Hating on the UN – whatever happens | Global Dashboard - Blog covering International affairs and global risks

Hating on the UN – whatever happens David Steven

April 21, 2009 | More on Cooperation and coherence, North America | 44 comments

In the FT, Gideon Rachman argues that yesterday’s conference walkout during Ahmadinejad’s speech will be bad for Ban Ki-Moon:

Rather than walking away from a conference that was obviously turning into a farce, Ban Ki-Moon – the UN secretary-general – has thrown his prestige behind the meeting This looks like a bad mistake. With the Obama administration in power, the US is clearly keen on the idea of re-engaging with the UN. Obama has made Susan Rice, one of his closest aides, ambassador to the UN – and given her a cabinet position. But the Geneva conference will play into the hands of all the UN-haters in America.

So how have the UN-haters reacted? By pretending the walkout didn’t happen. Take the National Review’s coverage. Steven Groves and Brett D. Schaefer, from the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, are sending back dispatches from Durban II, reflecting the importance of the event to the American right.

Yesterday, Groves and Schaefer reported that Ahmadinejad “rose to great applause from many of the government delegates and, shamefully, from some of the NGOs. Some protestors did rush the stage wearing clown wigs, but they were removed.” They then provide a brief account of the Iranian President’s speech and note that he “concluded his remarks to great applause among a portion of the delegates.”

That’s right. The bit in the middle – a classic piece of summit drama, with Europe’s delegates storming out – doesn’t even get a mention! Mark Steyn, meanwhile, argues that the conference marks the “mainstreaming” of Ahmadinejad, an act that exceeds Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler:

It is in the face of far more public and more explicit eliminationist threats. And, unlike Chamberlain’s generation, this crowd will not be able to plead that what was being planned was so unprecedented it was beyond their capacity to imagine: Every time Ahmadinejad denies the reality of the last Holocaust, he reminds the Merzes [the Swiss President] of the world that the apologists for those planning its sequel won’t have the excuse that they didn’t know it was coming.

Steyn, who sees his role as “explaining” Europe’s decline to the American public, delights in weaving a sick fantasy for his audience. European countries are overrun by immigrants. They are thus desperate to abase themselves to any Muslim leader, whatever the cost.

When the facts – a noisy European boycott, for example – don’t fit. He, like Groves and Schaefer, simply airbrushes them out. As the saying goes: if the facts don’t fit the story, change the facts.

Update: For those of your interested in a primer on Steyn’s world view, see Jules in the comments below, or this post from last year…

Update II: I should note that Groves and Schaefer have now acknowledged the EU walkout. I still can’t understand how they missed it from their contemporaneous post on Ahmadinejad’s speech, but there is a reference to it in their latest dispatch.

Update III: Welcome, visitors, from Mark Steyn’s website, where he has bestowed on me the honour of ‘reader of the day’. To pay back the favour, I’ve collected together some of the greatest hits from a man who dreams of Europe in flames, ‘darker forces’, and ‘white flight’. Read the whole thing.

44 comments »

Jules Evans on April 21st, 2009 at 9:30 am:

Steyn is obsessed with the Islamization of the EU. He reminds me of the mad general in Doctor Strangelove, worrying about the corruption of our precious bodily waters.

On the other hand, he’s fairly chipper about other threats to western society. This from a Wall Street Journal editorial he wrote in 2006:

“There will be no environmental doomsday. Oil, carbon dioxide emissions, deforestation: none of these things is worth worrying about. What’s worrying is that we spend so much time worrying about things that aren’t worth worrying about that we don’t worry about the things we should be worrying about. For 30 years, we’ve had endless wake-up calls for things that aren’t worth waking up for. But for the very real, remorseless shifts in our society–the ones truly jeopardizing our future–we’re sound asleep. The world is changing dramatically right now, and hysterical experts twitter about a hypothetical decrease in the Antarctic krill that might conceivably possibly happen so far down the road there are unlikely to be any Italian or Japanese enviro-worriers left alive to be devastated by it.”

He’s not worried about peak oil, and the shift to a low carbon society either, or to a more sustainable economic model.

But he should be pleased by these things, because, actually, they’re going to strengthen the West, and weaken the Arab petro-dollar states that finance the spread of Islamism.

The thing about Steyn and his ilk is they are clinging to their primitive hard-wiring, which looks for a tribal enemy to fight. Global warming is ‘not worth worrying about’ to them, because it calls for an entirely different way of thinking, which doesn’t find some tribal enemy and fight them.
Jules Evans on April 21st, 2009 at 11:52 am:

My point is that if he is genuinely worried about the rise of Islamism, then he should see the connection to the West’s dependence on oil from the Gulf. Isn’t that obvious?
David Steven on April 21st, 2009 at 12:12 pm:

Steyn wants the US to “cease bankrolling unreformable oil dictatorships by a long-overdue transformation of the energy industry” – and says that “American taxpayers are in the onerous position of funding both sides in this war.”

Not many specifics on this though.

On peak oil: “We’re the dwindling resource, not the oil. We’re the endangered species, not the spotted owl.”
Thoughtless Leftard (redundant) on April 21st, 2009 at 4:51 pm:

Steyn is an idiot, of course. How could anyone argue that there might actually be a societal change when “liberal” Europeans are replaced by Muslim immigrants who only want to live in peace under Shiria law? I am certain that the simple fact of living inside Europe will bring these people to respect human rights, the rights of homosexuals and women. And if it doesn’t, hey, who cares? Western society is bad, bad, bad, m’kay.

