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RickJ

I guess I understand the unreality of progressive theory. But I also think that many European governments still live by those theories, even if they can’t completely remember what they are, and couldn’t defend them if required to do so.

Successful philosophical systems seem to go through several stages. Theory building, followed by popularization, followed by political power, followed by decline. The progressive system appears to have gone through the steps in the last 100 years or so.

By the time decline sets in, most of the members of the movement can’t seem to remember what the theory was in the first place. But that doesn’t stop me from pointing out when someone casually destroys the theoretical framework without really trying. For some strange reason, I think these instances are significant. But maybe they’re not.

James
Denver

Read Zadie Smith’s “White Teeth” to get a picture of Muslim’s in London. There is a character in there from Bangladesh who is a Muslim. He raises his kids in London and they reject his Islam for Western lifestyles, except that one of them eventually rejects the Western lifestyle and becomes a fundamentalist Muslim, even berating his father for not being devout enough. The book was published in 2000, but this part of the story sounds a lot like the London bombers’ stories.

As for my London experience, I was there the last two summers and didn’t feel the tension you describe. However, the place is pretty socially stratified, much like a lot of big Western cities. The housekeeping staff at the hotel were Bolivian women, the waiters and waitresses were all Polish, the bartenders were white South Africans, the cab drivers were white and black working class Britons. I’m exaggerating a little, but it was as if white middle class London was drinking fancy cocktails in trendy clubs and floating above this sea of workers from almost everywhere but Britain.

Howard Dean is a liberal to me. Progressives are a label, like Nike. And it’s still pro-abortion, not pro-choice. And anti-abortion, for that matter.

Neo, I posted a long screed on the Left and on anatomy as destiny, riffing on the p.c. creed:

Guess What?Anatomy is Destiny

It has some sad and disturbing news.

You said in the article that America might be more tolerant than Europe - thus resulting in the situation that Rand outlined.

So what do you mean by tolerant?

Do you mean that America is more tolerant of conservative social attitudes? So it doesn’t push hedonistic/pluralistic attitudes into the face of the socially conservative Muslims?

Do you mean that America is tolerant of the business culture which finds jobs for these immigrants so that they have some interaction with americans in a day to day working setting?

Or do you mean that America is relatively intolerant of people who don’t work, so immigrants can’t be on government support indefinitely - which forces them into the wider world of work and American culture?

If that is your definition of ‘tolerant’, you are making a large break with modern progressive thought, which defines tolerance far different than that.

James (didn’t feal like getting a login)
Denver, CO

The splinter groups were often stranger and most lethal the original: one young German radical visited her father’s best friend, a bank president (”pig”), at his office and shot him several times in the face as he greeted her.

Exactly what is most worrisome about the influx from Mexico. They work hard, repatriate much of their earnings, hold no motor vehicle insurance, duck many criminal charges, receive social services, and maintain loyalty mot just to Mexico, but to Guanajuato, Michoacan, half a hundred other cities and states. It’s not quite looting, but it’s a grossly unbalanced exchange. A former governor of Colorado (Dick Lamm) calculated recently that the illegals in that state cost it $2 billion per year.
Non sequitur mode off.

Essentially, my conclusion was that the AQ branch/affiliate/co-belligerents in England were homegrown, underfunded, and did not plan very far ahead.

Of course, they did have encouaragement, help, and possibly funding from abroad. At least two of the 7-July attackers had travelled together to a known terrorist-haven in the Middle East in the past year.

The image of the walking brooms from Fantasia does raise a problem. Instead of a 9/11-level attack every year, we might get what the Londoners got this July. Such a style might eventually lead to a “death by a thousand cuts”.