Michael J. Totten: Michael's Latest on Tech Central

Its kinda stunning yet will be quickly forgotten. There are quite different standards between america and our european sisters. I think if this happened in america there'd be a different response.

Europe gets a pass on these things. From colonialism, world wars, classism, various genocides all over the world, to france's anti-terror laws and britain's official secrets act, its all been conveniently forgotten. Maybe america should put on show trials for the jihadis like the brits did for the IRA.

Also, immigration should be on the table for national discussion. I'm a republican (I know its trendy to be like 'I'm an independent' or 'libertarian') but the gutlessness of that gets on my nerves. I'm a bad republican in many ways, one of which is that I have no problem with mexican immigration. They're solid people. However, there's...people of a certain religion, from certain parts of the world that shouldn't be allowed to emigrate to america. We shouldn't have a policy against allowing them in, we should simply throw out any INS applications and intercept them at the airports and borders.

Posted by: Raymond at November 24, 2004 02:28 AM

My wife is from Avignon and would like us to return to France, where her job prospects would be much better (and where her family and friends are, either Avignon or Marseille). I'm very reluctant... because all of Europe is a timebomb at this point.

Posted by: miklos rosza at November 24, 2004 03:22 AM

The Vlams Blok wants to "put an end to Belgium". I remember a certain US president fighting a civil war to "preserve the union" - so what gives. And given the neo-fascist, racist and xenophobic history of the Vlams Blok, it is not entirely unreasonable to suspect that they don't give a rat's @ss about female circumcision, but use the issue solely to stir up anti-Muslim feelings.

Posted by: novakant at November 24, 2004 04:04 AM

that should read Vlaams of course

Posted by: novakant at November 24, 2004 04:17 AM

To quote Prestopundit:

"THE HAYEK THESIS -- in Europe the "left" and the "right" are flip sides of the same coin. The German left and right in the 1920s and '30s were anti- American, anti- capitalist, anti- Western, often anti- semitic -- just as segments of Europe are today."

Posted by: Winger at November 24, 2004 05:48 AM

I read Michael's piece and as usual it has a lot of good sense in it. But one place where I just don't get a lot of liberal thinking, if thinking it is, is this knee-jerk reaction that "immigration" is somehow both an obvious and an uncritique-able good for every nation on earth.

We have our immigration problems here in the US for sure, but it's really only about volume, control and, lately, some justifiable nervousness about certain cultures' resistance to assimilation (And please spare me any history lessons about the Chinese, or use of pc bait-words like nativist or xenophobe, etc.; since 1965 the place has been Grand Central Station).

But places like Belgium and Holland and, in fact, most places in the world, are not like us, not immigration-created nations with a strongly creedal element in national identity who have this constant influx of newcomers as part of what we both expect and learn, even with difficulty, to adjust to and to finally embrace. They are ethnic nations. Multiculturalism, I have come to conclude, is a sham. And it may in fact be unwise for all concerned, including the sainted "immigrants", for these countries to have allowed large groups of aliens to enter in the first place. And it may be very wise for them to reduce or stop it altogether.

Posted by: EssEm at November 24, 2004 07:13 AM

Good piece but TCS made a FRIGGING monster "E-typesetting" error by botching Totten's quote of Reynolds. That sort of thing can could land him and TCS into a world of hurt. That quote needs to be indented ASAP!

I have no doubt that MJT sent that piece in with the proper editing and formatting, he's a solid writer and is more than aware of the Blogosphere's unforgiving ability to factcheck. I, myself, have gotten galley proofs of my professional papers with howling botches in them thanks to the typesetters.

I flashed a quick and polite Email to the editor warning him of the error. Hopefully they'll patch it, italicize it or otherwise set it right. I’m amazed that that got through the final Editor's smell test and that no one had caught it after being out for a day or so. We are known for flunking people for that sort of thing!

Posted by: Bill at November 24, 2004 08:25 AM

Update:

The error has been fixed! Whew!

Posted by: Bill at November 24, 2004 08:57 AM

And given the neo-fascist, racist and xenophobic history of the Vlams Blok, it is not entirely unreasonable to suspect that they don't give a rat's @ss about female circumcision, but use the issue solely to stir up anti-Muslim feelings.

Novokant,

I suspect rather that their xenophobia and racism is precisely the result of their outrage about foreign barbarism imported onto their soil, female circumcision being one example.

Sadly, these evil rightwingers show more concern for the plight of oppressed women (real oppression, not the imaginary oppression facied by the Left) than so-called humanitarian Lefties do who only deal in "opression" when it furthers their politics.

Posted by: David at November 24, 2004 09:33 AM

I'm overjoyed the right is now jumping on the bandwagon in defending women's rights, but if that means making common cause with anti-semitic, Holocaust denying, Le Pen embracing racists, then I'll galdly stick with left-wing NGO's and "feminazis" who've been on the case for a while now.

Posted by: novakant at November 24, 2004 10:38 AM

“One member of Vlaams Blok wrote a political tract denouncing female genital mutilation in Muslim countries. The high court says the tract is racist. Nevermind that "Muslim" isn't a race, the person who wrote it is not ethnically Belgian. She's a Muslim woman from Turkey.”

