An Answer to The Pesky Fly and a Ramble

In the comments to the post below, Chris The Pesky Fly asserts:

Um Mike, if somebody says, "We should kill all the freaking jews." You can't call Godwin's law when somebody else says, "hey, that sounds like Hitler."

What you're saying here DOES smack of Hitlerian logic--- that's not to say you're anything close to a Nazi.

The breeding model is really over-the-top.

Read the post and you will see that nowhere do I suggest anything like "kill the Arab Muslims." I do suggest that unless we in the Western liberal democracies (WLD) can keep our numbers up the faster-growing Arab Muslim population will overtake us and displace our WLD with Arab Muslim theocracy. I feel safe in saying that even Chris doesn't welcome this.

We need to hold the line of WLD until we can grow it in the Arab world and bring them into the fold. You can read this post of mine (and the linked essay) for more, to see the larger point being made here. I thought I'd blogged about this PBS program about population pressures and economics, but a Blogspot search didn't find anything. They make compelling corrolary points. I again feel safe in saying that PBS is no hotbed of Neo-Hitlerian eugenics.

Anyway, I replied:

Chris, you implied as much over at your blog and then Jeff, one of your co-bloggers, comes over here and invokes Hitler. Don't pretend innocence.

To which he shot back:

No Mike, I never implied that at all. If you can find ANYTHING that remotely suggests a comparison to Hitler in my post I'll eat my laptop. I'm not playing innocent, I think this is an absurd post advocating what YOU WOULD CALL "social engineering."

And yet, in the comments to his linking post is this exchange:

Yes, it seems I recall someone arguing much the same line on the History channel. It was a documentary, about this guy, and had black-and-white dramatic shots of bright young blond-haired boys and girls doing exercised. And people marching, and saluting, and burning books.
Jeff | Homepage | 02.21.06 - 8:57 pm | #

Now, now, Mike's a good fella. But yeah, when you start seeing destiny in those terms...

I just think the whole, "You liberals are all evil social engineers" is--in light of this-- pretty darn funny.
PeskyFly | Homepage | 02.21.06 - 9:43 pm | #

I'm just trolling dear Mike.
Jeff | Homepage | 02.22.06 - 9:28 am | #

Clearly it was on your mind. But let's go back to the original post. The headline?

Destroy Feminism Breed Young Ones

(Emphasis mine.) That's long been recognised shorthand on the Left for Fascism / Nazism, a standard fear trope. "The Rethugnicans will shackle you to your homes and make you churn out babies if we even touch the right to choose." Jeff sure seems to have picked it up.

Continuing to the text of the post:

Every time I consider things like light rail, the economic and environmental merits of increasing urban population densities, and encouraging pedestrian culture, Mr. Mike of Half-Bakered calls me a typical liberal and accuses me of an atrocity he calls, "social engineering." Well look what Mr. Mike's been writing about.

(Emphasis again mine.) Atrocity? I submit that, while it may be coded somewhat, it's clear the allusion of "atrocity of social engineering" he wants the reader to infer is the Nazi slaughter of the Jews.

Think I'm reaching? Well, I'm a long time reader of Chris' blog. Just a cursory search of his archives pulls up this post and this post, both by Chris himself. Republican - Nazi imagery right there for you. There's also another post by a co-blogger and this post (read the last paragraph) by another co-blogger. Chris is obviously comfortable with his readers and co-bloggers having "Republican / conservative ideas = Nazism" comparisons.

Did he out and out say it? No. Did he get close enough for readers to make the leap easily and without being pushed. I'd say the evidence is yes.

Context is everything. And so it is here on my blog. Chris knows, though he seems not to want to believe it, that I'm a conservative Libertarian. I deeply distrust national government, and most tools of government at all but the most local of levels. I've said so over and over and over again here. No matter the intentions of the originators, those tools will almost always be co-opted by the power hungry and the idealists. Democrats and Leftists are especially happy to do that because they believe in their hearts that they will always be in control.

That's not to say that Republicans and certain Christians don't want the same thing. They do. They try to create or co-opt their own sets of government tools. The point is that government power comes from the people and so should be kept as close to the people as possible and doled out with skepticism and an eagle eye. You create swell and powerful tools, there's always someone willing to try to steal them.

Reread the post Chris pounced on and you'll see that I don't advocate government solutions. It's interesting that Chris takes my musings as calls to government action, though. I'd say that's a good view into his thinking. Nor did I say "Christianity." I said religion, a wholy different thing, and inclusive by definition.

