topic again. Or rather, still. I’m perfectly willing to stop calling Steyn a racist if he stops being one.
It’s not true that race and religion are “entirely different things”. That’s why I brought up Marr and anti-Semitism — for Jews, race and religion (and nationality) are deeply entwined things. For Christians they’re lightly entwined things, and I think for Muslims it’s probably somewhere in between. They’re not “entirely different things”, and most likely never will be.
Steyn sometimes seems to be writing about Islam, and at other times he’ll talk about European “races” in opposition to Islam. (Examples here and here.) He doesn’t come right out and say that he’s afraid of the brown people, but he admits that the people he’s afraid for are the white people.
Comment by KRYPTODYNE —
December 10, 2007 @ 7:38 pm
OOOH, A FUNNY! YOUR IMPRESSION OF A INBRED MOUTH-BREATHER IS DEAD ON, TOO! ADD LINE-DANCING TO THAT AND YOU COULD BE A TRIPLE-THREAT!
Comment by Gary Farber —
December 10, 2007 @ 7:50 pm
“Nobody to my knowledge gets bent out of shape when antisemitism is regarded as the moral (and darn near logical) equivalent of racism”
Hi, Donald!
“Equivalent,” sure, absolutely – bigotry is bigotry, in short — but I still strenuously object, as a Jew, to Jew-hatred being called “racism,” since the notion that the Jews are a “race” smacks of classic Nazism. I really don’t like that, oddly enough, and I’m hardly the only one.
Similarly, there is no Muslim race, and no grounds for saying there is. That bigotry against religions, religious groups, and religious people, is a dreadful thing, and rightfully forbidden by U.S. law is something many again want to carve out an exception for, or revive the bigotries of the path — this is a separate topic than analysis of the genuine level of threat from actual violent Islamists — but still no reason to use language that says outright that members of a particular religion are a particular “race” of human beings.
Comment by Gary Farber —
December 10, 2007 @ 7:59 pm
“No, the frothing Reds are very clearly talking about a particular sort of swarthy people who practice a scary religion.”
On behalf of Red diaper babies everywhere, I have to object to this usage. “Reds” are communists.
I mean, there’s even a movie, so the point is indisputable.
Not to mention a Scare, a Menace, China, a Star, a side on a civil war, a lot of flags, a couple of centuries of history, and more.
“Redstaters,” if you like.
Me, I still remember when the tv networks switched colors every election; it wasn’t all that long ago.
Comment by E. O'Neal —
December 10, 2007 @ 8:11 pm
Have any of you people attacking Steyn ever actually read his work? He’s not a hater at all, but someone who has rational fears for European civilization. Imagine if all the Hispanics flooding into our country were instead North Africans, Pakistanis and other Muslims, who found the basic premises of our society, individual conscience and liberty, deeply repugnant. Imagine if instead of assimilating, each successive generation was angrier and more alienated. Also imagine that their fertility rate was three times ours, and that many of them supported terrorism and the imposition of sharia. That’s the Europe that Steyn is writing about, a Europe where the indigenous Europeans are increasingly cowed about seemingly minor matters like cartoons and diet, but also about violent crime and disgusting practices like child marriages and female genital mutilation.
Comment by Donna —
December 10, 2007 @ 8:11 pm
Making Sense of It All:
Steyn offers some suggestions about what might be done to remedy the problem at the end of his book. None of them involve concentration camps. Most of them involve Europe (which is the major focus of his book.)
Improving assimiliation, for one thing. Honor killings take place in the UK. A Muslim girl who recently converted to Christianity is now under police protection – her family wants her dead.
Throughout Europe, there are Muslim neighborhoods where the local police will not dare to venture, they’re so lawless. Europe has brought this problem on itself by importing large numbers of immigrants and not assilimating them. They come in, frequently go on welfare, and grow up feeling alienated. A lot of French Muslims feel absolutely no loyalty to France, even if they were born there.
The problem with assilimation is that Europeans have lost a great deal of their national will and their sense of exactly what it means to be British, Italian and so on. (I read the British papers all the time and there’s a great deal of scoffing at the idea that there even is a common British identity.) I’m not saying that they have to convert to Christianity (and neither does Steyn), but if they have no idea of why democracy is important, no respect for the rule of law and no sense that life is ever going to get better for them, why give up the old ways?
Multi-culturalism is not going to work if Muslims in Europe think it’s OK to kill their sisters if they talk to strange men. It’s not going to work if gay men who take a turn down the wrong street get their faces kicked in (a common occurance in Amsterdam, according to Bruce Bawer.) It’s not going to work if Muslims have to fear for their lives if they convert to another religion, or no religion. It’s not going to work if you have an iman on the British dole preaching “kill the infidel” at Finsbury mosque.
And it’s definitely not going to work the media ignores these things for fear of hurting feelings. Does it help the young women who are hiding from their families when we don’t mention it, becaue it’s not PC to criticize Islam? We need to focus on this and yet, when Steyn does so, he’s mispresented and slandered and is now being sued – by a lawyer in the pay of the Saudis.
And are we doing any favor to Thoreau’s nice Muslim co-workers by not mentioning it? Even Westerners can’t criticise Islam without getting threatened and sued and sometimes killed, how can moderate, decent Muslims hope that they’ll be supported if they openly criticize jihad and Islamic treatment of women? Again, the problem is that everyone is scared of fatwas, riots, lawsuits and of being called “racist.”
A while back, Germaine Greer poo-pooed the whole idea that female circumcision was any worse than women in the West voluntarily getting body piercings. Tell that to a Somali friend of mine who underwent the procedure without anesthesia when she was 11, subsequently got infected, and is now sterile.
Steyn offers a list of partial solutions at the end (and, like I said, none of them include concentration camps or forcible expulsions, although he does think emigration to Europe should be halted at this point, since they’re not absorbing the ones they’ve got.) His solutions are vague, but that’s not his fault. How exactly do you integrate people into your culture, if you don’t have the will to defend it? That’s really the crux of his book and that’s why it makes for such pessimistic reading.
But he’s mainly describing what the problem is. How can anybody come up with a solution until they can honestly acknowledge that there is a problem -without being hounded as a “racist?”
Comment by Jean —
December 10, 2007 @ 8:42 pm
OK, here’s how we know you guys are racists. It’s when you say stuff like `indigenous Europeans.’ That’s a statement (a ridiculously confused and muddled statement, but still) based solely on race, or else meaningless.
You try your best, but then you slip, and, ooh, whoops, the very thinly veiled racism comes out.
And, uh, Donna, the British have never really had a sense of British identity that encompassed most people in Britain. Most countries haven’t. The modern nationalist conception of the nation-state is very, very recent, and there’s no reason to privilege it especially as a model for success.
Comment by E. O'Neal —
December 10, 2007 @ 9:06 pm
Jean, I used the expression “indigenous Europeans” to avoid giving offense. If I had written “whites” or “Caucasians”, you would have thought I was referring to a race, which I was not. I was referring to the majority (for now) population whose ancestors were French, German, Italian, etc. Similarly, I would refer to people whose ancestors were in North America prior to Columbus as “indigenous Americans”. Perhaps you can explain to me the politically correct terminology I should have used. Or else you could grow up.
Comment by Ben —
December 10, 2007 @ 9:09 pm
The canard about “anti-Islamist” rhetoric being racist in the same way anti-Semitism is racist doesn’t even pass the smell test. While Jews are not a race, they are a distinct ethnic group, and the definition of anti-Semitism is hatred of people of that ethnicity, regardless of their choice of religion or level of devotion. Do you really think jihadists or Nazis care that a particular Jew happens to be a Catholic convert? Muslims come from any number of racial backgrounds, from the black Muslims of Africa to the Caucasian Muslims of Kosovo and Chechnya. As long as they don’t want to kill me, I have no problem with any of them.
And Jean, that comment about “indigenous Europeans” just demonstrates the fallacy of multiculturalism perfectly. Multiculti libs just love “indigenous peoples” of all kinds… except the white European ones. Personally, I like cultural differences and don’t favor seeing any culture extinguished by the invading horde of another. The fact that this particular invading horde has a peculiar affinity for self-detonating on the Tube and knifing film-makers only makes the matter more dire.
Comment by Donna —
December 10, 2007 @ 9:10 pm
Well, uh, Jean, what do you purpose we (or rather, the Euros) do, oh wise one? Simply pretend there isn’t a problem, look the other way when the cars burn and the suburbs of Paris break out in riots? Just pretend that the honor killings and radicalism preached in the mosques isn’t happening? Criticize and hound writers like Steyn, Robert Spencer, Daniel Pipes, and Melanie Phillips for having the bad taste to notice it?
Comment by Avram —
December 10, 2007 @ 9:29 pm
Donna’s brought up one piece of evidence that I think should be weighed on the not-a-racist scale for evaluating Steyn: A real racist would probably not argue in favor of assimilation.
Now, I don’t know if Steyn is actually arguing for greater assimilation. I haven’t read his book, and Donna’s brief description isn’t enough to tell me what Steyn means by the term.
I do see that Steyn complains a lot about “multiculturalism”, but he also complains about the way France treats its Muslim immigrants, which is very anti-multicultural.
Comment by E. O'Neal —
December 10, 2007 @ 9:30 pm
One thing liberals don’t seem to understand is how rare and precious our Western values are. The rule of law, economic, political and religious freedoms, civil debate, these are not practiced in many places. We, who have benefited so much from our heritage, value it much less than the Muslims value their ummah and sharia. They’re willing to die over some imagined insult to their Prophet, but we won’t even defend our most cherished liberties from their intimidation, such as our right to speak candidly about radical Islam.
