Laying around my hotel room, I finally got around to reading Mark Steyn’s America Alone, a book which my friend Gregory Hood has been urging me to review for several months now.
I’ve known of America Alone for years. Steyn’s book was published in 2006 with much fanfare. I knew through reputation it was about the Islamification of Europe, but dismissed it as a triumphalist kosher con version of Buchanan’s The Death of the West.
Pat blew that whistle years ago. I took his warning to heart and changed my life accordingly. What could Mark Steyn possibly say that Buchanan had not already covered?
I was pleasantly surprised.
The Coming of Eurabia
As far as analysis goes, I found America Alone to be worth reading. In a little over two hundred pages, Steyn lays out the unvarnished truth about Europe’s precipitous decline in language accessible to the average reader. He identifies the most important factors driving changing demographics on the Old Continent:
- The abuse of birth control and abortion.
- The ideal of expressive individualism.
- The spread of radical multiculturalism.
- The spread of political correctness.
- The collapse of confidence in Western civilization.
- The perversion of liberal ideals such of equality, tolerance, and non-discrimination.
- Immigration from the unreconstructed Islamic world.
- The Western ideals of hedonism and materialism.
- The expansion of the state which has rendered private virtue and the family superfluous.
- The confusion of gender roles.
- White guilt and Western self hatred.
There is a lot of truth in this book.
Spiritually, Europeans have been decapitated. Their churches are emptying as new mosques are being constructed. Their women would rather go to college and enter the workforce than raise children. Their men would rather apologize and surrender to Muslims than stand up for their own interests.
The European superstate has steadily usurped all the functions of adulthood. Who needs a husband, a family, a church, or a kinship network when the state performs all these roles? Who needs a military when defense has been outsourced to the Americans? Who needs private virtue when you can rely upon a social safety net?
Addicted to welfare, postwar Europeans have been turned into children, and now lack the will to even reproduce themselves. Government bureaucrats make all the important decisions in life while the people amuse themselves with the modern version of “bread and circuses.”
European birth rates have plummeted to record lows. As a consequence, the old are ever more numerous than the young, and “guest workers,” “refugees,” and “asylum seekers” from the Third World are imported to serve as the new labor force.
An exhausted Europe confronts a self-confident, resurgent Islam which has advanced deeper into the Old Continent than ever before. Within thirty years, France and the Netherlands will be semi-Islamified. Muslims will grow strong enough to exercise a veto over French and Dutch national policy. Eventually, Muslims will become a majority in France, Great Britain, the Netherlands and other European countries.
Through a combination of immigration, conversion, and emigration, Muslims will become more powerful in Europe over time. The weak European middle class will abandon their countries and flee to Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The hardcore minority left behind will eventually turn to the “(old) strong man on a horse” who promises to solve the problem.
A “Eurabian Civil War” will break out between European nationalists and Muslim invaders sometime around mid-century. Liberal democracy will perish in Europe one way or the other: either European nationalists retake the continent or Europe will be absorbed into the Islamic world.
America vs. Europe
According to Steyn, White America is relatively healthier than Europe. The Mexicans colonizing the American Southwest are not as dangerous or alien to Western civilization as Muslims from North Africa and the Middle East. White Americans have a higher birthrate than Russians, Germans, and Italians.
Americans are more suspicious of government, more individualistic, more self confident, and less cowed by the orthodoxies of multiculturalism and political correctness. Compared to Europe, America is more assertive and acts like the “stronger horse” on the world stage.
America Alone was written before the emergence of the Tea Party movement which stresses individual responsibility and opposes the concentration of power in the federal government. I haven’t read any of Steyn’s columns, but I suspect he would interpret this as a positive development and a confirmation of his thesis.
Criticism: Amexica vs. Eurabia
You’re another.
Having read this far, I suspect our readers are already chomping at the bit to point out the obvious. In many respects, America is just as bad, if not worse than Europe in its surrender to multiculturalism and political correctness.
