Pipes reviews America Alone


Reviewing a book I did not want to review
Daniel Pipes reviews Mark Steyn's latest book.

The political columnist and cultural critic Mark Steyn has written a remarkable book, "America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It" (Regnery). He combines several virtues not commonly found together — humor, accurate reportage, and deep thinking — and then applies them to what is arguably the most consequential issue of our time: the Islamist threat to the West.

Mr. Steyn offers a devastating thesis but presents it in bits and pieces, so I shall pull it together here.

He begins with the legacy of two totalitarianisms. Traumatized by the electoral appeal of fascism, post-World War II European states were constructed in a top-down manner,"so as to insulate almost entirely the political class from populist pressures." As a result, the establishment has "come to regard the electorate as children."

Second, the Soviet menace during the Cold War prompted American leaders, impatient with Europe's (and Canada's) weak responses, effectively to take over their defense. This benign and far-sighted policy led to victory by 1991, but it also had the unintended and less salutary side effect of freeing up Europe's funds to build a welfare state. This welfare state had several malign implications.

As it happens, I've read America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It and here are the two concerns that I thought were most important.

First, American foreign policy over the last fifty years or so has produced nations who are incapable of looking out for their own defense. That leads to much of the resentment against American military and industrial strength.

Second, most of the major nations and cultures today have a declining birthrate that is well below replacement levels. Two major exceptions are Islam and the United States. Of the two concerns, this later is by far the most important.

But even in the United States, "some are more equal than others." James Taranto has called it the Roe Effect, basically that those who believe that abortion should be a right are less likely to produce offspring who share the same beliefs. I make no comment on the morality of abortion here, but if all other things are equal, I have to agree with Mr. Taranto. If a group believe that abortion is an acceptable option, they are more likely to use it and therefore will probably produce fewer children.

Unlike Mr. Steyn, I do not believe that we have passed the tipping point of no return. But I do think we are getting close.

It's a depressing book, but unfortunately accurate.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Tue - November 21, 2006 at 12:46 PM  Tag


 ◊  ◊   ◊  ◊ 

Random selections from NeoWayland's library


Pagan Vigil "Because LIBERTY demands more than just black or white"
© 2005 - 2009 All Rights Reserved