The demographic armageddon that no neocon dare name (or: Poland is doomed!)
Being something of a recovering neocon, I know the intellectual ins and outs of the movement quite well. One of the most basic ideas of the contemporary neocon movement is that WHITE PEOPLE ARE DOOMED and close corollary that THE MOOSLIMS ARE GOING TO WIN. Mark Steyn is the most colorful and eccentric of the demographic doomsayers, and since he 1) turns a good phrase and 2) is utterly shameless he’s also the best known. Steyn makes his living claiming that the citizens of Western Europe are too lazy, faggy, and godless to bother procreating, and that, therefore, they will be replaced by the young, confident, energetic, and swift-breeding Muslims in their midst. I’m not going to bother wading into directly this debate because, frankly, it’s incredibly boring and every possible angle (Most liberals: Steyn is a fascist reactionary bigot who must be jailed! Most conservatives: is he a perspicacious warrior on behalf of Western values who must be praised! Mark Adomanis: when does Eagles training camp start?) has already been covered in excruciating detail by every person who has ever written a blog post on the interwebs.
What interests me is not the overall accuracy of Steyn’s thesis but a telling omission from it: Poland.
I’ve done my best to assemble any of Steyn’s comments about Poland that are even vaguely relevant to demographics, the death of the West, etc. etc. etc. (if someone can use teh Google better than me and finds more, I’ll gladly update the post)
Here is Steyn flacking his book on Fox News in October, 2006:
Well, I think, to be honest, some of the Eastern European nations didn’t throw off communism in order simply to throw their lot in with the doomed French and Belgians and Dutch 15 years later. And I think Poland and Hungary and so forth, will be determined not to go down the same path that the West Europeans have.
And here he is again, at Human Events the same month (he seems to have mastered his talking points quite admirably)
I would have to say I think it’s going to be one of the Eastern countries—one of the Warsaw Pact countries—former Warsaw Pact countries. It will be something like Hungary or Poland or the Czech Republic. They did not shrug off communism to expire 15 years later to an entirely different kind of threat. So I think they’ve got a much better chance coming out of it than the Western Europeans have.
And….that’s it. I’ve, of course, found countless mentions of Poland in Steyn’s columns where he either praises it for its martial spirit (Poland was in the coalition of the willing, after all) or its plucky pro-freedom ways or, alternately, where he waves it around as country-sized bloody shirt, warning of the manifest dangers of appeasement and cowardice. But about Poland and its whopping 1.39 total fertility rate? Nary a mention.
This isn’t exactly surprising since Poland and it’s lack of babies is extremely detrimental to Steyn’s, and all of his assorted followers’, thesis. You see, Steyn thinks that generous welfare states, over-regulated economies, and anti-American post-modern, post-national, and post-religious cultural elites have enfeebled and feminized Europe’s native populations into a terminal, albeit seductive, decline. The way to fight this inchoate menace is obvious: Europeans need to liberalize their economies, get religion, (re)discover nationalism, start a few wars, and, perhaps most importantly, kowtow to whatever Washington demands at a given moment in time. Well, while certainly not a perfectly Steynian system (given his recent comments to Hugh Hewitt, Steyn apparently thinks that not only must the welfare state be pared back but that society should start actively and viciously mocking poor people), by European standards Poland scores very highly on measures of economic freedom, traditionalism, religiosity, nationalism, and pr0-Americanness. And yet it’s fertility collapse was far more precipitous than anything ever seen in the West. Indeed, since 2002 it’s fertility has been lower than Russia’s.
As I’ve mentioned before, Steyn isn’t exactly bullish on Russia’s future (now there’s an understatement) so why is he so darn sanguine about the Poles? Judging by the hard data, and taking Steyn’s thesis as basically accurate, Poland has ahead of it perhaps the most nightmarish future of all of Europe: a dwindling group of peaceful old Catholics camped out on a flat bit of ground between a Turkish-German Caliphate to the West and a Chechen-Mongol-Russian Caliphate to the East. That sounds terrifying!
