It Isn’t (Just) About Islam
My last post about Fr. James Schall’s comparison of Islam and Communism elicited a pandemonium of posts, including some that should embarrass the posters. As a new blogger at PJ Media I did not censor even the most egregious violations of good taste, mainly because I wanted to see what was out there. But I want to make clear how repulsive I find proposals to “expel” Muslims from America and the like. There is such a thing as a Constitution, and also such a thing as basic decency.
Consider the following: If every radical Muslim disappeared today, we still would confront a culture of death that contaminates almost every aspect of daily life, and has harmed every family in America, even the most cohesive and the most religious. This is the deadliest threat to our existence. We still could go down the drain, along with most of the other industrial nations.
My new book is titled How Civilizations Die (And Why Islam is Dying, Too), and it is about us as much as it is about Islam. Iran, Turkey and other Muslim countries are dying of their own loss of faith, heading into a demographic death-spiral that makes them more dangerous. But they are following the example of some Western countries. Consider Italy and Poland, with fertility rates of 1.3 or so. By the end of this century, if this persists, Poland’s population will fall by half and the average Pole will be almost 60 years of age. And that is the Poland of John Paul II, this brave and talented nation whose resistance to Communism formed the spearhead of the West during the Cold War. My family visited Rome when my children were small and I brought them to Vatican Square on a Sunday so that they might might catch a glimpse of this spiritual leader of the West, this great friend of the Jewish people. In 1989 Poland was an inspiration to the West. But today’s Poles do not care enough about their future to bring a new generation into the world! The same is true of most of industrial nations.
America and Israel are the only industrial nations with fertility rates above replacement. But it is not yet clear whether we Americans really are an enduring exception, or just the lepers with the most fingers. Consider my own people: Secular Jews have a fertility rate around 1, and capital-c Conservative Jews 1.3. The Reform are at 1.2 or so, and by their own account have lost a third of their synagogue-going members in the past decade. The Modern Orthodox, by contrast, have between 3 and 4 children, and the ultra-Orthodox more than 7, but we Orthodox are just a tenth of American Jews. Episcopalians and Presbyterians are at 1.3. The overall birth rate is sustained by two large groups: Evangelicals (at 2.6) and Hispanics (and close to 3). And the pessimists don’t think that will continue.
It’s easy to fulminate against Muslims. It’s harder to fight the endemic culture of death here. And it’s easy to deal with Iran (for example) as soon as we choose to do so. Soviet Russia — now there was a frightening enemy, one capable of annihilating us. Iran is a danger, but a trivial one compared to the Evil Empire that Ronald Reagan defeated. If we let Iran get nuclear weapons, it could be a very dangerous enemy, but probably not an existential danger like the Soviet Union.
That’s why I wrote a book that deals with the crisis within Islam, but by reference to our own crisis — and past crises in the West, including the depopulation of the Hellenic and Roman worlds. There but for the grace of God go we.
I believe America is exceptional, and that we will prevail. But that requires us Americans to ask ourselves every day whether we’re still good enough to be Americans.
Much of what makes us exceptional in the modern world, more than people realize, is due to the geographically dispersed nature of our country which means that only a very large scale nuclear attack could cripple our culture or our military capability. Most European countries are not like this at all.
To everyone on the planet except the Russians, and maybe not even them, this is what makes us a durably invincible opponent. The British, the French and other Europeans can be intimidated far more easily.
Mr. Goldman, several points:
1) American Jewry will undergo a process similar to what is happening in Britain – its population will drop to a certain level, and then the Orthodox and Hasidic birthrates will become significant enough to raise them again. American Jews will be “fewer but Jewer” in the medium term, and “more pious and more numerous” in the long term.
2) We have to disagree (as we have before) about how existential an enemy a nuclear Iran would be. First, I take the Ahmedinejad faction and their doomsday cultism at their word when they believe that provoking a major war would bring back the 12th Imam. They have been willing to kill thousands of their own to stay in power; would they think twice about nuking Israel, even if (according to Anthony Cordesman), it would cost 18 million of their own people their lives? No, because to them, all life but their own is cheap – or more accurately, more valuable in martyrdom – and they are blinded into a psychotic rage by their Jew-hatred. Second is the very real possibility that they give the bomb to terrorists who then use it, in the hope of getting plausible deniability.
3) As for Poland, and the rest of Eastern Europe, while they have been good post-war allies of the USA (and Israel), in my mind, I have to wonder, when push comes to shove, how reliable they can be in a real showdown for the USA & Israel vs. the Islamists. I still think the anti-Semitism is just too deeply impressed in their society for them to go to the mat for us. And while I know it is not in Jewish teaching to hold this generation responsible for the sins of the elders — I simply cannot come to respect or to forgive a Poland that not only brought us most of the death camps (and how many thousands of Poles helped in murdering their Jews), but also Jedwabne, Kielce, scores of other post-war programs, the 1968 anti-Zionist campaign — and Zbigniew Brzezinski.
