#2
The good Mr Steyn forgot the story of sewveral years ago where a guy died in his appartment, and no one noticed for several years because his disability payments kept going into his account and his rent & utilities were automatically deducted.
The found a skeleton sitting in a bath robe in a chair in fromt of a TV, which ahd broken from being on constatntly for several years. They had a conjectural date of death because of the page the TV listings were opened to, which were on his lap.
Mr Steyn needn't go outside of Germany for a parable of the state of affairs there...
Lionel Shriver explains how selfishness and living for the moment is leading to a demographic disaster in Europe. And it doesn't bother him one bit.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/20/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
His parents made the effort to raise an ingrate like him. Just to balance his karma he needs to raise kids too. Otherwise his karmic imbalance will need to be addressed with millions of lifetimes as a flea.
#3
Lionel's a she (that may explain a lot) and the article is an interesting, if derpessing, read. She says Europe is committing suicide and she was not willing to do her part when she could have. But she stares all the implications in the face and answers them with a shrug. As she admits, she's not so much a dolt as lazy. And I can't disagree with her fianl conclusion for which she is prosecution exhibit number one:
When Islamic fundamentalists accuse the west of being decadent, degenerate and debauched, you have to wonder if maybe they've got a point.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
09/20/2005 8:16 Comments ||
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#4
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
#5
This article choes the opinions of so many that I've met here in the US and Europe. World sucks. There's already too many of us. Etc. The church newspaper had an article on the same subject this week, but the author couldn't bring herself to make the tough conclusions and wandered off into some feel good BS. You gotta give Lionel credit for being brutally honest if nothing else.
I've read a certain amount of "survivor" literature over the years. From that and from studying the current reproductive crisis, I wonder if there is just some level of struggle that humans need without which out need to reproduce shuts down. I want to emphasize that I am not a Nietzchean. In fact I despise him. But maybe in that deranged, syphillitic mind of his, he was on to something. Maybe Lionel and her friends are the Last Men (including their male counterparts), without anything to strive for. Their lives are spent doing fun things and being "humane" (that's what one of them said, I believe. Nietzche would have said "Christian" instead.) slowly whithering away. At least our "inhumane" American capitalism gives us a struggle. There are surprises, challenges, disappointments. Things that make us value life. Value continuing it, knowing that our children will have something different and exciting to look forward, too -- not just more of the same rot.
In the posting above this one, Steyn likens Europe to a corpse. Corpses attract all sort of opportunistic organisms, from bacteria to vultures. The pragmatist in me thinks of the economic and political costs to my nation as this tragedy unfolds. The soldier in me thinks of the cost in lives and materiel. There is a very human side of me that sees the horrors that the Lionels and Gabriellas will experience as they end their literally fruitless lives. How sad that they are only awakening now. And that it's too late.
Might check the Japanese as well. A lot of the ladies are not in the reproductive mood either and the demography is catching up with Japan as well.
An interesting variance between the US and all the other economically 'advanced' states, is that in the US culture there is a recognition beyond 'blood'. The American culture is one far more of the future than one focused if not anchored on the past. The Americans, beyond all the others, are willing to adopt children of any color, race, or culture. The outrage about the foreign influx is about 'illegal' not legal immigration. To a large extent, we still value those who come here 'legally' from all over the world to buy into the 'American Dream'[tm]. That is the one saving trait within the culture which will permit it to escape the 'self-centered' trap so many other 'successful' countries find themselves in now.
#7
11A5S - Thoughtful exposition of a conundrum. I'll turn the tables on ya today with a saying I used to hear from my grandfather which seems (to me) to go to the heart of it:
#8
GA, That is why we represent a threat to every other culture in the world. Binny was just the first to realize it with the means to do something about it. Sooner or later, they'll have to jopin us or disappear as everyone leaves.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
09/20/2005 10:39 Comments ||
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#9
Oh, please. Full disclosure: I don't have kids. I don't like kids. I wouldn't have been doing the kids, the world, or myself any favors by having them.
Hands up, parents: which of you thought, "Gosh, I don't really want kids, but I owe it to humanity to have them. Better get to it!" Thought so.
People have kids for their own selfish reasons, and then some of them stand around patting themselves on the back for their great contribution to humanity. (And in my experience, many people end their contribution at actually producing the kid. Raising it, they feel, is someone else's department.)