Well I’d imagine Steyn’s deafening silence regarding Poland’s demography has something to do with the constant neocon need to find plucky little underdogs who we can support and onto whom we can project all of our wildest fantasies. Or maybe it’s the Poles constant readiness to do whatever America says wherever America says.* Can there be any other explanations? Steyn himself has repeatedly and passionately argued that there exists an event horizon of “lowest low” fertility from which no country has ever recovered. Well Poland was and is a lowest low fertility country, so how on earth does he think it’s going to stave off the fate awaiting its Western neighbors? Is there some magical protection afforded to the Poles’ portion of the Northern European Plain? Or is a nation’s impending doom only acceptable fodder for discussion when you are negatively disposed to that country?
Does this mean I want everyone to start yammering on about the “death of Poland” or start pontificating about the need to do more to preserve the Slavic race? No. But if you’re going to wax philosophical about the depraved selfishness and indifference to procreation evidenced by the West Europeans it makes no sense at all to glorify the East Europeans who, according to the relevant data, are even more selfish and even more indifferent to procreation. As I see it, demographic decline is going to be a real challenge everywhere, but it will be especially trying in the poorer and less developed countries of Eastern Europe. In fact, Steyn seems to have it precisely backwards. Western Europe, which is already quite wealthy and developed, could very certainly experience a prolonged period of economic stagnation, but that’s not exactly the apocalypse, is it? Eastern Europe on the other hand, large swaths of which are still desperately poor and economically uncompetitive, is going to have some much more serious issues, especially since, thanks to the EU and visa-free travel, all of its well-educated young people will have the option of simply packing up and moving West to find better-paying jobs.
I only ask for consistency. I suppose it’s fine if you are going to mock and disparage the French for their reluctance to pop out little Jacques and Pierres, but if you are going to do so you can’t, simply as a matter of elementary logic and fact, simultaneously propagandize on behalf of the Poles who have been and are even more unwilling to pop out little Wojciechs and Stanislavs.
*On further reflection, perhaps it’s simple the neocon trope of last resort: willpower. You see, as Steyn said, the East Europeans will be “determined” not to follow their Western brethren. So, yeah, apparently the Poles and Hungarians will be “determined” to contravene the basics precepts of demographics. Good luck with that.
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I don’t agree with you that Poland (or Russia) is necessarily worse off than Western Europe, or more precisely, the Teutonia (Germany / Austria) and the Med (Italy / Iberia / Greece) parts of Western Europe. (Obviously France, UK and Scandinavia are better off).
Both Poland’s and Russia’s fertility collapses occurred in the early 1990’s, and since the mid-2000’s both have seen an appreciable and accelerating rise in fertility (especially Russia). That is because women postponed having children during the unstable transition years, but are now beginning to have them in a race before it becomes physiologically impossible.
(Incidentally, I agree with you that Russia is better off than Poland. Not only is Russia’s real TFR now higher, but its desired TFR is higher (2.5 vs 2.1 for Poland), which makes me think that Russia will approach Scandinavian levels of TFR by 2015 (around 1.7-1.8) whereas Poland will remain stuck at 1.4-1.5.)
In comparison, in Teutonia in the early 1970’s and in the Med in the 1980’s, the TFR fell to below 1.5 and has remained stuck there ever since. This means that a generation has already passed, their current child-bearing generation is substantially smaller than the last one and as such they already have no hope of averting big natural population decrease.
So basically, the likes of Russia and Poland still have a “window” of 10 years to raise their TFR back up to sustainable levels. This window has already closed for Germany and Italy.
Anatoly,
I think you have some good points here, but, especially regarding Poland, I think you’re assuming that the population will be static/immobile when we’ve already seen a great flow of labor out of the country (some, but not all of which eventually came back). Will Poland’s TFR eventually return to a somewhat more reasonable level after the “transition shock” subsides? That seems reasonable, but that won’t “solve” Poland’s population problem because the Western economies, which 10-15 years from now will be even more labor-hungry than they are now, will remain extremely attractive destinations for emigration since they have prevailing wages rates far higher than in the East. Russia won’t be totally resistant to these pressures, but will be far more immune than Poland largely due to the simple fact that it isn’t (and in any remotely conceivable scenario won’t be) party to the Schengen Agreement. So, yeah Germany and Italy and Spain are going to need lots of workers 20-30 years down the line, but where do you think they’re going to get them? Given all of the caterwauling about Muslims and Third-world immigrants, and the very real political opposition to bringing in any more of them, I’d think it’s a pretty safe bet that Poland will be at the top of the list.
