Reasonable Europeans Should Read This Objectively...It Makes Sense

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I'll give it a try...

By Mark Steyn

Oh dear. Now that's a bad sign. I don't usually bother reading past this line in anything he write, but what the hell. Just don't expect any of this to be even slightly polite...

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Uh huh

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Well that had been confirmed a while ago actually

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Uh huh

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Not even close to being an accurate summary of what happen; the first thing the PP government did was to claim, repeatedly, that ETA did the bombings. Why? Because it fitted in with their electoral strategy. Now, can you all understand why people might have been perhaps a little bit pissed off about that?
Imagine what would have happend if just before the 1996 election a bomb had gone off in (let's say) D.C and killed a lot of people. Clinto then blames it on some terrorist group that the U.S government had made fighting against a top priority, even though he was well aware that it was some other group. Let's imagine that it becomes clear that he had lied for his electoral advantage a day or so before people go to the polls.

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Uh huh

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If I could be bothered I would read the names of some of the people who were killed on 7/7. For such a small list (compared to 9/11) it's very diverse.

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Uh huh

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O.K, now he falls off the deep end. No European country is going to be minority "white" for the forseeable future.

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The problem with Fiji is due to the appalling racism of the native Fijians and the blatenly segregationist policies instituted by various governments there; it even applies to electoral districts! You have one set of districts that only Fijians can vote in, one set of districts that only Indians can vote in and so on.

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However bad the situation is in France; yes

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Politics become tribal everywhere. It's a human thing, you wouldn't understand.

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Northern Ireland is peaceful? Well now it is more-or-less, but until very recently?
Er... no... not really...

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Uh huh. Now, what % of the French population is Muslim? Well it's hard to tell because France doesn't keep statistics on this sort of thing so everything is a guess (which enables people like Steyn to make absurd statements like this) but most estimates for ethnic minorities (including but not limited to Muslims) put it at something like 14% or so.

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Y'know, I think that Steyn needs to get it into his thick skull that getting drunk before writing articles isn't a great idea...

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Add "on meths" to my statement above

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Well you're predictions are certainly doing that Steyn...

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Ooookkkaaaayyyyy...

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I don't know what point Steyn is trying to make here and frankly I really, really don't want to know...

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Beneath his usally insanity he does actually have a half a point here

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Well, Steyn, you aren't talking about them honestly either so that makes it a draw, right?

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What exactly is so unreasonable about not wanting a bunch of vicious Vichy apologists to win elections because of these riots?

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The above passage reminds me of why I don't drink anymore

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Ahem.

A couple of points; first off while most countries have race problems and some countries have very, very serious race problems, it's important not to get carried away or get alarmist. That the French "social model" has failed is very clear. That France has a huge task trying to come to terms not just with what has happend over the past few weeks but the past few decades is also clear.
But why tie all of that into yet another quasi-racist ugly rant about "demographics"? The argument that "Europe" will be majority Muslim within a few years is so absurd and so easily disproven that I sometimes wonder why people keep bringing it up; as soon as you mention it in an argument, you've as good as lost. Discussing the problems of race and integration isn't something that should be avoided, but this sort of vicious demagoguery certainly should be.

I should also add that in the Spanish election, all sides acted pretty disgracefully over the bombings.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Al, I give you a lot of credit for breaking down each statement point by point, but quite frankly I expected a more objective analysis from a person of your intellect.

Let's just say the words "by Mark Steyn" set alarm bells ringing

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Non; I'd have said the same sort of things if certain columnists based over here had written it or something similer to it (and I have actually, just not on here).
My problem with the article (and just about anything that that sort of columnist, left or right, writes) is the tendency to obscure any valid points they have under mountains of rubbish and insults (if someone were to post an article by someone like Robert Fisk I'd say some very similer things...).
I'm told that this sort of columnist are often very nice people in real life.

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I can only speak about the U.K here (I think it's similer everywhere else in western Europe, although the birthrates tend to be lower IIRC) but what tends to happen with immigrant communities is an initial large rise in the population (both from having similer birth rates to back home and much lower deat rates to back home) which gradually declines as the new immigrants become just another minority group and change their lifestyles to adapt to the new environment. This was the case with the West Indian immigrants in the '40's and '50's and is becoming the case with most of the Asian immigrants (note that the big waves of immigration happend quite a few years ago here).
Oh also note that very few old people immigrated; something that has a big impact on age structures.

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That's certainly true, but you do have to remember that only a minority of Muslims can be considered to be Islamists; as an example Bradford North has a large Muslim population (mostly Kashmiri) but in the last election the "Respect" candidate polled just 474 votes (1.4%).

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What you have to remember about the far right is quite how diverse it is; a blatently Neo-Nazi party like the BNP or the NPD is never going to do as well as a bunch of Vichy apologists for example. And what they feed on depends on where they are as well (something that also effects how long they can remain a force in a certain area; the BNP polled in double digits in the two Oldham seats in 2001 (race riots over a lack of integration were going on at the time) but collapsed there this year) it isn't *just* fears of some wave of Muslims turning up out of nowhere. Other things are at work.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Could you two calm it down a little, please?