Even though I-slam is not a race, Steyn is clearly a racist by questioning if they are really a religion of peace! 7 of them claimed it so it simply must be true!

# Casualty on April 21st, 2009 at 11:14 am:

“He’s not worried about peak oil, and the shift to a low carbon society either, or to a more sustainable economic model.”

That’s worrying! It ought to become illegal, internationally, for anyone not to factor in the above points when writing articles that the mass public could read.

You are so right! We need to outlaw those “bad” thoughts. Only then will we achieve Utopia!

Science, I am so enlightened!
Doc on April 21st, 2009 at 5:46 pm:

You say UN good, Steyn say UN bad, you say mass immigration and demographic shift the likes of which has never been seen OK, Steyn say watch out, you say potato, Steyn say potahto…

Who should I believe?

My guess: you’re down with abortion and homosexuality. Steyn ain’t. I know those things are no-no’s. So guess which pundit I’m going to believe, at least preliminarily?

Ah well, soon your kind will be washed away in the demographic tides. It’s happening in my own family in microcosm: I’m the youngest of 4, the last generation of ultra-liberals (my parents seriously considered joining the Communist Party after they were married but decided against it when they found out the Commies didn’t have a sense of humor) to have more than 2 kids on the whole. All three of my older sibs are liberal/atheists of one stripe or another. I’m the only knuckle-dragging-gun-loving-Christian-bigot-conservative amongst them. Out of all three of my older sibs, my folks got only two grandchildren. From me: four. And all of my kids are even more conservative than I am, since I kept them out of the clutches of the gov’t schools. Guess who’s gonna win the great-grandchild wars? Guess whose ‘memes’ will predominate 40 years from now?

Now I’m not saying that demographics will necessarily push the typical US ‘right-wing’ agenda, though I hope they will. But demographics will almost certainly doom the environmentalist-’earth is overpopulated’-abortion is cool-homosexuality’s OK meme. Those folks don’t reproduce. Just think of it as evolution in action. Survival of the fittest. Last man standing.
Wakefield Tolbert on April 21st, 2009 at 7:28 pm:

There is a gruesome accident about to happen to whatever is left of the Western world in but a few short decades, and those who are now clinging the alarm bells are told to shut up for no other reason than they are disupting the quiet countryside while the rest of us are enjoying the inculcation of Euro-paternalism and sucking down wine on the beach.

Don’t call us, we’ve turned our cellphones off.

Nice job, Lefty creepies.

Steyn is actually in the right here. As in correct, more than Right Wing.

Demographics IS the game of the last man standing. Or the last Iman cutting a neck or nipping a clit. The clitorectomy clinics and sumptious handouts of the Euro state, now gone Stateside across the Altantic thanks to President Hopey McChange and his Blue Shirt choruses to the Dear Leader are to thank for the last vestige of American independence in the world. Economic, yes. That’s down the drain. Haters of capitalism always get their due but then make life shit for the rest of us along the path to the sewer. But moreoever, the Community Organizing attempt of the whole planet is laughable. We have dictators and little Adolfs promising hellfire, who’re pitching for the next Iman making nukes, Israel fighting for its very life, the downgrading of “terrorists” in South America to mere “insurgents”(much along the lines of Mickey Moore’s Iraqi “freedom fighters”, one presumes), and so naturally…

naturally….the author takes issue with Steyn’s typical portrayal of the UN as something less than effective and that such mainstreaming is probably not in the best interest of living, sentient beings. Or perhaps the real animus here is that Steyn is wrong on the demographic weight of things that Europe at one time was so sanquine about; the need for cheap labor to payout the sumptious benefit plans and other Eurocrap that coddles people now has a big sour side to the apple. But no worry, the native populations on the dole and needing ever more infusions of cash for the old folks homes can take heart that the stats are really 3.1 births from the Sons of Allah to, say, 1.1 from the provencial population enjoying early retirement. The fact that women wearing the hajib are the ones having most of the bambinos and filling the maternity wards up with mewing infants but are NOT the ones filling the old folks homes up is of no pause of concern.

After all, we don’t want to be “xenophobic.”

Gosh, how unfair. What is the world coming to?

And just when Paul Erlich and the Club of Rome got dissed by Julian Simon and the realities that we’re not destined to play ice hockey in the Everglades after all, nor are we terribly likely to run out of oil or bauxite or coal, a new set of demons to tame in the visage of carbon now promises even higher taxes placed squarely on the shoulders of Soros-funded “science” studies.

Great.
bcf on April 21st, 2009 at 7:29 pm:

Doc, flippin’ brilliant.

I no longer bother engaging with the International Left – they are a dying breed, and rapidly becoming extinct, and good bloody riddance. Funny how that they are incredible fans of Evolution, how species die out when they can no longer compete etc, and then they spend almost their entire lives trying to interfere with evolution, sort of trying to guide things in directions they approve of. Almost like intelligent design!

They claim to be post-Christian, and then spend ALL their energy trying to build a Christian society right here on earth, right from welfare, to love thy neighbour, to turn the other cheek. Quite pathetic really, to embrace the programme, and kick out the person who created the programme.