Furthermore, there are a lot of people who took a long time to learn, growing up, how to share, wait your turn, be pleasant, etc. And just when they've begun to internalize these lessons, they become parents and find that there are no limits to the selfishness you can express when it's for Your Child. Have a blue, screaming fit in the principal's office because little Princessa didn't make the cheerleading squad? It's OK, it's for My Child! Kick Granny in the shin for that last Beanie Baby? My Child deserves it.
Try not to let the glow from those halos keep you awake at night, OK? Oh, and 3dc? Fleas don't live very long. Those lifetimes will go very fast. I'm going to spend every one of them biting you.
#10
Lol. Except when the kid is a very big SURPRISE! Then you deal with it and discover a few bazillion things you didn't know about yourself along the way, lol. Chill.
#11
Happened to you to, eh? Thought I was the only one to get carried away.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
09/20/2005 11:47 Comments ||
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#12
which of you thought, "Gosh, I don't really want kids, but I owe it to humanity to have them. Better get to it!"
That'd be me. I am raising my niece, a situation I avoided for 10 years. The father is in prison and the mother is a crack addict. After 10 years of seeing her mother screw up, I decided the child's future was more important than holding the mother's feet to the fire by keeping them together. (Perhaps I am condemnable for waiting that long.) Ultimately, I could not bear the thought of the child making the same mistakes and becoming another burden on, yes, humanity. I find myself, at times, angry with the child because of the failures of her parents. I set my anger aside as best I can and try to do what is right for the child. It has been rewarding at times, to see her improve - and it has been radical, but there has been damage to the child and it is has been a struggle. A struggle for her more than me in the end - she went from no to demanding expectations overnight - but, better now than later. I empathize with your kid aversion Angie, but the price to be paid for not raising the next generation is greater than that paid raising them.
#14
I have 3 kids,2 oldest are steps.Butch the oldest is closer to his real Dad than me,but that's ok we still love each other.My step daughter I've raised since she was 3 months old and love as my own.The good thing about my situation is thier Dad and I are old friends and drinkin buddies so we have avoided lot of friction that others in my situation have had to deal with.Greatest day of my life was when the nurse laid my son in my arms,you don't know what you are missing.
#15
Were not a kids person in particular, albeit I assumed that at some point I may get into parenting. Did not happen until I was about 32 and then again when I was 42.
The first daughter is now a grownup, a bright young lady, I am proud of her. She is not exceptional in any special way (yea, she's very pretty but I don't include that), but she turned out to be a very decent human being with a potential to get somewhere once she decides what is her calling. Took some work on my part, I admit. ;-)
The younger one, now 9, is a bit spoiled, but I assume that it is because I was not around for a chunk of time, being half a continent away and coming for 4 month-long visits each year. Now being with her, she's got a mild version of a boot camp, for now. ;-)
I am sure she will turn out pretty decent human being as well. It will take a bit of work.
Back to the beginning... I was not particularly a 'kids' person, but do not regret fathering my daughters one bit, rather the opposite--very glad that circumstances that brought them into this world were there.
Yea, some people just like kids, they may just not know it for a while.
Good on you, Zpaz, and good luck. But I was talking about whether people produced children out of some sort of generic altruism. I don't believe that they do.
The selfish people would be selfish with or without kids.
Which was pretty much my point. But if you look up top you'll see self-righteous smugness about the intrinsic moral superiority of parenthood that would frankly gag a maggot. Or a flea.
#17
Just remember Angie that less than a hundred years ago [of 4000 years of human history] and the arrival of the modern western nanny state, you either created children to take care of you in your old age, accumulated wealth [done by very damn few in the whole population], or died a lot sooner than you'd like since there were no real social support systems for a great portion of the population. Non-nomadic societies evolved by promoting the need of reproduction for the care of the old [with some, often nomadic, turning out the elderly to face the end alone]. One of ten commandments of the Judeo-Christrian culture requires the care of one's father and mother. That burden is now shifted both by the nanny state and the ability of large numbers of people now able to accumulate resources to see them through to the end. That many people have such choices today is either a blessing or a curse depending on your own point of view. None the less, it still remains a fact of life for most of the population of this planet. Its interesting to hear fellow travelers complain about paying school taxes only to turn around and them demand more funding for elderly focused programs. Where do you think they get the money?
