Sweden: The Leftist's Poster Child of Socialist Utopia

What if instead of comparing tiny Sweden to the giant USA, you instead compared Swedish Americans to Swedish Swedes? How would the two groups compare?

Sweden is often held up by American pundits and experts as a kind of Utopia, a country to be emulated. As is often the case when dealing with Utopias however, the complexities of history, culture and policy frequently are shoved aside.

... The 4.4 million Americans with Swedish origins are considerably richer than the average American. If Americans with Swedish ancestry would form their own country their per capita GDP would be $56,900, more than $10,000 above the earnings of the average American.

The old Sweden, in contrast, has not done as well in economic terms. In 1960 taxation stood at 30 percent of GDP, roughly where the US is today. As taxes rose, economic growth decreased, with Sweden dropping from being the 4th richest country in 1970 to being the 12th richest in 2008. Swedish GDP per capita is now $36,600, far below the $45,500 of the US, and even further behind the $56,900 of Swedes in America.

A Scandinavian economist once stated to Milton Friedman: "In Scandinavia we have no poverty." Milton Friedman replied, "That's interesting, because in America among Scandinavians, we have no poverty either." Indeed, the poverty rate for Americans with Swedish ancestry is only 6.7%, half the U.S average. Economists Geranda Notten and Chris de Neubourg have calculated the poverty rate in Sweden using the American poverty threshold, finding it to be an identical 6.7%. _NewGeography

In other words, something in the Swedes themselves causes them to be successful -- when they have the freedom to do so.

In Sweden, 20% of working age Swedes are on public assistance simply because it has become easier to live that way, rather than to keep trying to get jobs that have been destroyed by the socialist system. After Obama - Pelosi has its way with the American economy, young Americans will come to the same sad conclusion.

Opportunity destruction has reached its limits in nations such as Zimbabwe and North Korea, but leftist social democracies such as Sweden are driving the same road a bit more slowly. Just throw in a few million more Muslim immigrants to stir the pot a bit and add a breaking strain to the societal infrastructure, and Sweden will get there.

The US will take a bit longer, but if Obama - Pelosi policies are not totally destroyed within the next few years, the downward collapse should proceed rapidly by the late 2010s.

Illegitimate Births Double in Japan and US!

Yes, between 1980 and 2007, illegitimate births in both Japan and the US have approximately doubled. Specifically, unwed births in Japan went from 1% to 2%, and in the US from 18% to 40%. The percentages roughly doubled in both countries, but of course the raw numbers (and raw impact) is much higher in the US. But if you think the US has a high percent of bastards, check out Europe:

Increases were much more dramatic in the other countries, with Italy rising from 4 percent to 21 percent, Ireland from 5 percent to 33 percent, Canada from 13 to 30 percent, and the United Kingdom from 12 percent to 44 percent.

...Iceland is the leader with 6 in 10 births occurring among unmarried women. About half of all births in Sweden and Norway are to unwed moms, while in the U.S., it's about 40 percent.

France, Denmark and the United Kingdom also have higher percentages than the United States, according to the report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. _Sourcevia_NewsAlert

Within the US, percentage of bastard births in the black population is 70%, and among hispanics over 50%. What kind of future will these children born without fathers into poverty and (probably) low IQ experience?

You are correct. Someone has to support employment in law enforcement, prisons, and the court system.

America: Revolutionary Nation

Great revolutions accompany the uncovering of great frontiers. The USA was founded on the Eastern frontier of a large continent, and has been moving to expand its frontiers outward over most of the 232 years since. That expansionary revolution continues, but it is taking some interesting forms:

The great new American frontiers proved to be those of business, science and technology. In the course of the 20th century, Americans invented more milestone technologies and inventions, created more wealth and leisure time, and reorganized their institutions more times than any country had ever done before – despite a massive economic depression and two world wars. It all reached a crescendo in the magical year of 1969, with the creation of the Internet, the invention of the microprocessor and, most of all, a man walking on the moon.

Along with genetic engineering, we are still busily spinning out the implications of these marvels. Yet it is becoming increasingly apparent that the cultural underpinnings of these activities have changed in some fundamental way.