America is ruled by Barack Obama. At least David Cameron and Angela Merkel are White. The Obama administration recently smacked down the uppity Whites of Arizona for having the audacity to enforce federal immigration law. We’re also having a great ongoing public discussion in America about the “racist elements” within the Tea Party.
America is infected by the same disease that afflicts Europe. The Mormons in Utah might have a higher birthrate, but the Russians and French have the better organized resistance movement. Britain has socialized healthcare, but it also has the BNP.
Criticism: Kosher Solutions
At no point in America Alone does Mark Steyn endorse the obvious solution: banning Islamic immigration and deporting European Muslims to their own countries.
Steyn can turn a phrase when it comes to criticizing the multiculturalism and political correctness of others, but ultimately he stands convicted of the same moral cowardice as his liberal targets. Take up the White Man’s Burden and conquer Iraq and Iran to spread women’s rights and gay marriage? Few are likely to respond to that call. That’s hardly the solution.
Throughout America Alone, Steyn makes several comments that will irritate our readers. He invokes gallant little Israel and criticizes the barbarous Palestinians. He says that culture is what matters, not race, as if the two were separable. He refuses to follow his own argument to its logical conclusion: expulsion of the Islamic cancer in Europe.
Final Thoughts
In a way, I suppose these egregious omissions are justifiable. Mark Steyn doesn’t “name the Jew,” but he wrote a best selling book that warned millions of moderates and ordinary conservatives that Western civilization is in mortal danger. Had Steyn not included these concessions to kosher con orthodoxy, the book would not have sold as well or been as influential as it ultimately was.
In 2001, I woke up after reading Pat Buchanan’s The Death of the West, which more or less told the same story. While ideas certainly matter, the physical means to distribute those ideas are equally important, and this is a huge advantage kosher conservatives have over us.
This book points conservatives and moderates in the right direction. If nothing else can be said for America Alone, it is valuable in this crucial respect, as opposed to some of the more extreme titles which preach only to the converted and no one in the mainstream will ever read.
This is way off topic, but I didn’t know where else to insert this: I really like the new format! Well done!
I updated the WordPress files. The 3.0 version of WordPress has an attractive new default theme.
“At no point in America Alone does Mark Steyn endorse the obvious solution: banning Islamic immigration and deporting European Muslims to their own countries.
Steyn can turn a phrase when it comes to criticizing the multiculturalism and political correctness of others, but ultimately he stands convicted of the same moral cowardice as his liberal targets. ”
This was exactly Auster’s criticism levied at the the time of his reading of Steyn’s book. I point this out only to demonstrate how closely one can get to the true “third rail of politics” (wink, hint) before being considered a pariah (amongst one’s own tribe!).
Mike
To give you an idea of where Steyn stands ideologically…he often subs for Rush when el Rushbo is away.
“European birth rates have plummeted to record lows.”
They’ve been at record lows for at least a decade now, but there are indications that native birth rates are gaining again after hitting bottom a few years ago. At the moment I don’t have all the concrete figures on me but I do know that, for example, Italy’s birth rate has increase from 1.2 in 2001 to 1.41 children per woman in 2009*. Digging into the data, the births are not fed primarily by immigrants (which in Italy’s case still come primarily from Eastern Europe) but by native Italians. While 1.41 is still not near the 2.1 needed for replacement, it is still surely climbing. And just recently in Denmark, native births now outnumber foreign births**.
“As a consequence, the old are ever more numerous than the young, and “guest workers,” “refugees,” and “asylum seekers” from the Third World are imported to serve as the new labor force”
That’s the excuse, it’s just the same here in America, except they get muslims, gypsies, negros, and some orientals. They are there primarily for argicultural and low-level service jobs in government, but just like the mestizo and negro hordes here,they are there for government handouts and end up consuming more than what they give back.
“Within thirty years, France and the Netherlands will be semi-Islamified. Muslims will grow strong enough to exercise a veto over French and Dutch national policy. Eventually, Muslims will become a majority in France, Great Britain, the Netherlands and other European countries.”
