The so-called "refugee" crisis in Europe is more than alarming. It, of course, is much more than a "refugee" crisis. All across the Old Continent we are seeing massive flouting of law and order as thousands, tens-of-thousands, maybe more, of so-called refugees flood into Europe and then slosh about from one country to another looking for the best deal. The UK has become a particular target as "refugees" try to make their way to Britain's generous public benefits. Recall that in a fit of Euro madness the leadership of the UK, traditionally the sole repository of common sense and hard-eyed realism in Europe, agreed enthusiastically with the construction of the absurd Chunnel, putting thereby an end to one of the country's historic defenses, the sea. What would Drake and Nelson have to say about that?
That Chunnel has become, as one very non-PC English friend told me some years ago in a bar in Sri Lanka, "France's garbage disposal." The issue, however, goes beyond the Chunnel. The "refugees" or "migrants" arrive by the thousands every day at Heathrow and quickly claim their benefits--all in line with deranged leftist Labour's deliberate plan to change the nation's demographic composition. As almost anybody who has visited London recently can tell you, that most wonderful of cities is now not so wonderful, and has lost its Englishness.
As noted, not just the UK is under threat, but the whole continent. One of the few European voices of sanity comes from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban (here, here) He has identified the issue with clarity, so, therefore and of course, he is being called right-wing, nationalist, and--wait for it--fascist. Orban has written that,
We must acknowledge that the European Union’s misguided immigration policy is responsible for this situation. . . . We shouldn’t forget that the people who are coming here grew up in a different religion and represent a completely different culture. Most are not Christian, but Muslim... That is an important question, because Europe and European culture have Christian roots . . .Of course, the progressives are in a fit over Orban. One "expert" cited in the Washington Post, notes that Orban is a hypocrite in his concern over the Christian roots of Europe because,
It is ironic that the man who wants to save Europe's Christian identity used to have no Christian identity himself. "Once an atheist, he now upholds religion as the nation’s backbone," Hungary expert Charles Gati observed in an op-ed last year. Hungary used to belong the Soviet bloc before the fall of the Berlin Wall: Its communist regime tried to restrict all religious tendencies and to create an atheistic society. So, like many of his countrymen, Orban was educated as an atheist.What an idiotic thing to say. What choice did young Orban have as to his education in progressive Communist Hungary? He, subsequently, has discovered perhaps that the old Commies might have been wrong? How about dealing with the real issue, to wit, the threat to Western civilization posed by a massive influx of people holding an ideology, i.e., totalitarian Islam, that hates Western civilization? Not hard to grasp.
The op-ed certainly doesn't take into account Hungary's Soviet-enforced communism. Of which I'm reminded of a personal experience. While deployed to Bosnia for 3 months, I had a chance to visit Budapest for a few days R&R. I stumbled across St. Mathias Cathedral on a late Sunday afternoon. It was a standing-room-only mass. I don't know a lick of Hungarian, but being Catholic, I knew the format. And since I know a tinsy-bit about Hungarian history, I consider this to be one of my life's most moving experiences.
ReplyDeleteTed--
DeleteThat's tended to be true in a lot of the ex-Soviet bloc countries, including Russia at one point. That said, the "secular humanists" of the EUrocracy will no doubt attack the voices that have recognized the obvious folly of their policies.
Always seemed to me that, back in the 80s, they were OK with all the open borders stuff in some of these countries because they didn't realize it might one day apply to everybody (not just the EU).
The Far Left freaks knew better, of course...
Being, or having been, and atheist doesn't prevent one from being aware of the role that religion has played in shaping various cultures, nor of the differences between religions and the differential impacts those difference have had on the shapes of the resultant societies.
ReplyDeleteThe "expert" is flaunting his idiocy, as the waves of Muslim invaders flout European and Western civilized norms.
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DeleteDangit. "An" atheist, not "and". Must remember to re-read!
DeleteWhich there was a "like" button Jason. Acknowledging the role religion plays in the world is not the same as agreeing/believing or proselytizing. When rational minds speak of religion in this matter it used as demographic info. It's a fact, not an endorsement or hate speech.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI've removed a couple of my comments because they were accidental duplicates. The "back" button is not my friend:-P.
ReplyDeleteSorry about that.