We still have schools, but a growing number of our children are studying at home or attending private schools – and those in public schools are doing ever more amounts of their class work on the Internet [ed: virtual charter schools].

We still have companies and corporations, but now they are virtualized, with online work teams handing off assignments to each other 24/7 around the world. Men and women go to work, but the office is increasingly likely to be in the den. In 2005, an Intel survey of its employees found that nearly 20% of its professionals had never met their boss face-to-face. Half of them never expected to. Last summer, when the Media X institute at Stanford extended that survey to IBM, Sun, HP, Microsoft and Cisco, the percentages turned out to be even greater.

Newspapers are dying, networks are dying, and if teenage boys playing GTA 4 and World of Warcraft have any say about it, so is television...The most compelling statistic of all? Half of all new college graduates now believe that self-employment is more secure than a full-time job. __WSJ

So where is it all heading? Into a very wild and Future Shock sort of a world.

The economy will be much more volatile and much more competitive. In the continuous fervor to create new institutions, it will become increasingly difficult to sustain old ones. New political parties, new social groupings, thousands of new manias and movements and millions of new companies will pop up over the next few decades. Large corporations that don't figure out how to combine permanence with perpetual change will be swept away.

This higher level of anarchy will be exciting, but it will also sometimes be very painful. Entire industries will die almost overnight, laying off thousands, while others will just as suddenly appear, hungry for employees. Continuity and predictability will become the rarest of commodities. And if the entrepreneurial personality honors smart failures, by the same token it has little pity for weakness. That fraction of Americans – 10%, 20% – who still dream of the gold watch or the 30-year pin will suffer the most . . . and unless their needs are somehow met as well, they will remain a perpetually open wound in our society.

The "gold watch and 30-year pin" segment of Americans may be only 10%, but in Europe that fraction is closer to 50% or larger. How will Europe adapt to this brave new frontier revolution that is unfolding in America, only to spread globally in the next few decades?

Given the enormous influx of new uneducated welfare recipients from the third world, Europe will be severely challenged to find the type of economic growth at home in which its capital savings can invest. It will have to look overseas to areas that are still growing. In the mid 2000s, that would be Brazil, India, and parts of the Anglosphere including the US.

Tort Reform Rejuvenates Mississippi Industry

Mississippi governor Haley Barbour is quite happy with the results of tort reform in his state. Lawsuits are down. Business and employment are up.

"We were America's No. 1 judicial hell hole for jackpot jury verdicts," the two-term Republican governor told me. "For trial lawyers, this was the state you wanted to come to if you wanted to sue someone."

But it was not the state to come to if you wanted to start a business. Mississippi's antibusiness reputation was so awful, Mr. Barbour said, that the CEOs of several Fortune 500 companies told him specifically that they wouldn't consider locating in the state unless the tort system was fixed.

For doctors, the situation was a little different – many who were inside the state were getting out as fast as they could. With 25% annual increases in malpractice premiums, many physicians simply couldn't survive if they stayed. The outflux left some counties without a single obstetrician. In some cases, residents had to drive 100 miles to find a doctor.

Shortly after winning election in 2003 by running on a tort-reform platform, Mr. Barbour stitched together a coalition of doctors, business groups, taxpayers and even unions to roll back the trial lawyer lobby.

"It was not just a battle," recalls Charlie Ross, the Senate sponsor of the reform bill, "it was a five-year war." The law that eventually passed was every trial lawyers' worst nightmare. It capped awards for noneconomic damages, and prevented the popular practice whereby a plaintiff attorney seeking to bring a class-action shops around for a court where he'll be likely to get a favorable ruling or judgment.

Almost overnight, the flow of lawsuits began to dry up and businesses started to trickle in. Federal Express invested $1 billion in a new facility in the state. Toyota chose Mississippi over about a dozen other states for a new $1.2 billion, 2,000-worker auto plant. The auto maker has stipulated that the company would pull up stakes if the tort reforms were overturned by the legislature or activist judges.