My answer to “we ought to save the earth” is simply “WHY?”. No Need. There is no afterlife (if you’re a Commie), no post-mortem accountability, so how on earth could a rational person like this ever demand anything other than instant gratification? There is simply no rational basis for demanding we save the earth if you’re not a believer in creation or an afterlife. Your religious edicts are no more bininng on me then, than those of the mad mullahs of Blow-up-istan. It amounts to a political decision and a matter of taste, and politics and fashion are ever-changing. None of my leftoid associates have an answer for this.

When I explain to them that when they say things like “it ought to be illegal to write stuff that undermines the environmental crusade” I tell them in an atheistic and amoral universe, that is just one point of view, and mine is equally valid. If they are going to try to force their personal religion (secularity) on to me, there will be war. (And I like our chances in a war against leftoid peaceniks!)

You don’t get morals out of atheism and evolution. You only get traits. Ad traits are of course,… evolving! If our current “morals” are the result of evolution, then I choose different ones, and we fight it out, and the fittest win. That is the way of the evolution movement.

Demographics is a great subject, but Doc, I fear the leftoids don’t care – they know they’ll be gone soon (and why should they care? They don’t believe in post-mortem conscousness, so they are free to live it up). But perhaps we do, and our children are going to be the ones left holding the check for the lefty feelgood party. So it really is somewhat our problem, because I don’t want our kids paying for Nancy Pelosi’s indulgences…
Jules Evans on April 21st, 2009 at 8:53 pm:

Who are these freaks?
B Clarkson on April 21st, 2009 at 9:51 pm:

I watched the video of Ahmadinejad’s speech and noted the 100 or so who walked out. Of course, I also noted the thousands who remained and applauded his speech throughout. News reports place the count of those who remained at approx 4,500. You do the math. Is it more significant that an extremely small minority walked out or that an extremely large majority remained and applauded? You are being disingenuous at the very least.
Wakefield Tolbert on April 21st, 2009 at 10:01 pm:

Mr. Evans.

I would say the fight on Global Warming (now that the last ten years have shown measured cooling…) is actually the worst of Tribalism.

On more philosophical and economic fronts than you might imagine at casual glance.

Environmentalism is at her core a primitive, tribal way of looking at the planet that hails from animism; thus all the bruha about earth as Gaia, herself a merciless god–the original mother earth of primitive tribal mentalities.

Second, the economic impetus behind this crap (and we know it’s crap) is that in demonizing carbon you demonize production and by default mankind’s place in the scheme of things. This is a convenient way to finance the Left’s global village idiocy and transfer via force wealth from the haves to the have nots. The problem here being, however, that the real proximate cause is not some maldistributive urge in the human persona, but rather that if you per chance to a gander at the globe you’ll see that when it comes to human freedom and other ditties about individual rights the Left yammers about but actually disdains, the “Haves” are those who have freedoms, the “have nots”, well, they HAVE NOT.

So, it seems tribal mentalities are not necessarily counterintuitive to global baloney mentalities that seek to make an EU mess out of what is left of the free world. And that ain’t much, chico. Primitivism goes well hand in hand with socialism. After all, that’s what it’s based on. For all its highbrow cocktail chatter talk from people like Rachel Maddow, Leftism actually nips progress rather than furthers it. It globalizes and socialism all the lackluster and luddite comfort zones of ancient philosophers and people with what might be called a “pastoral” view of human existence.

Third, but no less horrific, what is the definition of an enemy if it is not “those who nip off living human heads merely because one is a Jew or some other Ifidel, and videotapes the scream and blood session for the transmission of internet ghouls to your Islamic brethren all over the planet”?

If this does not fit, then nothing does. And we don’t have enemies, but rather merely those people we’ve not reached out to on Facebook.

Of course, the Left already thinks this. See for example a person named Barack Obama on his World Apologia/Community Organization Tour making sure that the US is blamed for every woe, folly, and misfortune the barefoot pests of the planet decide to pin on our mugs.

However, I’d say for my part (and this is just me, mind you), the demonization of carbon, while not totally without some bizarre and twisted poetic or looney ecosopher precedent, is a far cry from fighting a real world crime.

Factories make things even if they make things a little less comfortable for large cuddly predators like polar bears. How darling, these maneaters.

Islamists by contrast make merely piles of human heads and burned out buildings.
Wakefield Tolbert on April 21st, 2009 at 10:12 pm:

As to Oil.

Well, that argument is, shall we say, a little oleaginous

Interesting, but lacking full force of intent regarding the real meaning of petroleum. The issue is not quite that simple.

The complete and utter removal of oil from the world scene would help. But like a flag raising ceremony over a New Palestine in place of Israel (the other item being worked on, let’s be honest), it would only temporarily stanch the demographic bleeding.

Europe’s problem is for the most part an immigration and demographics problem. We can be comfortable saying that France, for one example, will still have this issue in cultural and socail paroxysms of violence even though she produces most of her grid power via nuclear (where the real impact is felt).

I’d love of course for us to follow suit. Obama claimed he would. I claim he would not betray the nutcases who helped hoist his numbers past the old tinman and pointed out to charges of “ah bullshit, Wake, you’re LYING that he’s anti-nuke” that Obama would shut down Yucca mountain. He did in due course not long after getting the chair warmed in the Oval Office. To the utter delight of the flower brats.

This is what is called “distinction without a difference.”