If nothing changes, than yes. Plus, Muslims already exercise de facto veto control in those countries. France has a Hungarian jew for a president and there seems to be a riot and carbeque every month in the big cities; native Dutch already make up less than 4/5 of the Netherlands, and in just Amsterdam alone there’s something on the order of over 170+ nationalities residing there; special priviliges for muslims keep coming out of the woodwork in Britian, etc. etc. etc.
“The weak European middle class will abandon their countries and flee to Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The hardcore minority left behind will eventually turn to the “(old) strong man on a horse” who promises to solve the problem.”
This is happening in Britain, I know, but again this is still assuming that nothing changes.
“A “Eurabian Civil War” will break out between European nationalists and Muslim invaders sometime around mid-century. Liberal democracy will perish in Europe one way or the other: either European nationalists retake the continent or Europe will be absorbed into the Islamic world.”
At least by mid-century. Things are heating up in Europe as well, so I anticipate conflict happening relatively soon.
“According to Steyn, White America is relatively healthier than Europe. The Mexicans colonizing the American Southwest are not as dangerous or alien to Western civilization as Muslims from North Africa and the Middle East.”
The Mexicans may not be as easily riled into a frothing rage, but not as dangerous? Bull.
“Americans are more suspicious of government, more individualistic, more self confident,…”
True.
“…and less cowed by the orthodoxies of multiculturalism and political correctness.”
It depends on what European country being compared.
Compared to Great Britain, France, and Germany?
Certainly. Italy, Hungary, and Bulgaria? Well now…that’s a different can of sardines.
All in all though, stuff like Steyn’s book can help. I was origianlly a ‘Counterjihadist’ before becoming a WN.
*http://demo.istat.it/altridati/indicatori/2009/Tab_4.pdf
**http://www.stormfront.org/forum/t728813/ <—The link on the thread is in Danish, but there's a rough translation by Danish speakers.
Where are the links to other websites that used to be on the right side of the this website?
Pending review.
It seems he forgot to mention immigration. He mentioned “Immigration from the unreconstructed Islamic world”, but I don’t understand what “unreconstructed Islam” has to do with European falling birth rates.
The truth is the other way around: the influx of third-world people causes White birth rates to drop down. Both in France and Britain, the non-white demographic growth is much stronger than the white decline. As a result, the overall population is dramatically increasing. In other words, most immigration is not making up for any decline in the white birth rate. Instead, it contributes to a demographic explosion. Since so many non-whites are imported, it means retirement pensions get smaller, as we have to care both for the old, and for the non-whites who do not work and who set cars on fire. It also means we keep borrowing more money to pay for the immigration policy.
Mark Steyn’s analysis doesn’t seem very good.
This is the same old cliche the neocons have been using for years except there’s a twist in it. It used to be that Europe would die a demographic death while America, still relatively young because of its third world imports, would have a competitive advantage against the rest of the world. It doesn’t look that way. It appears to me we are in the beginnings of a national collapse while Europe, with its eight percent nonwhite population is more stable.
Even if he finds better not to name the Jew, he could still say that the problem comes from our treacherous elites, from a small minority who is in control of government and the media. He doesn’t have to say that the crisis is a result of “White guilt and Western self hatred”.
I too like the new look and feel. It may be inadvertant but I like the new motto, and as I’ve mentioned I’ve always felt that putting the “Jew Free Ethnostate” statement in the about box was not helpful to getting the unwashed to come look around. I sent a link to a group of friends and had it immediately thrown back at me, which of course was effective “discourse poisoning” by that person on whatever the topic was.
Interesting new set up. I do believe I like it!
One thing that should be pointed out is that many of the non-white immigrants in Europe are not Muslim. Black Africans are the fast growing group of immigrants in many areas, especially France, the UK, Ireland and Italy. There is also a massive Gypsy problem in Eastern Europe that is spilling into Western Europe. Gypsies have origins in Pakistan and India and they are not Muslim. That video by a BNP supporter that made waves on youtube recently showed a section of London populated mainly by non-Muslims from India and Sri Lanka. Most serious crime in London is committed by non-Muslim blacks. The BNP’s area of highest support two elections ago is an area being flooded by evangelical Christian Nigerians, many of whom support a Christian political party.