That hasn't happened. About 60,000 new jobs have arrived in four years – not a small number in a workforce of about 1.3 million – and a sharp improvement from the 30,000 jobs lost in the four years before Mr. Barbour took office. Since the law took effect, the number of medical malpractice lawsuits has fallen by nearly 90%, which in turn has cut malpractice insurance costs by 30% to 45%, depending on the county.

Another encouraging sign: Fewer Mississippians are heading to law school and more are looking at business school as the best way to get rich. Many in the younger generation are pursuing a career path that will make them wealth creators, not wealth redistributors. ___WSJ

Trial lawyers are vultures and parasites on the life of a community and region. They are bent on re-distributing wealth, never creating it. In an opportunity society, creating wealth through commerce is a win-win proposition.

Count on the vultures to jump in whenever they are allowed to do so.

Making the US More Like Europe? No, Thanks

Europe is undergoing a traumatic transformation, due entirely to its over-regulation and over-dependency on central government bureaus. Naturally, it is the middle class in Europe that is feeling the greatest squeeze. When governments grow out of control, it is the middle class that pays the greatest price, and this is the case in modern Europe.

The European dream is under assault, as the wave of inflation sweeping the globe mixes with this continent’s long-stagnant wages. Families that once enjoyed Europe’s vaunted quality of life are pinching pennies to buy necessities, and cutting back on extras like movies and vacations abroad.

Potentially more disturbing — especially to the political and social order — are the millions across the continent grappling with the realization that they may have lives worse, not better, than their parents.

“I have this feeling that there is a wall in front of us,” said Axel Marceau, a 41-year-old schoolteacher living outside of Frankfurt. “We’re just not going to get any further.”

His concerns are well-founded. A study by the German Institute for Economic Research in Berlin found that the broad middle of the German work force, defined as workers making from 70 to 150 percent of the median income, shrunk to 54 percent of the population last year, from 62 percent in 2000. __NYT__via__OTB

Senator Obama wants to make the US more like Europe. He thinks that Americans want this too. But only uninformed and unintelligent Americans want that, which may categorize Obama's supporters a bit too well for Obama's comfort.

Europe has bigger problems than the middle-class squeeze, however. A demographic collapse of indigenous Europeans (from failure to breed) combined with an out-of-control influx of uneducated and unassimilable third world immigrants, leaves the top-heavy over-bureaucratic state welfare systems of Europe with a shortage of tax paying citizens. Even worse, the resentful and increasingly alienated European third-world underclass is swelling the criminal ranks of an old Europe that had grown accustomed to low crime rates.

For those who examine critical underlying trends in a society, Europe is suffering from some of the worst possible trends a society can experience. Obama would do well to look in another direction for societies to model his brave new world after.

Future of World Geopolitical Power Balance

The United States has been the world's largest economic powerhouse since the 1880s. But not until the first half of the 20th century did the US become the world's largest military force as well. The role of world's military hegemon was one that was forced upon the US by Germany in WWI and by Japan and Germany in WWII. By the end of WWII, the intent of the USSR to become the predominant hegemon of Europe and Asia was clear. The US had a choice: either allow itself to become a permanent worldwide military hegemon to balance the effect of the growing influence of the USSR, or to retreat back into an isolationist shell.

The USSR's acquisition of the atomic bomb, and later the hydrogen bomb in combination with long-range bombers and inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) made it obvious that isolation had become impossible. The US under Truman committed itself to world leadership in the attempt to prevent Soviet style totalitarianism from smothering the entire globe.

Now, still at the dawn of the 3rd millenium, what is the future of the world geopolitical power balance, in the face of a newly belligerent Russia, a diffuse but ambitious worldwide program of Islamist ambition to conquest, and a rapidly arming mainland China?

The problem today is that the U.S. political system seems to have lost its ability to fix its ailments. The economic problems in the United States today are real, but by and large they are not the product of deep inefficiencies within the U.S. economy, nor are they reflections of cultural decay. They are the consequences of specific government policies. Different policies could quickly and relatively easily move the United States onto a far more stable footing. A set of sensible reforms could be enacted tomorrow to trim wasteful spending and subsidies, increase savings, expand training in science and technology, secure pensions, create a workable immigration process, and achieve significant efficiencies in the use of energy. Policy experts do not have wide disagreements on most of these issues, and none of the proposed measures would require sacrifices reminiscent of wartime hardship, only modest adjustments of existing arrangements. And yet, because of politics, they appear impossible. The U.S. political system has lost the ability to accept some pain now for great gain later on.

