The book America alone paints a bleak picture for Europe and Canada. Europe and the United States are having problems with low fertility rates. The problem in Steyn's view is the preponderance of Social safety nets and high expectations.
The problem is more complicated than mere safety nets. We have become a spoiled society where we must have every conveniece and electronic gadget. It is an easier life where one can jet around the globe and buy second homes than to raise children.
Even in states with subsidized day care, health care, higher education the fertility
rate plummets.
The truth is Muslims are able to live with less. The generous European safety nets provide a more comfortable life than their home country. They also have plenty of free time for religious activities of all kind. There are no cutoffs of aid and this can go on indefinately.
The question of dependency never enters the Socialist mindset. People who work do not have time to riot or wage Jihad. The left also talks about compassion but a subsistence paycheck is not compassion. A real joib created by economic growth is compassion.
Steyn also points out that European Muslims are more agitated than their counterparts in Yemen. Their counterparts in Yemen have to work very hard to survive.
In many cases men leave their families behind in Yemen or Pakistan but have six kids there where it is cheaper. There is no need to do this in Europe as the welfare state
makes having kids in Europe easier.
The reality is that in America the birth rate is low for many reasons. The costs of housing, health care and education are all very high. The era of job stability isn't what it used to be unless one is a government employee. Small companies go in and out of business and work on tight margins. Easy divorce law makes marriage a risky proposition. I am surounded by coworkers who are divorced with kids male and female.
They all have various problems from dead beat spouses to spouses that use the kids as hostages. A divorce with children involved is a lifetime issue. Both halves of the divorced couples have to work harder to make ends meet.
Steyn is correct the world has changed. Will the person in my job be seeing ethnic Germans and Italians leaving sharia just like the Christians of the Middle East fifty years from now. My guess is that the soft Euros will adapt to Sharia just as they did Communism and Nazism.
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18 comments:
Beak:
"Will the person in my job be seeing ethnic Germans and Italians leaving sharia just like the Christians of the Middle East fifty years from now"
I think you are stretching the time like a little to far. I truely believe we will see this within just a few years.
In most countries you see the immigrant assimilated into the culture and laws of the country. However, with the muslims in Europe the immigrant is assimilating the indeginous population into their way of life.
We are seeing more and more of this in this country. Look at the southwest where I live for one. The mexican is not assimilating into American Culture they are demanding that we assimilate to theirs. Ask AOW about Northern VA where a large muslim population is assimilating the local way of life into theirs. And let us not forget MN where we now have our first avowed Muslim congressman who indeed wants to change US law and the Constitution to better fit with Islam.
Just some early morning thoughts.
I haven't finished reading Steyn's book. I interrupted my reading of that book to read Brigitte Gabriel's Because They Hate. Both are grim books.
My upcoming QUESTION OF THE WEEK, scheduled to be posted this Thursday or Friday, will relate to an article about married without children. More grimness!
Many in my generation were persuaded to be childless. Biology 101 had Zero Population Growth as required reading. We also read The Baby Trap. I wasn't persuaded to remain childless--personal stuff. Nonetheless, most of my college friends have no children, or only one child. Meanwhile, other groups are reproducing geometrically.
Will the person in my job be seeing ethnic Germans and Italians leaving sharia just like the Christians of the Middle East fifty years from now.
Less, I think. I'd say 10-20 years.
Justin
I have seen petitions from the UK. Around half are Caribs and there could be family reunification as a motive.
I have noticed huge increases from Venezuela and Bolivia.
Maybe you are right but I have not seen surges from France and Italy yet. The French cases are mosly Caribs also.
AOW
Marriage is in a grim state because we enter with unrealistic expectations.
Ducky
Are you upset because you didn't take photos and apply for an NEA grant. I thought you were a fan of homoerotic art.
Lets see Chomsky and far left types do not play to the crowd but Steyn and Bat Yeor do. This is more mindlessness.