Obama claimed to be pro nuke among all the crap like windmills and chicken manure and all the rest that will NOT work. His actions proved otherwise, like I’d predicted. A pro-nuke pol who nontheless all but shuts it down for the long foreseeable future.

So what’s next on “escaping the grip” of the black icky goo that powers industrial civilization and gets labeled a demon now by the EPA?

Nothing.

The next domestic battle will be favor-trading over carbon credits and the like. It will be like the last days of Mad Max, except in fighting for oil to power machines that will in turn fight for more oil and machines, we’ll be fighting for favors in order to merely burn fossil fuels.

Change We Can Be Confused By.
Jules Evans on April 21st, 2009 at 10:47 pm:

‘the barefoot pests of the planet’. Nice.
Wakefield Tolbert on April 22nd, 2009 at 12:48 am:

Yes. It IS nice. And no better moniker applies.

But it’s not what you might think.

This refers to barefoot by choice–the Neo-Hippie Dippy class. The grimy coffee house greenies who needed a new outlet to feel the fire of Revolution after the visage of marxism went the way of hunger, terror, and starvation and piles of skulls and the newly emerged necessity to dig large pits.

These new pests are the John Muirs of today; pastoral Laura Ingalls strike-a-pose look-a-likes for whom coal is a rock demon, and in all the fasionable boho faux outrage that exists in the minds of the eggheads, or when you’re 20 years old and rich as hell pining the days away in Harvard wonding why life is so damned unfair. Like Muir before them, they sing paeans not only to Dear Leaders and other “impromptu” classroom class consciousness, the also sing songs to man-eating reptiles in the Everglades and furry fuzzy-wuzzy bears of the Great White North. They damn as evil human habitation. Wealth to them is something akin to the medieval notion of land and gold. It has some kind of “intrinsic” value that can only be smeared around, as the unhappy Joe the Plumber found out when he got parodied. It is all by accident. The “fortunate” are that way for laying around the pool suckiing down drinks all day, or perhaps a large wad of cash wheeled in from outer space like a meteor; thusly some are blessed, the new Prez says, and others cursed with poverty, with no input from the administration about how this is actually accumulated and the relation to taxes and savings and investment. Or that some people thumb-twaddle and waste, and others are more thrifty and somewhat brighter.

When do we ever get to learn? The hard way, I guess.

I was NOT referring to the very NON-fasionable barefoot by birth department.
Capitalism can cure that. Government planning typically does not.

The ones who now advocate barefooting by choice (and by this we don’t mean a nice day at the beach) in order to save the earth goddess, or who think Amory Lovins knows something about nuclear energy and Paul Erlich is a prophet.

Those are the pests.

Too bad the impending and necessary resurrection of DDT can’t eliminate this plague of buzzing as well as it could work for the people of Sri Lanka (who’ve lost thousands upon thousands since DDT was banned) regarding the smaller flying variety that also suck blood.

With all due respect to mosquitoes, however, that is their lifestyle by necessity, and also not by choice.
Wakefield Tolbert on April 22nd, 2009 at 12:59 am:

It globalizes and socialism all the lackluster and luddite comfort zones of ancient philosophers and people with what might be called a “pastoral” view of human existence.

Meant to say “It globalizes and SOCIALIZES…”
Kate on April 22nd, 2009 at 5:12 am:

David- wanted to thank you for this compilation of some of Steyn’s greatest gems on one handy page. Brilliant!

http://www.globaldashboard.org/2009/04/21/mark-steyn-greatest-muslim-bashing-hits/

I think most people (in the West) can cite “local” examples of the Islamisation phenomenon that Steyn describes, and to support the quotations you’ve included on your page, I’ve provided a few links to some recent Sydney news items. I think this is interesting because Australia is a place where the process is perhaps less advanced than the UK/Europe. (Also- the smh is a reliably left-wing, PC publication. Keep that in mind.)

re your comments “On (British) Muslims”

http://www.smh.com.au/national/the-rise-and-rise-of-new-gangs-20090328-9eri.html

“THEY call themselves MBM – the Muslim Brotherhood Movement – a gang of 600 men who boast they are the toughest and best young street fighters of Middle Eastern descent in Sydney.”

http://www.smh.com.au/national/religious-divide-drives-bikie-war-20090215-887l.html?page=-1

“AN ANCIENT religious enmity is at the centre of a new conflict in the Sydney bikie scene, with a new gang comprised mainly of Sunni Muslims warring with a group of bikies with a Shiite Muslim background.”

“One of its mottos is “Only the dead see the end of war” and its “colours”, or coat of arms, is a turbaned skeleton holding twin pistols…..” ….. I can’t think of anything that would better fit Steyn’s description of a bizarre fusion of the worst pathologies of the Western and Muslim worlds.

re your comments “On Muslim ‘rape gangs’”

The most notorious recent gang rapes in Sydney have been perpetrated by Muslim “brothers”- in the real sense.

In one case, the teenage rape victims specifically mentioned that the (also teenage) rapist brothers told each other to “have their turn”, (as described by Steyn).

http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Skaf-brothers-to-appeal-sentence/2007/11/15/1194766833190.html

The 4 brothers of one family were so young at the time of the offenses they couldn’t be named (They’re always referred to as MMK, MRK, MSK etc- unfortunate for them that their initials are so revealing.)

