How the West Was Lost

I usually don't read the editorial section of the Sunday Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, but a couple of Sunday's ago that title caught my eye. I'll come back to that in a minute.

A year or so ago, Bobby Garner handed me a book by the title "Life at the Bottom: the Worldview That Makes the Underclass" and told me to read it. It was by an author named Theodore Dalrymple. I respect Bobby enough that I am going to read anything he gives me. I don't have a whole lot of passion for the study of sociology, but this was a pretty interesting book. I later found out that Darlymple is a pen name for Dr. Anthony Daniels.......not that it matters. Dr. Daniels is a physician and psychiatrist from Britian that has traveled and worked all over the world. This book was the result of him working in a hospital in England that targets the lower socio-economic people who would not get medical help otherwise. Again, this discipline in not what I wake up in the morning thinking about, but it's a good read.

So, two weeks ago Sunday, the feature article in the editorial section of the Sunday Demo-Zette was by one Theodore Dalrymple. I don't know if it was his name or the title of the article that caught my eye. In the article, he actually does two things. First, he previews a book by Walter Laqueur by the title "The Last Days of Europe: Epitaph for an Old Continent". Secondly, he relates his and Laqueur's thoughts on the threats to Europe's future. From his perspective, there are three threats:

A) Demographic Decline- "Europeans are simply not reproducing, for reasons that are unclear. They seem to care more about the ozone layer and carbon emissions than they do about the continuation of their own societies. Or perhaps bringing up children interferes with what they conceive to be the real business of life: taking lengthy annual holidays in exotic locations and other such pleasures."

B) A Sizable and Growing Immigrant Population Which is Not Necessarily Interested in Integration- He asks why "Europeans have abjectly surrendered to the dishonest nostrums of multiculturalism. Why, for example, can a couple of Dutch children be told by their teacher to remove the Dutch flag from their school bags because it might offend children of Moroccan descent--who, it should be noted, are supposed to be Dutch citizens? Why do German courts rule that beating women is a religious right for Turks in Germany, just as terms such as 'illegitimate children' have been banned from official usage as being denigratory and stigmatizing?"

C) The Existence of the Welfare State and the Welfare-State Mentality- "A system of entitlements has been created that, however economically counterproductive, is politicially difficult to dismantle: once privileges are granted, they assume the metaphysical status of immemorial and fundamental rights. The right of French train drivers to retire on full pension at the age of 50 is probably more important to them than the right of free speech--especially that of those who think that retirement at such an age is preposterous. While Europe mortgages it's future to pay for such extravagances, other parts of the world forge an unbeatable combination of high-tech and cheap labor."

It's an interesting article, with much more depth and insight than I had time to copy or include here. If you are interested in it, you probably can get to it on-line thru the Democrat-Gazette web site.

So, how far off are we from having this written about the United States?