4) Finally, while your book may not be “just” about Islam, I gather that in part, it does deal with it. Demographics are indeed a medium to longer term issue (Mark Steyn has been beating this drum for a decade), but in the short term, yes – we have to worry about the Jihadists. We have to worry about them getting WMDs. We have to worry about them using it. We have to worry about them using them on Israel and unleashing a wider war that will render all of your longer term demographic concerns moot.
Poland did not bring us death camps. The Nazis did. They located the death camps in Poland in part because they killed Poles in them. 2.8 million non-Jewish citizens of Poland died during World War II. The Nazis set out to kill the whole intellectual elite of Poland. Himmler said on March 15, 1940: “All Polish specialists will be exploited in our military-industrial complex. Later, all Poles will disappear from this world. It is imperative that the great German nation considers the elimination of all Polish people as its chief task.” There were Poles who collaborated with the Nazis, and Poles who murdered Jewish survivors after World War II. No-one excuses them. But the Poles were by an overwhelming margin among the victims, not among the murderers. The decline of the Polish nation is a tragedy for the West.
My choice of wording about the death camps was poor, but I think you know what I was getting at. The camps were on Polish soil and the day-to-day operations were helped in large part by Poles. Far more Poles helped to round up Jews than helped to save them. And the massacre at Jedwabne was a Polish solo effort.
But the Polish reputation for anti-Semitism was established even before the war, and was solidifed by its post-war behavior – notice the various post war incidents I cited in my original post. Israeli distrust of Poland was so deep that Yitzak Shamir, who fled Poland and was PM when the Communists fell, would not set up diplomatic relations with them.
@Eric R.
“I simply cannot come to respect or to forgive a Poland that not only brought us most of the death camps (…)”
What.
I look to you for guidence. Why was I wrong in my previous posts?
Respectively,
T
My father (who grew up in Czechoslovakia) was in a concentration camp in Poland. For what it’s worth, he told me that the Poles were worse than the Germans.
David,
Thank you for this post, which is life-affirming rather than Muslim-bashing. After being a fairly conventional Republican in college, my disillusionment with neocons and most Big Government Republicans in general began when I realized how wildly wrong they were about Russia, and then doubled back and wondered if they’d been spectacularly wrong about Iraq and Afghanistan too as well as our own trajectory as a nation.
Now I notice a kind of renewed desperation on the part of those in Washington who believe it’s America’s business to be involved everywhere and at all places, from Libya to Yemen to ‘democracy promotion’ in China and Russia which is really great power politics (Oceania by which Orwell meant the Anglosphere would always be at war with either Eurasia or Eastasia) and sucking on the taxpayer tit under a humanitarian guise.
That desperation, like Erdogan’s, comes from a recognition that time is not on their side and the axe is going to fall. This bloated defense/intelligence/’homeland security’ budget will be cut at some point, probably by nearly half, if this government is to have any hope of ever balancing its budget ever again. We will not and cannot cut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security while leaving ‘defense’ (really mostly offensive or ‘show the flag’ capabilities, like maintaining TEN carrier battle groups) untouched. Nor is there a war Keynesian justification for doing so, though I’ve always wondered why stimulus such as cash for clunkers is a spectacular failure while building bombs and missiles is not. I suppose it’s because people both Dem and Repub still think the U.S. economy recovered from the Great Depresssion because of how much we spent to win WWII. It wasn’t the spending, it was the fact that there was no one left standing except the U.S. We had a spectacular postwar boom by default, in reality, and because America still had leadership worthy of being looked to. Now????
Eric,
I am a hawk’s hawk. I want to attack Iran and disable its capacity to threaten us. Whether or not Iran can reform itself (which I doubt) is up to them, not to us; our priority is protecting American lives and American interests. And I do NOT want to cut the defense budget. It’s a dangerous world. I don’t want to bash Muslims. I doubt that Islam is compatible with American-style democracy, but I am happy to welcome individual Muslims who accept our principles and our institutions. Those who threaten us, I want to frighten or otherwise neutralize. Those who do neither, I propose to do nothing about.
“America and Israel are the only industrial nations with fertility rates above replacement. But it is not yet clear whether we Americans really are an enduring exception, or just the lepers with the most fingers.”
I stand by the following prediction: If the U.S. has the same kind of protracted stagnation following its bubble as Japan has had following theirs, I assure you that the U.S. fertility rate will decline to that of Japan or Europe. This is really a no-brainer of a prediction because being a slacker (freiter in Japan) is a perfectly rational choice in a zero-sum, no-growth economy, and many young adults will choose this option.
The most fundamental requirements for having families is Affordable Family Formation (Steve Sailor) and a growth-oriented economy offering lots and lots of opportunity. Without these factors, forget about family formation. It is dead, dead, dead!
I believe America is exceptional, and that we will prevail.
Then you had better pray that the “tea party” libertarian revolution is successful.
I must respectfully disagree. It is acceptable for a nation to be selective about its members; inviting and expelling guests in the right circumstances is entirely healthy, natural, moral, and just. It’s one of the foundational fundamentals of why the state exists in the first place. Justification isn’t necessary for this truth that stands on its on right.
Open borders, open culture, and open interpretation of what ought to be universal laws will kill America before Islam ever will. This doesn’t mean orderly population transfers should be off the table.