As it enters the twenty-first century, the United States is not fundamentally a weak economy or a decadent society. But it has developed a highly dysfunctional politics. What was an antiquated and overly rigid political system to begin with (now about 225 years old) has been captured by money, special interests, a sensationalist media, and ideological attack groups. The result is ceaseless, virulent debate about trivia -- politics as theater -- and very little substance, compromise, or action. A can-do country is now saddled with a do-nothing political process, designed for partisan battle rather than problem solving. __FareedZakaria

The Democratic Party in the US combined with much of the US news media, is painting a picture of widespread national malaise for public consumption. They are portraying the US as a defeated nation in the midst of economic and environmental devastation, with no possibility of improvement--unless one of the unqualified Democrats is elected US President, and the dysfunctional Democratic Party led US Congress is allowed to maintain control over the US legislature.

Yet, it is that same dysfunctional Democratic Party that is responsible for most of the problems the US has with energy supply, lack of innovation, lack of business competitiveness, and lack of credibility on the international front.

The "great national malaise" suffered by the US under President Jimmy Carter was a real phenomenon. Unemployment, Inflation Rate, and Interest Rates were in the double digits. The USSR appeared to be in ascendancy and unbeatable. The world had no respect for a US that had run away from its Vietnamese allies with its tail between its legs, for a US that deserted its ally in Iran to the muslim fundamentalist terror state. Jimmy Carter's policies created the malaise, and it lasted until Jimmy Carter was well and gone from government.

The current malaise is largely a creation of the news media in collaboration with the US Democratic Party and powerful allying forces, including various organisations sponsored by George Soros. The US economy is nowhere near the sad shape it assumed in the late 1970s. But perceptions are often more important than reality. As long as the US Democratic Party has the cooperation of the US news media, it is the Democratic Party's perception that will be presented to the larger part of the US public.

The Trouble is the West: Stop Being Weanies!

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is perhaps the clearest voice on speaking about Islam in the world today. A refugee from the nightmare of muslim Somalia, Hirsi Ali pulls no punches in warning western countries about what Islam has in mind for them. The choice is the west's.

Hirsi Ali: Only if Islam is defeated. Because right now, the political side of Islam, the power-hungry expansionist side of Islam, has become superior to the Sufis and the Ismailis and the peace-seeking Muslims.

Reason: Don’t you mean defeating radical Islam?

Hirsi Ali: No. Islam, period. Once it’s defeated, it can mutate into something peaceful. It’s very difficult to even talk about peace now. They’re not interested in peace.

Reason: We have to crush the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims under our boot? In concrete terms, what does that mean, “defeat Islam”?

Hirsi Ali: I think that we are at war with Islam. And there’s no middle ground in wars. Islam can be defeated in many ways. For starters, you stop the spread of the ideology itself; at present, there are native Westerners converting to Islam, and they’re the most fanatical sometimes. There is infiltration of Islam in the schools and universities of the West. You stop that. You stop the symbol burning and the effigy burning, and you look them in the eye and flex your muscles and you say, “This is a warning. We won’t accept this anymore.” There comes a moment when you crush your enemy.

Reason: Militarily?

Hirsi Ali: In all forms, and if you don’t do that, then you have to live with the consequence of being crushed.

Reason: Are we really heading toward anything so ominous?

Hirsi Ali: I think that’s where we’re heading. We’re heading there because the West has been in denial for a long time. It did not respond to the signals that were smaller and easier to take care of. Now we have some choices to make. This is a dilemma: Western civilization is a celebration of life—everybody’s life, even your enemy’s life. So how can you be true to that morality and at the same time defend yourself against a very powerful enemy that seeks to destroy you? __Reason__via__RottenGods

Is the west truly at war with Islam? Of course. Whenever two civilisations vie for dominance, they are at war--total war.