The comment about Steyn filling in for Limbaugh tells us everything we need to know about him.
On a somewhat related topic, the comments on FreeRepublic.com have became radically more favorable to our POV in the last couple years. I’ve seen open racialism being expressed several times with no rebukes. It seems that the tolerance FR has shown for bloodthirsty, genocidal language directed towards Muslims and Arabs has desensitized everyone there to comments about blacks, Mexicans, Gypsies etc. that would have never been allowed a few years ago.
It might be worthwhile for white nationalists to go there and subtly participate.
It wasn’t inadvertent.
the new motto: Unfashionable Observations on the American Scene
What it really means is common sense observations. I think the mainstream media is on the way out, and can no longer set fashion trends. Popular common sense is making a comeback. It is the new attitude: rebellious, but based on common sense. Everyone want to be like that, except the Stalinists at the New York Times.
RE: FR. It might be worthwhile for white nationalists to go there and subtly participate.
A few of us are deeply embedded already.
Steyn doesn’t address the real solution to the problem, limiting immigration, at least not yet. It was not too long ago that his identification of the problem would have been unacceptable to the Establishment Right and the media, but he has got out at least half the message with not blowback, even from amnesty supporters in the Establishment like Hugh Hewitt. Steyn is a regular on Hewitt’s show, but much more right wing than Hewitt who supports amnesty and Muslim immigration.
I think we might be turning the tide. Every journey begins with a single step. Think about it.
Steyn’s a jewboy.
Earl Pitts Senior: I don’t know anything about this Steyn fellow, but some Jews recognize what their nation has done, and wish to undo the damage before too many of us start to point fingers at the culprits. They will sometimes point out that no place on Earth has been so hospitable to Jews, and they’re right. I would guess that most of them are worried about the future of their own tribe rather than the future our people.
RE: Eurabia
Some evocative speculation on Europe’s future, from one of the writer’s at alternative right, assuming trends don’t change:
“As indigenous Europeans are replaced by a non-European Muslim majority in our continent, we can expect this change in complexion to be reflected in Europe’s parliaments and national governments. With this will come, inevitably, legislative changes, historical revisionism, and different policies, reflecting Muslim sensibilities, concerns, and aspirations. Eventually, Europe will converge with North Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia — in every respect. We will eat halal meat, pigs will roam the countryside, cathedrals will become mosques, the Koran will be mandatory in every school, we will name our children Mohammed, and the call for prayer will be heard emanating from thousands of minarets across every village, town, and city, five times a day. The surviving and ever-shrinking White European minority — foreigners in their own traditional homeland, most likely impoverished, and no longer masters of their own destiny — will have to abide by the rules of their Muslim masters, cleaning their toilets and cooking their meals. (Many will be Muslims themselves, in mixed-race marriages, with women forced to undergo genital mutilation, wear burqas, share husbands, and suffer death by stoning if found adulterous.) And, once Whites become extinct, sometime in the next century, they will be remembered ignominiously in history and anthropology textbooks as a plague that swept the Earth, a degenerate species of human, too weak, too cowardly, and too stupid to resist the force of Islam.”
http://www.alternativeright.com/main/blogs/euro-centric/wipe-that-smile-off-his-face/
Just remember this, the Jews hate White people worse than they do their semite cousins! We White people are the real enemy—the Moslems are their kissing cousins.
Steyn is a Catholic, not a Jew
Steyn is a Catholic, not a Jew
You can’t switch ethnicities.
Steyn doesn’t address the real solution to the problem, limiting immigration, at least not yet.
Not only that, he was saying only a couple few years ago that Canada’s (and, presumably, any other western country’s) future from here on out would be decided by whoever washed up on her shores. Not so much as a hint that policies could be amended so as to prevent that scenario unfolding, much less that they should be.