Consequently, a dysfunctional but confident culture, intellectually and morally stuck in the seventh century, becomes a mortal threat to the most successful civilization in human history, which has lost its moral confidence.
Comment by Jean —
December 10, 2007 @ 10:04 pm
Mr O’Neal, there’s a man on the phone for you. He’s called Hitler. He seems to think he got thrashed by a coalition of Western (and other) societies fighting for their freedoms. Just because the free societies hasn’t had to fight for their values lately doesn’t mean they won’t.
Hell, western liberals are even prepared to volunteer for other people’s wars; the International Brigades, anyone?
As to the indigenous Europeans thing: if you don’t care about race, who cares the genetic origin of people? Secondly, it’s so obviously a ID/Creationism switcheroo it isn’t funny. Uh, we can’t talk about whites? OK, indigenous Europeans!
Your racism is the drawing a distinction, supposedly based on culture, and then using words like `indigenous’. Culture has nothing to do with genetics.
As to what Europe should do? Establish a commonwealth of socialist republics, each no larger than a Swiss canton, loosely federated, with no legislator earning more than the daily wage of a labourer, respecting all the essential and universal rights of humanity, including those with regard to religion. OK, that’s probably not hugely popular with you, but it’s got a damn sight more relevant than rantings about Eurabia.
Comment by Ben —
December 10, 2007 @ 10:18 pm
Avram,
Steyn is very much pro-assimilation. He has gone so far as to say that it does not matter so much what Europe’s racial makeup is, as long as the people who are there believe in liberal democracy and support the basic rights in confers. I am not willing to go as far as Steyn because I no more want to see Europe become significantly populated with Asians than I want to see Southeast Asia become overrun with Europeans or Inuit.
Steyn is dismissive of multiculturalism because it is a farce, a theory directly at odds with assimilationist ideals, which many lefties consider inherently racist. In theory, multiculturalism means that every culture is equally valid. In practice, it means that every culture is equally valid except Western culture, which is uniquely evil, imperialistic, and depraved. Thus, the great show of hand-wringing among the multiculti crowd over “Western cultural hegemony,†but simultaneous outrage that anyone would complain as picturesque villages in northern England are transformed into Little Karachi.
Comment by E. O'Neal —
December 10, 2007 @ 10:30 pm
Jean, you’re right that “culture has nothing to do with genetics”. It’s culture I’m concerned with, not some offensive notion of racial superiority. When I referred to “indigenous Europeans”, what I meant was, forexample, “the French”, as distinguished from the Moroccan and Algerian immigrants living in France. These people have vastly different cultures. “The French” actually are “indigenous Europeans”, as are the other familiar nationalities too numerous to list.
You shouldn’t have accused me of “racism”, but thanks for not calling me a “fascist”.
Comment by Donna —
December 10, 2007 @ 10:33 pm
Avram: This is an excerpt from the UK Spectator’s review of “America Alone”:
Steyn’s specific contention is that the problem is not so much multiculturalism as biculturalism. The danger as he sees it is the inherent tension between an increasingly liberal and hedonistic, yet diffident and uncertain, de-Christianised civilisation and an increasingly religiously zealous and culturally assertive Islamist movement. As Steyn puts it, provocatively contrasting European fears about Iraq’s future with his concerns about Europe’s own stability:
‘You think Kurds and Arabs, Sunni and Shia are incompatible? What do you call a jurisdiction split between post-Christian secular gay potheads and anti-whoring, anti-sodomite, anti-everything-you-dig Islamists? If Kurdistan’s an awkward fit in Iraq, how well does Pornostan fit in the Islamic Republic of Holland?’
Some readers may flinch from the analysis, not because of its bleakness but at what they see as its lack of sophistication, or nuance. But Steyn is very good on the way in which European elites enjoin upon others the need to show understanding towards Islam while themselves betraying very little knowledge of it. There is a great deal of talk from governments about the need to support moderate Muslims without much official effort being extended to ensure that policy makes a proper distinction between those who are genuinely moderate and those who seek to exploit the credulity or ignorance of others.”
Now, please, where is the racism in that? I’ve actually read the book and I think that’s a fair summary. And that’s why I found it so appalling that a supposedly libertarian site (who, presumably, would be much happier modern day secular Amsterdam than in a Sharia version) would rush to scream “racist!” when nobody here seems to actually have read the book.
But, you know, if you want to know what Steyn actually says, you can always just visit his website yourself. He’s a pro-war conservative and I’m sure you’ll probably disagree with most of what he says. You might find his predictions overblown and his conclusions completely offbase. (We’ll all find out in 10 or 15 years, and really, I hope he’s completely wrong. I suspect he’s not, though.)
But simply raising the racist flag because the facts he reports are uncomfortable is highly dishonest.
Comment by JackD —
December 10, 2007 @ 10:36 pm
What Jean is apparently missing is that we are talking about what is happening in Europe. So culture aside, it is therefore entirely appropriate to speak of “indigenous Europeans.” Just as we speak of “indigenous Africans” when discussing what is going on in Africa. Location is key to context.
Comment by Bill —
December 10, 2007 @ 10:38 pm
Just stumbled on to this the other night. Busy reading all the posts.
Apparently if one you use the term “Indigenous Europeans”, you’re a racist. It proves, of course that you have race in mind when you were talking about culture. (Christ)The goal posts are getting to be so wide apart you can fly a stealth bomber through them.
Comment by DB —
December 10, 2007 @ 10:38 pm
Assimilation is really a two-way street, where adaptation by immigrants is matched by changes in the larger culture. Think about Taco Bell, St. Patrick’s day in Savannah, Georgia or the millions of curry restaurants in London. If you don’t have some of this give and take, as the USA has been particularly good at doing, then you have serious problems with immigration, as the French have been having for years. They have an ossified idea of “Frenchness,” and everyone has to adapt in lockstep. The idea of “Frenchness” itself is not open to change or adaptation, as the idea of American has been.
Both sides are wrong. Cultures are not museum pieces. That little village in northern England has likely been successively Breton, Roman, Celtic, Angle, Saxon/Danish, Scottish and English. Locales and cultures are always in flux. It may become Pakistani next, or it may not – but one thing is certain, it won’t be the Shire forever.
Comment by Jean —
December 10, 2007 @ 10:39 pm
But, Mr O’Neal, why should I care if they’re immigrants, if they’ve integrated?
Zinedine Zidane is French.
Comment by Donna —
December 10, 2007 @ 10:41 pm
As to what Europe should do? Establish a commonwealth of socialist republics, each no larger than a Swiss canton, loosely federated, with no legislator earning more than the daily wage of a labourer, respecting all the essential and universal rights of humanity, including those with regard to religion. OK, that’s probably not hugely popular with you, but it’s got a damn sight more relevant than rantings about Eurabia.
Why wouldn’t it be popular with me? It doesn’t matter to me one way or another. (Although the Europeans, no matter how they divide themselves up are going to have a real hard time maintaining “socialist republics” in the future. Sorry to bring it up, but again, it’s the demographics.) The question is, is it popular with the Europeans? Is this being considered as a possibility? If so, direct me to some article about this, because I’d be interested in reading up on it.
Comment by DB —
December 10, 2007 @ 10:46 pm
I could be considered an indigenous European, and my family hasn’t lived in Europe for 300 years. That makes the term pretty damned meaningless, except to describe a certain pool of common genetic traits. But that would begin to sound eerily like race…
Comment by Ben —
December 10, 2007 @ 10:50 pm
But you’re missing the point, DB. The things you described in your first paragraph are inherently assimilationist — a blending of cultures, with the new arrivals finding a way to fit into the fabric of the existing larger culture. In multiculturalism, Taco Bell is an exploitative take-off on true Mexican culture. And rather than immigrants learning and being expected to adopt the “big picture” values of their new home, the immigrants are told they don’t have to change at all, and the larger culture is expected to adopt to them. Thus, you end up with no common culture at all.
Regarding the Shire, I find it a bit of a stretch to say that, well, since Britain has passed from one group of Europeans to another over the centuries, and although it has been in the same hands now for well over a millennium, it is no big deal for an ethnic group from the other side of the planet to take over in the course of a couple of generations. Kind of reminds me of genetically modified food — We’ve been breeding hybrid corn for years, so what’s the big deal with adding fish genes?
Comment by Bill —
December 10, 2007 @ 10:52 pm
Right. But does describing a certain pool of genetic traits determine one’s moral stature in a discussion? Hell first generation European children of immigrants are indigenous.
Comment by E. O'Neal —
December 10, 2007 @ 11:00 pm
Jean, I think immigration is good for a society, if the immigrants come from a variety of cultures (not predominately from one rival culture) and if the numbers are small enough to permit assimilation (rather than the establishment of separate enclaves with their own incompatible practices, e.g. honor killings, female genital mutilation). Unlike Americans, Europeans have been notoriously poor at assimilation, and often haven’t even tried.
Someone said,”Immigration, democracy, multiculturalism — you can pick any two, but you can’t have all three”.
