European women stopped having babies. The birthrate is below replacement level in Sarkozy’s France (2.01 children per woman), Cameron’s England (1.95 for England and Wales) and Merkel’s Germany (1.38 children), which boasts its fewest number of births per woman since right after the Second World War.
The homelands of Adam Smith and Frederic Bastiat now regard social welfare as official state ideology. The least educated and skilled part of the workforce in Britain, France, and Germany can count on generous incomes because of the social safety net that punishes success and rewards failure. Charles Martel fought Muslims to keep them from taking over Europe. His progeny offer them the dole to entice them inside.
Leading European states have trashed their national identities. In the wake of the destructive nationalism of the 20th century, and the advent of the European Union, Europeans increasingly regard themselves as Europeans rather than Frenchmen, Germans, or Englishmen. Without currency, religion, a shared history, or even a language to bind, these nations have become unbound. Even as benign a symbol as the Cross of St. George, the national flag of England, is dubbed a banner of racism. Given that European nations are embarrassed to stand for what nations traditionally stand for, e.g., religious or ethnic identity, is it any wonder that they are undergoing such a horrible identity crisis?
Cameron’s plan for assimilation includes a common curriculum for students, newcomers learning the English language, and a ban on hate-filled preachers and organizations. This imposes obligations on the immigrant. What about the responsibilities of the larger society? A Europe unwilling to breed, unwilling to stop rewarding idleness through government give-outs, unwilling to curb immigration from societies unlike their own, and unwilling to take pride in their own cultures will become a Europe unlike the Europe we have known.
“Under the doctrine of state multiculturalism, we have encouraged different cultures to live separate lives, apart from each other and apart from the mainstream,” remarked Cameron. “We’ve failed to provide a vision of society to which they feel they want to belong. We’ve even tolerated these segregated communities behaving in ways that run completely counter to our values.”
Europe’s values have increasingly come to mean a social welfare state, porous borders, reproductive suppression, and an internationalism that regards expressions of national pride as uncouth if not bigoted. If Europeans wish to abolish the Muslim Bantustans within their midst, it is their own values they may want to first rethink.
Daniel J. Flynn is the author of A Conservative History of the American Left (Crown Forum, 2008), Intellectual Morons (Crown Forum, 2004), and Why the Left Hates America (Prima Forum, 2002). He has appeared on Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, Sky News, PBS, CSPAN, and other broadcast networks. He writes a Monday column for Human Events and blogs at www.flynnfiles.com.
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