This title is the New York Times bestseller – now in paperback. In America Alone, Mark Steyn uses his trademark wit, clarity of thought and flair for the apocalyptic, Mark Steyn to argue that America is the only hope against Islamic Terrorism. Steyn addresses the singular position in which America finds itself, surrounded by anti-Americanism on all sides. He gives us the brutal facts on these threats and why there is no choice but for America to fight for the cause of freedom – alone.
Steyn Issues Wakeup Call To The West
pon hearing that Mark Steyn”s America Alone was about the rise of radical Islam and its war against a declining Western Civilization, my brother said he did not think he had the stomach to read it. He stated he would probably feel like cutting his wrists by the end of the book. Well, he was wrong; I am sure he would feel like cutting his wrists about halfway through the book”s opening prologue.
Yes, America Alone is a doomsday book. In the prologue, Steyn states the seriousness of the problem succinctly: “Let me put it in a slightly bigger nutshell: much of what we loosely call the Western world will not survive the twenty-first century, and much of it will effectively disappear within our lifetimes, including many if not most European countries.”
So, what catastrophe does Steyn believe will wipeout Western civilization? Will coastal cities be flooded by melting polar ice caps? Will the world overpopulate and foolishly and recklessly use up its natural resources? Hardly. Unlike most global, run-for-the-hills, the-sky-is-falling doomsday books, America Alone does not focus on exaggerated environmental concerns but, instead, offers a decidedly convincing neoconservative take: Steyn believes Western civilization will be overrun by radical Islam.
In America Alone Steyn attempts -largely succeeding – to show the severity and seriousness of radical Islam”s declared war against Western Civilization, by focusing on three primary factors:
1) Demographic decline. The swiftly shrinking numbers of native populations in western countries and the rapidly rising global Muslim population.
2) The unsustainability of the advanced Western social democratic state. A welfare state cannot sustain economic vitality while supporting a disproportionately aging population.
3) Civilization exhaustion. Multiculturalism has robbed the Western world of its identity and sense of accomplishment.
Demographic Decline
Steyn begins by explaining that in order for a country, any country, to achieve a stable population, it needs to maintain a total fertility rate of 2.1 live births per woman. In other words, for Country X to have a population of one million in 1980, one million in 1990 and one million in 2000, it needs to maintain a fertility rate of 2.1. Simple enough. Steyn then tells us the fertility rate of the United States is almost exactly 2.1, meaning if it weren”t for immigration, the United States population would not be decreasing or increasing, just holding steady. That wouldn”t be that bad except that the United States has the highest fertility rate among all countries in the developed world – by far. By comparison, Canada has a rate of 1.48, Europe 1.38, Japan 1.32 and Russia 1.14. In other words, native populations in the industrialized world are steadily, and in some cases drastically, decreasing.
The whole world is not following suit, however. In fact, some countries are experiencing a population boom. The one characteristic many of these countries share? Their populations are predominantly Muslim; countries like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have fertility rates well above 5.0.
How much have these trends affected the makeup of the world”s population? In 1970 the developed world represented 30 percent of the world”s population. By 2000, that number had shrunk to a mere 20 percent. During that same time Muslim nations increased from 15 percent of the world”s population to 20 percent. In other words, forty years ago the industrialized nations outnumbered Muslim nations by a 2:1 ratio. Ten years ago they were roughly equal. After sharing these numbers, Steyn concludes, “And by 2020?”
After reviewing these numbers, some might wonder what all the fuss is about. What difference does it make if it”s secular Europeans or Muslim Europeans? In fact, Steyn remarks, some would probably make the comparison to an all-black Broadway production of Hello, Dolly! Same set, same songs, different cast. Steyn clarifies that the problem isn”t about race; it”s about culture. He writes:
“To agitate about what proportion of the population is ”white” is grotesque and inappropriate. But it”s not about race; it”s about culture. If 100% of your population believes in liberal pluralist democracy, it doesn”t matter whether 70 percent of them are “white” or only 5 percent are. But if one part of your population believes in liberal pluralist democracy and the other doesn”t, then it becomes a matter of great importance whether the part that does is 90 percent of the population or only 60 percent, or 50, or 45 percent.”
So, have Muslims adopted a liberal democratic worldview? Ample evidence would suggest otherwise:
“In the 2005 rankings of Freedom House”s survey of personal liberty and democracy around the world, five of the eight countries with the lowest “freedom” score were Muslim. Of the forty-six Muslim majority nations in the world, only three were free. Of the sixteen nations in which Muslims form between 20 and 50 percent of the population, only another three were ranked as free: Benin, Serbia and Montenegro, and Suriname.”
If Muslims are not successfully assimilated into the Western culture of the nations they emigrate to, these nations will gradually begin to take on the characteristics of the Muslims” home countries. As the Freedom House rankings suggest, this means much more than an increase in the number of neighborhood mosques and Arabic restaurants dotting the landscape; it directly translates into the level of personal freedom individuals can expect to enjoy in these countries.
The Unsustainability of the Modern Welfare State
Shrinking populations are a problem in their own right – before even considering the threat of rising radical Muslim populations. The modern welfare state is built around the premise of lots of young people paying for the care and retirement of a smaller number of elderly. When this pyramid is upended, even the most optimistic liberal is forced to admit the system is just not economically viable. As Steyn explains, it”s because “the twentieth-century social-democratic state was built on a careless model that requires a constantly growing population to sustain it.” Steyn continues:
“Big Government depends on bigger population: Americans have a relatively smallish government compared to Canada and Europe, but the U.S. Social Security system assumes a 30 percent population growth between now and 2075 or so and, even then, expects to be running a deficit after 2017. Now imagine you”re Spain and you”ve got even bigger public pensions liabilities and a population that”s going to be halving every thirty-five years. The progressive Left can be in favor of Big Government or population control but not both. That mutual incompatibility is about to plunge Europe into societal collapse. There is no precedent in human history for economic growth on declining human capital – and that”s before anyone invented unsustainable welfare systems.”
In other words, welfare simply cannot work on models with shrinking populations; yet, this is exactly where the rest of the industrialized world finds itself. This problem, Steyn explains, is not just fiscal in nature but moral as well. By passing on the care of the elderly to the government and not reproducing at minimum population replacement rates, the Western world has placed itself in an exclusively present tense state. Steyn writes:
“… Since 1945, throughout the West, a variety of government interventions – state pensions, subsidized higher education, higher taxes to pay for everything – has so ruptured traditional patterns of inter-generational solidarity that Continentals now exist almost entirely in a present-tense culture of complete sel
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America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It by Mark Steyn
