How the West Was Lost

Is Islam compatible with democracy? This is a question I address elsewhere. We also have to ask ourselves, however, whether the conditions needed for a properly functioning democratic system are currently present even in the West. I’m not always sure about that. In a functioning democratic state, the state passes laws in accordance with the wishes of the people, and also strives to uphold these laws. In Western Europe in particular, the state does neither, as most laws are passed by unelected EU bureaucrats and not elected national parliaments, and as the streets are increasingly ruled by gangs and criminals.

When Arne Hjemaas from Fauske in Norway discovered who was behind a series of burglaries in August and September, he gave the information to the police. “We knew where the burglar was and where the stolen goods were. He had stolen so much from us and from other firms that he had hired a garage to store everything,” Hjemaas said, but the police did nothing.

Finally, Hjemaas and his brother decided to pick up the goods and hand the burglar over to the police. “Unfortunately, it ended in a fight. The man was armed and aggressive. This is not stated in the police documents. The police have documented the burglar’s bruises, but not mine. Our actions led to recovering stolen goods for us and others.” Later, Hjemaas was told that the man was supposed to be apprehended the day before, but the officer who had been assigned the mission had to attend a funeral. Now, Hjemaas is about to be prosecuted for violence and risks four months in jail.

Alexander Boot, a Russian by birth, left for the West in the 1970s, only to discover that the West he was seeking was no longer there. This led him to write the book How the West Was Lost. I don’t agree with everything Boot says. He places a lot of emphasis on the importance of religion, which is fine, but I disagree with his criticism of post-Enlightenment civilization in general. Still, he is articulate and original, which makes him worth reading anyway:

“Parliaments all over the world are churning out laws by the bucketful. Yet, they fail to protect citizens so spectacularly that one is tempted to think that this is not their real purpose. […] Governments are no longer there to protect society and the individuals within it. [...] For that reason a crime committed by one individual against another is of little consequence to them.”

The law also increasingly denies citizens the right to protect themselves and their property, with the United States as an important exception, at least for now. This despite the fact that Switzerland, with the heaviest-armed population in the world, has low crime rates. In the first two years after a complete ban on handguns was introduced in Britain, gun crime went up 50 per cent and is still growing.

According to Boot,

“While killing is still frowned upon, other violent crimes, including assault and even attempted murder, often go not only unpunished but even unprosecuted in many Western countries. Unless, of course, they are committed in self-defence, something the state abhors as this diminishes its control over the life and property of its subjects. […] The burglar is in the same business as the state: redistributing wealth. Burglary is a form of income tax, and the burglar merely collects the excess that has evaded the tax collector’ net. […] A burglar is a victim, not a criminal, grew up needy and downtrodden, we, society at large, are to blame for his plight.”

Citizens no longer respect laws because they know the state does not do so either. According to Boot, this is caused by the loss of religion:

“Without God laws are arbitrary and can fall prey either to evil design or ill-conceived political expediency, which is another way of saying that without God law is tyranny. […] Religion, for all the misdeeds committed by it or in its name, was the foundation on which Western  culture and civilization had been erected. Destroy the foundation, and down comes the whole structure with a big thud. […] The unsavoury Spanish inquisitors, for example, are variously estimated to have carried out between 10,000 and 30,000 executions during the three-and-a-half centuries they were in business.”

That’s pretty bad, but still not more than a monthly output in your average Socialist regime. And Alexander Boot does not buy into the excuse that Marxism has been misunderstood:

“Any serious study will demonstrate that Marx based his theories on industrial conditions that either were already obsolete at the time or had never existed in the first place. That is no wonder, for Marx never saw the inside of a factory, farm or manufactory. [...] Whatever else he was, Marx was not a scientist. […] Marx ideals are unachievable precisely because they are so monstrous that even Bolsheviks never quite managed to realize them fully, and not for any lack of trying. For example, the [Communist] Manifesto (along with other writings by both Marx and Engels) prescribes the nationalization of all private property without exception. Even Stalin’s Russia of the 1930s fell short of that ideal. In fact, a good chunk of the Soviet economy was then in private hands [...] Really, compared with Marx, Stalin begins to look like a humanitarian. Marx also insisted that family should be done away with, with women becoming communal property. Again, for all their efforts, Lenin and Stalin never quite managed to achieve this ideal either. So where the Bolsheviks and Nazis perverted Marxism, they generally did so in the direction of softening it.”