#19
Some say 10,000 years of human history, but let's not quibble. Key thing is, people who have kids tend to have more descendants than people who don't -- many of whom, unfortunately are very intelligent, ambitious women -- leading to a species that tends to be fruitful rather than otherwise. This non-replacement birthrate thingy will be self-reversing for the species as a whole; East Germans tend toward 3-4 kids/family, as I recall.
ISN'T IT CLEAR BY NOW that the U.S. and its allies are not likely to be able to wipe out Al Qaeda or ensure that we are not attacked again domestically? As the British acknowledged in July, the London attacks were just a matter of when, not if. To be sure, the terrorists can't win this war, but neither can we.
The most serious risk is that Al Qaeda will sooner or later be able to attack us with a biological or nuclear weapon, not merely the conventional bombs used in London and Madrid or the suicide car bombs being used to such gruesome effect in Iraq during the last few days. Long-term strategies to win Muslim hearts and minds â through democratization, public diplomacy and greater economic opportunity â are therefore likely to be a case of too little, too late. Even if, somehow, many are won over, such strategies will have no effect on the recruits who are being drawn to Al Qaeda every day, especially among Sunni populations where U.S. troops are stationed.
So is there a Plan B? The most recent videotaped message from Ayman Zawahiri, Al Qaeda's second-in-command, broadcast Aug. 4, is a reminder that there could be â in the form of some sort of political engagement.
Unthinkable? In his message, Zawahiri referred to Osama bin Laden's April 2004 offer of a truce to any European country that made a commitment to stop "attacking Muslims, or intervening in their affairs." European governments immediately dismissed the offer. Why?
For starters, because the West believes there is nothing to be negotiated when it comes to Al Qaeda. Terrorist acts are either senseless violence (which means there is nothing to talk about) or part of a plan to destroy our way of life (which is nonnegotiable). As White House spokesman Scott McClellan said, "Terrorists will use any excuse to carry out evil attacks on innocent human beings."
It's also believed that a truce is impossible because Bin Laden and company will not act in good faith. In the words of former Secretary of State Colin Powell, "How can you make a deal with a terrorist?" And finally, even if we could make a deal with Al Qaeda, we shouldn't â engagement with terrorists would only encourage them.
It's time to take a fresh look at this logic.
Does Al Qaeda have nonnegotiable goals? Zawahiri said: "There will be no salvation until you withdraw from our land, stop stealing our oil and resources and end support for infidel, corrupt rulers." Some argue that this is an initial set of demands â that the real goal is imposing Islam on the West.
Maybe. But what if, instead, Al Qaeda's agenda is what its leaders repeatedly say it is: an end to the Western military presence in Muslim lands, to "uncritical political support and military aid" to Israel, and to support of corrupt Middle Eastern regimes. Most scholars of Islam argue that because jihad is a defensive concept, the attacks on us must be understood as retaliation for perceived provocations, and that Al Qaeda's stated agenda â which has been consistent since 1996 â should be taken literally.
But can one make a deal with terrorists? The British eventually dealt with the IRA, and the French with the Algerian FLN. A few months ago it was reported that U.S. Army officers negotiated with insurgent leaders in Iraq.
As to whether we should deal with them, there is a legitimate concern, but it's a Catch-22: If aggrieved parties are ignored by an authoritarian government, they often eventually resort to violence, and then if the government is loath to engage them for fear of legitimizing their tactics, the grievances remain and the violence continues. (Think of the American colonists and George III or the early Zionists and the British.)
Sooner or later we may find ourselves having little choice but to seek a truce with Al Qaeda, no matter how much it galls us. And waiting until there are many more American â and European, Egyptian, Saudi, Iraqi â casualties only weakens our position because it will then be clear that Plan A has failed and we are desperate.
Is all this hopelessly naive? Consider this: In the wake of the Beslan terrorist attack, none other than neocon theoretician Richard Pipes called upon Russia's Vladimir Putin to negotiate Chechen sovereignty with those terrorists, on the grounds that the conflict had historical roots (there were real grievances) and because the Chechens had "resorted to terrorism for the limited objective of independence ⊠not [destroying] Russia."
Pipes then tried to distinguish the Russian situation from "America's war with Al Qaeda," asserting that the latter was nonnegotiable because Al Qaeda's attacks, unlike the Chechens', "were unprovoked and had no specific objective. Rather, they were part of a general assault of Islamic extremists bent on destroying non-Islamic civilizations."