Anyone who thinks otherwise has decided to take a snooze from reality.

Reason: Having lived in the United States for about a year now, do you find that Muslims in the United States have by and large integrated better here than they have in Europe?

Hirsi Ali: Since I moved here, I’ve spent most of my time in airports, in airplanes, in waiting rooms, in hotels, doing promotion for Infidel all over the world, so the amount of time I’ve actually lived in the U.S. is very small. But yes, I have the impression that Muslims in the United States are far more integrated than Muslims in Europe. Of course, being assimilated doesn’t necessarily mean that you won’t be a jihadist, but the likelihood of Muslims turning radical here seems lower than in Europe.

For one thing, America doesn’t really have a welfare system. Mohammed Bouyeri had all day long to plot the murder of Theo van Gogh. American Muslims have to get a job. What pushes people who come to America to assimilate is that it’s expected of them. And people are not mollycoddled by the government.

There’s a lot of white guilt in America, but it’s directed toward black Americans and native Indians, not toward Muslims and other immigrants. People come from China, Vietnam, and all kinds of Muslim countries. To the average American, they’re all fellow immigrants.

The white guilt in Germany and Holland and the U.K. is very different. It has to do with colonialism. It has to do with Dutch emigrants having spread apartheid in South Africa. It has to do with the Holocaust. So the mind-set toward immigrants in Europe is far more complex than here. Europeans are more reticent about saying no to immigrants.

And by and large, Muslim immigrants in Europe do not come with the intention to assimilate. They come with the intention to work, earn some money, and go back. That’s how the first wave of immigrants in the Netherlands was perceived: They would just come to work and then they’d go away. The newer generations that have followed are coming not so much to work and more to reap the benefits of the welfare state. Again, assimilation is not really on their minds.

...But I don’t even think that the trouble is Islam. The trouble is the West, because in the West there’s this notion that we are invincible and that everyone will modernize anyway, and that what we are seeing now in Muslim countries is a craving for respect. Or it’s poverty, or it’s caused by colonization.

The Western mind-set—that if we respect them, they’re going to respect us, that if we indulge and appease and condone and so on, the problem will go away—is delusional. The problem is not going to go away. Confront it, or it’s only going to get bigger.

There is much more at the link above. Including a discussion about the true meaning of the word tolerance. Perhaps the word does not mean what you think it means?
;-)

Multiculturalism Meme: Lethal for the West?

Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches. Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperms or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation. If a scientist hears, or reads about, a good idea, he passed it on to his colleagues and students. He mentions it in his articles and his lectures. If the idea catches on, it can be said to propagate itself, spreading from brain to brain.___RichardDawkins

A lethal meme, analogous to a lethal gene, is a meme that leads to a certain level of lethality for the society or culture that is parasitised by the lethal meme. Meme-complexes are even more sophisticated than simple memes, and lethal meme-complexes produce more wide-ranging lethal effects to entire cultures and civilisations. Multiculturalism is one such meme-complex.

The idea that all cultures are equal in merit and deserving respect, an idea devoid of any historical perspective, could be seriously proposed and adopted only in western liberal democracies. And logically such an idea meant only one thing, the diminution of the West and its achievements in comparison to other cultures.

Multiculturalism institutionalized as a policy, run by self-perpetuating bureaucracies and sustained by entrepreneurs of a growing multicultural industry, became an easy ride for its proponents and clients.

Immigrants were not required to embrace the West's culture and complex history; and the West did not have to strain itself in instructing immigrants on the need or importance of embracing it, warts and all.

Multiculturalism worked so long as the illusion of cultural harmony could be maintained.

But once the sham of equality got exposed by the heat of Islamist violence -- once it became undeniable that a culture in which a woman, for instance, can assert her individual freedom without fear is not at par with a culture where a woman's worth is less than that of a man -- multiculturalism as an idea was dead.