In response to another comment. See in context »I am not a big fan of the idea that West European labor shortages will prove an irresistible magnet to East-Central European laborers.
First, the economic disparity is no longer as big as it once was. Poland already has nearly 60% of Germany’s GDP per capita, and is more economically dynamic (because it is catching up). And Poland is one of the poorer Visegrad nations.
Second, migrants are drawn to economic dynamism – the highest inflows in the last ten years went to Britain, Ireland, Spain, etc, not Italy or Germany (which are demographically worse off). You say that Germany, Italy, etc will face labor shortages. But that assumes economic growth and growth of demand for labor can sustainably continue there. I think that assumption is questionable.
Why work in foreign nations who look down on you and where you pay a large chunk of your (stagnant) salary to support their elderly, when you can work in a still-growing Poland?
In response to another comment. See in context »Where are you getting the idea that Poland’s GDP per capita is 60% of Germany’s? Every number I’ve seen has it as less than 50% and most suggest something in the range of 40-42%. That’s a huge difference in average wages, especially if you’re someone without any particular skills trying to find a service position.
In response to another comment. See in context »Ny bad. The 2009 figures from the IMF show that it is 52% of Germany’s level, which although not quite “near 60%” is substantially more than 40-42%. When considering average wages, one should also note the GDP deflator, i.e. prices are cheaper in Poland.
But anyhow, perhaps we should just agree to disagree here. I don’t believe we will again see significant migration from Poland to Western Europe in the foreseeable future.
In response to another comment. See in context »Is there no other answer? Yes, there is.
And it is less to do with Poland’s alleged sycophantic pandering to American interests and the Neocons returning the favor of not mentioning Poland’s woes (though understandable in the shadows across the border of their old overlords who still hawkeye them from the same damned continent) than the fact that these kinds of trends are not always a line-to-line connection. Would that the Cosmos was that easy to reverse engineer. The answer is that line-to-line connections between policy and culture and demographics are not found across all cultures. What brings about this demographic decline that is upon almost all Western nations? They are varied as there are nations that experience them.
If you’d read Steyn’s book America Alone, rather than some “Steyn’s a racist warmonger, but we good liberals just KNOW that Euro birth rates are dandy at an average of 1.2 bambinos per couple and we’ll all do great by continuing to fleece the Third World of its labor and talent to make up the demographic shortfall as a response” précis of it common these days, you’d see that he DOES in fact mention such anomalies as you point out. Page 53, if memory serves. Thus, for example, what IS the religiosity factor (since religion is the latest of the Left’s bugbear du jours, after capitalism and freedom to have decisions made by oneself far beyond choice of sex partners and DVDs) in all these demographically sour notes being struck of late?
Only a general one, to the extent that secularist societies TEND to also have socialistic policies and have, for the most part, hijacked the average Euroweenies native instincts and told him that freedom is passé old school crap, and that major life decisions are now sub-contracted out to his alleged superior in parliamentary democracy. It’s a charming admixture–being a teen until age 65.
But I digress:
Why the Poles aren’t popping out more little Wojciechs and Stanislavs is a mystery; perhaps something more to do with the horrific cultural legacy of Communism and the sour cultural attitudes it wrought on similar situations in, say, the blue eyed cutie girls of Slavic Russian blood now becoming more rare–sans the workings of better economics.