But Al Qaeda does feel provoked, and if, as I have suggested, it has limited and specific goals, then Pipes' advice to Putin applies to us.
Some argue that we should just unilaterally change the policies that provoke Al Qaeda. I would argue that if we do, we risk not getting the peace we seek, and we would then have already given away our negotiating leverage.
I'm not suggesting that we engage in direct meetings with Al Qaeda, nor that we stop pursuing those who commit or support acts of terror. But, through back channels, we should seek to determine if Bin Laden would withdraw his fatwa against Americans in exchange for certain policy changes, if Al Qaeda would settle for less than its maximum demands and if its far-flung followers would honor a truce.
There is evidence that the answer to all these is yes, but it's inconclusive. With the stakes this high, shouldn't we find out for certain?
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/20/2005 00:19 ||
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#1
Allen J. Zerkin is an enemy disinformation agent, toolfool, dhimmi-in-waiting, and asshat. Drano.
#2
By Allen J. Zerkin, ALLEN J. ZERKIN is a research fellow at New York University's Center for Catastrophic Preparedness and Response and an adjunct professor at its Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. Professor Zerkin is also an @sshat extraordinaire whose head is currently lodged up his own rectum.
Posted by: Tibor ||
09/20/2005 1:53 Comments ||
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#3
I'd be in favor of negotiating with them... after we'd attached part of their anatomy to the end of a long, sharp wooden pole.
#6
" Some argue that this is an initial set of demands â that the real goal is imposing Islam on the West."
There is no argument, no debate, there is absolutly no question...that is the real goal of AQ and it affiliates. How do we know this? Because they tell us this nearly everyday. And then back it up with terrorism as the tactic to advance this goal. So the real question is...Are the civilized people of the world willing to accept that goal? I suspect the answer is no. That means there is no negotiation.
So the authors proposal is complete fantasy. But give him credit. At least he comes right out and says what the rest of the Transnational Progressive movement is unwilling admit.
Tomorrow's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the Pentagon's top-secret military intelligence unit known as Able Danger should be quite a show. Rep. Curt Weldon, who deserves most of the credit for bringing the formerly forgotten unit to public attention, is promising as much with a list of potential witnesses who he says will be able to testify that Able Danger identified ringleader Mohamed Atta and several other terrorists inside the United States at least a year before the September 11 attacks.
The list includes:
⢠Naval Capt. Scott Philpott, an Able Danger team leader, according to the Pentagon, who approached the September 11 commission with what he knew about Atta in 2004.
⢠Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, the Defense Intelligence Agency employee who acted as liaison with Able Danger team members. Col. Shaffer was the first to come forward with allegations that Pentagon lawyers rebuffed his attempts to coordinate a meeting between Able Danger analysts and the FBI.
⢠An FBI agent, who, according to Mr. Weldon, will testify under oath that she organized the meetings between the FBI and Able Danger analysts to discuss Atta.
⢠A Pentagon employee, who will testify that he was ordered to destroy 2.5 terabytes of information Able Danger had compiled, which is roughly equivalent to one-fourth of all the printed material in the Library of Congress. According to Mr. Weldon, this person, as yet unidentified, will also name the officer who gave the order.
As the Pentagon acknowledged earlier this month, destroying sensitive intelligence is not in itself unusual, because the Pentagon is forbidden to spy on Americans. "In a major data-mining effort like [Able Danger], you're reaching out to a lot of open sources and within that there could be a lot of information on U.S. persons," said Pat Downs, a senior policy analyst in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense. We can only assume that the Able Danger chart identifying 60 known terrorists including Atta was lost in this destruction. So far, this chart is the only known material evidence that would corroborate Mr. Weldon's claims. The Pentagon has found similar charts, but none which include Atta.
However, as with nearly everything related to Able Danger, there is some confusion. The employee who will testify that he destroyed the data will apparently also allege that a Special Operations Command general, who was in the Able Danger chain of command, was "incensed when he found out that material that he was a customer for was destroyed without his approval," said Mr. Weldon. If true, this might mean that the order to destroy the Able Danger data came from elsewhere in the Pentagon, which could lead one to speculate that it was not part of normal procedure.
We hoped the Pentagon would clarify some of the particulars regarding Able Danger, and so it has. It has acknowledged that Able Danger existed as well as discovered three other defense employees who recall the unit's identification of Atta before the September 11 attacks. Its confirmation of Able Danger, the existence of similar charts and Mr. Weldon's witness list, do, however, place further pressure on the September 11 commissioners to explain why they didn't mention the unit in their final report.