Historians will note a period of confusion followed the death of multiculturalism before the West asserted its ideals of freedom and democracy, and moved on. ___TorontoSun

The West is confronted by more enemies than multiculturalism within, and Islamism without. The West is also confronted with China, Russia, and an unholy alliance of corrupt thugocracies that span the globe.

One thing is certain. As long as the killing meme-complex of multiculturalism is taught as dogma in the universities and lower schools of the West, the death of the West will continue to hang in the balance.

Men and women who love the hard-fought ideals of the West such as

• freedom of economy, thought, assembly, and religion
• limited, representative government
• individual rights of self-determination and self-defense
• separation of ideology and state
• the freedom to conceive and work toward a marvelous future
• and many more ideals of widespread non-violence, self-determination and well-being

will need to make themselves heard, leaving no doubt as to their intention and ability to defeat all enemies of these ideals. The West cannot be weak and passive to these threats from within and without. Never surrender these ideals.

Meme-Gene Coevolution PDF and streaming
Dawkins on Memes
The Meme Meme

China to Send 300 Million Chinese to Africa

According to one official, China will need to move 300 million Chinese nationals to Africa, in order to reduce overpopulation and environmental devastation in the Chinese homeland.

During the last decade tens of thousands have uprooted themselves from China and migrated to Africa, with Chinese-government approval. There are estimated to be 750,000 Chinese across the continent, 900 Chinese companies, and an overall Chinese investment of $6 billion. Yet most Chinese speak neither English nor any African language....The Chinese work in agriculture, trade and construction, and are doing everything from producing oil and developing giant state-financed infrastructure projects building roads and railways, to smaller enterprises producing shoes, textiles, motorbikes, TVs and CDs.

...But the continent has come alight with Chinese enterprise. It is a new frontier for them, a land filled with promise, and Chinese faces are everywhere. Having jettisoned the communist ideological and revolutionary ideals that had tied them to Africa in the first place in favour of trade, today the Chinese are Africa’s newest, most enthusiastic and rampant capitalists...Nor do the newcomers seeking their fortune view Africa as a place of drought, war, disease and poverty – often the Western perception of Africa. “Africa is a paradise for wide lives,” said Luo Hung, a famous Chinese photographer who has been wooing fellow Chinese to Africa with photographic exhibitions in the big Chinese cities. “The landscapes, animals and human beings there create a harmonious and beautiful picture.”...A family in China will save for years to send just one of its members to Africa. Unlike cautious Westerners they are not afraid to start small – a massage parlour or restaurant here, a sewing shop or pharmacy there – which offer modest but quick returns on investment. Many live in small apartments on small wages in conditions that no European would consider.

...Like it or not, China’s growing economic presence in Africa is a reality that Europe and America have to face. It is unstoppable and has brought Africa to a tipping point. It could be a moment of immense opportunity....Chinese contractors are fast and competitively priced. There is plenty of positive spin-off. One is China’s provision of cheap chemicals enabling, in Tanzania’s case, the local pharmaceutical industry to manufacture life-saving generic anti-retroviral drugs for the millions of Africans with Aids. They cost less than £6 a month....The Chinese cash is a godsend for Africa. But it could yet turn out to be a curse if it is misused by Africa’s leaders who, Africa’s record on corruption shows, can be easily tempted.

...On big construction projects, wherever possible, the Chinese insist on importing their own workforce from China. These workers live in sprawling camps, eat like they did at home, and make little or no effort to adopt African customs, learn the language, much less marry local African girls. It is a harsh existence that no comfort-loving Westerner would consider emulating.

However, where the Chinese have done this – oil-rich Angola and mineral-rich Zambia come to mind – resentment has often arisen because of their unwillingness to employ indigenous workers. Even the unskilled labour is fulfilled by the Chinese. In Angola, the government has agreed that 70% of tendered public works must go to Chinese firms, most of which do not employ Angolans. The Chinese are also causing concern at the way they have used African countries as dumping grounds for cheap goods. Many small companies across Africa have been forced into dire straits, even bankruptcy, by Chinese competition...In Tanzania, for example, the scene of China’s great railway triumph, the country’s only flip-flop factory is dying. A few years ago it employed some 3,000 people and sold flip-flops across the continent. Now it employs only 1,000. Its Lebanese manager complains that he cannot compete with cheap Chinese imports sold for less than cost price. There have been stories that the Chinese were shipping goods in diplomatic containers to the embassy in Dar es Salaam, avoiding customs and import duty.____Times

China is using Africa more ruthlessly and cynically than a western nation could, at this time. No worries about human rights, environmental quality, or the massive human suffering occurring right under the noses of Chinese traders and contractors.