Comment by DB —
December 10, 2007 @ 11:00 pm
That’s exactly what I’m saying. It’s no problem. You have an artificial, modern idea of Europe. 1,000 years ago, there was no europe – not in concept, peoples, geography – any sense whatsoever. You can’t impose these standards retroactively – say that because the Danes are a part of Europe now, it would have been culturally okay for them to be in northern England a thousand years ago. If you want to take that perspective, we can simply jump ahead a little and say that it’s okay for Pakistani’s to blend their culture into England, because they’re both earthlings, but the Martians are right out.
Not to mention that there was a lot more of a difference between the Bretons and the Romans in the ancient world that there is between a modern Pakistani and a modern Brit.
That’s how you KNOW you’ve assimilated a part of the culture.
I have no problem with that.
Comment by DB —
December 10, 2007 @ 11:02 pm
Very much the point I was trying to make, thanks.
Comment by A.W. —
December 10, 2007 @ 11:03 pm
> “But Krekar can’t have meant, when he compared Muslim birth rates to ‘mosquitoes,’ to liken his fellow Muslims to vermin…. Had Steyn said what Krekar said, as I incorrectly implied that he did, it would be a fair inference.”
So, back when you thought Mark Steyn said it, it was evil racism and so on, but given that a Muslim it was not. Hmm. Isn’t that basically reduced to judging a man by his faith, rather than his actual words and thought. So doesn’t that make YOU the bigot?
Now, for all this demographics nonsense, here is the truth of the matter. Many years ago, Christianity was not a very good religion. It was oppressive and intolerant. There were pockets where peaceful Christianity, the true Christianity in my opinion, was practiced. But for the most part it was not a very good religion.
Today, frankly, you can almost say the same thing about Islam. In a very real way, Islam is today what Christianity was about 500 years ago. And what, pray tell, did Christianity 500 years ago, and Islam today have in common? In both cases the vast majority of its adherents lived in tyrannies. Thus the faith was distorted in order to justify tyranny, in order to avoid being stomped out as a threat to the state.
In America, however, we have created a pocket where Muslims are able to live in freedom, and practice their faith without the hydrolic pressure of a radicalizing state. Indeed, America, despite all this multi-culti silliness, does a very good job of applying pressure to become kinder and less warlike. By comparison, in Europe nothing is being done to control encourage the muslim populations to assimilate.
So, what really needs to happen in Europe is a program of true assimilation, that would include an acceptance of people of other colors as full citizens of their many nations.
For Steyn, he is not afraid of Muslims, just the unassimilated kind. And I’m with him on that.
Comment by Bill —
December 10, 2007 @ 11:08 pm
*sigh* Sorry, I shouldnt have skimmed. Thats how this shit started in the first place.
Comment by E. O'Neal —
December 10, 2007 @ 11:08 pm
DB, don’t you acknowledge that there is something rare and wonderful in British culture and history that is not found in Pakistan despite their exposure to British culture? This debate we’re having, for instance, comes from the tradition of the Enlightenment. No one here is invoking religion or state power to have their way.
Comment by Avram —
December 10, 2007 @ 11:15 pm
Donna, I have visited Steyn’s website; I found it hard to navigate.
If you scroll upwards and read my earlier comments, you’ll see that I based my opinion of Steyn on his actual writing — I linked to a pair of editorials he wrote. You’re asking me to find racism in three paragraphs you’ve picked out of someone else’s review of Steyn’s book, which quotes only one paragraph of Steyn’s. How does that make sense?
As far as Steyn’s predictions go, I was hearing the same thingin college from one of my conservative Christian dorm-mates more than twenty years ago.
Comment by DB —
December 10, 2007 @ 11:18 pm
Of course, but you can’t freeze it in crystal. All cultures will change and shift. You can’t say that because you like kidney pie, England should go into a time capsule for tourists. Cultures are ever evolving. It’s not that we don’t want them to sometimes stay the way they are… it’s that the won’t, and it’s not in some way “wrong” when they change.
Comment by Harry P. Ness —
December 10, 2007 @ 11:22 pm
Good work Jean, you included “Hitler” and “racist” in the same post when arguing with Mr. O’neal. So why would a new visitor not assume that this was a leftist den, rather than a blog of Libertarians? Try to use facts and logic when posting, if you can.
Read “America Alone” and argue from an informed opinion rather than from “feelings”.
Comment by Ben —
December 10, 2007 @ 11:23 pm
As far as Steyn’s predictions go, I was hearing the same thingin college from one of my conservative Christian dorm-mates more than twenty years ago.
And they were still correct twenty years ago. We were also being warned of the growing national debt twenty years ago (and thirty, for that matter). Since the country isn’t bankrupt yet, does that mean there was never a problem to begin with?
Comment by Jesse Cole —
December 10, 2007 @ 11:27 pm
I must say that this controversy has provoked some of the most indecipherable
BS I’ve ever read, short of Al Gore’s inane musings.
Mr. Henley, I see now why it took you so long to respond. Literally, your post above is so complex as to be incoherent. Bottom line is,in attributing Steyn’s analysis to racism, you still fail to substantiate any of you claims. Reasoned opinion and debate is not racism. And once again, you hide behind other’s opinions. If I were Joyner, or Mcdonald, I’m not sure I would be comfortable with you using my name and arguments to shield your indefensible position.
Got a recommendation for you , son. First rule when you find yourself in a hole is to quit digging.
Comment by Making Sense Of It All —
December 10, 2007 @ 11:30 pm
Donna:
I work in a bank in a major city that’s just down the street from a Muslim community center and a coffee shop frequented by Muslims. I deal with Arabic Muslim clients and co-workers quite frequently. I haven’t been attacked by any of them, so please forgive me if my personal experience has given me a different impression due to relationships with those particular individuals.
I am quite aware of the problems in Europe, and the riots in Paris, they were quite widely reported, so I’m aware of those, too, thank you. The welfare state is a hell of a thing, to pay lots of young men to be idle, directionless and thus lacking all self-esteem. If the Europeans finally woke up to the absurdity of state socialism, it would be a miracle (it would also be a miracle here in the US, though we’re not nearly as socialist as the Euros, but we’re getting there).
I think one has to wonder why Muslims here in the US haven’t rioted or presented much problems compared to Europe. It may be as much due to the social policy of the host country as any cultural influence among Muslim immigrants. Indeed, to a great degree the former may influence the latter.
I never implied anywhere that Steyn advocated rounding up Muslims into concentration camps (that’s Michelle Malkin’s arena). I honestly did not know WHAT he suggested, that’s why I asked. But knowing that he does offer some version of a constructive alternative is good to know, I’ll be sure to check it out, particularly his own defintion of “assimilation,” so thank you. I’d be quite skeptical if it involved any kind of government action, but I’ll be sure to see what he says.
Comment by BfC —
December 10, 2007 @ 11:37 pm
Cool–libertarianism on a libertarian website…
The welfare state is a hell of a thing, to pay lots of young men to be idle, directionless and thus lacking all self-esteem. If the Europeans finally woke up to the absurdity of state socialism, it would be a miracle (it would also be a miracle here in the US, though we’re not nearly as socialist as the Euros, but we’re getting there).
Thank you “Making Sense Of It All”!
-Bill
Comment by Harry P. Ness —
December 10, 2007 @ 11:40 pm
Good heart-warming story of a muslim…
A 16-year-old girl is in critical condition after being choked by a man believed to be her father, apparently after a dispute with her family over her refusal to wear the hijab, the Islamic headscarf worn by some Muslim women.
Peel Regional Police arrested a 57-year-old man yesterday morning after receiving a 911 call from a suburban home in Mississauga from a man saying he had killed his daughter. When police and paramedics arrived at the house they found a 16-year-old lying on the floor without any vital signs, police said.
Constable J.P. Valade, a spokesman for Peel police, would not release the names of either the victim or the man arrested and would not give any details about what transpired inside the large, two-storey home in a well-to-do subdivision. “We are not getting into the details of her injuries at this time,†he said. “We aren’t getting into any details about this case. This investigation is really in its infancy: officers are still canvassing the neighbourhood and talking to family members.â€
However, early police reports indicated the teenager had been choked and that the attacker was her father. The girl was rushed to Credit Valley Hospital and later transferred to the Hospital for Sick Children, where she was listed in critical condition last night with life-threatening injuries.
Her condition is so grave that police have not yet charged the man arrested at the scene until they know whether he will be charged with murder or attempted murder. He was scheduled to appear in Brampton court on Tuesday.
Friends of the teenager, a Grade 11 student at nearby Applewood Heights high school, identified her as Aqsa Parvez and said they were shocked by the attack on the outgoing, likeable girl, but said she had been threatened by her strictly religious family before.
“She got threatened by her father and her brother,†said Dominiquia Holmes-Thompson, who had known Aqsa since they both started high school together. “He said that if she leaves, he would kill her.â€
Ebonie Mitchell, 16, another friend of the victim, said the conflict with her father over wearing Islamic dress came to a head at the beginning of this school year. “She just wanted to dress like we do,†she said.
“Last year she wore like the Islamic stuff and everything, the hijab, and this year she’s all Western. She just wanted to look like everyone else. And I guess her dad had a problem with that.â€
Ebonie said her friend had left home once before, in September, for about two weeks. She returned home, but the fights with her family over what she wore just got worse.
Dominiquia, 16, said her friend had been arguing with her father for more than a year over the restrictions he imposed on her, including demanding that she wear the hijab at all times. “She wanted to go out with her friends, hang out and just be like a normal person,†she said. “But he was always trying to control her … he wouldn’t let her go out or do anything.â€
The stricken girl’s friends said the fights with her father got so bad that she had left the family home to live with friends about a week ago. “She was going back, but just to get her stuff,†said friend Krista Garbutt. “She was scared to go home, but she had to get her clothes and stuff.â€
Neighbours said as many as 11 people lived in the home, which was sealed off by crime scene tape and surrounded by police cars yesterday, all members of an extended Pakistani family. Const. Valade confirmed that there were other people in the home when the teenager was attacked.
