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| --Tech & Moderator Notes |
| Elisabeth's Barrenness and Ours |
| 2011-12-25 |
| h/t Instapundit ... The problem with the advanced West is not that it's broke but that it's old and barren. Which explains why it's broke. Take Greece, which has now become the most convenient shorthand for sovereign insolvency -- "America's heading for the same fate as Greece if we don't change course," etc. So Greece has a spending problem, a revenue problem, something along those lines, right? At a superficial level, yes. But the underlying issue is more primal: It has one of the lowest fertility rates on the planet. In Greece, 100 grandparents have 42 grandchildren -- i.e., the family tree is upside down. In a social-democratic state where workers in "hazardous" professions (such as, er, hairdressing) retire at 50, there aren't enough young people around to pay for your three-decade retirement. And there are unlikely ever to be again. ...The notion of life as a self-growth experience is more radical than it sounds. For most of human history, functioning societies have honored the long run: It's why millions of people have children, build houses, plant trees, start businesses, make wills, put up beautiful churches in ordinary villages, fight and if necessary die for your country . . . A nation, a society, a community is a compact between past, present, and future, in which the citizens, in Tom Wolfe's words at the dawn of the "Me Decade," "conceive of themselves, however unconsciously, as part of a great biological stream." Much of the developed world climbed out of the stream. You don't need to make material sacrifices: The state takes care of all that. You don't need to have children. And you certainly don't need to die for king and country. But a society that has nothing to die for has nothing to live for: It's no longer a stream, but a stagnant pool. |
| Posted by:g(r)omgoru |
| #2 Lest we fergit, MEMRI.ORG > RADICAL CLERIC + Most of Europe to be Muslim-majority by 2050, ditto America by 2070. Don't see Secular Commies making too much headway in Muslim countries - I see Muslim, OTOH, making headway in Euro + Industrialized countries that Commies like. WID FEELING NOW - OOOOOOOOOPPPPPPPPPSSSSIES! |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2011-12-25 21:54 |
| #1 OOops, Intended for "Opinion" |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2011-12-25 14:08 |