The Chinese understand the ruthless dictators on the dark continent, and have no qualms about dealing directly with butchers and murderers, who allow their own people to starve and bleed. That is nothing to migrants from the middle kingdom, who are only there to make a profit, then go home.

If China ever decides to make a longer-term stand in Africa, it may be necessary for them to make "king-making" deals with tribal leaders currently out of power, to get the concessions they will want. There is nothing so expected as a bloody coup, in SubSaharan lands.

Still, 300 million emigrants from China to Africa? At a time when the massive Chinese population is aging so rapidly? If so, it is possible for one reason--the one child policy. When families routinely have but one child, there are no cousins, no aunts or uncles, no siblings. Only parents, grandparents, and child. Fewer ties to the home country, perhaps. It will be interesting to watch.

Just Stopping Over in the UK Long Enough to Destroy the Place

The UK has a long and fascinating history, dating to long before the origin of human writing. By the time Margaret Thatcher came along to save the UK from its own leftist leanings, the nation had seen a world-wide empire come and go. It was just settling peacefully and prosperously into its role as "only one of the most important countries in the world" when--under the radar--things began to go perilously wrong.

Peter Hitchens in today's Daily Mail:

The deeply English, deeply Christian city of Oxford, one of the homes of free thought, is now being asked to accept the Islamic call to prayer wafting from mosque loudspeakers over its spires and domes.

If that is not a threat to our "way of life", then I don't know what is. Allowing the regular electronic proclamation of Allah's supremacy in a British city is not tolerance, but a surrender of the sky to a wholly different culture. Just you wait and see what opponents of this scheme are accused of.

It may be a "wholly different culture", but unlike the spires of those empty Anglican churches it represents the demographic energy of today's England. Corner

Even worse than the shift in demographic energy of the UK, is the government turning on its own citizens. If a homeowner shoots a home invader in defense of his family, it is the homeowner who goes to jail and is sued penniless by criminals. Now, the voice of England is less the voice of Empire than the voice of the vanquished:

We're all being taken for idiots. - Mike, Coventry

This society gets worse and sicker by the day. I can't wait until I can retire and get out of this hell hole of a country. - Diana, England

Eating a sarnie?! does that also apply to sweets? Or having just one hand on the wheel? which would mean virtually nearly every driver getting caught as (unlike most other countries) most cars are manual! - Cww, Ipswich, Suffolk

Oh happy days in our free and happy country- smile you slaves or I will tax sorry fine you... - Ian, Hereford

I think the use of these high tech digital cameras to catch potentially dangerous drivers is a fantastic idea. I'm tired of observing drivers using mobile phones and smoking whilst driving on our congested roads where full concentration is needed at all times. I'd make the fines higher too, maybe confiscation of their cars would make these irresponsible drivers think twice... - Bill, Warrington England

Will there be two variants of camera? Type A set up to screw Joe Public; type B programmed to disregard police who commit the same offence. - Glyn, Southampton, U.K.

I think I'll give up motoring and take up drug-dealing, pimping, mugging, burglary, and extortion ...it'll be safer for me, and more socially-acceptable. - David Bourke, Rochester, England. Corner

Originally published in Daily Mail via SDA

Brits have always wondered why the Yanks rebelled against the Crown when they had it so good over there. Now, the UK may be ready for an "American-style" revolution of its own against a "Crown" that treats them like vassals.

Old Brit Lefties--Where are They Now?

Online Videos by Veoh.com
This is from a BBC look back at the leftist backlash in 1987 against Margaret Thatcher's tough love rescue of Britain's economy.

Hat tip David Thompson via Philosophical Detective.