Comment by Making Sense Of It All —
December 10, 2007 @ 11:57 pm
Harry, P. Ness, here’s a good heart-warming story of a white American male…
http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/news-article.aspx?storyid=78371
A drunk off-duty cop who beat the crap out of a petite bar maid about a third his size because she wouldn’t serve him another drink.
Tell me, Harry, what kind of inferences can be made about white American males from this story? Why won’t they assimilate into the culture? Why won’t they obey the laws of the land like everyone else here? That’s the thing about white American men, they just think they’re “entitled” to something, so they just commit violence if someone won’t just hand it to them, huh?
Comment by Donna —
December 11, 2007 @ 12:03 am
Avram: I cut and pasted the review because I thought it offered a pretty good summation of what Steyn was saying, rather than what people keep insisting he said. As to his predictions, well, like I said, we’ll all find out if they’re true – or coming true – soon enough.
And Jean: The more I think about it, the stranger your “solution” seems. I read the London Times almost daily, and I have never once seen anybody suggest that, once the UK breaks up (as it will probably do soon), England and Scotland should further carve themselves up into little independent cantons. And I doubt very much that the French want to cut up France. It would seem more natural for Germany and Italy, since unification came late to those countries. But Sweden? Poland, which has already been sliced up so many times?
Is this something people in power are actually debating and considering? Or is it something that Jean, sitting in her living room, thinks is a good idea? If so, what makes your scenario more credible than Steyn’s?
Harry P.Ness: Some of the posters appear to be plain leftists and some are left/libertarians. Since Jean thinks it would be ideal if Europe was to become a commonwealth of very small socialist republics (unlike the somewhat larger socialist countries they have over there now), I think we know where she stands.
Comment by Simon —
December 11, 2007 @ 12:18 am
If I had made the mistake you made I would have crawled under the bed and not shown my face for a week. The fact that you are still writing indicates that you are either (1) a better man than me; or (2) shameless. I suspect the latter.
Comment by E. O'Neal —
December 11, 2007 @ 12:21 am
Making Sense Of It All, your point is valid: There are brutal thugs in all societies. What is especially worrisome about the Muslim incidents, though, is that they are not considered aberrant but rather normative within their own societies. Multi-culturalism justifies their bringing their harsh Sharia principles into our modern societies, but then the two cannot co-exist. Even if we accept their mores, they will never accept ours.
This does not apply to Muslims who are willing to abide by our laws and respect our culture. Most Muslims in the U.S. are good people who deserve to be here. I’m talking about the phenomenon in Europe of transplanting a village or extended family into a large Muslim enclave and then behaving as if they were still in the home country.
Comment by Jean —
December 11, 2007 @ 12:39 am
The cantons idea comes from a novel of Alasdair Gray’s, Lanark. It is completely utopian, to be honest.
But really, I think that acting in a way consistent with the rights and dignities of humanity, especially those concerning religion and race, would be the best course forward. Ensuring that all members of society are able to play a productive role in society, and eliminating discrimination would be a pretty good start.
By the way? Talking about indigenous French people is stupid, given that France is the exemplar of civic nationalism. You’re French if you agree with the French project, basically. France doesn’t go in for `blood and soil’ nationalism.
Comment by Feynman & Coulter's Love Child —
December 11, 2007 @ 12:44 am
In the Ontario provincial election, that’s not necessarily going to be a given…
Comment by E. O'Neal —
December 11, 2007 @ 12:51 am
Jean, that was the idea anyway. The Algerians were considered just as much Frenchmen as were Pierre and Jacques, but, alors, the Algerians didn’t see it quite that way. After some unpleasantness, the Algerians prevailed. So, I would call Pierre and Jacques “indigenous French” but not the immigrants from their former colonies. You’re correct that France doesn’t formally recognize the distinction, though every Frenchman does.
Comment by Jean —
December 11, 2007 @ 12:57 am
By the way, my conception of socialist should be read in a way compatible with libertarianism, inasmuch as that’s possible. Basically, a MacLeodist view point. I do think that a network of cantons across Europe, united in a loosely confederated European Union, would provide the best solution to Europe’s problems, if we were starting from scratch. It’s highly unlikely from here, but so’s Steyn’s witterings, and at least the canton future has a certain romance to it.
To expand on the `indigenous french’ point — how do you deal with the DOM?
Comment by Donna —
December 11, 2007 @ 12:58 am
But really, I think that acting in a way consistent with the rights and dignities of humanity, especially those concerning religion and race, would be the best course forward.
I agree wholeheartedly. But what about someone who believes that it is well within his rights to kill his own daughter for not wearing a headscarf (or for talking to a strange man, or converting to Christianity). In fact, he feels that if he doesn’t kill her he loses his dignity as a man.
And no, not all Muslims believe that – but enough do to make honor killing stories more and more common. Like I said, I read the London Times regularly. It seems like a story like this happens every 2 or 3 weeks or so.
Different cultures have different ideas of what “rights” and “dignities” mean. Their ideas might not mesh with secular Western ideas. And in that case, we need to say “You are living here – you must live by our laws and our notions of ‘rights’ and ‘dignities’ now, not yours.” (Being a conservative, I’d also add ‘responsibilities.’)
But saying that might hurt feelings. Saying that might look “racist.”
Comment by Jean —
December 11, 2007 @ 1:01 am
Really? Every Frenchman distinguishes between Zidane and real French people?
Theirry Henry and Patrick Viera aren’t seen as `really’ French?
Comment by Jean —
December 11, 2007 @ 1:06 am
Donna: you wait till someone has broken the law, and then you apply due process. It isn’t that hard.
Comment by E. O'Neal —
December 11, 2007 @ 1:25 am
I didn’t say “real” French, I said “indigenous” French. Zidane is from Algeria, but after being the hero of the 1998 World Cup, tout le monde considered him “real French” or “vraiment Francais”. However, after the head butting incident, he’s probably back to being an Algerian, ou un noir. Pardon my French.
Comment by Avram —
December 11, 2007 @ 1:34 am
Wait, Donna, are you saying that the UK is refraining from prosecuting “honor killings”, and doing so out of some fear of appearing racist?
Comment by Jean —
December 11, 2007 @ 1:43 am
Basically, I think your idea is useless because (a) if you care about culture, indigenousness is a red herring, and (b) it’s hopelessly confused. People in Europe tend not to think in those terms, unless they’re racists.
Seriously, is someone from the Alpes-Maritimes indigenously French? Someone from Haute-Savoie or Savoie?
Comment by Donna —
December 11, 2007 @ 6:57 am
Well, it is against the law and sometimes it is prosecuted. Often people are afraid to report it. The extremists don’t appear to be very impressed. From the UK Telegragh, about the girl who is being threatened with death for apostasy:
Religious persecution of the kind Sofia suffers, however, is increasingly common in Britain today. It is hard to get an accurate notion of the scale of the problem, not least because very few of the people who leave Islam are willing to complain to the police about the way they are treated.
“Intimidation is very widespread and pretty effective,” says Maryam Namazie, a spokesperson for the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain. She believes that many of the deaths classified as “honour killings” are actually murders of people who have renounced Islam.
“I get threatened all the time: emails, letters, phone calls,” she says. “When I returned home this afternoon, for example, there was a death threat waiting for me on my answering machine…” She laughs nervously.
“A lot of them aren’t serious, but occasionally they are. I went to the police about one set of threats. They took a statement from me but that was it – they never contacted me again.”
“Last week, it was reported that the daughter of a British imam was living under police protection, after receiving death threats from her family for having left Islam.
Inayat Bunglawala, also a spokesman for the MCB, insists that such behaviour in Britain is “awful and quite wrong. The police should crack down on it.”
And yet a significant portion of British Muslims think that such behaviour is not merely right, but a religious obligation: a survey by the think-tank Policy Exchange, for instance, revealed that 36 per cent of young Muslims believe that those who leave Islam should be killed.
There is considerable support, from the Koran and other sacred Islamic texts, for that position – which may explain why, out of the 57 Islamic states in the world today, seven have a legal code that punishes Muslims who leave the religion with death.
That number may soon increase: Pakistan is currently considering a Bill that would make apostasy a capital crime for men and one carrying a sentence of imprisonment for women.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/12/09/nmuslim109.xml&page=1
No, no problem here, folks.
Comment by Donna —
December 11, 2007 @ 7:08 am
least the canton future has a certain romance to it.
Ah, so it does. A vision from a novel is really much prettier and more romantic than the depressing facts Steyn and Michelle Phillips and “Jihadi Watch” have to offer, so let’s not think about about it. The World As It Is is yucky, let’s forget about it, paste a bunch of “Coexist” bumper stickers on our car and imagine the World As I Want It To Be.
Comment by Donna —
December 11, 2007 @ 7:20 am
Here’s another good source: Dhimmi Watch http://jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/
Really, it’s not tough to find plenty of evidence out there that backs Steyn up. The misty-eyed among us may not want to acknowledge it, but reality has a way of asserting itself, whether we like it or not.