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/rape-charges-for-brothers/2007/10/22/1192940986355.html

re your comments “On the name ‘Mohammed’”

For the UK (in 2007) this name was ranked 2nd- not 23rd- as the most popular UK boy’s name:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1890354.ece

“Muhammad is now second only to Jack as the most popular name for baby boys in Britain and is likely to rise to No 1 by next year, a study by The Times has found.” Again- accurately described by Steyn.

If you have doubts about Steyn’s UK/Europe demographic stats, here’s a recent impartial, non-judgmental little summary of the numbers in Britain:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article5621482.ece

“The Muslim population in Britain has grown by more than 500,000 to 2.4 million in just four years, according to official research collated for The Times.”

To think that people- mainly women- (no doubt a significant proportion of the few males are gay, and thus well aware of the existential threat that Islam poses to them)- have to march in the streets of London to demand “One-Law-For -All” in 2009 makes you look, well- kinda foolish. http://www.onelawforall.org.uk/eventPages/March7-2009.html

Btw- nice post Thoughtless Leftard: “….live in peace under Sharia law”. Very cute.
Paul C on April 22nd, 2009 at 6:47 am:

Jules, these “freaks” are Mark Steyn’s cheerleaders. What’s fascinating is how they appear to be having a raging argument with an imaginary “Leftard” in their head.
Mark Weston on April 22nd, 2009 at 8:51 am:

Doc, since when was it only Muslims that practised female circumcision? Plenty of Christians practise it too.
Paul C on April 22nd, 2009 at 9:50 am:

Mark, there really is no point in trying to debate these people…
Mark Weston on April 22nd, 2009 at 10:29 am:

Sorry, that should have been addressed to Wakefield Tolbert, not Doc.

Always good to put the facts out there, Paul C.
Paul C on April 22nd, 2009 at 11:31 am:

If you really think that somebody who believes that the “Euro State” maintains “clitorectomy clinics” can be reasoned with, you’re more delusional then he is

Oh, and one for Doc: I can guess which pundit you’re going to believe, at least preliminarily – the one who plays your prejudices like a cheap fiddle. Do I get a prize?
Jules Evans on April 22nd, 2009 at 11:52 am:

Its a fascinating mind-set:

1) Islam is the supreme threat to the West. We’re engaged in an existential war. They are taking us over. We are being infected by them.

Yes, muslims are only 4% of the population of England and Wales, or only 3.9% of the population of Germany, and 1.4% of the population of Italy, but they breed, you understand, they breed and breed, and they don’t integrate at all, and soon they will take over the West.

2) Muslims rape our women, kill our children, behead our soldiers, steal our jobs, and scrounge off our taxes. They are barbaric, while we are civilised. The less muslims over here, the better.

3) Sadly, not many people focus on the existential threat of Islam any more, because they are instead heeding the concerns of climate scientists.

2) This is bullshit. These climate concerns are trumped up by hippies, earth-lovers, and people obsessed with saving owls and polar bears. The concerns are completely unfounded, and can be entirely ignored. They are just another way of attacking the west by self-hating hippies.

3) Hippy lefties and environmentalists are the enemy within, weakening the West in its noble existential battle with Islam, Communism, and other existential threats. They are sandle-wearing, yogurt-eating, coffee-drinking, pot-smoking, country-betraying, market-hating, homosexual, decadent (etc etc etc).

4) This leftie group is very powerful in today’s society. the government bail outs of private banks is not because the banks screwed up and took US$4 trillion of tax-payers money. its because of the sandal-wearing, coffee-drinking, market-hating socialist enemy inside.

5) The countries that are richest are the ones that are most free, including with the most free capitalist economy. Yes, the banking systems of the US and UK – the two most de-regulated economies on the planet – are basically insolvent, and yes, these two countries depend to a great extent on the savings of non-democratic societies for their massive borrowing.

But thats beside the point. They are free. they are BETTER.

6) The moral superiority of anglo-saxon societies is pure and undisputed. To dispute it is to be a sandal-wearing, yogurt eating… (etc etc)

7) The countries that are poorest are poor because they are closed and unfree. It’s their fault. Likewise the ethnic communities in the West that are poor and ignorant are poor and ignorant because its their fault. The moral superiority of Anglo-Saxon societies is indisputable.

By invading non-free countries, we are making them more free and more morally advanced. They should thank us. If we then leave, and their countries fall apart, it is their fault.

I love it. Where do you guys meet up? I want to join.
Doc on April 22nd, 2009 at 1:24 pm:

Prejudices and cheap fiddles…something about pots, kettles, and blackening springs to mind.

And which prejudice was that? Ah, yes, that absurd prejudice I have against pulling a fully-formed baby that it would take two hands to hold who usually has no discernible abnormalities (except that of having a mother who wants him dead) half-way out of his mother’s womb, stabbing him in the back of the head, then pulling him out all the way, dead, to the tune of ~300 a year(last time I checked, which was w/in the last few years; doubt if it’s changed much) according to the Guttmacher Institute (which is hardly a pro-life voice, eh?).

