I suspect the same people who command usually nonwhite immigrants to assimilate or get the hell out of the country and foam at the mouth about different religions/outfits/whatever are the ones who don’t see me as American. The ones who always want to know the details of where I’m from and what language I speak, even though I speak English with an American accent, dress like Americans and have mostly American friends. Because to those people, American doesn’t necessarily equal speaking English or acting American (whatever that may be) – American equals white.

That’s funny, I was just thinking about this from another perspective.

I grew up in a community that was mainly white and Asian, and I had a lot of Asian friends. And even those who were American citizens called whites like me “Americans,” as if they weren’t. I always thought that was kind of sad.

As for the Steyn column, I find it surprising that nobody has pointed out that Jill has taken his remarks waaaay out of context. Steyn wasn’t calling for a new Holocaust of Euro Muslims, he was reacting to this column by Ralph Peters, which suggested that a history of European racial bloodthirstiness would actually lead to said Holocaust, with the US military bailing the Muslims out.

If people would actually read Peters’ column and Steyn’s reaction to it, they might find out that Jill’s characterization of Steyn as “a soulless bastard with a taste for genocide” is wholly nasty, ugly, and dishonest.

You can find all of the links here.

Several Asian countries, most south-American countries, India, today essentially embrace some form of western culture. They may be more socialist than the US but they accept the same basic precepts.

On the otherhand, even the most moderate of Islamic countries see women as, at best, different-class citizens (they might object to second-class but they are definitely not equal).

India has more gender inequality than any Muslim-majority country outside South Asia, except Afghanistan. Officially India guarantees gender equality, but in practice family law is entirely religious, and traditional Hinduism is no better than traditional Christianity or Islam on gender issues. Indian villages practice purda, or seclusion (i.e. women are not allowed to leave the house). Families openly value boys more than girls, to the point of practicing sex-selective abortion. Relative gender equality in India is limited to the urban middle-class, but the urban middle-class is fairly gender equal in Turkey and most Arab countries.

Also, what you say about Muslim countries used to be true for Catholic countries. The traditional Italian views about gender are closer to current Palestinian views than to current Swedish views. Hell, the views about gender most Jewish immigrants to the US came with were backward even by the standards of turn-of-the-century North America, and if the ultra-Orthodox birthrate in Israel is any indication, they outbred even today’s Turkish-Germans and Algerian-French. And yet, somehow they started secularizing, left Brooklyn Heights and Williamsburg for other parts of the US, and became the US’s most liberal religious group.

I’m not denying the fact that certain segments of the world population are “out-breeding” others. I just don’t see why we’re panicking about the fact that white people may become a smaller portion of the pie. Doesn’t seem like all that big of a deal to me.

Having read Stein’s book, I can tell that you probably haven’t. Or you have drawn the wrong conclusions. Being “white” has nothing to do with it, it is western culture that is at risk, not the white race. I don’t think he even talks about race at all. Several Asian countries, most south-American countries, India, today essentially embrace some form of western culture. They may be more socialist than the US but they accept the same basic precepts.

On the otherhand, even the most moderate of Islamic countries see women as, at best, different-class citizens (they might object to second-class but they are definitely not equal). Many, the closer they are to sharia law, view women as a much lower form of life than men. These countries are also much less interested in individual rights, press freedom, freedom of religion and other issues that members of western civilization take for granted. Today in the west, Muslim-culture is a minority and lacks the power directly control our laws. With the current demographics that is going to change fast. It is our values that are at risk if we continue current trends, not any one race.

“Panicking” isn’t really an issue. For many parts of Europe, the issue has already been decided. Statistics and demographics make it inevitable. When a country stops reproducing to replace themselves, they are essentially giving up.

In the article linked to, Stein is commenting, in response to someone else, that even Nazi-style barbarity couldn’t save them even if it came to that. They can’t do it – period. He’s not lamenting it, he’s telling someone else, who thinks that it will happen, that even something like that wouldn’t work. It is the equivilant of saying “even nuking Bagdad wouldn’t solve the problems in Iraq” (and yes, I have read rare opinions suggesting the nuking Bagdad), it is a statement of fact, not a suggestion that we try. Or a wish that it happen.