Comment by Donald Johnson —
December 11, 2007 @ 9:41 am
Agreed, Donna. I’d like to think all Muslims have liberalized and all Americans oppose torture and all Palestinians oppose suicide bombing and all Israelis oppose apartheid and that everyone claiming to be concerned about the crimes of the Xists are motivated by genuine concern for human rights and not their own brand of tribalism. But it isn’t so.
That’s Melanie Phillips, btw, not Michelle. I read a couple of chapters in “Londonistan”, the ones dealing with the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Pure crap. She’s a tribalist. Undoubtedly there are problems with Muslim extremists in Britain, but I wouldn’t trust her account, any more than I would trust an account of the I/P conflict written by a Hamas member.
The misty-eyed among us can choose to be unaware of that.
Comment by CJ —
December 11, 2007 @ 10:55 am
I appreciate that following Mr. Henley’s initial burst of “bigot†and “racist,†he fashioned a slightly more nuanced, accurate reaction to America Alone. But it remains a quaint longing for idealistic world that doesn’t exist anymore, if it ever did.
In the real world, beyond a few exceptions, the only people speaking openly of Muslim integration and assimilation are “white†Westerners. And even then, it’s only in conversations with other white Westerners on the topic of rapidly changing demographics. Expressing to immigrants themselves an expectation of assimilation is just not something an enlightened Westerner does anymore.
It’s 2007. The only demographic group admonished for noticing the death of its culture – let alone doing anything about it – is the white Westerner.
Comment by Donna —
December 11, 2007 @ 11:29 am
Yesterday, Thoreau questioned the data cited in the news stories conservatives were providing links for. He’s leery of stats if he can’t look at the methodology of the study the stats came from.
Well, fine. Since many of the British stories are using this study as a source, here’s a link to the Policy Exchange, the think-tank that produced it:
http://www.policyexchange.org.uk/
The study of British Muslims is downloadable, so if anyone wants to check it out, they can. (The Policy Exchange describes itself as Centre-Right, so I imagine that will immediately and automatically discredit it in the eyes of some here, although “right” in the UK is a bit different than the right in the US.)
Thoreau stated that we were basically relying on a story we read here and an ancedote we heard there (you know, a Bali bombing here, a honor killing there.) But I’ve noticed that it’s the conservatives who have actually provided the links in these Steyn threads. The only link from the other side of this debate I’ve seen in this particular thread was one illustrating that white men can be nasty too. That goes without saying, but that hardly proves that Muslim radicalism and lack of assimiliation in Europe is nothing to worry about.
Instead of any actual proof or data or links refuting Steyn, we have people saying their Muslim co-workers are swell and the guys at the coffee shop are the salt of the earth. Wonderful. My Somali friend is terrific (although you really wouldn’t want to hear what her opinion of Islam is; it’s on a par with what Richard Dawkins thinks of Creationism. But of course, she’s just one person, albeit one person with more personal experience of the darker side of Islam than any of us have.)
Saying “my Muslim buddies are terrific, so Steyn must be wrong” is doing exactly what Thoreau accuses the right of doing -relying on hearsay and personal experience.
BTW, if you think Steyn’s comments are objectionable, check out the paleo-cons at VDARE. You’ll pass out at your desk. They’re in complete agreement with you about the war and the evilness of the Bush adminstration though, so you might feel more at home there than I do.
Comment by Donald Johnson —
December 11, 2007 @ 12:02 pm
Some of us have read articles in the New York Times, the New York Review of Books, and various other places about Muslims in Europe. Nobody has said that we think Muslim radicalism is nothing to worry about. Some of us live in or near NYC and remember 9/11 rather vividly. We just don’t trust the Mark Steyn/Melanie Phillips/Robert Spencer types. I’ve given my reason for not trusting Melanie Phillips. When she discusses something I do know a little about, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, her version of the story is absurdly one-sided. From her perspective Muslims have no legitimate grievances about Israel. I don’t trust bigots to warn me about other bigots. The problem here is precisely the fact that white European people can be nasty too.
Comment by Making Sense Of It All —
December 11, 2007 @ 12:06 pm
Hooray for the purity of Western culture and values!
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/Story?id=3977702&page=1
With Westerners like these spreading Western culture abroad, who needs Islamic immigrants coming to America to sully and muddy it at home?
Comment by Donna —
December 11, 2007 @ 1:23 pm
Making Sense of It All: Again, all you can offer is the “well, white guys can be bad too” argument.
Honestly, do you really think rape is a “Western value” that is condoned by our society? 36% of British Muslims think honor killing is acceptable. Would 36% of Americans agree that that woman should have been raped?
The notion that we cannot make value judgements about any other society because our own isn’t perfect is precisely what Steyn thinks might doom the West.
Comment by Carol —
December 11, 2007 @ 1:26 pm
This is a pathetic attempt to save face. You are indeed a stupid douchebag.
Comment by Donna —
December 11, 2007 @ 1:27 pm
And if the government shamefully covered up the rape, we have a free press to report on it. And a free press is a Western value.
Some Muslims don’t like that particular value. That’s why Maclean’s is getting sued.
Comment by Making Sense Of It All —
December 11, 2007 @ 1:28 pm
E. O’Neal: BTW, based on the story I just linked in the above post, in addition to the story of the white American guy beating the barmaid that I linked previously, I’m getting an inkling here that incidents of violence among us Americans “are not considered aberrant but rather normative within [our] own societ[y].” What do you think?
Comment by Donna —
December 11, 2007 @ 1:44 pm
I’m getting an inkling here that incidents of violence among us Americans “are not considered aberrant but rather normative within [our] own societ[y].†What do you think?
Really? Who’s praising it? Who thinks it’s wonderful when a woman gets beaten by a cop or a women gets gang raped? Are there scores of religious leaders out there telling people it’s OK to run around beating and raping women, like there are scores of radical imans in Britain praising suicide bombers and threatening apostolates with death?
Really, if you want to wallow in self-hatred and loathing of your own culture, fine by me. But don’t expect the rest of us to join you.
Comment by jez b —
December 11, 2007 @ 1:55 pm
You pwned yourself! A remarkable feat, Sir, that should, if there is justice in this world, make teh Internets history xd.
Comment by Donald Johnson —
December 11, 2007 @ 2:18 pm
“Are there scores of religious leaders out there telling people it’s OK to run around beating and raping women, like there are scores of radical imans in Britain praising suicide bombers and threatening apostolates with death?”
Not those particular crimes, no, but you have to make allowances for style. There are plenty of religious leaders in the US who say it’s okay to oppress Palestinians, for instance, and plenty who used to defend various “freedom fighters” who did all sorts of unpleasant things. Really, it’s almost like Orwell was right–ideologues only notice certain convenient categories of atrocities.
Comment by Making Sense Of It All —
December 11, 2007 @ 2:26 pm
“Honestly, do you really think rape is a ‘Western value’ that is condoned by our society?”
Well that’s exactly my point, Donna.
“36% of British Muslims think honor killing is acceptable. Would 36% of Americans agree that that woman should have been raped?”
Let’s go back and look at the polls in the first days of the US invasion of Iraq, perhaps we can gauge the prevalent attitude in this country regarding initiating violence against foreigners who haven’t attacked us. This may inform us of our own values, which in this day and age of accepted lying by so-called “leaders” in the name of “national security” leaves much to be desired.
I never said that you can’t make value judgements of foreign cultures. Your point has been that there is a massive influx of Islamic immigrants who, if we’re not careful, will contaminate our Western culture. They must “assimilate,” lest they sully our Western society by somehow imposing their values on our superior values. Is that not your point?
My point is, that neither am I prohibited from making normative value judgments of my own culture in which I was raised and am steeped. Look at what our hallowed “Western culture” has devolved into–and it started long before Arab Muslims arrived en masse. Perptuating dishonesty to rationalize warmongering against foreigners is no improvement to culture, is it? Oh, but I doubt your Mr. Steyn in all his concern and hand-wringing over the preservation of the integrity of Western culture has written too much on that, has he?
“And a free press is a Western value.” So a free press is lacking in the Muslim world? I presume you’re talking about those Arab governments allied with our own who exert state controls over their news media? (Our press isn’t as free as you presume, but thats’ a whole other discussion.)
Y’know, Donna, as with every wave of immigration down through the years, we’re all going to just have to take this on an individual-by-indiviudal, community-by-community basis, but whether you like it or not, as a result of the free choices of others in pursuit of their own values, that just might mean that you’ll have to see some Arabs walking down the street, as I see in the city I live in. Yes they may be sporting a mode of dress you find unusual or distinctly “un-Western.” You’re not required to like it, and they’re not required to have your permission. You and Muslims are both perfectly free to ignore each other if you like.
Individuals just don’t suddenly adopt values overnight that have been foreign to them their whole lives prior to their arrival. They have to voluntarily see that a value is one that is in their own best interest before they freely choose it – you can’t make people just choose your values. Foreigners can’t just “assimilate” when you snap your fingers.
Funny, many of the women I see wear the full head-to-toe burqua, but the kids in their tow are wearing blue jeans. Assimilate, dammit! Assimilate!
And please knock off the boo-hooing “Oh, they’re call us RACIST!” When you or a Mark Steyn pick out examples of Muslim intolerance out of a billion or more Muslims in the entire world. Every single post you wrote about Muslims implies a herd acting with a single mind. Racist is as racist writes.