Boot also has some critical words about the Western political system, especially since he believes that the loyalty of Western political elites “is pledged to the international elite that increasingly supersedes national interests.”

“The word ‘democracy’ in both Greece and Rome had no one man one vote implications and Plato used it in the meaning of ‘mob rule.’ The American founding fathers never used it at all and neither did Lincoln. [...] a freely voting French citizen or British subject of today has every aspect of his life controlled, or at least monitored, by a central government in whose actions he has little say. He meekly hands over half his income knowing the only result of this transfer will be an increase in the state’s power to extort even more. [...] He opens his paper to find yet again that the ‘democratic’ state has dealt him a blow, be that of destroying his children’s education, raising his taxes, devastating the army that protects him, closing his local hospital or letting murderers go free. In short, if one defines liberty as a condition that best enables the individual to exercise his freedom of choice, then democracy of universal suffrage is remiss on that score.”

He believes that democracy, the government of the people, by the people and for the people, has been replaced by glossocracy, the government of the word, by the word and for the word. The impulse behind Political Correctness consists of twisting the language we use, enforcing new words or changing the meaning of old ones, turning them into “weapons of crowd control” by demonizing those who fail to comply with the new definitions. Glossocracy depends upon a long-term investment in ignorance.

“Like the Russian intelligentsia of yesteryear, the glossocratic intelligentsia of today's West is busily uprooting the last remaining vestiges of Westernness. The press is one gardening implement they use; education is another.”

One example of how language is power is given in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll:

“‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.’ ‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean different things.’ ‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master – that’s all.’”

According to Boot,

“A semi-literate population is a soft touch for glossocratic Humpty Dumpties insisting that words mean whatever they want them to mean. […] Laws against racism are therefore not even meant to punish criminal acts. They are on the books to reassert the power of the state to control not just the citizens’ actions but, more important, their thoughts and the words they use to get these across. […] It is relatively safe to predict that, over the next ten years, more and more people in Western Europe and North America will be sent to prison not for something they have done, but for something they have said. That stands to reason: a dictator whose power is based on the bullet is most scared of bullets; a glossocrat whose power is based on words is most scared of words. At the same time, real crime is going to increase. […] A state capable of prosecuting one person for his thoughts is equally capable of prosecuting thousands, and will predictably do so when it has consolidated its power enough to get away with any outrage.”

This is unfortunately already happening. In Canada, Mark Harding was sentenced to 340 hours of community service slash indoctrination under the direction of Mohammad Ashraf, general secretary of the Islamic Society of North America in Mississauga, Ontario. Ashraf made it clear that during the sessions nothing negative could be said about Islam. “He said he was my supervisor, and if I didn’t follow what he said, he would send me back to jail,” recounted Harding.

Harding was convicted because of a June 1997 incident in which he distributed pamphlets outside a public high school in Toronto, listing atrocities committed by Muslims in foreign lands to back his assertion that Canadians should be wary of local Muslims. The pamphlet said: “The Muslims who commit these crimes are no different than the Muslim believers living here” and that “Toronto is definitely on their hit list.”

Harding stated that after his case became public, he no longer felt safe, due to threats from Muslims. When he entered court for his trial, a large crowd of Muslims chanted “Infidels, you will burn in hell.” Judge Sidney B. Linden's 1998 ruling against Harding was based on Canada’s hate-crimes law. The judge determined he was guilty of “false allegations about the adherents of Islam calculated to arouse fear and hatred of them in all non-Muslim people.”

In June 2006, Canadian police arrested a group of Muslim men suspected of planning terror attacks against various targets including the Toronto subway, and possibly of beheading Canadian Conservative, pro-Israeli PM Stephen Harper. An intelligence study warned that a “high percentage ‘ of Canadian Muslims involved in extremist activities were born in Canada.

