Quote: (11-12-2014 07:14 AM)Handsome Creepy Eel Wrote:
I'm certain that merely implementing some moderate measures (i.e. returning to immigration as it was around 1950-1990 or so) would be enough to roll back the tide and restore normalcy at this point. Demographically and economically speaking, it's still not too late. Just going back to enforcing some common sense laws would be enough. It worked for the last century, it would work again.
At this point, I simply can't support the extreme anti-Islam or anti-immigration policies being peddled here. We are not yet that far gone that just returning to a moderate approach wouldn't solve all of these problems. By shouting views like this, their proponents are just further destroying the possibility that a moderate approach will ever be implemented, because the public that could have otherwise been prodded into action by successive outrages and scandals will become soured on making any changes, viewing the alternative as even worse.
So the next time you hear an otherwise reasonable person supporting more unchecked immigration (and assorted politicians pushing it) because the only alternative they've heard of is expulsion of all Muslims, remember to thank Scorpion, Quintus and Blick.
That puts the cart before the horse. People are responding to facts on the ground that were forced on them. When mass immigration began to Europe after WW2, the populations of European countries were not asked for their approval. It was foisted upon them by their elites. Then it was pushed at their children through the education systems.
It is naive to believe that there will be a moderate solution to this problem for one simple reason: the elite have never allowed a moderate solution to be placed upon the table. It has always been their way or "Nazism" -- a false dichotomy -- and they won't change now. UKIP is actually extremely pro-immigration from within the Commonwealth (including India), yet is denounced as a far right party. The Australian government gets a massive amount of flak for its supposedly fascist immigration policies. At some point, people stop caring what label they are tagged with. At some point, people realise that they're being played as fools. They eventually figure out that if to not buy what the elites are selling 100% makes them far right, then screw it, they might as well actually be far right because it's better than nothing, or the label is essentially meaningless. I believe this is what Scorpion was alluding to with his comment about this creating the perfect environment for the next Hitler.
Earlier in this thread, I wrote that I worried that the solution to this problem might destroy much of European history, and that things might go too far. The problem is though that the window for reasonable solutions is rapidly closing, and deliberately so from the left. When you have cancer, you end up trying something as radical as chemotherapy that causes damage to good cells too simply because it's the only available option left. I'm fairly resigned to the fact that we're going to lose Europe to either cultural Marxism and its useful idiots in Islam, or we're going to lose Europe to totalitarianism. That's why I pretty much wouldn't live in Europe if you gave me a house there. In some ways, it's not going to affect me anyway since I will live outside the West, and my children will be half-Asian. I do think it's sad to see such a beautiful thing as Western civilisation die, however. It's the same feeling I had in seeing those Buddhist statues in Afghanistan blown up a decade ago, or antiquities from the Middle East destroyed recently. Those things were not of my people or my culture, but we are all the lesser at losing them. I am anti-anti-civilisational.
The trouble is that both leftism and Islam run a typical "motte and bailey" strategy. The motte and bailey strategy works by engaging in extreme rhetoric to push the envelope inside the bailey. This is their bread and butter activity. When called upon that, the strategy shifts to hiding inside the keep upon the motte and making a perfectly reasonable statement, or something like "not all X are like that", and so on to paint their detractors as the extremists. When the danger has passed, those inside the keep upon the motte return to the bailey and resume what they were doing before, i.e. pushing the envelope.
Thus, the problem is always going to be that people will think it unreasonable to clamp down upon political or religious freedom, and they may catch a few of the extremists, but they won't solve the underlying problems and conditions without burning down the keep upon the motte as well, but that would be perceived as going too far. The motte and bailey strategy is an inherently passive aggressive strategy that seeks to use the good faith of the Western liberal tradition against itself by claiming that the Western liberal tradition is going against its own principles by defending itself against anti-liberal enemies. It places the Western liberal tradition in a position where it is damned if it defends itself, and damned if it doesn't. The West's enemies are in no way attempting to engage in good faith activities, nor have they ever been. As such, we need to wake up and not let them play that game with us.
Now, a few comments about Islam specifically. I think it is incorrect to claim that Wahabism and other Saudi forms of Islam do not speak for Islam in general for two reasons. The first is that, as I have stated many times before in other threads, they actually can claim the position of being holier than thou. For a Buddhist to claim holier than thou status, he would claim to be more like Buddha. For a Christian to claim holier than thou status, he would claim to be more like Christ. For a Muslim to claim holier than thou status, he would claim to be more like Mohammed. The simple fact is that Buddha and Christ were men of peace who preached peace and tolerance, so to be like them would be to be peaceful and tolerant. Mohammed was a warrior who preached war and intolerance. To be more like Mohammed would be to be more warlike and intolerant. Radical Muslims can always play this card, doubly so when they have a ton of money to fund it.
The second issue is one of authenticity. A Flamenco dancer from Spain is always going to be able to pull rank over a Flamenco dancer from outside Spain because Flamenco comes from Spain. The governing body of a more traditional martial art such as iaido, kendo or aikido is always going to be Japanese, and so able to pull rank, because iaido, kendo and aikido are Japanese. The Vatican is always going to be able to pull rank over Catholics around the world because Catholicism originates in the Vatican. Likewise, Islam originated in Saudi Arabia and its two holiest cities can be found there. As long as people still do the Hajj and pray in the direction of Mecca, sects based there and originating there are always going to pull rank, and that's exactly what they've been doing. They've been going out to the "provinces" and telling the yokels how they've got it all wrong and have deviated from the true path, and based upon the paragraph above, they're correct.