dysotopia

I recently watched the movie ‘Children of Men’ the other day. I was at the same reading Mark Steyn’s newest book ‘America Alone.’ Children of Men was a disappointment. It raised so many questions that were never answered. There were some pretty sweet scenes and the acting was passable but the plot had too many holes and the premise that humans all of the sudden couldn’t breed anymore was a little farfetched. America Alone has a much more realistic premise. It’s subject is mainly about the declining birth rate of most western democracies. The USA is the only western democracy that has a sustainable birth rate and it is on the borderline of sustainable. Some of the problems encountered because of declining birth rate are that the Islamic immigrants of Western Europe have a much higher birth rate and soon they could be the majority. The high cost of the social programs could soon be put into jeopardy because there will be a high proportion of old to young. Some EU countries will be spending up to 25% of their GDP on pension programs. So Steyn’s conclusion is that if something does not change over there in europa then there could be some states living under Sharia law and that the days of the welfare state are coming to an end.

So what are some of the options? Well Europe[Canada too] has been trying to take the high road and uphold the ideal of the multi-cultural society. This usually results in appeasing Muslims and keeping out the bad press that would make Muslim’s look violent. Steyn gives many examples of this that seem like they are out of some novel out of the dysotopian future. Then we have the Bush/Neocon doctrine of trying to build up democracies in the middle east in an effort to mellow out some of those more radical Islamic sects. If they can build a successful Iraq and Afghanistan then perhaps Muslims can see for themselves the superiority of the civilisations of the West.

Part of the problem I believe is that West does not know what it has. America does not know what it has or does not know what makes America great. Without this knowledge it lacks the will to protect something of which it does not know the value. Capitalism is a very strong horse on which one can saddle a lot of baggage to but eventually you will find that there are limits to what one can carry. There is no politician out there that is defending capitalism intellectually. Why is there no one out there to defend the philosophy of government that has produced the most advancement in human history?