In Britain, after Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National Party, was cleared for stirring up racial hatred by calling Islam “a wicked, vicious faith.” Gordon Brown, by many considered PM Tony Blair’s likely successor, immediately pledged to strengthen hate speech laws: “I think any preaching of religious or racial hatred will offend mainstream opinion in this country and I think we have got to do whatever we can to root it out from whatever quarter it comes.”

The issue here is not whether you agree with the BNP, the issue is that a politicized police force is used on behalf of the Labour government to harass political rivals and silence critics of their Muslim voters. Moreover, at the same time as the state is using legal harassment against critics of Islam, Islamic sharia laws are spreading in Britain.

Just like in Norway, where the authorities fail to protect their citizens against criminals but prosecute those who do what the authorities fail to do, so in Britain the state is harassing those who point out the fact that the state is incapable or unwilling to uphold the laws and the borders of Britain. The British see this, which is probably why they are increasingly leaving. And in Canada, you get convicted for “racism” for making predictions about the threat posed by Muslim immigration that later turn out to be perfectly accurate.

Theodore Dalrymple writes about a book entitled A Land Fit for Criminals, written by David Fraser, who has served as a probation officer for more than a quarter of a century. According to Dalrymple,

“For the last 40 years, government policy in Britain, de facto if not always de jure, has been to render the British population virtually defenseless against criminals and criminality. […] No Briton nowadays goes many hours without wondering how to avoid being victimized by a criminal intent on theft, burglary, or violence. […] As Fraser pointed out to me, the failure of the state to protect the lives and property of its citizens, and to take seriously its duty in this regard, creates a politically dangerous situation, for it puts the very legitimacy of the state itself at risk. The potential consequences are incalculable, for the failure might bring the rule of law itself into disrepute and give an opportunity to the brutal and the authoritarian.”

The democratic states of the West are losing the ability to protect their citizenry, and are in some cases turning into enemies of their own people. That is a situation that cannot and will not last forever. If left unchecked, these developments could have more serious consequences than most of us would like to contemplate.

with the United States as an

with the United States as an important exception, at atomic for now. This admitting the actuality that Switzerland, with the heaviest-armed citizenry in the world, has low abomination rates. In the aboriginal two years afterwards a complete ban on handguns was alien in Britain, gun abomination went up 50 per cent and is still growing. Rent a car Namibia

home security (3)

@ Atlanticist

Sarcasm can be funny, but don't think for a moment that simpletons who like to parrot mantras ("invaded...simply for oil...") will 'get' it.

My question is: is/was there a "home security (1)" ?   

 

home security (2)

(Iraq) ...invaded simply for oil?

 

Oh I see so THAT'S why the US military war machine chose Iraq first and left the trickier logistical problem of invading oil-rich Canada, Mexico, Venezuela etc until a much later date. It all makes perfect sense to me now.

Some very interesting

Some very interesting points. If democracy is ever going to work we need to realize what we call democracy now, simply isn’t and needs to evolve. People need to be in control, I think the politicians were scared of what people would want so they avoided us being able to have the last say with vote, but they have just become selfish and twisted; Iraq for example, millions voted against the war but the government did it anyway, and simply for oil...

wireless home security system
 

Again with the Black Legend, folks?

I've read this extract of your great article and...what can I say? The british war propaganda was fine, yeah:

"The unsavoury Spanish inquisitors, for example, are variously estimated to have carried out between 10,000 and 30,000 executions during the three-and-a-half centuries they were in business.”

At the starting of the Black Legend there have been millions of people killed by the Spanish Inquisition (always 'Spanish' , that HAD to be remarked as the war propaganda biased against the Spanish Monarchy it was, don't forget it). Of course, there never existed inquisitions -both catholic and lutheran- in France (where it was born), the German Empire, England, the italian territories, et al.

After that, the numbers got down, and the new *Spanish* Inquisition secular mass slaughter was established in hundreds of thousands people.

And nowadays I still can find educated and very intelligent guys talking about dozens of thousands. ( O_o )

But, what do historians say?