I find Orban appealing because he's the odd starboard politician who cares little about what the intelligentsia or the worthless courtesan media think of him. It's so easy to shift most of these characters, it's depressing. (My frame of reference may be too focused on the United States, chock-a-block as it is with Republican pols forever issuing apologies for violating some arbitrary set of p's and q's laid down by our media; perhaps they're less craven over there, but you would not know it from gazing at David Cameron).
ReplyDeleteRick Noack's not an expert. He's a failed academic employed as a journalist. Given the economics of journalism in our time, that likely means no one else would hire him. Perhaps a mind that would offer tu quoque arguments does not interview well.
ReplyDeleteWhat we are seeing now is a true "invasion" of Europe. They are trying a different tactic from that attempted by Suleiman and the Ottomans.
ReplyDeleteAnd there is a great likelihood of success this time.
Graham
Right now, there's a weepy, bleeding-heart news broadcast on the refugee crisis in Hungary's train stations going on in another room of my house. Of course they raise the issue of children.
ReplyDeleteI also hear a story about how a Federal judge sent that anti-SSM county clerk in Kentucky to jail. Issue SSM licenses, or else!
Friends, the elite of the Western world is intent on cultural suicide. Unhappily, the USA is close to being in the lead. We live in a world where vulnerable children will be given to adoptive parents of a highly dubious lifestyle in which abuse is rife. Anyone who stands for the traditions that shaped our civilization is a "hater". Islam, the religion of jihad, strongarm enforcement (jizya payments from Dhimmi), being dragged kicking and screaming (at the point of British and French bayonets) into banning slavery and slave hunting, as well as terrorism, all of which can be documented as proper Islamic behavior from authoritative texts, is the "religion of peace" (how could you, Dubya?), tolerance, and oppressed minorities' "dignity". the predator Harvey Milk is on a postage stamp. An admirer of Mao Zedong is on White House staff. Rights spelled out in the clear text of the First Amendment are sacrificed to spurious "rights" of political client groups discovered by activist judges in the "penumbrae" of the Constitution. I'm not against immigration, nor have I anything against non-white people (I'm not all white myself, after all), but I am for respecting law, and exercising a bit of prudence in whom we admit.
it's no longer an issue of political leadership. We need a strong, vibrant cultural counter-revolution. I will begin by subverting some of the things I need to teach or assent to in my role as professional swindler of the young (ooops! Public high school social studies teacher).
I personally have little sympathy for the Kentucky Fried Clerk. I don't think it's the place of a thrice-divorced anybody to be even in the business of issuing marriage certificates anyways (unless she's planning on giving herself a bulk discount, I suppose).
DeleteIn this case, it's not even a matter of religious principles, as she has the clear opportunity to resign her post (an opportunity which Christians should actually relish). Were I in her shoes, that's precisely what I would do. I don't think it is the job of a Christian to protect the US government from Americans any more than it was the job of the apostles to protect Rome from its pagans.
Now contrast that with the photographer who's been deprived of a business in New Mexico, and a bakery sued into oblivion in Oregon, because they don't want to participate in gay weddings. These business owners aren't elected and sworn into an office to uphold the law, they're just trying to mind their own business.
There will be plenty of opportunities in the near future where the government will punish Christians simply for believing what they believe, but I don't think this clerk is one of those cases.
As you point out, we've been going down this road for a very long time, demonizing heroes and lionizing villains. I guess it's time to wake up, but we've instead got a whole society hooked on the numbing ether of porn, drugs, and promiscuity. Much like Rome, the hordes are seeing little resistance.
- reader #1482
I understand the clerk found religion after the divorces. The gays are going to win this battle and lose the war. Middle class people are starting to think of civil disobedience,
DeleteIf one works for the State then One should know the difference between the separation of Church and State.
DeleteWhat this lady is doing, is the same in some ways as a muslim fundamentalist.
Not a good thing.
leaperman
I am not a Kim Davis fan, we are a country of laws. But I'd like to see a little quid pro quo. Didn't San Francisco issue SSM licenses at a time that they were not lawful? Let's see them sit in a cell for a little bit. Or different county clerks or police chiefs or other officials who drag their feet when issuing gun permits.
DeleteGood for the goose, good for the gander.
Michael K--I understand Kim Davis is a recently converted person who had a wild life before.