Comment by The Sanity Inspector —
December 11, 2007 @ 2:29 pm
If Steyn being Steyn prevents you from giving him a fair hearing, then try this: Read Bruce Bawer’s While Europe Slept. It covers much the same ground as Steyn’s book, but is better written (not just a string of zingers) and has much more first-hand reportage (Bawer speaks many northern European languages, and lives & works in Scandinavia). Here is a fair-use excerpt:
Comment by Eric the .5b —
December 11, 2007 @ 2:46 pm
(You’re just now objecting to this terminology after folks have been using it for years, and for some time here?)
Communism is a red herring in this day and age.
Dignifying Team Red with the term “Republican Party” is farcical. Calling Reds (members of the party and officials aligned with it) or Red fanboys/girls (people who support and vote for Reds without actually being a part of the organization) “Republicans” or “conservatives” is an abuse of words that aren’t slang references to obsolete political parties.
“Redstater” and “Bluestater” are not very useful in this context, for the obvious reason that I’m not referring to anyone’s state of residence – and further, because much of the Red State/Blue State thing is propaganda to promote social party identification on the part of people associated with both Teams.
Comment by E. O'Neal —
December 11, 2007 @ 2:51 pm
I realize it’s impossible for the multi-culturists to be concerned about threats to our most cherished cultural values, because they hate our culture. It’s not respect for other cultures that motivates them; their only interest in other cultures is to cast guilt and shame on our own. When ours eventually becomes like the others — oppressive, intolerant, impoverished, and ignorant — presumably they’ll feel a great sense of accomplishment.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
December 11, 2007 @ 2:54 pm
Maybe not go into a paranoid tizzy when it’s young, smelly, brown guys instead of young, smelly, white guys getting pissed off and rioting in Paris?
Now, I won’t deny that there are problems caused by and coming out of the segregation and deliberate ghetto-ization of Muslims in Europe, but the OMG, the Coming Global Caliphate! business is absurdly overwrought.
It’s also pretty damn irrelevant on this continent, unless one harbors fantasies about medieval-minded, fanatical Muslims taking over Europe and (instead of turning the place into a new branch of the third world) forming a superpower capable of threatening the US.
Comment by Making Sense Of It All —
December 11, 2007 @ 2:55 pm
Hey, Donna, here’s another British honor killing story for your arsenal:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/3150142.stm
In 2003, Abdalla Yones murdered his 16-year-old daughter after she became involved with a Christian man. Here’s an interesting fact:
Hmmm…What happened in Iraq about a decade before? Let’s see, let’s see…There was something…Some massive bombing by SOMEONE from SOME Western nation unleashed on that country…Man, can’t think of who that was. Well, whoever did it, wonder if that whole war thing skewed Mr. Yones’ perceptions of Western values? Or if all those Western bombs and missiles impressed upon him that his own Islamic values were under threat? Naaahhhh…Completely unrelated.
BTW Donna, you should be happy to know that he was convicted in British court, so it looks like Sharia hasn’t been institutionalized in the Mother Country just yet.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
December 11, 2007 @ 3:00 pm
I realize it’s very hard for dead-ender Red fanboys to recognize that the vast majority of Americans who think differently from them are rarely far-left, mostly not even leftist, and sometimes right-wing. I further realize pride and group identity are disincentives for admitting that realization even when it strikes.
Good luck with that, man.
Comment by Making Sense Of It All —
December 11, 2007 @ 3:42 pm
Here’s another news flash for Donna:
“64% of British muslims DON’T approve of honor killings.”
Statistics can be presented to support any case you like, can’t they? Oh, but I wouldn’t call anyone here a “racist”! That’s just rude and impolite.
Comment by Professor Blather —
December 11, 2007 @ 3:44 pm
I check back to see that you’ve updated with a vastly superior post and for that I congratulate and commend you.
However, you sadly still seem to be missing entirely two key points.
First, you seem blissfully unaware of how sophomoric and ineffective your initial ad hominem attack truly was. It’s unfortunate in a way, because its clear from this most recent post that you and Steyn could have had an interesting, productive debate.
Instead, you behaved like a vulgar adolescent – which your particular ideology seems to resort to with tiresome predictability. I’ve long thought both liberalism and libertarianism are founded in immaturity, and you’ve provided further evidence.
But let’s set aside “douchebag,” since its frankly embarrassing to you, and adds nothing to the debate.
Instead, let’s focus on “racist.” What you and your ilk seem never to realize is that barring actual conclusive evidence, tossing out the “racist” label is never effective or useful. In fact, even when you DO have evidence, its universally a sign of intellectual laziness. Here, it was unnecessary, and distracted entirely from the issues.
You and Steyn could have had an interesting debate. Instead, you chose the most trite and popular avenue of intellectual laziness. The issues are lost now. It’s become a schoolyard bicker over labels. “You’re racist!” “No, you are!”
Entirely stupid and, although you seem not to know it, far more embarrassing than your original lie.
Which leads to the second thing you miss – your destroyed credibility.
I actually enjoyed this post. There’s some interesting stuff to discuss here.
But even as I read it, I have to remind myself that you willfully, intentionally lied, libeled another pundit with gross inaccuracy, in order to confirm your pre-existing conclusion.
You can claim it was an error, of course – but how can we trust you? You have no remaining credibility. It certainly appears you did it on purpose; to believe otherwise, I have to assume an obviously intelligent person doesn’t understand how quotation marks work.
So you lied. You libeled. You used false information because it fit your world view. Even setting aside the childish “douchebag” and the lazy, sophomoric “racist,” there’s still the fact that you are clearly perfectly willing to resort to intentional, abject dishonesty to make your point.
And, of course, you know exactly where that leads, right? Sure you do.
It leaves your reader unable to trust anything you write. I can read your opinions, of course. Those interest me.
But every time you state a fact, or cite a source, or offer a link – your credibility is called into play.
Did you offer an accurate quote? Did the quote really come from where you said it did? Does that link go where you claim – and if I follow it, will I find you accurately utilized that source?
You get the point. Your credibility is gone, and few are going to be willing to check your every source and quote and footnote.
I actually feel sorry for you. A decade from now, when you write a piece, someone is going to point to this … and question your credibility.
That may be unfair. But then, you weren’t fair, either, were you?
Comment by Donna —
December 11, 2007 @ 4:03 pm
“64% of British muslims DON’T approve of honor killings.â€
Great. I know badly you want to believe that I hate all Muslims, but I don’t. On the other hand, 36% percent is a sizable minority. That’s a hell of a lot of people.
Put another way, if the unemployment rate was 25%, would you be saying, “Well, it’s wonderful that 75% percent of us have jobs?”
My,I just noticed that James Taranto at “The Best of the Web” is having his turn with Jim’s post today, so I’m sure you’ll get even more new friends now.
Keep your fingers crossed and you might even get a Instalanche. Glenn Reynolds is a libertarian – but not quite UO’s kind of libertarian.
Comment by Donna —
December 11, 2007 @ 4:14 pm
OK, “Best of the Web” just updated, so the post about UO is now yesterday’s news. And it’s the bottom post (appropriately), so maybe a lot of people missed it. I’d sure hope so if I were Henley.
Comment by Avram —
December 11, 2007 @ 4:20 pm
Donna, you have an annoying habit of replying to questions without actually answering them, by just shifting the topic a bit. I asked you whether the UK government is refraining to prosecute “honor killings”, and if so, whether they’re doing so out of fear of appearing racist, which is what you had seemed to be implying.
You responded with a sort of half-assed admission that the killings are being prosecuted, combined with an implication that they’re not being prosecuted as vigorously as they could be, and then you shifted the subject.
Look, nobody here approves of “honor killings”. We just don’t agree with Steyn’s prediction that strong-willing brown Muslim super-breeders are doing to take over Europe and convert it all to sharia. Steyn’s prediction can only come true if new generations of Muslims fail to adopt Western values, and these “honor killings” are evidence that young Muslims are, in fact, adopting Western values. It’s the fear that their kids will become Westernized that drives the fanatics to violence against them.
Comment by Donald Johnson —
December 11, 2007 @ 4:42 pm
Professor Blather, you are well-named. That was the smarmiest, most insincere bit of concern-trolling I’ve seen in a long time. My hat off to you sir. You should run for political office, where talents like yours can be utilized to their fullest potential.
Comment by Jean —
December 11, 2007 @ 4:59 pm
Glenn Reynolds is a libertarian – but not quite UO’s kind of libertarian.
You give UO a great compliment.
As to the fun with statistics, what percentage of Catholics in NI approved of shooting women who went out with Protestants or British soldiers? There must have been a sizeable number, because, well, it happened. And vice-versa too. Yet, no-one seems to want to take drastic actions, discriminating based on origin, against people from NI. The British state has dealt with terrorist supporting minorities, completely alienated from society, before. If Britain can get Gerry Adams and Ian Paisley to talk, the nuttiest of Muslim fanatics is a piece of cake.
The problems in Northern Ireland did not lead to the end of the democratic process in Britain — partly because in NI there was no democratic process to end — and I’m willing to assert that, in 2050, there will still be a collection of democratic states in Europe, none of which will be worse, in terms of respect for civil liberties and human rights, than Thatcher’s Britain.*
* Damning with faint praise yes, but the Times wouldn’t agree, so that’s all right.
Comment by Donna —
December 11, 2007 @ 5:12 pm
Avram: I never said the UK wasn’t prosecuting cases. It looks like there is a problem with enforcement:
Religious persecution of the kind Sofia suffers, however, is increasingly common in Britain today. It is hard to get an accurate notion of the scale of the problem, not least because very few of the people who leave Islam are willing to complain to the police about the way they are treated.