In 1999 a big international historical symposium was celebrated with just one goal: to congregate the best historians experts in the inquisitorial prosecutions (ALL of those), and to interchange the results of their investigations. Immediately after the closing of that reunion, a compilation of all the works which have been presented was started. The result was an eight hundred pages book published five years later (there was an exhaustive work of revision). Well, which are the conclusions of that study, the most comprehensive one published to the date?

In the period 1540-1700 the Spanish Inquisition Courts judged 44.674 cases (and that's terrible, of course) but, do you want to know which was the percentage of people found guilty?

3.5%

Yeah, really: 3.5% (1564 guys)

And what about the number of people executed? This is even more surprising:

1.8% (804)

Now, it's time to make comparisons (I'm always following the symposium numbers): in 160 years there were exactly (we can today comput the totals cause the Inquisition archives and papers were extremely -neurotically- meticulous) 36 women burned for the practice of witchcraft in Portugal, 59 in Spain, and (according to these historians) 25000 in Germany. Why? Because in Germany the courts were a lot of times 'popular' ones (no rules, very credulous people, nothing to do with catholic courts of theologians) and also because the prosecution of witchcraft was there not just a duty of the religious courts, but of the civil ones too.

In fact, it's firmly believed by the experts in these issues that the total number of people executed by the Inquisition in the huge territories of the Spanish Empire from 1500 to 1820 was of about 3000 people as a whole.

But it's simply impossible to fight a stereotype 400 hundreds years old, with so many propagandists supporting it since the sixteenth century.

@Nahanni

You've avoided discussing the statistics I presented below and are merely resorting to ill-conceived assumptions about myself and my political orientation. Nor is French gun control and the inability or unwillingness of the French National Police and Gendarmerie to enforce the law in immigrant housing estates a cause and effect situation.

 

I'll need to verify your statistical claims about "where you live" if I am to believe your arguments, so where is this place? If it is a peaceful small town, then comparing its crime rates with those of larger conurbations is sheer stupidity, something which will you're obviously already well endowed.

@leereyno

Using a quote from Chairman Mao to justify antiquated American firearm laws? Originally intended as a safeguard against invasion from Great Britain (as the US Army could not be relied upon for continental defense), firearms also protected Americans from wild animals, Amerindians, Mexicans, and even each other in those regions to the west and south which were beyond effective law and order. Today, firearm possession in America serves merely to lend credence to ill-adjusted egotism, foster an irrational fear of each other and of the government, and most importantly keep firearm and ammunition producers in business.

 

It is sad when police officers have to assume for their own safety that every citizen they accost on even the most routine matter may try to use a firearm on them; that one cannot so much as honk one's horn without fear of falling victim to gun violence mixed with road rage; and that semi-automatic and auto-matic weapons are legally sold at all, considering that they are only used for hunting fellow humans.

Kapitein Andre

Today, firearm possession in America serves merely to lend credence to ill-adjusted egotism, foster an irrational fear of each other and of the government, and most importantly keep firearm and ammunition producers in business.

Ah, another repetition of the same ol' lefty liberal lunatic drivel that we have heard out of them for decades.

Want to see ill-adjusted egotism"? Take a good hard look in the mirror. If you do not have one handy take a good look at the French government.

It is sad when police officers have to assume for their own safety that every citizen they accost on even the most routine matter may try to use a firearm on them

Well, at least they are not afraid to defend themselves, uphold the law and the protect the citizens they are charged to serve like the French police are.

Now...

Memo to ol' Kappy Andre:

Unlike you I am free to defend myself and my property. Unlike you I have no fear of walking down the street or sleeping with my windows open at night. I need no security cameras and burgler alarms. I can go shopping at midnight without fear of being robbed, raped or killed.

Where I live, which by the way has the highest per capita gun ownership in the world, the murder rate is lower then every LLL US city with city/state gun control like NYC, Washington DC, Boston etc. The murder and the rate per thousand of all crimes are ones that Europeans can only dream of because they are very, very low compared to Europe. I am much safer walking down the streets of my city at night then I ever was in London, Paris, Berlin or Turin.

All this is possible because we have the legal right to defend outselves and are not afraid to use it. The old adage is true, "An armed society is a polite society".