There is an upsurge in French Jews heading to America, southern Miami area has a growing enclave. They are leaving because they learned and remembered the lessons of WWII!
It has already started, the smart, history readers are leaving NOW!
tmw
TMW
They must be entering in on assylum cases. I haven't run accross them at work. There are several French students dorming at Yeshiva University in Manhatan.
It takes years to get an assylum case and only 10% are approved.
I second that of AOW. I too haven't finished reading his book, but his first chapter regarding current demographics are quite alarming indeed.
Ducky
Where do you see a link to Likud in the story you presented? " Any sugestion that Israel or a cabal of Joooos was behind the Iraq war is anti semitic" Howard Dean.
Hedge funds have large portfolios and one can find all types of things in there including shares of companies that sell Tuna and Cocanuts. This is not like Cattle Futures or any of Gomer Kerry's treason.
Steve
We will revisit Chapter one if I ever get Jason and Mark Alexander here. I think there are some other factors.
"Europe as the welfare state
makes having kids in Europe easier."
Beak, quite the opposite: Europe is aging, has no children (including Eastern Europe lately). Statistics are quite scary, and well-to-do families have one child as an average. From here, we see America as a very child-friendly space.
Beaker-A lot are coming in on business or investment visas, either starting or becoming branches for businesses in Europe.
So they are entering as already productive members of society. One father said they left when his 16 year old daughter came home and said she had to start wearing a hijab to hide her Star of David necklace! She was crying and terrified, at that point he decided they had to leave for his 3 daughter's sake! And safety!
tmw
Ducky
What training does Chomsky have? He is a linguist and has become America's greatest accademic disgrace.
The book is not written or marketed via forced coercion like Chomsky. It would also help if you read the book in question.
Gomer Kerry also wrote a movie review as well. I seem to remember a Boston Globe review of Apocalypse Now.
Redwine
Part of the reason Europeans have so few children is the huge safety nets eat up taxes. The other part is that it is easier and more fun to buy second homes and every gadget.
Muslims are used to living with less. They will take what is offered via the safety net. The problem is as they gain numerical superiority they will want to change the culture.
Ameican families pay through the nose for health care and ever increasing College costs. The price of housing as a percentage of income is also crushing.
Europe will have some genuine problems. However one can see people moving within the EU states if the turmoil becomes great.
TMW
That would explain why I haven't seen any yet. I wonder why the Caribs are leaving the UK and France. There may be something else going on.
Five years ago Steyn was a (bad) movie reviewer. How did he become an expert in demographics in a short time?
Says Ducky the film analysis "teacher" and Iraq War expert.
Europe is culturally and spiritually dead. It makes me glad that my parents left. All these countries have surrendured to the PC-Marxist left and they also slowly surrender to Al Qaeda and the Muzzie vermin who continue to invade. I wouldn't be surprised to see a race war take place in Europe within the next 20 years. The French riots were just the tip of the iceberg.
Beak,
Read the lead paragraph of this and try not to laugh.
Steyn was a movie reviewer?
Are you talking about the same guy who wrote 'America alone'?
If so, that's a pretty big career change but it doesn't necessarily mean his conclusions (especially those on Iran) are incorrect.
Although Steyn was a movie reviewer, he's an outstanding writer. He read about demography, noticed the western decline of such, and also wrote a book on it.
How does that career change make him un-knowledgeable about demographics, Ducky?
Look at Al Gore. Failed EVEN HIS OWN STATE in an election, and then suddenly became an authority on, of all things, something scientific.
Now, HIS problem is that he politicized science. Steyn never did anything stupid like that.
That about answers your question in a nutshell, and it's not even arguable.
Steve
Gore failed in his home state because of his Linda Blair tobacco idiocy. Gore grew tobacco but joined the Clinton obsession with Tobacco. It is a big issue in his home state.
Duck,
Five years ago Steyn was a (bad) movie reviewer. How did he become an expert in demographics in a short time?
9/11 as a wake-up call?
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