Amazing. Any criticism of the nihilistic Muslims, however valid, apparently can never be uttered. Our First Amendment constitutional rights gives us a leg up on this war to the death. We have been damaged by the ideology of political correctness---but not to this extent. Our legal system also discourages us from overreacting. Robert Jackson’s warning that the Constitution is not a suicide pact is taken very seriously. The majority of Americans reluctantly concede that a certain degree of compromise regarding our rights is mandatory. Still, we hesitate in going too far. Not so, our Old European allies. They are very susceptible to the siren call of fascism.

Posted by: David Thomson at November 24, 2004 10:47 AM

Disclaimer: While I wrote the post, I did not write the article, so I won't presume to try to answer any questions that Michael's not here to answer.

...but I have a couple of comments:

Bill: good catch on that Glenn Reynolds quote. I noticed that too and just shrugged it off; a very passive, paleo-consumer reaction on my part. I'm glad you took the initiative to get that corrected. Fortunately because Glenn also writes for Tech Central and is friendly with Michael it wasn't likely to cause a big problem in this case. But that certainly is a dangerous sort of error to make depending on whose words are being used.

Raymond: there's...people of a certain religion, from certain parts of the world that shouldn't be allowed to emigrate to america. We shouldn't have a policy against allowing them in, we should simply throw out any INS applications and intercept them at the airports and borders.

I certainly don't believe in being 'tolerant' of a 'different' cultural norm if it includes a desire to kill me and my family. But then it is likely that many people of a certain religion from a certain part of the world want to come here to get away from those same people who want to kill us, not that that should automatically dictate our immigration policy. But that's more or less what this country stands for. We do have to consider that we are at war with, I guess you'd say, a pan-Islamist element ecompassing many countries (though I suppose their goal is to unite them into a single Reich, or something along those lines.) But if you don't respect people being too gutless to call themselves Republicans, than why do we want an immigration policy that's too gutless to do things on the level?

If we have a policy that allows people 'of a certain religion [etc]...' but within a framework that incorporates certain provisos (e.g. I don't see what's wrong with having people report to the INS regularly to verify their status) in that we may be at war with the country they come from, then I think we're in a better position to recognize the difference between terrorists and refugees. If there is an above board immigration policy that recognizes the dangers involved and passes the 'liberal democracy' litmus test, then it would be much easier for the Justice Department to have a just policy for intervening against abuses of our immigration laws. I mean, I assume you're being hyperbolic, but the key is to protect American democratic ideals, not to undermine them ourselves before the enemy gets a chance to do it for us.

And EssEm touches on an important distinction between how immigration functions in the U.S. vs. in Europe.

Novakant: "The Vlams Blok wants to "put an end to Belgium". I remember a certain US president fighting a civil war to "preserve the union" - so what gives."

I'm certain Michael is not defending Vlaams Blok but is rather decrying the banning of a party, especially given that one of the casualties might be the free debate of immigration policy, which for Vlamms Blok seems to be only the tip of their ideological iceberg, but for the rest of the country might be an important core policy issue worthy of rational debate.

In the U.S. that sort of measure can't be taken until a group actually demonstrates that they have begun to enact or have an active conspiracy to act on their plans to violate the law. So Lincoln didn't start that war to stamp out a party or creed; he tried to ban slavery and fought the war when the Confederate states acted illegally in response. While it may be dangerous to be so tolerant of a fascist party, it's ultimately the best way to defend democracy. You can't, in other words, fight fascism with fascism.

Posted by: Jeremy Brown at November 24, 2004 10:58 AM

“I'm overjoyed the right is now jumping on the bandwagon in defending women's rights, but if that means making common cause with anti-semitic, Holocaust denying, Le Pen embracing racists, then I'll galdly stick with left-wing NGO's and "feminazis" who've been on the case for a while now.”

No, the so-called right is merely pointing out an area of agreement with this extremist organization. One should never disagree with someone merely to always be on the opposite side. I can for instance agree with Adolph Hitler that smoking is bad and that we should be nice to dogs. That does not turn me into a Nazi!

I can see it now. You are jumping from a plane at twenty thousand feet without a parachute screaming: “The hell with the scientific theory of gravity. Those right wingers subscribe to this doctrine and therefore I must dissent.”

Posted by: David Thomson at November 24, 2004 11:25 AM

I'm overjoyed the right is now jumping on the bandwagon in defending women's rights,... then I'll galdly stick with left-wing NGO's and "feminazis" who've been on the case for a while now.

novakant,

They're no longer on the case. That's the probelm. Where were your "NGO's" and feminists when Theo Van Gogh was murdered for pro-woman film? Not a peep out of them. They're too much in the thrall of "diversity" and "islam", or they feel too foolish and have hidden away in shame. So now it's up to the "rightwingers", as usual, to clean up your mess.

Where were the Lefty artsy farties? One would think that in the name of artistic freedom, the creative community would take a stand against filmmakers being sent into hiding a la Salman Rushdie, or left bleeding in the street. Yet we’ve heard nary a peep from Hollywood or the Left. Now it's up to the rightwingers. You can help, or you can get out of the way.

Posted by: David at November 24, 2004 12:12 PM

Two things:

1. Oh my Lord, I finally agree with David on something.

2. Someone filter out the comment spam. Please.

Posted by: Josh at November 24, 2004 02:52 PM

There! I've removed the spam. Thanks for the heads up, Josh.

Mind you, if you were looking for a good deal on sporting equipment or herbal Vi@xxx!/...

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On a paper submitted by a physicist colleague:

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