So keep on chanting your LLL mantras, Kappy. I can assure you that they are only an illusion designed to feed your "ill-adjusted egotism".

one other thing...

Unlike you we do not love our criminals-we send them to prison. And those prisons are not "holiday camps" like the Euros and Canadians have, either.

Au contraire marsouin...

"It works fine in the US - the vast majority of Americans are virtuous enough to be entrusted with a fundamental human right: self-preservation. In fact we don't have a gun problem in the US. 1/3 of gun deaths are from suicide - the US rate being a fraction of Europe"

 

  • The homicide rate in the United States of America is higher than that of other developed states, with firearms used to commit 68% of the 14,860 homicides in the United States during 2005.
  • The percentage of homicides committed in the United States with firearms is also significantly higher than in other developed countries
  • Many more suffer non-fatal gunshot wounds, with the CDC estimating 52,447 violence-related and 23,237 accidental gunshot injuries in the United States during 2000.
  • The majority of gun-related deaths in the United States are suicides, with firearms used in 16,907 suicides in the United States during 2004 [not incl. homicides].
  • Handgun homicides accounted for nearly all of the overall increase in the homicide rate, from 1985 to 1993, while homicide rates involving other weapons declined during that timeframe.

 

The facts speak for themselves. Firearm possession is not a "fundamental human right"; rather, it is a symbol of individual liberty at the expense of the common good. If Americans want public goods and services such as defense, law and order, infrastructure, etc., then they must make sacrifices in the form of certain liberties (to commit rape, murder, violence, etc.), taxes, and obligations to their community - the state. Certainly, the social contract provides a net benefit to its signatories, and works for virtually all humanity. In the absence of their state, Americans can expect the New Orleans scenario...

On America's Problems

Just because illegal Mexicans and their Hispanic brethren are Catholic does not mean that they make great citizens, even if they are a notch above Muslims. Replace Middle Easterners, South Asians, and Africans with Latin Americans; political violence with hordes of illegals demonstrating in the streets; and inaction on extremism with inaction on border security, and Europe and the United States do not seem that different at all.

 

The United States is facing the same problem that the rest of the West is facing: low quality immigrants who earn less and consume more public services that the existing citizenry. This development which began in the early 1970s has been allowed to continue unchecked. When every American city resembles the layer cake of Rio de Janeiro and East Los Angeles starts to look good in comparison, it's too late to take action.

On Gun Control & Weakness

Gun control, if enforced properly against the entire civil population, works. Period. Gun possession = gun use, except perhaps in Switzerland, which has specific and strong cultural codes w.r.t. weaponry and self-defense. And quite frankly, until the US government actually does turn Stalinist on its people or a horde of wild animals descend into every urban centre, gun ownership will never be vindicated.

 

This is not to say I condone the situation with minority groups on British and French housing estates; in fact I believe that a single gunshot from these squatters should be grounds for dynamiting the whole tenement from whence it came.

 

It is when governments preach civil society to the converted and ignore the growing cancers that the hipocrisy and frustration come about. However, European governments are in a bind: to control their Muslims, they must resort to Draconian tactics, yet these must be implemented against all in the name of social justice.

 

While the Danes seem a fairly law-abiding, peaceful, and tolerant group, I don't believe that their justice system could handle the influx of Muslim criminals that Copenhagen has received i.e. posting armed guards at schools to prevent rapes, on buses to prevent rape and violence, on every street corner to prevent rape, violence, and theft, and in every Muslim household to prevent "terror" plots.

Gun control is people control.

Flapping one's arms to achieve flight, if performed properly, works. Period.

Gun control is a problem, not a solution. A society is only as free as its individual citizens are free. Political power comes from the barrel of a gun, therefore the ultimate insurance against tyranny is an armed citizenry. When the people are beholden to the government there is tyranny, when the government is beholden to the people there is freedom.

You say that if people own guns they will use them. Well I certainly hope so, because otherwise what is the point of having them? A gun that is not used for its proper purpose is like a vote that is not cast. Both represent an abdication of responsibility for the world we live in. The proper use of a gun is in the defense of one's life, liberty, and property. It is no accident that the right to keep and bear arms is enshrined in the bill of rights right after freedom of speech.