Good job interacting with the actual thoughts expressed and avoiding ad hominems. Definitely the way to influence people.
Paul C on April 22nd, 2009 at 1:57 pm:

Doc, you couldn’t have proved my point more eloquently if you’d tried. Abortion doesn’t feature anywhere in David’s post – indeed it barely features on Global Dashboard in general. Yet as soon as your buttons are pushed, you start fuming about an imaginary enemy that fuses together all the things you hate in one easy-to-swallow meal. I was merely pointing out that when somebody rings the bell that tells you the meal is ready, you’ll start salivating immediately without stopping to wonder if maybe – just maybe – that meal is half-cooked garbage.

I’m happy to engage with your actual thoughts, but I’m struggling to see what there is to engage with. Am I to point out that your characterisation of David’s views is nonsense? Am I to congratulate you on your single-handed effort to outbreed the heathen? Clue me in, and I’m happy to engage.
Doc on April 22nd, 2009 at 5:03 pm:

Perhaps the struggle you’re having is because of a difficulty with multi-step, straight-line logic, reasonable inferences, common-sense, that sort of thing. No, abortion doesn’t figure directly in the post above. However, it does figure into my ‘calculus’ as to whom amongst opposing experts I should, at least preliminarily, believe. I strongly suspect that neither the author of the post, nor any of the commenters, have advanced degrees in the relevant geopolitical fields, nor years of practical experience. Nor do I. Even if one did, there are certainly equally qualified experts who will take an opposing view on the UN, Iran, Ahmadinejad’s speech, the walkout, etc. It is only common sense to see if the opposing experts tend to take opposing positions on a subject about which I do know the truth, e.g. abortion, and to tend to put more credence in the views of the experts on geopolitical affairs who also happen to know the truth about abortion.
Now, if it happens that the author of the post acknowledges that abortion is a deep moral evil and should be as illegal as any other murder, I apologize for my assumption. I suppose one might find someone who writes sneeringly of ‘Anglo-Saxon societies’ (can’t help you there, actually I’m Semitic) who knows that abortion is murder.
Single-handedly? Hardly; my wife has perhaps something to do with it, eh? And there’s some others, too. However, not all of those who are out-reproducing those you might find like-minded are in total accord with my values. Hardly. Let’s see, there’s…
1. Those who are having relatively large #’s of offspring primarily on the dole. I don’t know how many there are, really; there’s a few in the Appalachians where I practice. I suspect there’s some in the cities. A mixed bag, politically, but unfortunately more likely to support Big Daddy/Nanny gov’t and other leftist ideals. I can only hope their #’s aren’t that big, really.
2. Mormons. Likely to be not particularly in favor of abortion, homosexuality, big leftist gov’t. Probably pretty strong on the military.
3. Muslims. A mixed picture. Likely to be conservative on abortion and homosexuality; but it’s that 10 % who are down with killing infidels qua infidels I have a smidge of a concern about…
4. Conservative Christians.
So we shall see.
Jules Evans on April 22nd, 2009 at 5:27 pm:

So if a plumber came round to fix your toilet, would you ask them, ‘Before we go any further, do you accept that abortion is a deep moral evil? You do? Fine, fix away.’

You wander down to Subway for lunch. You order a meatball sub. ‘But wait my good man’, you say, seizing the wrist of the spotted youth preparing your sandwich. ‘First, it is imperative that we clear up the little matter of your position on abortion. You do accept, don’t you, that it’s a deep moral evil?’

You’re at the dentist. The dentist spots a cavity in your upper molars, and begins to drill. You grab him by the arm, and fix him with an inquisitional eye. ‘Ith importanth to clear thumthin up firtht’, you say through your mouth wash. ‘Where do you thtand on abwortion?’

‘Dutch auction?’ asks the dentist, bemused.

‘No, abworthion. ABWORTHION!’
Paul C on April 22nd, 2009 at 5:30 pm:

I strongly suspect that neither the author of the post, nor any of the commenters, have advanced degrees in the relevant geopolitical fields, nor years of practical experience. Nor do I.

I’m glad we’re agreed that you have neither relevant qualifications or experience, although of course that doesn’t mean that you’re not entitled to your opinion. However I would recommend that you glance at the “About Us” section where the author bios can be found.

It is only common sense to see if the opposing experts tend to take opposing positions on a subject about which I do know the truth, e.g. abortion, and to tend to put more credence in the views of the experts on geopolitical affairs who also happen to know the truth about abortion.

Doc, I understand that you look for signifiers that the speaker is one of “your kind”, but that was my point in the first place. I said that you’d listen to the pundit who plays your prejudices like a cheap fiddle, and you’ve just confirmed it. Now where’s my prize?

A couple of other points: I’m not sure you understand what “ad hominem” means. Also, you attacked me for not engaging with your thoughts expressed, but I’m still unclear what arguments you’re making. Could you assume that I’m stupid and remind me what they are?
David Steven on April 22nd, 2009 at 5:49 pm:

On topic, Doc and others might be interested in what one of our other authors thinks about the Durban conference.
sean_o'm on April 23rd, 2009 at 2:22 am:

Have looked at the “About Us” section and the bio’s of David Stevens, Jules Evans and Mark Weston. Impressive, perhaps, at a casual glance…..and suggestive of a degree of impartiality/ scientific rigor in their approach to their respective areas of work. Certainly higher callings than (conservative) punditry.