What Steyn WAS getting at (indeed, you have actually, ya know–read the book) was that with birth rates halving (rather than calving) with every generation, the complaceniks among the Eurotwits trying to hand out sumptuous benefits and wishing not to be distracted by life’s larger questions while sucking down wine on the beach DO need to have another kind of “Come to Jesus” moment. And it ain’t about Old Time religion per se. They need to have more children, and foster natalist policies that can sustain both population and therefore the money for all this glop. Then, they should strive to realize the social policies that got them to this historically odd moment in the first place: Life’s base instincts of sex and food can be quite fun as the only economically-oriented freedom Euro-fetishists have. And–no question–the perennial burning Euro-issues of life which are limited to forced paternity leave and more vacation, and the outsourcing to government ninnies of what should be historically-assumed adult decisions on private matters like health–are all grand. While they last. Who the hell would not want to live in such a place where all such questions are answered by government, beyond what to eat, and whom to screw? It’s like being on permanent vacation on the Caribbean Cruise Line 24/7/365. Not to have liberals crestfallen here in America, envious of such momentous takeovers of life, the Obama administration is planning to take us to that New Jerusalem on Earth. The proximate difference being that after a fashion, American taxpayers via military garrisoning of Europe for the last 6 decades enabled Europe along their path. For our turn, no one is here to boost us or pay for our defense expenditures when the time comes (as it did in Europe) to pare back the military to a laughable set of Boy Scout troops here and there.
But as cultural conservatives are fond of pointing out, these notions make poor policy for a nation. You can’t live in the parents’ basement forever.
Let’s put this another way. IF the Poles lose their (so alleged) mighty thirst for radical capitalism that–compared to the rest of Europe–is supposedly operating at some Ayn Rand level of throwing fiduciary caution and government oversight to the wind, and instead adopt the latest Euro-fetish for government controlling the plupart of the economy to the tune of 70% in some locales, along with all manner of goodies and handouts and mandatory 8 weeks vacation time for the first year on the job, AND the resultant permanent 10% unemployment rates, will they start squeezing out more Lechs?
Far from likely.
What in God’s name are you babbling about? Was there an actualy point somewhere in your diatribe besides “Mark Steyn totally rulz!”
I’ve read a lot of his work and I think my description of it is perfect accrurate and fair: Steyn thinks that unless European countries become more like America they cannot escape from the death-spiral in which they are currently stuck. Well the most reliably pro-American (as well as the most religious and one of the most economically dynamic) countries in Europe also happens to have one of the lowest fertility rates, significently lower than France, the Netherlands, Sweden, the UK, or any of the other countries Steyn makes his living mocking. I think that’s a pretty damning indictment of Steyn analysis. You think it’s…not?
In response to another comment. See in context »I think you need to move from reading the snippets of Steyn’s reliably boring (and predictable) PC detractors and move on to actually reading the book that began the discussion in the first place.
For that matter, merely start on the page I suggested. (53)
Poland being “reliably” pro-American is for the pragmatic reasons of her history under the tutelage and suffering under the dominion of the USSR, but certainly the low birth rates have little to do with some great wall of radical economic difference from the other nations you mention. Poland might be more “dynamic” than the other nations you mention, yes. But Poland is an EASTERN European nation. Your handy list is WESTERN. Look on the map, or obtain a compass and twirl around a few times. And the WESTERN “social democracies” of government glop were Steyn’s main focus in his book since THOSE were held up as the paragons of virtue and our very future, by morons like Francis Fukayama. Who now gets to remove egg from his face for thinking such. They have no future. Whether Poland does or not is largely beside the point to what Steyn was getting at.
I might note there are also places in Europe where the breeding is gangbusters and there is apparently some time on the hands at night. So what? Those aren’t the Western Social States. Big Whoopie. Neither is Poland.
Steyn mentions in more than one place that religion and the absolute structure of the economy is not a line-to-line connection. Just the general trending. Which is amply shown by the demographics of the above list COMPARED TO THE UNITED STATES.
Poland is the exception to the general trending rule–and the exception demonstrates the general rule. France, the Netherlands, Sweden, the little pussycat called the UK, Spain, Italy, Greece, and most of the others, save Albania (which is now the model for Islamist takeovers) have LOWER birthrates THAN THE UNITED STATES, and ALL have Eurosocialist cultures and ethics as well as a penchant for secularism–other than the empty churches now being supplanted by the Sons of Allah’s mosques. (The Swiss had some doubletakes on the last trending and got called to the mat for it.)
So, \until the WESTERN nations in the list above start pumping out more bambinos at even REPLACEMENT levels (as does the US, still) in order to shore up the impending demographic decline over the cliff, and seeing that demography is the game of the last man standing around, I’d say his thesis that generally secularist socialist models being a clamp on birthrates for a variety of cultural and selfish reasons stands firm. Western Europe gave us the modern man-child who lives with the folks until age 30 in the basement and now the more or less permanent age of the teen.
