The Baby Bust and Falling Fertility: Europe on Life-Support

People Power

Family Feud

"When [Rocco] Falivena took office in 2002 for his second stint as mayor [of Laviano, Italy], two numbers caught his attention. Four: that was how many babies were born in the town the year before. And five: the number of children enrolled in first grade at the school, never mind that the school served two additional communities as well. “I knew what was my first job, to try to save the school,” Falivena told me. “Because a village that does not have a school is a dead village.” He racked his brain and came up with a desperate idea: pay women to have babies…"
--NY Times: No Babies?

Red Planet Cartoons' latest theme is one that will surprise Eco-Weenies: Western Civilization's baby bust.

While eco-warriors are preaching the many ill-effects that humans have on Mother Earth, RPC demonstrates that Earth Firsters might have too many trees in front of them to see a barren, Western Civ forest.

Around the time that President Kennedy went to Germany and gave his “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech, Europe represented 12.5 percent of the world’s population. Today it is 7.2 percent, and if current trends continue, by 2050 only 5 percent of the world will be European.

As Mark Steyn, the Paul Revere of Western Demographic Decline, points out in recent Wall Street Journal article, It's the Demography, Stupid, "In 1970, the developed world had twice as big a share of the global population as the Muslim world: 30% to 15%. By 2000, they were the same: each had about 20%."

Can these trends continue for another 30 years without having consequences? Europe by the end of this century will be a continent after the neutron bomb: The grand buildings will still be standing, but the people who built them will be gone. We are living through a remarkable period: the self-extinction of the races who, for good or ill, shaped the modern world.

Though Steyn is best-known for his chronicling the abysmally-low fertility rates of Western Europe in 2005's best-seller, America Alone, he was not the first.

Phillip Longman's 2004 article for Foreign Affairs, The Global Baby Bust, put the problem in front of many readers for the first time. In it, Longman documents falling fertility, not only in Europe, but also other countries traditionally associated with high birth rates.

By some estimates, the world's fertility will fall below replacement levels by 2050, if present trends continue.

Which ought to send Al Gore into a fit of ecstasy: with less drivers, there will be less pollution from less cars.

And less people to notice any difference.

by Mondoreb
image: Red Planet Cartoons
Source:
* People Power

Steyn, America Alone: PC Crowd, 2 Muslims Seethe, Everyone Else Laughs

What! Did You Say "Demographic Trends"!
I'll teach you to spout demographic trends, you bigot!

Winter weather got you down?

You say you're stressed out and need to laugh?

Then head on over to Unqualified Offerings!

When the Politically Correct attempt an argument, it's almost a guarantee that hilarity will ensue.

There's merriment immediately during Unqualified Offerings's, Sympathy for the Devil: Mark Steyn's America Alone.

The piece's author, Jim Henley, apparently defines "bigot" as anyone who points out demographic trends.

Oh.

And disagrees with Jim.

bigot: n. One who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ. --Ask.com "I knew Steyn was a bigot..." --Jim Henley, differing with Steyn on politics prejudice: n. An adverse judgment or opinion formed beforehand or without knowledge or examination of the facts. "The excerpt from Mark Steyn’s America Alone that ran in Maclean’s last year is far more blatantly racist than I figured it would be when I began reading it. --Jim Henley, explaining why he always reads before forming an opinion of anything

More sweet reason from PC Jim.

I knew Steyn was a bigot, with a 1920s obsession with demographic decline. (Cf. Tom Buchanan in Gatsby, who can’t stop talking about Rise of the Colored Empires, “by this man Goddard.”) But I imagined Steyn was more adroit in his use of code words and deniability feints. No! “Just look at the development within Europe, where the number of Muslims is expanding like mosquitoes” is merely the most spectacular example of - not code words. I’m not completely shocked that Steyn would write with such frank bigotry, or that Regnery would publish it. I’m somewhat surprised that an establishment organ like Maclean’s would run it.

"I'm not Politically Correct.
I feel like such a bigot every time I read America Alone."

Hurry, catch your breath, there's more!

Mark Steyn is a racist douchebag in addition to being a ridiculous figure, which in a way is good, because the case for free speech can’t rest on the idea that speech is harmless or misunderstood or otherwise inconsequential. Speech is dangerous. It does things. If it didn’t, why would we talk at all? There are a lot of reasons not to sanction Steyn or Maclean’s for what he wrote, or even to have a process that presents the possibility. For one, it’s naive to think that the political process, which is all about the deployment of relative power, can sustainably suppress the expression of the strong in favor of the expression of the weak. But my favorite this morning is, I’ll be damned if I’ll give Steyn and his ilk the satisfaction of victimhood.

Jim said "douchebag"!

