What Europe should do about its Muslims
A few days ago (as he is wont to do), Air Marshall emailed around to some of us an article by Mark Steyn. arguing that Europe is surrendering to Islamism without a fight.
In response, a past Chairman of our Society asked "Does he advocate any practical solutions? ... Or is this just Right-liberal hand-wringing?" Good question. I have been strident in the past in pointing out that various critics of the Iraq war offer no prescriptions themselves, so I feel an obligation to offer policy suggestions for what Europe should do about its "Muslim problem." Here goes:
In response, a past Chairman of our Society asked "Does he advocate any practical solutions? ... Or is this just Right-liberal hand-wringing?" Good question. I have been strident in the past in pointing out that various critics of the Iraq war offer no prescriptions themselves, so I feel an obligation to offer policy suggestions for what Europe should do about its "Muslim problem." Here goes:
- Halt all immigration from predominantly Muslim countries.
- Encourage immigration from countries with residents more likely to assimilate, in particular, Latin America. (This should especially encouraged in Spain from the Spanish speaking countries and in Portugal from Brazil).
- Eliminate any laws or policies which allow for Muslim states-within-a-state. For instance, forced marriages and violations of women's rights must be prosecuted as vigorously among the Muslim population as they are on the non-Muslim population.
- Stop showing any sensitivity to Muslim sensitivities. If local Muslims object to a statue of a pig or painting of Muhammed in the local church, they need to be told to sod off. You have the right to practice your religion, but not to tell us what to do.
- End welfare (stick) and stop discriminating against Muslims (carrot). In general, get Muslims into the middle class lifestyle.
- Deport Wahabi imans whenever possible.
posted by Harsh Pencil | 3/01/2006 10:21:00 PM
Harsh Pencil has an excellent agenda for Europe. But, they still need to have more babies.
Given that the number of children fathered by the two prior writers in this thread number above 10, there might be an excellent opportunity to consult with the Europeans on the exact process by which they might take up SSC's suggestion.
In all seriousness, "have more babies" is not a policy prescription. Subsidies to having babies, or at least making sure that families are not penalized financially, do seem to have a positive, albeit modest, effect. Scandanavia (where I think, festivus, they know the production function for babies) has ok fertility, on par with native born Americans, has pretty good incentives for having children compared to the rest of Europe. So pro-natalist policies might be warranted.
The trick to pro-natalist policies is to disproportionally get those people likely to raise good future citizens to have more babies. The key might be to look at the incentives to having children broken down by education level and try to devise a system that gets more educated people to have more children.
While the Pro-Natalist movement has recently been co-opted by the Populist label, I would caution the above to take great care in adopting this measure fully, as Pronatalism historically has its strongest roots in PaleoConservatism. (See farming families of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.) Not to confuse the issue, but post-modern PaleoCons often shun Pronatalism in practice in favor of fiscal conservatism.
Wern't the farmers of the 16th and 17th centuries all immigrants?
Farmers in the 17th century were mostly immigrants, certainly in the early 1600's when the Puritans swept into town. But by the 1700's, farmers were often 2nd, 3rd, even 4th generation Americans.
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