Speaking of that, I guess that “rulz”, to borrow from teenybop lingo, eh? I wonder if that sounds better with a baseball cap put on sideways.
In response to another comment. See in context »I’ve read dozens, if not hundreds, of Steyn’s columns and many more of his blog posts at National Review. You still haven’t said what part of my description of Steyn’s position was wrong or inaccurate, merely that you find it unflattering. Unless you provide some sort of actual, verifiable, proof I’m going to go ahead and assume that I described his position accurately and that you are as incompetent and stupid a hack as your writing makes you appear.
How, in the name of all that is holy, does a “birthrate lower than the United States” now equal demographic Armageddon? France’s birthrate is 1.98, while the United States’ is 2.05. Does that really like the difference between apocalypse and imperial glory? Between “death” and “exceptionalism?” And if a slightly sub-replacement fertility rate really does mean that a country is “doomed” (completely ignoring for a minute that the United States would also be doomed) and that we should cast the blame for this doom solely on “secularist socialist models,” how in the name of God do you explain Iran, land of the whopping 1.71 total fertility rate??? Iran is an Islamic republic governed by sharia law, does that now count as “secular?” Or how about these other majority-Muslim (i.e not “Euroweanie”) countries that have sub-replacement fertility rates: Azerbaijan (2.04), Albania (2.01), Uzbekistan (1.95), Kazakhstan (1.88), Lebanon (1.85), Algeria (1.79), and Tunisia (1.72). (All numbers taken from the 2009 CIA World Factbook fertility rankings: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2127rank.html?countryName=Iran&countryCode=ir®ionCode=me&rank=170#ir)
And for you to call France, the Netherlands, Sweden, the UK, Spain, Italy, Greece, and (I presume) Germany uniformly “Eurosocialist”…I mean, are you just begging to be made fun of? Do you have any idea how varied the economies of those various countries are? How much their growth rates, per-capita incomes, tax burdens, labor markets, and macroeconomic indicators differ? Or did you just read Mark Steyn’s book (which was deliberately crafted to get gullible people like you to poop their pants) and assume that he was right without having any actual knowledge of the situation whatsoever?
The world’s a complicated place, get out there and read some proper history instead of shock-jock crap like Steyn’s rambling, incoherent, and factually challenged missives about the “death of the West.”
In response to another comment. See in context »I’ve read Steyn’s book and reviewed it at http://www.sublimeoblivion.com/2009/07/17/notes-steyn/
And I basically agree with Mark. True, he’s a very readable and humorous writer (and I say that as a social liberal!), and though he gets most of the facts right, his conclusions almost never follow. In other words, Steyn is only entertainment. To cite him in serious arguments is asking to be made fun of.
In response to another comment. See in context »The proof of the secularist-demographic decline for Europe is in the pudding of their decline, which your handy CIA link quite also handily demostrates.
Dozens of Steynian articles, he?
Selective, at that, apparently.
Iran might have slighter more sour demographics than the other locales in Islamasphere, but as a whole, Islam’s numbers are growing. Check that table again. More on that momentarily.
But Iran used to be QUITE SECULAR a place not that long ago. Less than a full generation, in fact, before the loonies returned and the Shah was deposed by the wondrous piety of James Earl Carter’s demands of moral Simon purity from allies. Before the age of stonings while buried, ritualistic killings, and Little Adolph in high heels and Sharia, the Shah had actually established something that erstwhile was seen in former semi-secularist leaning nations now smothered in Islam, like Indonesia.
(Thanks, Jimmy)
Of course, the story just gets juicier from there, but long story short her–on the back of the envelope: No, Sharia is not secularist, you mollusk–but Iran herself went through such a stage.
Thanks for bringing that up.
And Europe’s are not even at replacement level to maintain the sumptuous benefits that the locals have decided are theirs alone and not even to bequeath to the next generation.
2.11 is the demographic level needed for mere replacement.
That is not theory, Steynianism, or yanked from what you claim to have read from the same, or even conjecture, but rather FACT.
The Eurogloppers are in point of fact actively engaged in the process of heading off this reality merely by attempting to defer to immigration (RE: fleecing the third world of labor and talent better left in Pakistan and Botswana than in UK health clinics).