DeleteAnonymous--"Separation of Church and State" is a phrase found in Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptist Association (folks at odds with Massachusetts' Congregational establishment), not in the Constitution. As for Islamicists, even a broken clock is right twice as day. As the Apostle James says, even the devils know that God is one--and tremble.
Boston Maggie--I'm not for a quid pro quo. I'm for a cultural counter-revolution, and some of these judges being impeached and removed from the bench for perjury. After all, the Free Exercise and Free Speech Clauses are in the clear, black-and-white text of the First Amendment; a "right" to marry (Oh, may I marry Susie while I'm already married to Debbie?), especially a "right" to SSM, can be found only in some penumbrae thought up by Leftist judges.
And while I am not for forcing anyone to believe my religion (which says that the weapons of our warfare are spiritual, not carnal, can calls us to win the world by prayer, persuasion, teaching, and ethical example), I will not go quietly when they wish to take away my free exercise rights. Further, I note that while Islam is treated with kid gloves, our activists and perverted so-called "justices" are trampling on my fellow Christians with glee. They are the bigoted ones.
As for the European refugee crisis, I find it highly ironic that the same people who spit at everything I hold sacred and demand a right to blaspheme against Christ, who also coined the term "Islamic fundamentalism" as a term of abuse in the days of the Iranian Revolution to make Evangelical Christians (who were abandoning the Democratic Party of their grandparents in Jimmy Carter's hour of need) look un-American, are now oh-so solicitous of Muslim sensibilities. I, for one, am disgusted.
Further, these Leftists are all for disobedience to laws when it's the Mayor of San Francisco yet become hyper--legalistic and insistent that we are a government by laws when it comes to enforcing the prejudices of five stupid oldsters in black robes.
Finally, in my travels, I've sat down to eat with Austronesian people whose great-grandfathers thought you weren't a man and unworthy of marriage if you hadn't brought back an enemy head (don't worry: the people I ate with were Christians, and they fed me pork rather than their neighbors). If we must have a "secular" reason for all laws, who's to say those folks' ancestors were wrong and our laws against murder are right? We Westerners have laws against murder because for a couple thousand years, we believed that it was the voice and finger of God handing down the mitzveh "Thou shall not murder" to all Israel on Sinai; and even before, declaring that the murderer's blood shall be shed by man on Ararat after the flood.
As far as I'm concerned, the current leadership of the Western world is fundamentally lawless. I hope that middle class people do indeed start doing civil disobedience--not just think of it.
Quite so. When is a "migration" an invasion?
ReplyDeleteI think you mean "undocumented occupation"?
Delete- reader #1482
Hungarian national total fertility rate (live births per woman): 1.25.
ReplyDelete"Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully."
"the elite of the Western world is intent on cultural suicide."
ReplyDeleteYes. I am going to England and Belgium next week and will avoid the Chunnel. We are going to be with friends who live there and we will take the surface ferry to Belgium, avoiding Calais.
I haven't been to England in five years and it will be interesting to see how it has changed. I used to go every year and have seen quite a bit of crime appear.
Michael,
DeleteWhen you go to Belgium...ask if they would like to take all these "Immigrants"...
After all.the brainchild of the EU ...Brussels....etc.
Well...
They want them? They can take them.
Watch how the worm turns.
leaperman
My daughter and grandchildren have just spent a week in Holland, travelling both ways by the tunnel. Absolutely no problem. Beware media hype!
DeleteEveryone who thinks that Europe should take in any refugee who wants to come needs to read about the recent Suhl riot. Refugees in a German camp rioted because they weren't allowed to beat and possible kill a man who flushed some pages of a Koran down a toilet. Imagine how these refugees will flout German law if they feel it doesn't hallow their religious beliefs and practices enough.
ReplyDeleteGood post Mr. Mad. Part of the existence of this flood of immigrants/refugees is being part of ISIS's etal plan against Europe. Push a flood of people into countries to destabilize them, then exploit. A very very old tactic.
ReplyDeleteJames the Lesser
Ps I've heard that Russia is putting troopies on the ground in Syria. I would expect Putin to take advantage of the Mideast situation in every way he could to spread russian influence, but putting troops in is very different, I wonder what he thinks would be his pay off.
James?