Gun control is people control.

Flapping one's arms to achieve flight, if performed properly, works. Period.

Gun control is a problem, not a solution. A society is only as free as its individual citizens are free. Political power comes from the barrel of a gun, therefore the ultimate insurance against tyranny is an armed citizenry. When the people are beholden to the government there is tyranny, when the government is beholden to the people there is freedom.

You say that if people own guns they will use them. Well I certainly hope so, because otherwise what is the point of having them? A gun that is not used for its proper purpose is like a vote that is not cast. Both represent an abdication of responsibility for the world we live in. The proper use of a gun is in the defense of one's life, liberty, and property. It is no accident that the right to keep and bear arms is enshrined in the bill of rights right after freedom of speech.

US RTKBA @ Kapitein

"Gun control, if enforced properly against the entire civil population, works. Period. Gun possession = gun use, except perhaps in Switzerland, which has specific and strong cultural codes w.r.t. weaponry and self-defense."

How odd! It works fine in the US - the vast majority of Americans are virtuous enough to be entrusted with a fundamental human right: self-preservation. In fact we don't have a gun problem in the US. 1/3 of gun deaths are from suicide - the US rate being a fraction of Europe. The bulk of the rest stems from black-on-black ghetto violence: The Frankenstein monster of American socialist policies.

A total government monopoly on firearms/violence succeeds in reducing crime ONLY in totalitarian states. And are totalitarian states ever peaceful?

@ Bob Doney

I understand your point, but to use your analogy, Sweden, Ireland, Switzerland (not to mention Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina) all stayed in their gated communities during the Second World War and the Cold War, and they did just fine.  Their freedom remained intact.  This is because others took their freedom more seriously than they did themselves.  Perhaps if responsibility for their own freedom had been left to them alone, they would have acted.  My sense is that the Europeans need to know their freedom rests in their own hands.  Jeebie's offer to hand the Brits an open line of credit seems counter-productive to me.  And, as I never tire of pointing out, the endless rudeness and condescension that Americans face from Europeans on a personal level does nothing to reverse my thinking.

American help for Europe

Although Frank Lee doesn't want his country to help us, Bush has already offered help (in committing suicide) by advising us to accept Turkey as a member of the European Union. Why not Iraq? I'm afraid of US help. They could bomb us to save the muslims! Although, in the near future, when the whites become a minority in the US, I expect Washington will just stop having an active foreign policy. The EU will not become the new world cop. Every country in the Middle East will just be allowed to have its nuclear bomb.

Frank Lee says: the endless rudeness and condescension that Americans face from Europeans on a personal level ...

If it makes you feel any better, you should realize that the French "elites" have an inferiority complex with the USA. And it is bound to get worse, as france is on a downward spiral caused by immigration.

Recognition for France

The French "elite" need recognition for who they are. Maybe this article shows how they need help in gaining the recognition they deserve.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2006/12/france_and_the_rwanda_genoci...

They are willing to sacrifice not only the national honor of France(which may at one time have been deserved), but the West itself. Their vain and treacherous attempts to self-serve is a disgrace to everyone in the West and a vital danger to all within the West. They rule not by democracy but by hypocrisy.

french foreign policy

The article (on the americanthinker blog) says there is evidence for active French collusion in the Rwandan genocide of an estimated one million Tutsis by the French-supported Hutu regime in 1994.

I think part of the problem is that france does not have working democratic institutions. I don't think france's foreign policy is seriously discussed in the French parliament. In 1994, Mitterrand (socialist) was president, and Balladur (conservative) was prime minister. He had been chosen by Chirac, the chief of the main "conservative" party. Who was supposed to be in charge of the foreign policy? Mitterrand? Chirac? Balladur? Juppé (the minister for foreign affairs)? The french constitution doesn't say. It seems that Mitterrand took many decisions by himself without any democratic supervision. I think Mitterrand liked to think of himself as a realpolitik player. If he gave his support to the Hutus because they used french as a second language, while the Tutsis used English, then it was not realpolitik, it was a stupid decision.