On this blog, major discussions take place about the Christian right’s attempts to limit women’s right to abortion, etc. The Christian right acounts for about 20-25% of the American population. How will France eventually deal with an increasingly radicalized Muslim population makes up 40% and agrees that it takes 4 male witnesses to prove a rape?

I’m glad that I’m not living over there.

Further, the French conception of “being French” doesn’t encompass minorities or immigrants at all.

Are you talking about the practice or the theory? In theory, the French conception of being French accepts minorities and immigrants without trouble, as long as they fully assimilate into French culture immediately. France has had more immigration than any other country in Europe in the last 150 years, as a result of its low population growth in the 19th and early 20th centuries. All of these immigrants’ descendants are now being taught that their ancestors were Gauls.

The practice is of course different, but it’s the theory that causes so much trouble. It’s not as if Americans are immune to racism; but the American conception of race, ethnicity, and immigration acknowledges the existence of racism and accepts hyphenated Americans, whereas the French conception doesn’t.

The US has all sorts of integration and race issues, but at least in theory we do consider that if you are born here you are a US citizen.

France used to be just like that. If you were born to resident parents in France, you were a French citizen by birth. In 1992 they changed the law so that you’d only be a citizen if you had no other citizenship; otherwise you’d have to request citizenship at 18.

The main European country whose self-conception is ethnic is Germany (though apart from Britain, most European countries are closer to Germany than to France). It used to be that France gave everyone born in France citizenship while Germany made it impossible for non-Germans to be naturalized and gave only citizens’ children citizenship. Now Germany and France are converging to similar policies, but it’s a fairly recent thing.

Leaders like Pim Fortuyn and parties like the Danish People’s Party argue that it’s Islam that’s intolerant, not them. Though they’ve been characterized as being from the right in America, they’re not recognizable to me as anything I would identify as “the right.”

And yet Denmark has an immigration law there needs to be an international treaty against, and NL is trying to ban the burqa. Blaming Islam for that is about as sensible as blaming communism for McCarthyism.

Besides, outside Scandinavia and NL, anti-immigrant politics is strongly coupled to conservatism on other issues – anti-Semitism, police power, crime, and I presume women’s rights and homosexuality. Le Pen and Haider are anti-Semitic. The National Democrats are Nazis with “Democrats” in their party name. The British National Party doesn’t even allow non-Caucasian members.

I think the problem is that the radical Islamic community thrives on the kind of european liberalism that AL is talking about/promoting. They can set themselves up in an immigrant community and recruit members by pointing at American actions and equating them with an anti-Islamic agenda.

You’re confusing Europe with Canada. In Canada, there are traces of anti-American Islamism. In Europe, Islamism is mostly a result of frustration at unemployment, job discrimination, housing discrimination, and police racism. The immediate trigger of the 2005 riots was that two Algerian-French youths were running away from cops when they accidentally electrocuted themselves on an electric fence. It’s illegal to take ethnic statistics in France, but Arab unemployment there is apparently 30%, compared with 10% for the general population. In Germany, Turkish unemployment is 44%; in 1933, Hitler won against a background of a general unemployment rate around 40%.

The US has all sorts of integration and race issues, but at least in theory we do consider that if you are born here you are a US citizen. We have wronged citizens (and still do) but they can at least claim they are citizens. And we have a messy, yucky path to citizenship, but it (again in theory), country of origin isn’t a barrier to getting citizenship. Most of Europe still doesn’t offer that. Germany just passed (or is considering) a law to make citizens of its residents who are of Turkish descent, but born and raised in Germany. And I’m not sure they would have the right to Turkish citizenship (open question).

Off topic: In three of my four interviews for this job, I was asked about my marital status. Is this legal in the Netherlands? Standard? So much for the culture of women’s equality.