But their comments on these pages reveal that they’re ranting, raving lunatics- just like Steyn! Stevens and Evans make utter fools of themselves and the “important work” they produce for 10 Downing Street or where-ever- and give liberals a bad/worse reputation. At least have the sense to post somewhere else!
Mark Weston on April 23rd, 2009 at 8:11 am:

Bit harsh Sean. I only pointed out that Christians practise female genital mutilation, as well as Muslims. Ho hum.
David Steven on April 23rd, 2009 at 8:13 am:

Seems unfair to drag Mark Weston in to the “ranting raving lunatic” camp, Sean O’M, based on comments [18] and [20]! I on the other hand am only on line when the nurses loosen the straitjacket…
Jules Evans on April 23rd, 2009 at 10:31 am:

I’m a journalist, Sean. Nuff said.
sean_o'm on April 24th, 2009 at 7:47 am:

Sorry Mark- honestly. The inclusion of your name was in error. I do apologise.

David- it’s nice that the nurse loosens the restraints now and then to allow you to type. I did notice, on the other Steyn thread, that you’ve listed a whole lot of quotations but produced no actual rebuttal….and that some posters have provided “supporting evidence” (see the links in #16 above) to which you have also not responded.

Steyn argues his case, and, by way of demonstrating its flaws and bias, you simply regurgitate what he’s written, if I’m to understand correctly. No?

Healthy debate. This is what I look forward to. I want to hear the people DIRECTLY answer DIRECT questions- for instance, about the place of Sharia law in Western “multicultural” societies, instead of dismissing such issues as nothing more than lunatic, imaginary threats that right-wingers obsess over. Re Sharia: Forty percent of British Muslims (and the Archbishop of Canterbury, amongst others) are said to advocate its introduction in that country, so- forgetting for the moment that you no doubt believe this statistic is made up- you must have a view on this, surely?

Honestly, I am curious to know how progressives reconcile their commitment to legalize gay marriage with the fact that the (simultaneous) accommodation of Sharia law as a parallel legal system in multicultural societies is somewhat at odds with this.

I eagerly await your response.
Paul C on April 24th, 2009 at 8:06 am:

Sean – you also seem to be suffering from “Imaginary Leftard” syndrome. Is your argument that you would find it easier to accommodate gay marriage since you’re also opposed to Sharia law, or vice versa? Or are you opposed to both, thus removing the dilemma completely, but unfortunately also overlooking the world in which you actually live where, you know, Muslims and gays exist?
sean_o'm on April 24th, 2009 at 8:59 am:

Paul, I am making the assumption that you are not gay. I am- so the situation does interest me personally.

To be honest, I’m not fervent about the marriage thing (and never have been), as I don’t feel that this is necessarily the holy-grail/ ultimate proof of “equal treatment”, as many do. That’s not to say I’m opposed to it, but I do think common-law partnerships are equitable on the fundamental aspects. Many disagree- in fact, many straight people disagree.

I don’t follow your line of questioning though. I am puzzled, because, at the same time you accuse me of “imaging” a dilemma, yet seem to acknowledge that one exists.

I suppose because I find the very idea of Sharia law so repellent (is there any other response the very concept elicits in reasonable people?) I am, quite honestly, having difficulty understanding what it is you’re asking. No, certainly no dilemma (as to which “force” should prevail) exists from my point of view. That is the question I am putting to YOU (and David etc), to which you have given no response, other than to point out the obvious- that is, that both Muslims and gays both exist in the world in which I live.

This brings me back to my original question (and the fact that it was me who raised the apparent dilemma of Sharia law for Muslims vs. gays co-existing in “the West” in my post above): how do YOU reconcile these conflicting positions.

I’ve heard bizarre statements (which I take to be reassurances) from apologists who support Sharia saying that, under this system, four people have to actually witness two men “in the act of sodomy” (a very enlightened legal system) in order to secure a conviction. Some reassurance. I guess from my personal point of view, it’s a case of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”.

Again- I eagerly await an answer (not questions).
Paul C on April 24th, 2009 at 9:36 am:

I am puzzled, because, at the same time you accuse me of “imaging” a dilemma, yet seem to acknowledge that one exists.

I didn’t accuse you of imagining a dilemma, I accused you of “imaginary Leftard” syndrome. (See my comment at http://www.globaldashboard.org/2009/04/21/hating-on-the-un-whatever-happens/#comment-9482.) I withdraw that accusation with apologies.

This brings me back to my original question (and the fact that it was me who raised the apparent dilemma of Sharia law for Muslims vs. gays co-existing in “the West” in my post above): how do YOU reconcile these conflicting positions.

At the national level we should have one law for all, treating everybody equally, secular in both foundation and implementation. Where possible, people should be able to resolve disputes without resorting to formal legal institutions. Informal mechanisms should be allowed to operate where they are acceptable to both parties and they are not in conflict with national or local law. Certain aspects of sharia law will fit into this category, since Sharia does not consist solely of provisions for gay-bashing but covers a wide range of issues, many of which are not in conflict with (for example) British law. I am not strongly in favour of gay marriage, but that’s because I don’t think our definition of marriage in general is viable in the medium-term.

So, no dilemma there, as far as I can see.
David Steven on April 24th, 2009 at 12:08 pm:

Sean – It’s quite something to be accused both of ‘ranting and raving’ and of failing to give forthright opinions. My thoughts on gay marriage are similar to yours, and on Sharia similar to Paul C’s.

More generally, I’d say that many of the issues that Steyn writes about are real points of friction within European societies, but are far from being existential crises (though tensions could rise).