@Frank and Mission Immpossible

Hello, Frank. I referenced Britain, not Europe. We were British colonies before we became Americans, and the roots run deep. If someday their unarmed citizens were to ask for help, I think we would be there. Hello, Mission Impossible. No intention of butting into Europes affairs. Personally, I am mostly isolationist, but I have very little control over G. Bush, wish it were otherwise. This article started with, how the west was lost. With the barbarian hordes already through the gates,multicultural leftists, marxists, fascists in charge of the west, especially the media, time is short for civilisation. We may find Europe and American needing each other, very soon. Till then, I have no problem minding my own business and agree with you...whatever means become necessary for either of us to prevent our extinction.

@Jeebie

That's nice of you. But it won't happen. We don't have deep roots with Britain. It's over for them and for Europe unless they get off their butts and do something now.

We have our own problems to deal with. We can't and shouldn't bother with them. Every time we do something, they'll find ways to spit on us.

Pearls before swine...

@ Jeebie

Good Lord, what are you saying?  That our commitment to Europe's freedom is limitless?  My commitment to American freedom is limitless, but I can tell you that my commitment to European freedom is exactly equal to Europe's commitment to American freedom -- that is to say, it's nonexistent.  Europe's freedom is Europe's responsibility; if they're not committed to it, why should we be?  The Europeans have to stop acting like mildly retarded five-year-olds who rely on Uncle Sam for everything.  Your proclamations of limitless commitment from America only make it that much harder to drag them into the adult world.  In this case, we gotta be cruel to be kind.

Freedom stops here!

Frank Lee: "I can tell you that my commitment to European freedom is exactly equal to Europe's commitment to American freedom -- that is to say, it's nonexistent."

True freedom can't be divided up like this. Americans don't have the freedom to be free at the expense of others' freedom, and nor do Europeans. That's not freedom in any meaningful sense. Do you think that rich folk living in a gated community with searchlights and barbed wire round the compound are free? Of course not.

By the way, why is everyone so grumpy here at the moment? I know you're all free to be bad-tempered if you want to, but, really, cheer up a bit!

Bob Doney

@Frank Lee

Agreed 100%. In fact, the very best way America could help Europe is to stop worrying about us so much and focus on sorting out your own affairs: the left-wing media, leftist dominated Universities, and the anti-western propaganda machine called Hollywood. Their existence inspire those leftist radicals who are causing us problems. Sorting out your own affairs will indirectly weaken the hold the leftist/cultural-Marxists currently have in Europe and parts of Britain. Just make sure you don't start moaning and bitching if & when we start being cruel to our recent (past 10 years) immigrant populations. That will be the big test of your innately liberal resolve.

What the Hell?

"the very best way America could help Europe is to stop worrying about us so much and focus on sorting out your own affairs..."

If there's one thing that Europeans love to do is to chastise Americans all the time for not paying enough attention to the rest of the bloody world and being too self absorbed. Now you tell us we watch you too much?

You folks DO need to grow up.

A Good Book for Atheling

Judging by the tone of your responses to several Commentors here at BJ, over an extended period, I would like to recommend a good book to you. In fact, I believe it is necessary reading for most American women, as I have witnessed many like you on other blogs.

Here it is

Everyone should take special note of the Amazon Reviewer named "Allan L. Rosenzweig," who left his comment on 1st September 2006. I do believe he is correct.

You really are bitter, aren't you?

And I'm not that curious about what you think or recommend.

Envy wreaks all sorts of havoc with people's psyches.

My comment still stands. Americans are damned by the whinging Euros no matter what we do.

And we no longer care. At least those of us who are adults don't.

No democracy

Islam is not compatible with democracy, liberty, free or independent thinking. It calls for submission of the individual to the religion/State. There is no distinction between church and state. It is a religion of peace, only if you submit to its law. Otherwise you are just an infidel, marked for death. We in America realize that the citizens of our Mother Country are defenseless. Rest assured, that if you ever need help, our comitment is unlimited. Yes, we are proud of our second ammendment right to keep and bear arms. Our government never stops trying to take it away. And that is why it is there. We are afraid of tyranny, and want our government to always be afraid of us. Tyranny is what you will get when Islam takes over. Fight it anyway you can. To all friends of liberty in Europe, I say, Wake Up Now. Time is short to save your heritage and freedoms.