“Intimidation is very widespread and pretty effective,†says Maryam Namazie, a spokesperson for the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain. She believes that many of the deaths classified as “honour killings†are actually murders of people who have renounced Islam.
“I get threatened all the time: emails, letters, phone calls,†she says. “When I returned home this afternoon, for example, there was a death threat waiting for me on my answering machine…†She laughs nervously.
“A lot of them aren’t serious, but occasionally they are. I went to the police about one set of threats. They took a statement from me but that was it – they never contacted me again.â€
And you say:
Steyn’s prediction can only come true if new generations of Muslims fail to adopt Western values, and these “honor killings†are evidence that young Muslims are, in fact, adopting Western values. It’s the fear that their kids will become Westernized that drives the fanatics to violence against them.
Well, the site owner himself seems to disagree with that:
There’s a very real assimilation issue in Europe. Liberal society needs to stand up for liberal values.
Well, how do we do that when people like Making Sense of It All clearly disagree that we have liberal values to stand up for?
Henley then goes on to say:
But a core liberal value is recognizing that the crudest measures of group membership don’t define the essence of all of its individual members
The thing is, Steyn recognizes that. I recognize that, too, which is why it’s so wearying to have arguments put in your mouth that you haven’t made. Yet you – who haven’t read Steyn’s book – keep on insisting that it’s all about the fear of “brown people.” Steyn clearly says in his book that it doesn’t matter if 90% of the population is non-white, if they all ascribe to democratic values. If you have a population, even a sizable minority that does not, you have a problem.
Anyway, it looks like this blog’s 15 minutes of fame is coming to an end. If you really want to know what Steyn thinks, read what he says, not what Jim or Karen or anybody else here says he says. You want to actually know a bit more about what British Muslims think, have a look the study I linked to above.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
December 11, 2007 @ 5:25 pm
Blather is rather archetypical of the Red responders here in that to him, there are only two types of statements: things he agrees with, and dirty badthink lies. There’s no room for honest disagreement or error or point of view. There’s just adherence or evil.
You know, I used to think Jim was over-the-top with his use of “fascist”, but I have to agree that there’s more than a little to that for a lot of Red fanboys.
Comment by Pete —
December 11, 2007 @ 5:26 pm
“I want to reiterate that it was stupid and wrong to misattribute a quote from Mullah Krekar in Mark Steyn’s book excerpt to Steyn himself”
“Stupid” and “wrong”…
Jim, these two words possibly sum up this thread, and possibly your entire journalistic efforts, rather nicely…
Comment by Donna —
December 11, 2007 @ 5:46 pm
Jean: NI is a very different sort of case, isn’t it? The Catholics have been there forever and the Prods have been there for 400 years. (They’ve been living side by side for hundreds of years and it took them how long to work out their differences? Yes, I know, colonialism, Penal Laws, etc. Actually, when you consider how long they have hated each other, and how much closer their cultures are to other than Islam and the West, NI is not the example I’d pick for happy multiculturalism at work.)
BTW, good socialist that you are, you left unmentioned one big reason why the Peace Process got moving in the ’90’s – a little something called “The Celtic Tiger.” I visited Ireland in ‘86, when it was still quite poor. The people and the Guinness were great – but although I was raised Catholic, I remember thinking, “You know, the Catholic Church practically runs this place, Dublin looks shabby, there are panhandlers everywhere, there’s censorship, divorce and birth control is illegal, and every woman seems to have 15 children. If I were a NI Protestant, I’d be damned if I’d want to join the Republic.”
Now, of course, Ireland is transformed. Hooray for capitalism! Once the Republic’s economy started roaring, a lot of other things started taking care of themselves.
Ireland does offer an interesting lesson in demographics though. While many factors played into it, one undoubtably was that their birthrates stayed high for a long time after other European countries slowed down. They had something other Euros didn’t have – a large young, educated workforce in the ’90’s (speaking English doesn’t hurt either.)
So those 15-baby families, in the case of Ireland, turned out to work toward their advantage in the ’90’s and 00’s. It will be interesting to see if things slow down as their birthrates fall and their population gets older.
Large population of motivated, educated, assimiliated young people – good. Large population of angry, alienated, unassimiliated young people – not so good.
Comment by Donald Johnson —
December 11, 2007 @ 6:09 pm
“Large population of angry, alienated, unassimiliated young people – not so good.”
See, now, that makes sense. And you didn’t even to have talk about dhimmitude or mention the Koran, though if you’d go on to say that under such circumstances alienated young people might be drawn towards extremist movements, including radical Islam, you’d have continued to make sense.
Comment by Making Sense Of It All —
December 11, 2007 @ 6:39 pm
Here’s Mark Kleiman discussing Mark Steyn openly contemplating genocide of Muslims…Well, er, sort of:
http://www.samefacts.com/archives/terrorism_and_its_control_/2007/02/mark_steyns_final_solution_to_the_euromuslim_problem.php
Steyn never blatantly called for a holocaust, but just sort of danced around the idea. It’s an interesting read, and one should follow all the links.
Yeah, I can’t read this “America Alone” book. Sounds great!
Comment by Making Sense Of It All —
December 11, 2007 @ 6:46 pm
Correction: I can’t WAIT to read it, is what I meant to type.
Comment by Mona —
December 11, 2007 @ 6:55 pm
Donna claims:
No, he’s not. He’s a “glibertarian” who wants to abort babies and have his gun and is ok w/ gays, but who adores neocon foreign policy adventurism/warmongering, and who either stands mute or tepid about the evolving national security state. Vis-a-vis the salient issues of the day, he is an authoritarian fellow-traveler.
Comment by Squander Two —
December 11, 2007 @ 7:41 pm
Surely the point of publishing a book excerpt in a paper or magazine is to get people interested enough to buy it. I think it’s fair to say, given all this blogging, that you, Jim, were interested by the excerpt. So go read the book. Hell, if you really object to contributing to Steyn’s profits, steal a copy — he’s sold millions now and I doubt he’ll mind. And then you could come back and criticise things that he’s actually written, rather than stuff that you imagine he probably thinks.
The arrogance of some of his critics on here is absurd. He’s one of the world’s most prolific opinion journalists, and he’s been writing about this stuff for over six years now. So he’s said quite a lot. Yet people honestly believe that they’re coming up with points he hasn’t considered. You might well disagree with his answers to your objections, but at least have the wit to find out that he has answers.
Comment by Mona —
December 11, 2007 @ 7:51 pm
Yes, and an astounding track record for having the wrong answers/analyses. Somewhere below I linked to a compendium of his ridiculously high level of error.
Comment by Donna —
December 11, 2007 @ 8:25 pm
Making Sense of It All:
I read Dawkin’s book “The God Delusion.”
Now, I’m not religious, but I am a theist. I’m not a fan of militant atheism. And, although he made some good points, I was ultimately unpersuaded and sometimes offended by his arguments.
But you wanna know something, Making Sense? I know this is for you to hard to believe, but some people actually read books and articles by authors they disagree with from time to time. Some people actually want to know what the opposing view is. And they check it out for themselves.
It’s called “thinking for yourself.” You should try it one of these days.
Somehow, I doubt you will though. You’re clearly quite comfortable in your sanctimony.
Comment by Donna —
December 11, 2007 @ 8:41 pm
That should be “hard for you to believe.”
Well, like I said, your 15 minutes of fame is coming to an end and it’s getting boring around here. You 20, or 30 or 40 souls can resume talking in your little echo chamber about books you haven’t read and congratulating yourself on your tolerance and open-mindedness.
Comment by Jean —
December 11, 2007 @ 9:20 pm
Well, no, as the good socialist that I am, surely I would consider the material circumstances of the peoples of the Atlantic Isles the most important factor in their politics?
After all, wasn’t Marx’s great innovation historical materialism?
The major reason that Northern Ireland is interesting from a Marxian viewpoint is the failure of any non-confessional, class based parties to arise, as they did elsewhere in Europe.
In point of fact, that was my point, that when people are given the chance to live like citizens, they tend to act like citizens, as the example of Northern Ireland shows. I think that O’Neill has a hilariously patronising quote to that effect.
Donna: if you read a book you should get something of value out of it, not just a rant.
Comment by Donna —
December 11, 2007 @ 10:39 pm
I just happened to visit a blog I haven’t read in a while and lo and behold, this post was one of the topics of discussion:
But I also maintain that while Steyn may be guilty at most of extreme pessimism, he’s no racist. Islam is a body of ideas (including some very bad ones); it makes universal claims about the place of men and women in the world that are designed to apply to the entire universe. If humans had terraformed Mars, you’d be certain that radical islamists would be keen to convert the people who lived there. But this has nothing whatsoever to do with race.
Gee, what fascist wingnut website was this? Samizdata. Johnathan found this second post of Jim’s to be pretty dumb. As it turns out, Johnathan doesn’t buy into the demographics argument either, but he actually manages to disagree with Steyn’s conclusions without mentioning “racist” or “douchebag” or Tom Buchanan. And they have a post with a link for those who want to help Steyn out with his legal woes.
Well, better take Samizdata off your blogroll. They’re actually more worried about the possibility that free speech in Canada might be curtailed than whether or not Steyn is hurting anybody’s feelings. They must be glibertarians too, I guess.
Comment by Making Sense Of It All —
December 12, 2007 @ 12:26 am
“It’s called ‘thinking for yourself.’ You should try it one of these days.