A new thread concerning the worst attack on U.S. soil is beginning to come to light. Although it is far too soon to conclude that this is a major scandal, it should be pursued with vigor and complete transparency.
Posted by: Captain America ||
09/20/2005 05:46 ||
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I know it isn't nice, but I do love it when rocks are turned over.
The United Nations celebrated its 60th anniversary this week, with one of its giant confabs by Turtle Bay, kicked off with addresses from President Bush and others. According to the programme notes, this âworld summitâ was to the purpose of reforming the venerable organization, so that it might better tackle terrorism, poverty, political oppression, recurring genocide, and similar global inconveniences.
As usual, the result was a farce. The various large voting blocs, consisting of alliances between numerous poor, backward countries under unaccountable, irremovable, dictatorial regimes, led the way in blocking each Western proposal in their usual way.
We have the Arab League, the Islamic Conference, the African group, and the Non-Aligned Movement, whose overlapping memberships create a working majority in the General Assembly. They vote with disciplined consistency to prevent anything being done that might advance such causes as democracy, free trade, legal transparency, bureaucratic accountability, or the defence of the most elementary human rights. They were able to prevent passage, this time, even of a resolution that would condemn in principle the gratuitous slaughter of civilians. This on the argument of Arab states that it might benefit Israel in some way.
Anything that is achieved, is done through the Security Council, where for the present membership is restricted, and urgent business can be piloted by the combined action of the five founding permanent members (an artefact of the victory parade at the end of World War II). And yet the single most earnestly proposed âreformâ is to wash out this arrangement with new permanent members, and thus make the Security Council yet another grandstanding venue.
The massive bureaucracy which the UN sustains, at headquarters and in its sprawling regional offices, notoriously does more harm than good to anything it touches. Even the defensive Volcker Report, on UN management of the vast âoil-for-foodâ fraud that preserved Saddam Hussein in power in Iraq while laundering money on a globally unprecedented scale, gives hint of the degree of corruption. Other investigations, brought through Western pressure, have exposed the role of UN peacekeeping missions in spreading prostitution and child abuse almost everywhere they have been sent. And U.N. health and aid programmes achieve almost uniformly counter-productive results, usually from ideological motivations.
While dictators in the Third World, and liberal politicians and pressure groups in the West, continue to affirm some mysterious âmoral authorityâ, the reality is that the UN has evolved into a gargantuan lobby to resist the spread of democracy and constitutional government, protect established criminal behaviour, and advance utopian projects that no electorate on the surface of the earth has ever supported.
The current secretary-general, Kofi Annan, whose own brother and son are deeply implicated in kickback scams (along with a cross-section of his most senior bureaucrats), is the ultimate author of âreformâ proposals that do not merely ignore the known causes of corruption and ineptitude, but would enlarge the possibilities for them, by spawning extravagant new layers of unaccountable bureaucracy.
In an important article in the (U.K.) Spectator this week, the exiled Canadian journalist Mark Steyn did the best job I have yet seen of adumbrating the whole mess (in more words than I have at my disposal this morning). It is a great pity we can no longer read him in the Canadian mainstream media, for in addition to his celebrated wit, he has the broad grasp of events, and focused horse-sense to make him unquestionably our countryâs leading journalist. If you can find it, go read: âThere is no cure for the UN.â
Hereâs the nub. Were serious reform of the UN accomplished, it would be turned from an ineffective anti-American and anti-Western organization, into an effective anti-American and anti-Western organization. That is absolutely inevitable from the membership structure, with its voting blocs. So, better a UN that continues in a state of abject dysfunction, than one that can be more efficiently evil.
Back to me. It would follow, on the usual paradoxical principle, that it was rather dumb of President Bush to send, as the new American representative, John Bolton. He is a man committed to making the UN work, and whose reputation portends he will press for reform effectively. That is: dumb, for precisely the opposite reason from that presented ad nauseam by the liberal media, Democrats, Euros, leftists, etc. They thought it made no sense to appoint a man who would resist their own consensus.
But perhaps, by further paradox, the critics will turn out to be right, and Mr Bolton the obstructionist will make consensus on any effective reform of the U.N. impossible. In which case, praise the Lord.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