Poor Jim Henley.

He got all worked up--even got to wax righteously indignant--and one is still patiently waiting for him to explain Steyn's bigotry.

We don't learn anything about all that, but we do learn some things about Jim Henley and Political Correctness: don't disagree with him.

You're a bigot.

And don't write a best-selling book that make the odd Muslim seethe.

You need muzzled.

And Jim will cheer.

And throw in a heapin' helpin' of steamed Jimbo--for free!

Who knew Henley was such a multi-tasking fellow?

Policial Correctness is all about sweet-tempered guys like Jim deciding what the rest of us can read or think. If we don't think like them, we're racists and douchebags and bigots. In Canada and on Jim's cool blog, this PC stuff is all the rage.

Isn't PC a funny idea?

We told you you'd laugh.

by Mondoreb
[images:inimagine; yandy; katiebailey]

Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page.

Multicultural Problem: What's Your Favorite Color?

Multiculturalists have plenty of signs to follow
What's a committed multiculturalist to do when you've accumulated so many aggrieved groups and have to judge among whose cause is more important?

I mean, besides hold a Democrat Party fund-raiser.

Mark Steyn reports on an interesting exchange that took place last week. It highlights the problem of 'too many colors in the multicultural rainbow'.

[Australian News reporter Pamela Bone to selective feminist, Germaine Greer, in Melbourne]:

I then asked why it was that Western feminists seemed so reluctant to speak out against things such as honour killings.

Greer: "It's very tricky. I am constantly being asked to go to Darfur to interview rape victims. I can talk to rape victims here. Why should I go to Darfur to talk to rape victims?"

Questioner (me): "Because it's so much worse there."

Greer: "Who says it is?"

Questioner: "I do, because I've been there."

Greer: "Well, it is just very tricky to try to change another culture. We let down the victims of rape here. We haven't got it right in our own courts. What good would it do for me to go over there and try to tell them what to do? I am just part of decadent Western culture and they think we're all going to hell fast and maybe we are all going to hell fast."

Steyn then remarks, "Too "tricky" to speak out against honor killings, and you can't teach an old feminist new tricks."

Multiculturalists have a problem: when all the supposedly put upon groups they champion are seeking preferred treatment--special speech rights and another cut of the government's dole--which one is first among equals?

When you don't have a favorite color, any will do. It works the same way for value systems: once you've rejected the West, any old thing can be best.

A simple solution would be the adherence to a simple creed. Other than "Expedience Rules!"

Something short and sweet and easy to remember. How about

"All men are created equal"?

Of course, this would immediately offend the feminist, lesbian and trans-gendered portion of their audience.

It's also too Western-centric, so that's out.

But clearly, "What's your favorite color?" won't do.

Germanine Greer, in the previous exchange, unknowingly suggests a new rallying cry of multicultural moral equivalence-mongers everywhere. Something to guide them when their way is unclear. How's this?

"It's tricky!"



by Mondoreb
Sources:
Australian News - Why stay mute on Islamic Sexual Apartheid?
The Corner - Feminist Fatalist

Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page.

Beauchamp, TNR Take A Powder: 2 More Forgotten Brand Names

[image:cbsnews]

by Mondoreb

When you're looking for succinct, usually-hilarious reaction to news, you could do worse than read Mark Steyn, the doomsday-slinging prophet of European demographic decline. The revelation that The New Republic knew that its crack war zone reporter was not what he was cracked up to be gets the once-over from Steyn at the Corner:

No disrespect, Kathryn, but count me among those who raised an eyebrow over your five o'clock Scott Thomas Beauchamp post. It's not about Beauchamp "confessing". Given the alarm bells Beauchamp's original piece set off among those familiar with the subject matter, and given that the anecdote on which the entire premise of the essay hangs has already been determined to have occurred in Kuwait rather than Iraq, all The New Republic had going for it were its editors' insistence that (a) Beauchamp was standing by his story, and (b) the military were preventing him from speaking to them.

It has now been revealed that (a) Beauchamp declined to stand by his story, and (b) the editors spoke with him and knew this weeks ago. Presumably The New Republic's readers are relatively relaxed about the editors colluding in slandering the troops at a time of war: only uptight squares get hung up on that sort of thing. But they ought surely to be concerned at the abuse of trust perpetrated by the magazine against its own readers.

Steyn goes on to relate some facts about TNR's ownership.

Few remember that back in the early 1960s, the best-selling beer in America was--Carling Black Label? CBL's "Hey Mabel--Black Label" was much more recognized among consumers than Budweiser's "When You've Said Bud, You've Said it All".

For consumers of news and the truth, The New Republic is soon to be consigned to the forgotten name brand remainder bin.
TNR will then join CBL.

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