DeleteAs yet there's no confirming evidence of "troops" per se - I too have seen mention of the same thing (including APCs incidentally). What does appear to have taken place is a beefing up of "advisors" ... however reiterating, non-combatants.
That is not to say however, as I placed hereon (I think perhaps as far back as the alleged Sarin use) there have been *credible reports* of mercs, mainly remaining in the vicinity of Tartus and where there are *other likely* installations housing/basing "equipment" read: SA and other sorts of that kinda stuff.
_________
Not to say "impossible." But as Vlad's strategic goal (apparently) of keeping Ukraine restrained from desiring to align NATO has apparently backfired - inserting "troops" into that sewer is highly unlikely.
***
Don't know, I'm seeing some fairly good reports. Still, the question would be; what could be a pay-off great enough for Putin to do this?
DeleteI'm not totally sure James - the bylined named I'm seeing attribution to is a fairly well-known alias guy sometimes directly associated with/to a Jubhat al-Nusrah affiliate.
DeleteBest I will say at this point is, "I remain unconvinced there are Russian uniformeds" at this point. (Admitting James we're probably/maybe receiving differently sourced. Mine are Naval assets - the Open-Sourced are "all over the place" ... NOT meaning A Bunch/Alot/Many, ... All I'm prepare to say is, at this point, I don't see Any (trying to put myself in Mad Vlad's LookSee) Advantage to be gained by putting Uniforms on the ground in such a spot - possible exception the maintenance-mainly port at Tartus.
(Which: if James you too are seeing the reports of APCs and other Whatnots - if not by sea then ... rail via Turkey? Driving across Iran? Airdrops into Damascus? ... I just cannot see Any Benefit to be derived from what can only - at this point - be possibly viewed as other than, tactical/asset-defenders units at this time.
Now maybe I admit ... well - I'm fully aware I am not getting a full-frame but, unless there's recently been a sizeable insertion of say, Chechens - which I doubt since *we* are flying out of Incirlik and a couple of other places ...
Again from Vlad's LookSee - "I" couldn't see this as anything other than "The Perfectest Time To Back-Off and allow the US to get in the Sand."
But then, many times and oft' you "know" I am Navy.
***
I guess we'll see - I've been wrong before but I don't know "it can go" from Worst to Worser.
(Oh I forgot. Obama is CinC.)
Anon,
DeleteWell, we'll probably know something more substantial in 10 to 14 days. I may get a shock and be right. There is something very strange about all of this........
James the Lesser
Morally, I think, we have an obligation to take in some of the Syrian refugees and probably a lot of the Libyan refugee/migrants. We haven't done anything to stop the Syrian civil war, despite our President threatening to do so and his calling for the end of Assad (not to mention the famous "red line"), and of course we had a big role in getting rid of Qaddafi, which has obviously totally destabilized Libya.
ReplyDeleteSome of the Syrian refugees are probably also Christians.
I understand the Christians have been blocked by our immigration people. Muslims are being mainstreamed all over the country. I hope that is just a rumor.
DeleteMichael K, I believe it is more than a rumor. To the point that the Feds have indicted the attorney who was most successful in helping Christian refugees - Robert DeKelaita.
Deletehttp://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/evanston/chi-attorney-indicted-falsifying-asylum-requests-20140923-story.html
His case languishes as the Feds "look for witnesses.
Boston and Michael: Having looked at the Chicago papers, I have a somewhat different take on the Robert DeKelaita story.
DeleteDeKelaita and an interpreter by the name of Adam Benjamin are accused of coaching Middle Eastern Christian asylum seekers on how to lie to the immigration authorities. It strikes me that a lawyer with Assyrian origins went just a tad too far in helping out the landsmannen. It's the kind of thing you see in many ethnicities, national origins, and whatnot. Immigration scams are many and varied, and multiply in the wake of a crisis.
Back in the wake of the Tiananmen massacre by the noble, progressive, enlightened, liberating regime in China (which is how it had been presented by our MSM down to 6/4/89), I talked with many persons of interest from China when I was stationed in Bankok. They reported that they had originally planned to make their way to Fujian, then flee to Taiwan, but the authorities were keeping too sharp an eye for them. Yet in the same period of time, the alien-smuggling racket out of the Fuzhou area wasn't missing a beat, despite the presence of both the Chinese Communist and ROC navies in the area. When the Thais picked up one suspected smuggler and allowed us access to what they found on him, we noted business cards from Party secretaries and top PLA brass. Go figure.