How you get where I want to go is called social change. It worked with women's suffrage at the turn of the last century and civil rights in the Fifties and Sixties, to name two examples. Inspire people to rise to their best, most moral nature and the world can be changed.

(Yeah, yeah. Mr. Atheist is calling for more religion in America and the West? Is he drinking again? No, it's just that I have a theory about the source and purpose of religion that I don't think I've addressed here. Suffice to say that I think many people need religion or early religious training for good reasons. John Adams said that a moral people are neccessary to a democracy and that it couldn't function without them.)

So, back to the point of the post. Yes, I call bullshit on Chris' defense. I think the evidence supports the call.

And I love how the discussion now isn't about the points made in the post, nor in the essay, which are vital and worth study. We have, instead, been diverted into silly and wasteful argument of who is or isn't a Hitler. It's a favored tactic of the Left to shut down debate they don't want or know they can't win. Hitler used the very same tactic by calling his enemies "Bolshevists."

But I'm not making any comparisons here.

It's clear that I'll have to create another post sometime going into more detail and drawing more links between ideas on the whole demographics and the clash of civilisations topic. And y'all need to read those Steyn essays, dammit! Visit that PBS link! What I thought I'd said was that we in the West, the defenders and inheritors of the Great Democratic Experiment, need to make sure that Western liberal democracy takes hold across the world before the results of some of its deformities (the narrow, radical, politicised NOW feminist agenda for one) shrink us down to a size not capable of doing the job. Read the Steyn essay I linked in the recent post to see why that's important.

The Arab Muslim world is producing people fast enough to export them around the world. Those immigrant populations are growing faster than the "native" ones. Nations with excess numbers of single men are especially dangerous, as that's how armies willing to die are made. Right now, China has something like 5 million men who will never marry because there aren't enough women. That's a potential army of men willing to wear the uniform in desperate hopes of appealing to and attracting a wife. And China has made no bones, in fact is openly making plans and operations, to take over Taiwan.

Nations with stable or shrinking populations can't wage colonialism or war easily. Especially when they have a large social safety net to appeal to stability and lassitude.

China is being remade in WLD, though of a peculiarly Chinese Communist stripe. Taiwan and Hong Kong are the hyper-examples of Western capitalism with a Chinese Confucian flavor; they will suit well for China in the long run, but cause the West no end of economic headaches. India is well on the way; Indonesia is too. Latin America is on the way, eventually. So are parts of Africa.

But the Arab Muslim world isn't. Egypt, Turkey and Indonesia are examples of WLD nations with a Muslim religion, so we know it can be done. We must break the authoritarianism and theocracy, the subjugation of women. Kuwait is doing it. (Ah! Didn't know that, did you?) We know it can be done.

Lefties will instinctively pop up here with "What about the native populations, like Indians, aboriginals, Maori, etc.? We screwed them over pretty well. We're evil and must stop." Good point and lessons we must always remember. But India and Egypt are excellent counter-examples. Hawaii and the Phillipines are less-successful examples, and cautionary warnings on how to handle things. It's not a painless process, but I firmly believe it's a vital one.

Besides, aren't a large part of Chris' concerns to do with overly-large populations? Smaller populations are a good thing for eco-Lefties. WLD means smaller populations. It means opportunities for women that they control, yes?

Go back to my point about the black v. white model of childbearing in the previous post, which somehow seems not to have generated any controversy here. In terms of women's biology and career / financial planning, having children young is a better way than the upper-middle-class NOW feminist model of career then babies late in life. I grow more convinced of this as time passes. It's easier for society to integrate, as well as the business world. This is a debate we need to re-examine.

Whew. This post is all over the place.

Let's review: Chris? Wrong. Evidence? Yes. The original post and its ideas? Needing discussion; shouldn't be shouted down or diverted by dolts who likely didn't read the essay(s).

Suggestions? Read the posts and essays and the PBS link. Read more on your own. Reflect. Discuss.

If you want to explore this further, you're always welcome here. If you want to reflexively invoke Hitler and eugenics (which I do not advocate) either way, or scream and shout and distract, then go elsewhere.

I dont' expect Chris to admit anything wrong. He wouldn't. This post is directed to my other readers who may not have noticed the distraction and yet still been steered away from the discussion I wanted.