The other day, I was listening to a guy from the National Front talking about the ‘silent genocide’ of Britain’s white population. Reminded me of Steyn. And of the fact that the far right and hard line Islamists are united by one thing – their interest in pushing for a showdown…
Wakefield Tolbert on April 30th, 2009 at 1:23 pm:

Doc, since when was it only Muslims that practised female circumcision? Plenty of Christians practise it too.

Mark you’ve said this twice now..

Where is that “plenty”

Would that be the First Church on somewhere near Plainville, USA, located on 123 street.

Europe only has churches for show.

CBS had a version of Cold Case where Christians started stoning unchaste girls, but like the Blueberry Story the NEA puts out and recycles every 5 years, this too is myth.

Hmmm.
Wakefield Tolbert on April 30th, 2009 at 1:29 pm:

Yes, muslims are only 4% of the population of England and Wales, or only 3.9% of the population of Germany, and 1.4% of the population of Italy, but they breed, you understand, they breed and breed, and they don’t integrate at all, and soon they will take over the West.

OH that the world were a static quantity.

Imagine things moving forward in static waves.

By this we assume that no extrapolation can be done?

Caterpillars never turn into butterflies.

Little mewing tigers never turn into maneaters.

Even the mighty polar bear has multiplied from 5000 to 30,000 since 1900, as Globalonians worry about the furry little maneaters not having enough ice.

The world changes, people.

And only the famous Escalator Myth says that Euro chicks having one designer brat at age 40 while the calls of “allah be blessed” are the main ones emanating from maternity wards.

Perhaps it is not as dire as some think.

The clitorectomy clinics can position themselves right on top of the feminist publishig houses in the new order and everyone can get along. It will be like Woodstock minus some of the pot and one-half the underarm odor.
Wakefield Tolbert on April 30th, 2009 at 1:42 pm:

Another little gremlin, this time PaulC, who, like Jules, I’m praying desperately that if there is justice in the West still, they are not paid for these journalistic insights and other little gems, sayeth:

So, no dilemma there, as far as I can see.

(referring to a new British tart named Sharia)

Imagine the hue and cry of the Queen’s dominion if First Church of Alabama, minus clit nipping at that, decided to inact Exodus Law over Britain, or gosh, it’s “no el problemo” integration into that society.

That serious consideration is given by a “writer” to a back-camel, back tent version of Islam (whereas 30 years ago even in the Islamic world this was a newcomer and foreign even to places like Indonesia, but now enforced) to Sharia
is more than gallows humor about the torpor of the West.

My God. I leave for a while and all literal hell is unleashed.
Wakefield Tolbert on April 30th, 2009 at 1:50 pm:

Jules, not the prophetic Verne variety, sayeth:

2) Muslims rape our women, kill our children, behead our soldiers, steal our jobs, and scrounge off our taxes. They are barbaric, while we are civilised. The less muslims over here, the better.

OOOH. Your Brit spelling on ‘s’ gives the cat away. Whereas “z” is more phonetic.

Barbaric. Yeah. If Webster’s pen has any meaning. Or the Queen’s English.
Behading? Internet Ghouls can prove this. Search it out. If your stomach is sturdy, that is.

Tax scrounging. Yeah. We can even enumerate those stats. But then, half of the native pasty faced Brits are as well, so what the hell is the fret, right???

I’m not going to play a game of 20 questions or it’s inciteful little sister of “points”, but in slight defense of Muslims above on one minor quibble, it is primarily your government authorities in the pursuit of platitudes and Cosmic Justic that is the proximate source of some Euro nations having double digit unemployment, not Muslims. And at that, you have the chronic variety that the USA is just now getting around to at last after years of growth.

In fact, I dare say that for any other pol besides the current Bambi administration, he’d lost his damned job.

Across the Pond that level of unemployment is called “sustainability” and “progress.”
Wakefield Tolbert on April 30th, 2009 at 3:52 pm:

PS–FGC (female genital circumcision) has never been part of Christianity as a faith system. There are no scriptural or doctrinal documents existing within the larger Christian tradition that even address the issue. The only contemporary examples of Christians practicing FGC are in Africa. As FGC rituals predated the missionaries work in North Africa, many African tribes continue the practice as a matter of cultural tradition, unrelated to religious belief.

Context, hombres, context.
David Steven on April 30th, 2009 at 5:45 pm:

Re [43] if readers want verbatim (and uncited) extracts from Wikipedia, Wakefield, I am sure they can find the relevant page themselves. Mark was simply pointing out that female circumcision is not just practised by Muslims. As for the absurd ideas that we’re likely to have ‘clitorectomy clinics’ in the UK, the practice is illegal here and will remain so.
Paul C on April 30th, 2009 at 7:50 pm:

As I explained, if a system is not in conflict with national and local law, neither you or I or anybody else has any grounds for prohibiting it. If you do want to dismiss my position, Wakefield, you would probably help your case by demonstrating that you had actually read what I wrote.

p.s. I am no expert on Islam, but even I can tell that your historical grasp of Sharia is somewhat lacking for this discussion.
Mark Weston on May 1st, 2009 at 1:21 pm:

Thanks for clearing that up Wakefield. As you observe, many Christians in Africa practise female circumcision too, as well as Muslims. Your use of this to damn Islam makes no sense, therefore, as it seems you’ve now realised.

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