No amount of hand-waving or groan festivals about Mark Steyn or the larger realities of demographic decline will stop this.
Anything lower than 2.11 merely means that you’ve got some extended time to mock others for going over the waterfall and give them the one-finger salute, whereas for you there still is not much need for any further extrapolation, as you’re next.
It’s really quite that simple.
One plus one needs to be at least two and some change, else you’re society is headed to inevitable decline, where the secularist societies have some rather odd math predicated on religious birth rates.
As for the name of God, you should’ve probably asked more along the lines of “Allah” instead. Behold the world’s more prime battlefields of terror and Islamist funding.
Saudia Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Quatar, Egypt, Jordan, Sudan, Nigeria, Yemen, and hosts of others where a continuing rise in Islamist influence (particularly in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa) is also the expected trend.
Do those not count as majority Islamist, Mr. Super Competent, licensed writer, tireless defender of the powers and prowess of the State, and Punk du jour??
Or perhaps Saudi Arabia has shifted to some other gear unknown to most policy analysts in its eternal quest to spread Islamist law abroad?
Just curious.
Of course, I could be wrong, and a giant meteor hits the earth and makes this all void. But the handy-dandy mouseprint the CIA had at the top of your showcase link is betting otherwise, and demonstrates the general rule. I quote directly:
“Global fertility rates are in general decline and this trend is most pronounced in industrialized countries, especially Western Europe, where populations are projected to decline dramatically over the next 50 years.”
You threw down a rake, and then you stepped on it, chief. We’ll nurse Paul Ehrlich’s headbump first. The Population Bomb, overall, got the fuse yanked out.
But the point here is that America and her Islamist detractors are the better bets than the progeny of Ye Olde Yorkshiremen.
But while, yes, globally birthrates are down, this is merely a statements of rough averages, and all that term implies overall. The world of Islam is ascendant, while the scraggly necked-gals seeking one designer bambino ate age 48, and laughable boys of Europe still living with parents in Europe’s grand non-natal experiment, are on the downswing.
Euroweenie powers-that-be can in some cases still inact natalist policies, yes. But only at the expense of the cultural expectations of entitlement, which most are loathe to give up.
Perhaps more on the head bruise updates later on…
Lastly, yes, I would say that in much of Europe, there is no practical or even theoretically plausible dark line in the sand to draw between a majority of one’s life handled cradle to grave by government minions and government ownership of (in most cases) or oversight of vast portions of the economy, and the term “socialism.”
If the term does not apply there, then it has no application.
Even the Marxian-oriented Sandinistas and the FMLN in El Salvador never proposed across-the-board government involvement at Euro levels and regulation of behavior to such degrees.
secularist-demographic decline
should’ve actually read “secularist-demographic decline CONNECTION.”
(But that’s fine. No more tautological than anything anyone on the Left says, so now I rest in large company here.)
In response to another comment. See in context »Anything lower than 2.11 merely means
Should have also clarified to say than anything JUST lower than 2.11, like the many nations hovering around 1.8-1.9 on the replacement level chart, merely means you’ve got some extended time. Perhaps a generation.
There is of course a difference in these birth rates and something along the lines of 1.3-1.4–of which we show no history of any nation recovering whatsoever.
Hell is now adjourned.
In response to another comment. See in context »Yes, a larger world abounds.
Though I take it that your participation in said large blue planet means you’ve:
A) Still not read Steyn’s book, though you were nebulous about it, though claiming to have some insight on the reason written, sans read..
B) You’ve not read much from demographers Ron Lesthaeghe, Johan Surkyn, or Phillip Longman?
Well, it’s no biggie, but my interest in all this actually began with Longman, not Steyn.
Don’t like Steyn? Wonderful. Move on to an actual demographer, like Longman.
http://wakepedia.blogspot.com/2006/03/liberals-doomed-to-extinction-darwin.html
In response to another comment. See in context »Sorry for the misspellings.
Had to write in one hell of a hurry, as something else needed my attention at the moment.