Preemptive war on a rival sovereign just for wanting the same advantages we have is wrong. It might not even be successful. Massive military spending is choking the American economy, holding back much of the population that wants to live. Cutting back a bit doesn’t mean turning into a pacifistic death culture like Japan, Iran, or Sweden.
2 demographic thoughts:
We should allow in (legally) many more Hispanics. We should also deport the illegals and criminals who prey mainly on legal immigrants and sap money from government aid programs.
7 kids each? Is our host doing his share?
I’ve posted elsewhere that the onus should be on the Muslims themselves to show the rest of us that they are in fact willing to be American Citizens in all that that implies. Show the rest of us Americans by their example. Show by example that they are not subversive elements. Show by example that they have been and will continue to assist the rest of us Americans in fighting their barbarous co-religionists… and militant Islam itself. Show the rest of us that they are not passive bystanders. Go ahead, change our “misconceptions” by examples.
Don’t mention the numerically insignificant Muslims in our Armed Forces today as that example.
So far the Muslims in America are seemingly content acting the role of the passive “victims” of “mean American prejudices” and that over-used word “racism”.
And, regarding that variant, if you will, of the Muslims, Islamism, they who are most doctrinally knowledgeable among their co-religionists must help the rest of us determine the nexus, or fulcrum, or crossover stage that turns a Muslim adult male or adolescent male into that rabid jihadist animal called an Islamist. There is a blurring, an indefiniteness that seems to be unattended and in need of clarification….publicly.
I’m sick and tired of being the one who must try to “understand the Muslims” and be “tolerent of the Muslims”.
If there are allegedly one billion Muslims, surely a large number of them can organize themselves into an effective fighting force of their own, and stop this hypocrisy of standing aside and holding our coats while we Americans and too few allies are trying to curb this Muslim/Islamist barbarism.
Don’t talk to me about “sympathy” and “understanding” and “tolerance” of Islam.
Won’t help.
Even a loyalty oath won’t separate the wheat from the chaff – google “takiya”
One of the features of Muslims who enter non-muslim lands is a progression in distinct stages based on their proportion of the population:
1. when a small minority, Muslims are generally peaceful and cooperative with others
2. when their numbers increase and become significant they begin demanding “respect” and vilifying their critics
3. when number approach parity in a given area they violently attack non muslims and set up sharia ruled areas
This has played out in recent years in many African countries, Paris and other European cities. And of course in Israel (compare the placid Muslims of Jewish majority Jerusalem to the firebrands in Hebron).
The problem is more acute in Europe as European cities have many Muslims in stage 2 and some locales in stage 3.
In America the Muslims are generally at stage 1, with some organizations aggresively pursuing stage 2 aided and abetted by their political allies on the left.
Jay…
Your points 1.,2., and 3. are correct. And, we know that “Loyalty Oaths” are worthless because of that very Taqiyya concept you mention…that particular Army Major Hassan and the EM “conscientious objector” indicate that Muslims in the uniforms of the United States can be a threat. Those two were unable to reconcile Islam with their sworn US military obligations.
But, I continue to think that given sufficient education aimed toward the hypocrises of Islam as it applies to attempting to subvert our America we can minimize this subversive Islamic threat in the same way we mimimized communism in America during that other war. We need look no further than Londonistan, Amsterdamistan and Paristan for confirmation of successful Islamic subversion.
This new war is also ideological. We need an effective counter-propaganda-education effort……but we all know we’ll have to try that in the next Administration, alas. In the meantime Islam has a good solid head start here.
I’d buy the book if it was on Kindle.
I’m sure over the long term, the diversity of including Moslems in America will benefit America in the same way as the inclusion of Communists has benefited America since the 1920s. Imagine what 100 years of growing closer to Islam will bring. We have seen what a century of including Communists has brought.
But I want to make clear how repulsive I find proposals to “expel” Muslims from America and the like.
There is actually a legal precedent for something similar. This is to declare Islam to be a totalitarian ideology, much like Soviet Communism, rather than a legitimate religion. I think a strong legal case can be made for this.
My wife is Japanese. I met and married her in Japan. We had to go through quite a process for her to get a “green card” for permanent residency in the U.S. One part of the process was her signing, under oath, a declaration that she was not a member of any totalitarian organization or any other organization that advocates the overthrow of our constitutional form of government. Her entry into and residence in the U.S. was conditional on this declaration. This was used to screen out communists during the cold war. It could be just as easily used to screen out muslims as well.
Islam can certainly be considered a totalitarian ideology. It does not recognize the kind of constitutional self-government that we have in the U.S. It does not recognize separation of state and religion. It claims to have jurisdiction over all humans (whether they want anything to do with the religion or not). It does not recognize the Lockean concept of individualism and individual liberty (I consider ANY and ALL worldviews that do not recognize such as totalitarian ideologies). Lastly, Islam even has the individualized version of the Brezhnev Doctrine, where anyone who joins the religion is never allowed to quit later on. All of these points make a compelling legal argument that Islam is a totalitarian ideology.