In Guangzhou, I had a case which I sent back because it reeked of an alien-smuggling gang using fiance petitions to smuggle in its enforcers.
Later, translating for lawyers representing smuggled people from the Fuzhou area, I myself sensed that a lot of the clients had been coached in what to say. Further, while I recalled a lot of those old German and Mitteleuropisch refugees of my father's generation who would not even grant that Hitler made the trains run on time (Ve Chormans are an organizated und efficient pipple), the Fujian-American Association, supported by so many of these supposed Fuzhou-area "refugees", was actually very pro-Beijing.
DeKelaita has a history of advocacy for Assyrian causes--which is understanable, honorable and respectable in itself. He has some articles contributed to the Assyrian News Agency, that can be read online, and which shed light on why he probably felt strongly enough about the plight of his ethnic group to skirt the law. The tragedy, however, is that a truly vulnerable population now becomes suspect.
As for "mainstreaming" Muslim refugees, my guess is that our maladministration is overly sensitive (in a very bad way) about being perceived as "anti-Muslim".
My own solution would be a very frank admission by our gummint that when and Islamic society boils over, the Dhimmi suffer the most, and should get preferential refugee screening (which might make attempts to skirt the law less tempting).
I'll further add that our immigration and State Department people are not very well trained in the intricacies of ethnic and sub-ethnic tensions in parts of the world that are a little too far from the Atlantic Ocean. That's why the Fuzhou-area snakehead gangs notoriously scammed the INS (as it was called back then), and perhaps why they're now puzzling over what to do with people who call themselves Assyrians, Syriacs, or Aramaeans rather than Arabs.
Deletethe magyars and slavs have been dealing with muslim invaders for centuries. they know the price and the threat. anyone can feel for kids in distress, but just as on our southern border, there are larger, more dangerous issues at play. why dont the germans just exchange some greek debt for a few aegean islands, and build nice, safe, swank refugee camps there? refugees are out of harm's way and no cross border assimilation needed.
ReplyDeleteskTheReferee said...
ReplyDelete'Recall that in a fit of Euro madness the leadership of the UK, traditionally the sole repository of common sense and hard-eyed realism in Europe, agreed enthusiastically with the construction of the absurd Chunnel, putting thereby an end to one of the country's historic defenses, the sea. What would Drake and Nelson have to say about that?'
A prescient lot; them Irish!
The Sea Around Us (Dominic Behan)
They say that the lakes of Kilarney are fair
No stream like the Liffy can ever compare.
But if it's water you want, you'll find nothing so rare
As the stuff that flows down by the ocean.
The sea o the sea, it's geal grá mo chroí*,
Long may it roll between England and me.
'Tis a sure guarantee that somehow we'll be free
Thank God we're surrounded by water.
The Danes came to our land with nothing to do
But dream of the plunder, all Irish they slew.
You will or you won't boys with Brian Boru
And drove them all into the ocean.
The sea o the sea, it's geal grá mo chroí,
Long may it roll between England and me.
'Tis a sure guarantee that somehow we'll be free
Thank God we're surrounded by water.
The Scots have their whiskey, the Welsh have their leeks,
Their poets are paid about ten pence a week
Providing no harsh words gainst England they speak
O Lord! What a price for devotion!
The sea o the sea, it's geal grá mo chroí,
Long may it roll between England and me.
'Tis a sure guarantee that somehow we'll be free
Thank God we're surrounded by water.
Two foreign old monarchs in battle did join,
Each wanted his head on the back of a coin.
If the Irish had sense they'd throw both in the Boyne,
And Partition back into the ocean.
The sea o the sea, it's geal grá mo chroí,
Long may it roll between England and me.
'Tis a sure guarantee that somehow we'll be free
Thank God we're surrounded by water.
* bright love of my heart
The Dubliners in their own inimical style
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAiYLTiBiDk
"All is proceeding according to my Plan .." - Satan
ReplyDeleteI don't like our alternatives.... Please don't make us kill you....
ReplyDeleteI don't like our alternatives.... Please don't make us kill you....
ReplyDelete