Honestly dude, I’m searching for a way to mock you and I’m coming up empty. You took well over an hour to post 5 separate comments and the sum total of your efforts is the equivalent of a 4th grade book report (with all of the requisite spelling and grammar errors). How could I possibly make you appear any crazier? Really, what could I do to make you appear less reliable and more crazy? You cite Steyn as if he is some sort of prophet…do you really expect people to just give up when you say “but Mark Steyn disagrees with you!!!!”
In response to another comment. See in context »If that’s all you can cough up, boy, don’t be surprised that further commentary from others on this and other topics from most any party becomes increasingly rare.
You just got skinned and gutted like a hapless trout–the shame of the same being you didn’t even know it.
It would be far more honorable and respect-garnering if you just admit you got lost in your own weeds and stepped on your own trap. Your utter impudence is not charming, kid.
Word to the wise, if you should take advice.
Besides: Anyone who begins with the moniker of “dude” is not to be taken seriously under any context, regardless of whether or not the mollusk thinks that his handy sins of omissions from the CIA mouseprint are worthy of note, or, for that matter, that the Islamburgs he mentions having low birth rates mean something contraindicative to overall Islamist birthrate trending, BUT came under SOVIET and secularist dominion and tutelage. Yes, there are Islamist hamlets and outposts that have low birth rates. There’s a secularist reason for that dominated those societies. See if you can figure out what happened to many of those “stans” here and there, as opposed to (NON-Sovietized) Saudi Arabia, which never got lorded over by the old USSR, which in turn, due to internal policies of radical socialism, also transmogrified now into a Russia that has sour demographics.
Or, as with everything else that crosses your eyes other than my spelling, does that also mean absolutely nothing?
Apparently not:
You cite Steyn as if he is some sort of prophet…do you really expect people to just give up when you say “but Mark Steyn disagrees with you!!!!”
So, your return-to-the-vomit moment here is once again Mark Steyn, whom I never said was a prophet, but in turn-like him–relied on the findings of real professionals, who, unlike yourself, know how to wade through the stats to actually determine what influences what, rather than mockery of the messenger. Longman is a professional demographer even if Steyn is not, and found the same trending that Steyn did, but you claim is non-extant due to….well…misspellings, one supposes.
You’d have done OK to continue the mock gig until you blew it with such an utter and obvious falsehood. But since mockery is your modus operandi, as it is for all Leftists, it’s likely you have little other resources to fall back on.
At least your first part was sort of funny, and worth a cheapjack crack.
Actually, I mostly pointed out the things you left out from the CIA factbook source (your link, moron) such as the bounding birthrates of the REAL locales and influences of Islamist terror and funding, plus the fact that it seems the CIA (not just Steyn, your latest obsession du jour) has some rather sour notes for the West across the board and makes mention of this in full daylight.
And, little punky boy, I also cited NON-SHOCK JOCK Phillip Longman, who, among other respected demographers who’ve taken the time to do the tick-picking and bean counting, in that “wider world” you mentioned but decided to leave off suddenly, whom you’ve failed to refute (as would be required to be a complete Complacenik about Secularist birth rates) for their take on the birthrate trending as well.
But that’s apparently too much to ask.
In any case: NO, I do not expect people to “just give up” when I mention Steyn, because I did not cite STEYN as the authority. But I DO expect a mention or retort regarding what actual DEMOGRAPHERS have said that undergird Steyn’s argument. I realize, of course, that context of that magnitude is hellishly confusing to you. Try anyhow. You might learn something.
However, in one moment of deference to you, I would suspect that I DO have one glaring error.
The likes of Steyn and Longman would probably NOT be caught dead on some Complacenik Lefty bitch-session site like this one.
Any other mistakes I might have made pale next to that one. I WILL be keeping that in mind for future reference, and should have known regarding a site titled like….”True Slant.”
With a name like that, Orwell is hereby avenged in full.
You may now return to the wondrous world of professional spellchecking. Hell, who knows? Perhaps Soros’ stenographers over at Media Matters can get you a new gig denying other aspects of reality in this “complicated” world, as you chimed.
Shorter Wakefield Tolbert:
Blah blah blah….MOOSLIMS! Blah blah…..EUROWEENIES! Blah blah blah…..SOCIALISM!
You will, of course, forgive me if I don’t find that terribly persuasive
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