The Federal Republic of Germany is a democracy. It is no fun, however, to be a Baptist in Germany. For the past two decades, the German authorities have been clamping down on Baptists who want to raise their children in accordance with their own religious principles. In Germany, the state rather than the parents is considered to be primarily responsible for the well-being of children. Hence, the draconic measures taken against Baptists. When, however, it comes to meeting the demands of Muslim the German state is far more lenient.

Recap of Previous “Flemish Influence on the Pilgrims” Parts

In my earlier articles, Part 1 & Part 2, we saw that from the time Flemings stormed across the English Channel as the largest component of William the Conqueror’s Invasion Force in 1066 up to the birth of the first Pilgrims in the late 16th century Flemings in the British Isles came, saw, influenced, and assimilated. The steady influx of Flemings to the British Isles in every subsequent century earned the Flemish William Caxton’s classification by the 16th century as one of the ‘seven races of England’. Thus, by 1600, many who spoke the King’s English and went by ‘English’ names were in fact of direct Flemish descent.

NATO has always been more than just a traditional military alliance because it has always been about more than just traditional military security. When the Atlantic Alliance was established 60 years ago, its founding vision involved more than just the defence of Europe and America against the Soviet Union. It was much bigger and far more compelling than that. NATO’s original raison d’être was nothing less than the defence of Western civilization against Eastern tyranny.

If anything, the ensuing decades of the Cold War clarified and crystallized the political and intellectual division between the West and the East. And NATO evolved from its origins as a defensive alliance to become part of an offensive vanguard that sought to spread the ideals of Western civilization, such as political freedom and democratic capitalism, to other parts of the world. The issue of enlarging NATO, for example, came to epitomize the larger question of establishing the borders of Western civilization.

In his previous posts, the French economist Gérard Pince demonstrated through his own calculations, which were in turn based on a handful of givens furnished by leading research institutes, that the official figures on immigration are not only too low, but deliberately skewed so as to fool the general population. According to Pince, by the year 2060 (50 years from now, but in fact much sooner than that, since for certain age groups, the tipping point is about to be reached), the ethnic French people will be a minority in their own land. Furthermore, he demonstrates that the number of North and sub-Saharan Africans and Asians in France today is at least 9 million. (The figure bandied about by many news sources is still 5 million, based on data from the Interior Ministry from several years ago. But time has passed, and inevitably the numbers have doubled).

It's good to be an economist and to know how to count. While we sit around wondering how many non-European immigrants there are in France, economist Gérard Pince has figured it out in an easy-as-one-two-three procedure that he shares with us in a post dated July 30. His opening paragraphs describes how invalid the official figures are; he then moves on to his own method:

The Spanish government has accused the Basque terrorist group ETA of responsibility for back-to-back bombings last week that killed two people and injured more than 50 others. The bloody attacks came as ETA – short for Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, or Basque Fatherland and Freedom – marked the 50th anniversary of its founding. Analysts say ETA, which has been considerably weakened in recent years by aggressive counterterrorist police sweeps in Spain and France, hopes the bombings will not only boost sinking morale among its followers, but also force the Spanish government back to the negotiating table.

George Handlery about the week that was. Shove trouble into the future beyond the legislative term.  Aid: invest, not consume. Criminality and its excuses. Demanding equal treatment for co-religionists is not PC.. How come Islamist killings are executions and hitting back is an assassination? The Dictator‘s Tantrum: more oil than decency.

1. Let me share with you an intelligent commentary. It reacts to the policies designed to overcome the present‘s economic vicissitudes. It also deals with solutions that shove today‘s troubles into that future that begins beyond the term of current legislatures. (For the sake of readability, the original is shortened.) „The glorified progressive economic policies are to expropriate ever-increasing parts of higher incomes and to employ the funds so raised for financing public waste and to subsidize the most powerful pressure groups. Some fail to realize that, ultimately, the funds for public spending must be taken from the same people who are supposed to profit from them.“ Have you digested this commentary? Fine. Now swallow again. Your appreciation of the point is about to grow. The up-to-dateness of the quote is an invention. The text is lifted from Ludwig von Mises. You find the original in his chapter 4 -The Keynesian Miracle. Some old  insights are of lasting validity. This can be so because some old mistakes are being repeated. It is done by those who make us ignore the past in order to be enabled to determine our present.
 

When I write that we don’t have much to fear from the Islamic aggressor, one reaction I often get is that I am overly and unduly optimistic, making light of a massive threat. Recently someone paraphrased my position as: “Europeans can go to sleep peacefully tonight.” This is an allusion to what, according to legend, the Dutch Prime Minister Hendrik Colijn said in a radio speech on the eve of the German invasion in May 1940, in a ludicrous world record of false reassurance. In reality he said it years earlier, though on a related occasion, viz. the German remilitarisation of the Rhineland. Moroever, he said it after announcing a partial mobilization of the army, thus presenting the common people’s peaceful sleep as the reward for the vanguard’s vigilance. At any rate, I am not at all saying that Europeans should go to sleep. On the contrary, my position is that we should be alert and outwit the Islamic aggressor.

The 16th Century Flemish ‘Swarming’ to the British Isles

Earlier Flemish immigration to the British Isles had been select, concentrated and relatively controlled. As we have seen in my earlier posting, Flemish migrants had for the most part been invited by English kings to settle in the kingdom for specific purposes. Flemings came as dependent vassals charged with subduing the Scots, fighting the Irish, or shoring up the border territories with Wales. Alternatively, colonies of Flemish artisans were encouraged with royal enticements to set up industrial colonies dedicated to the manufacture of relatively high-value woolen textiles. Over time most descendants of these Flemish immigrants shed their outwardly foreign ways and adopted the identity of their English hosts and neighbors.

Next month, Germany will elect a new parliament. The Christian-Democrats of Chancellor Angela Merkel are expected to do well. Ms. Merkel, who is of East-German origin, is especially popular in the former West-Germany. In Merkel’s native East-Germany, however, there is a lot of nostalgia – “Ostalgie” (“Eastalgia”) as they say in German – for the days of the erstwhile Communist “German Democratic Republic” (GDR).