“Somehow, I doubt you will though. You’re clearly quite comfortable in your sanctimony.”
Oh, I think for myself quite well, thank you. That was a direct link to Steyn considering a genocide and concluding, gee it just isn’t practical, is it?
If you talk like a fascist and walk like a fascist, well you’re probably a fascist. Yep, I can think for myself just fine. Steyn with his Hobbesian war-of-all-against-all mentality, however , has some issues, apparently.
Comment by TGGP —
December 12, 2007 @ 2:01 am
I don’t know if it makes a difference to you, Mr. Henley, but I got Lawrence Auster to change his description of you here from “liberal” to “libertarian”, and now I wonder if you’d actually be uncomfortable being referred to as a liberal?
Comment by david marshall —
December 12, 2007 @ 6:43 am
“I will be arguing that it has a finite impact on the argument.”
I agree .. the finite impact I come up with is 100% or 180 degrees.
dm
Comment by Donna —
December 12, 2007 @ 10:21 am
Oh,dear me, now you’ve found out, via the unassailable authority of Kleinman (whooever he is) , that Steyn advocates genocide! Now, he’s not just a garden variety racist, he’s a Hitler-wannabe! Why, oh why, didn’t Jim use that quote instead of relying on an Norwegian iman?
Except that Steyn quote is basically a summation of the rationale used by the Serbs in the early ’90’s. All Steyn is doing is pointing out that the Serbs did in fact feel threatened by the changing demographics of the Balkans and did in fact respond by culling the Muslims. Nobody with a reading comprehension level above the 3rd grade can claim that Steyn advocates what the Serbs did. That very same explanation for the genocide in the Balkans (and much of the genocide of the 20th Century) has also been advanced by historian Niall Ferguson in his widely-praised book “The War of the World.” Ferguson spent a chapter explaining the consequences of demographic shift, which led to mayhem in Yugoslavia. I suppose he’s a Nazi too. Better contact Harvard and tell them they have an advocate for genocide on the faculty!
You know, Making Sense, you’d come up with better arguments if you actually read books every now and then instead of reading what so and so tells you about this or that book. I still find it astounding that many people are willing to expend so much energy to condemn a book they haven’t read.
At least I took a look at your link. I doubt you’ll look at the study I linked to. For one thing, it’s over 200 pages long. It’s longer than a news story or a blog entry and a little more complicated. It might tell you something you don’t want to know.
Comment by Making Sense Of It All —
December 12, 2007 @ 11:53 am
Well, Donna, here’s something that YOU may not know:
There is actually more debate about whether or not the Serbs actually “culled” the Muslims than you assume. (”Culled,” meaning in this context, of course, mass extermination–I don’t see what else this term could mean in this context.) There is substantial evidence that the Clinton administration greatly exaggerated the alleged Serbian “genocide” of the Muslims. There have even been several UN officials who have called Clinton’s thesis into question.
Here’s something you may want to glance over in between reviewing statistics of Muslim demographics:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1826404/posts
Look, it’s even from a “conservative” web site! Man, I can’t just think for myself.
The “Muslim genocide” claim was used by Clinton as a pretext to intervene in Bosnia, but his claim was highly dubious. If anything, the Serbs were under massive assault from Muslim forces. The Clintons even hired in AL-QAEDA to act fight against the Serbs:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/ONE309A.html
Now does pointing out deliberate collaboration between the US gov’t/Clinton admin and Islamist terrorists–thus widening their reach–indicate my hatred of my own culture? Am I just incapable of thinking for myself?
But you and Steyn actually buy into the Clinton fabrication, and Steyn says, “See, that’s what the Serbs ultimately had to do!” But there is actually scant evidence of a systemic, organized effort on the part of the Serbs to commit genocide against Bosnian Muslims. But who needs pesky facts when you’re contemplating the pros and cons of genocide against Muslims in Europe and looking around for some sort of supporting “evidence”?
Steyn not only assumes that the Bosnian “genocide” actually occurred, but worse, he points to it as an inevitable, eschatological outcome in Europe–because the Muslims are breeding at exponential rates, so ipso facto, we’re all doomed. In Steyn’s world, who needs ideas when it’s a matter of racial/religous breeding contests?
That Kleiman link includes a variety of links to supporting documentation, including this link to a discussion with Steyn on his book:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/016028.php
In response to a critic Steyn wrote:
Yeah, who’s going to get down to the business of rounding up the Muslims? And even if you’re “hot” for a “new Holocaust,” there just aren’t any Hitlers around, not when you really need one. The absence of any comment on the moraliy and ethics of such policies implies to me an assumption that the morality and ethics of these practices aren’t even questioned, just their PRACTICALITY. But for a collectivist-tribalist like Steyn, who’s world view consists of ethnic/religous groups engaged in eschatological breeding contests, the rights of INDIVIDUALS don’t even enter into that moral universe.
Can you actually address these points, or are you just going to post some more baseless assumptions about how I think and what I read, though you don’t even know me?
You can dress up a racist-fascist world view with as much statistics and intellectual veneer as you want, but at the end of the day, it still reeks of racism and fascism, and it’s not impolitic to point it out when it rears its ugly head.
Comment by Donald Johnson —
December 12, 2007 @ 2:01 pm
Actually, Niall Ferguson is an old-fashioned British imperialist, the sort that downplays the crimes of the Empire in the glorious old days when they used to lord it over the lesser orders, bringing them the benefits of civilization. I’ve read one of his books. So he’s not a Nazi–more like a rightwing apologist for imperialism whose arguments are the mirror image of those by the old-fashioned (thankfully nearly extinct) leftist who’d make excuses for the Bolsheviks as they tried to modernize Russia. Or, for that matter, like those who justify the communist attempt to modernize Afghanistan in the late 70’s, which went awry in part because of opposition by reactionary Muslims.
Not that Ferguson is necessarily wrong about some of the Serbs– given what I see some saying in blog comments, I can easily see genocide as the logical consequence over hysteria about the Muslim hordes.
Comment by Randy McDonald —
December 12, 2007 @ 2:24 pm
Jesse Cole:
“If I were Joyner, or Mcdonald, I’m not sure I would be comfortable with you using my name and arguments to shield your indefensible position.”
Mr. McDonald here. What indefensible position?
Comment by Donald Johnson —
December 12, 2007 @ 2:26 pm
Steyn’s reaction to Abu Ghraib–
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0504/steyn051704.asp
I don’t think anyone needs to waste too much time on this moron’s writings.
Comment by Making Sense Of It All —
December 12, 2007 @ 5:08 pm
Yeah, he’s pretty much a twit.
Comment by David Ross —
December 12, 2007 @ 7:30 pm
Mr Henley:
Thank you for posting this second piece. It is well-argued, and stands up for his right to free speech, which is all I was asking for of a libertarian blog.
Obviously Steyn is not a racist. Steyn does not complain about the birthrates of Parsee Zoroastrians or Syrian Jews; if anything I’d bet he thinks they are too low.
Steyn *has* written bigoted articles against Islam and the people who follow it. But then, it isn’t the worst of sins to be bigoted against something evil. The Islamic worldview condemns itself.
Comment by Donald Johnson —
December 13, 2007 @ 7:38 am
Steyn’s pro-torture . Thinks it’s funny. And gets outraged when Muslims commit atrocities.
Maybe the word for him is “tribalist”. Orwell’s idiosyncratic term for it was “nationalist”, in “Notes on Nationalism”, where he goes through all the various ideologues of his day who’d get outraged over the crimes of the Evil Other while remaining totally oblivious to the crimes of their own allies.
Comment by bos —
December 13, 2007 @ 10:34 am
Donna,
relying for your evidence on Policyexchange might not be so smart – they appear to be making up some of their evidence on British Muslims according to the BBC Newsnight programme.
Interesting to read your view of Ireland. Don’t let the facts get in the way – your glib analysis seems to be pre-determined by the case you want to present rather than the facts.
Comment by Bill H —
December 18, 2007 @ 9:57 pm
Sir,
You claim to support free speech and I take you at you word. But the label of “racist” you toss around so carelessly has the effect of suppressing free exchange. Racism is an ugly thing and the no reasonable, self-respecting person wants the label attached to them. This is exactly why the term is used today as political weapon to suppress opposing viewpoints. I suggest you choose your words more carefully and debate those you disagree with without resorting to use of the ad hominum.
Comment by Peter Mac —
December 21, 2007 @ 1:27 pm
Firstly, I have no idea who Jim Henley is, nor who or what he thinks he is, but judging from your idiotic comments I just came across on some blog, based on an EXCERPT no less of Steyn’s book in Maclean’s – BTW, have you bothered to read the book in its totality, Jim? – you’ve got your head way up where the sun don’t shine. Fortunately it’s your ass; not someone else’s.
I’ve noticed in my long life that it’s very convenient for people like you, and a lot of liberal fringe kooks – is THAT what you are? – when they have no real argument, when they can’t refute the facts, to start shouting “racistâ€. I suppose it’s your way of trying to divert attention from an argument that you can’t ignore or can’t summarily dismiss. Well nice try, but it didn’t work. All you’ve accomplished is to expose yourself for the shallow non-thinker that you really are.
Steyn is a visionary – and if you can’t handle the facts and the logical conclusions that he comes to in America Alone – then tough bananas, pal. Calling him a racist douchebag (such an offensive, low-class term – very revealing of the author) is nothing but a joke. Something like you.