“As the bumper sticker says, if you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns. Likewise, if (as Europe has done) you marginalize religion, only the marginalized will have religion. That’s why France’s impoverished Muslim ghettos display more cultural confidence than the wealthiest enclaves of the capital” (Mark Steyn, America Alone, p. 47).
Soft Power, Aye
“‘Soft power’ is wielded by soft cultures, usually because they lack the will to maintain hard power. Can you remain a soft power for long? Maybe a generation or two. But a soft culture will, by its very nature, be unlikely to find the strength to stand up to a sustained assault by blunter, cruder …
Why Statism Won’t Save Us from Islam
“A citizen of an advanced democracy expects to be able to choose from dozens of breakfast cereals at the supermarket, hundreds of movies at the video store, and millions of porno sites on the Internet, but when it comes to life-or-death decisions about his own body he’s happy to have the choice taken out of …
Approaching Democratic Realities
“When a European jihadist blows something up, that’s not in defiance of a democratic reality but merely a portent of democratic reality to come. He’s jumping the gun, but in every respect things are moving his way. You may vaguely remember seeing some flaming cars on the evening news toward the end of 2005. Something …
One or the Other
“In the spring of 2002, I met many Arabs who believed simultaneously that (a) September 11 was pulled off by the Mossad and (b) it was a great victory for the Muslim people” (Mark Steyn, America Alone, p. 17).
Feminist Hatred of Women: Exhibit 178
“The Muslim critique of the West—that we’re decadent vulgar narcissist fornicating sodomites—is not without more than a grain of truth. But when the fastest-breeding demographic group on the planet is also the one most resistant to the pieties of the social-democratic state, that presents a severe challenge, at least for the Left. In their bizarre …
Hot for Jihad
“Islam is now the principal supplier of new Europeans, and currently the second biggest supplier of new Canadians. So it’s worth mulling over the question John Howard suggests: What proportion of Western Muslims is hot for jihad?” (Mark Steyn, America Alone, p. 15).
Ecochondriacs
“By the end of this century, the demographically doomed Italians and Spaniards will be so few in number there won’t be enough Continental environmentalists left to man the local Greenpeace office. The Belgian climate-change lobbyist will be on the endangered species list with the Himalayan snow leopard. And, from an American point of view, the …
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And We Are Not Even Counting Ahmed
“What’s the Muslim population of Rotterdam? Forty percent. What’s the most popular baby boy’s name in Belgium? Mohammed. In Amsterdam? Mohammed. In Malmo, Sweden? Mohammed. By 2005, it was the fifth most popular boy’s name in the United Kingdom” (Mark Steyn, America Alone, p. 6).
Getting Ready
Steyn comments on “the belated realization among Europeans that they’re elderly and fading and that their Muslim populations are young and surging, and in all these clashes the latter are putting down markers for the way things will be the day after tomorrow” (Mark Steyn, America Alone, p. 5).