Nothing to fear but fear

lancegrundy: The politically-correct police 'service' is more interested in terrorising motorists and persecuting Christians who oppose same-sex 'marriage' than taking on the gun-totting teenagers that hold sway over most of our inner city housing estates.

These are the latest government statistics on numbers of crimes in England and Wales involving firearms (figures in brackets for previous year):

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs06/hosb1606.pdf

In the 12 months to June 2006 there were a provisional 10,267 firearm
offences. This was a decrease of 901 offences, or eight per cent, compared
with the 12 months ending June 2005.

Nature of injury

Fatal injuries 51 (Previous year 64 -20%)
Serious injuries 435 (457 -5%)
Slight injuries 2,855 (3608 -21%)
Threats 5,214 (5354 -3%)
No injuries 1,712 (1685 +2%)
Total 10,267 (Previous year total 11,168 -8%)

So the total number of incidents recorded was down 8% on the previous year. The only category of offence where numbers increased was those where no injury was involved.

Bob Doney

The Gap

There continues to be a disconnect between the "elite"(those in responsible positions who lead but ignore those whom they are nominally required to represent) and the common citizens.  This report discusses that issue.  It is from 2002, but I doubt that little has changed except for the probability of more dissatisfaction on the part of the common man.

 

http://www.cis.org/articles/2002/back1402.html

 

I suspect that the gap in Europe is at least that of the US and probably more.

 

 

Amen to that, lancegrundy

Recently, in the little town I live, the city council, in their great wisdom, decided to hold a meeting to discuss the banning of shooting in the entire county. (Shooting as in hunting and target practice). Their basis was a petition signed by ten people and presented to them by two people in said meeting which was not publicized.

Being a member of the NRA, I received a bulletin warning of this meeting. Well, to the city council's dismay and surprise, 300 people showed up at the meeting to protest the initiative. They dropped it like a hot potato.

The state will not defend you

Here in Britain we lost the right to defend ourselves - and therefore the right to defend our freedom, following the 1920 Firearms Act when the government, fearful of a Bolshevik type revolution, brought in the first serious limitations on privately owned firearms.

Since then, successive governments have told the British people that the state would protect them but, as with the promise that the abolition of the death penalty would mean life sentences that meant life [rather than the 10-15 years now typically served], the state has reneged on the deal.

The British people, having been emasculated by the nanny state, are now totally defenceless in the face of the brutal armed gangs that now terrorise our cities. The politically-correct police 'service' is more interested in terrorising motorists and persecuting Christians who oppose same-sex 'marriage' than taking on the gun-totting teenagers that hold sway over most of our inner city housing estates.

The right to bear arms is surely one of the best guarantees of freedom that the United States citizen has. Americans are in a position to be able to defend themselves against not only the tyranny of criminality but also, should the need arise, against the tyranny of totalitarian government. This, I suspect, is the real reason leftists are so keen on gun control. It’s very hard to control an armed population.

The people of the United States must resist gun control.

Stop whining and do something

I am sure there are, among your police, sympathetic elements. It is time to form your own, informal, citizens militias with help from police you can trust.

Keep it on the down low, but make sure everyone knows that, buried in old mine shafts and under cabins in the hills, are the means to protect yourselves. Do the armed criminal gangs ask for police or political permission before ordering up their Uzi's? Hell no!

The problem is, the British population is completely emasculated, frightened of the criminals, Islalmists, and of their own government. Get a backbone! Did your ancestors roll over and play dead whenever a threat appeared? The difference between the Brits and the Americans is attitude.

I told my son, when an older bully was trying to pick on him, not to be scared of the bully or the teachers. I showed him how to punch the kid, right on the nose. You know what, I was the proud recipient of a call instructing me that my son was suspended for 2 days for hitting! Now, he and his gang are king of the school.