Wednesday, November 15, 2006

"And Iran? Yeah, that'll be a cakewalk, trust me."


Ti-Guy brings our attention to more pontificating from Canada's Mark Steyn:

Well, my view of Europe in 20 years' time is that you'll be switching on the TV, you'll be looking at scenes of burning and conflagration and riots in the street. You will have a couple of countries that are maybe in civil war, at least on the brink of it.

Good thinking, Mark -- make predictions 20 years out. 'Cuz if they're any closer, well, stuff like this tends to happen, know what I mean?

YOU KNOW
, one can generally respond to anything by Mark Steyn by referring simply to his Wingnut All-Star bio page, leaving it at that and moving on to more pressing topics. As Thomas Huxley once said, "Life is too short to occupy oneself with the slaying of the slain more than once."

But we'll still check in on Steve Janke once in a while, anyway.

BY THE WAY
, it's amusing to watch interviewer Hawkins and interviewee Steyn continually refer to other ethnic groups and their "breeding," as if those groups were collections of prize show dogs or something:

Hawkins: Mark, here's the $24,000 question: can you give us a quick rundown on the reasons why Europe's birth rates have plummeted?

Steyn: Well, I think it's true as countries get wealthy, birth rates decline and that's true around the world even in Muslim cultures. For example, more advanced Muslim societies such as those little wealthy Gulf Emirates, they breed less than they do, say in Somalia or in Pakistan or Yemen...

Hawkins: Now, here's an even more relevant question: is there any plausible way you can see to get them breeding again?

That's a good question. I'm thinking maybe lightly spritzing their genitals with Axe Body Spray and letting nature take its course. If all else fails, some soft-core porn and a 12-pack of Molsons.

Hey, it works for us.

GETTING SLAPPED BY THE BEST
. I only this minute noticed that uber-blogger Glenn Greenwald also takes uber-dumbass Steyn out to the curb. That has to be uncomfortable for Greenwald since Steyn is pretty much low-hanging fruit even for me.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mark, here's the $24,000 question: can you give us a quick rundown on the reasons why Europe's birth rates have plummeted?

...and Mark, while you're at it, can you explain why the Universe's expansion is thought to be accelerating? Also, the Ainu people of Japan...is their language truely an isolate or can the case be made for a relationship to Japanese? Will I find happiness and true love in the next five years? This thing on my left shoulder...just a freckle? Or should I see a dermatologist?...

Anonymous said...

Jesus, the forced birth crowd are starting to piss me off.

This mentality that says because country X has a higher birth rate, we should emulate them is somewhere between offensive and maddening.

I've seen this meme pop up repeatedly, and it's always used by anti-abortion (and more recently - anti birth control) types who figure that it's a woman's fault that she had sex and got pregnant.

Perhaps Mr. Steyn would like to impose the same kind of rape laws that some of these "more prolific" countries have. You know - the ones that punish the victim for having sex outside of marriage. (Or perhaps, in his nobility, he'd like to stand in for one of these rape victims when they mete out their punishment?)

Anonymous said...

This out-breeding threat is at heart, racist, and by definition, irrational. People like Steyn think they'll be going into a coma for 50 years any minute now and wake up to find, to their profound horror that everyone, including themselves, has beige skin and worshipping the wrong God.

The threat we face is the attack on secular society and the rule of law (arrived at through democratic deliberation) by anti-democratic forces of all kinds (religious fundamentalism and cultism, concentration of political power among the wealthy and, in (shit)Steyn's case, disinformation or lack of information prized and rewarded as informed opinion...) That's the here and now and that's what we battle.

The subtext of everything people like (shit)Steyn write is that the only solutions are of the *final* type; assimilation, genocide, or some ridiculous idea that people, at some point, will accept that they're conquered by people with superior values. Yeah...dream on, Mr. Steyn.

M@ said...

The discussion on Greenwald's page was pretty good too. This was an especially choice comment:

Steyn is the Andrew Dice Clay of political discourse.
Echo | 11.14.06 - 7:20 pm | #

Kind of sums it up nicely, doesn't it?