Of course, the “real solution” is not “limiting” immigration; it’s terminating it, and, ideally (ie democratically politically viably), reversing it (most recent arrivals no roots/diversity already been “achieved” etc).
There was a controversial post at Gates of Vienna that convincingly argued that the likely outcome in Europe is genocide: http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2008/04/surrender-genocide-or-what.html
Silver,
It is always a better idea to let people draw their own conclusions.
Hunter, I’m sure you don’t believe that literally (else why this blog?). Taking your comment in the spirit I presume you meant it, then, whether to gently prod comes down to a judgment call. Has it really been your experience that the nudge from “limiting” immigration to a moratorium on it (since “logically, you have to end it some day/why not now?”) is counterproductive?
Frank—I’ve seen enough of Steyn over the years on c-span to tell you that his agenda is in complete agreement with Charles Krauthammer, Abe Foxman, Morris Dees, and the whole damn Israel lobby.
The problem with Steyn is not that he describes what may happen in Europe but, I believe, he describes what he WANTS to happen. Like many neocons, Styn has a deep hatred of Europe, which is sad.
If Europe, the ancestral homeland of whites, falls, white America most certainly will fall. Who will save the U.S.? The pro-mestizo, pro-Haitian Christian leaders? Untethered from the West, the U.S., via miscegenation, will become another Brazil.
There isn’t anything wrong with Steyn’s analysis of Europe. He is essentially correct on all his major points. Where he errs is singling out Europe when everything he said is equally true of the United States.
Protection against the extinction of the White Race is hopeless, the best that can be done is to delay the inevitable. Races were created by Mother Nature in order to help adapt to a harsh geographical situation. A black or yellow man can now be physically comfortable in any location, their billions will create one mongrel race. Whitey will only be seen in museums, but his blond blue eyed gals will be missed.
Mark Steyn would be horrified by your racist rant. People like you, who kidnap his arguments for evil purposes, are Mark’s worst nightmare. “White America”? Really? You really think Mark Steyn is writing for “White America”?
Pitiful.
OK, so Hunter made a commentary on Mark Steyn’s book that he probably wouldn’t like.
Yet, here you are, making commentary on Hunter’s article that he probably doesn’t like.
Difference being…?
Europe is a lot like America: some parts are better than others, and some have different problems than others.
In eastern europe, the problem is a derelict economy caused by decades of communism, which leads to abysmally low birth rates and high levels of substance abuse and other social dysfunction.
North central & western europe is in the grip of political correctness far worse than the US, and has lots of third world immigration. France, Netherlands, and especially England are in the worst shape here.
The class problem in England exacerbates things a lot, you have many people who continue to vote Labour just because they see it as representing their social class, including the dysfunctional underclass which behaves similar to third worlders. The BNP draws heavily from these classes, which contributes to the dysfunctional nature of the party, and turns off many of those in the middle class who are racialist.
Southern Europe has a low birthrate, and the ossified nature of the economy makes it very difficult for young people to get a job, which of course contributes to the low birthrate. It’s somewhere between eastern and northern Europe on the political correctness scale.
Americans are more suspicious of government, more individualistic, more self confident, and less cowed by the orthodoxies of multiculturalism and political correctness. Compared to Europe, America is more assertive and acts like the “stronger horse” on the world stage.
I think a more apples to apples comparison would be Europe to the similarly densely populated areas of America; are the people in Maryland and Europe as dissimilar as the people in America and Europe? I doubt it.
All in all though, stuff like Steyn’s book can help. I was origianlly a ‘Counterjihadist’ before becoming a WN.
Yep. My first instinct is to recoil in disgust from “counterjihadists,” as you call them, but like IQ-fetishists in the HBD ranks, these folks are fertile ground for us.
I too like the new look and feel. It may be inadvertant but I like the new motto, and as I’ve mentioned I’ve always felt that putting the “Jew Free Ethnostate” statement in the about box was not helpful to getting the unwashed to come look around. I sent a link to a group of friends and had it immediately thrown back at me, which of course was effective “discourse poisoning” by that person on whatever the topic was.
“Toward an Israel for European Gentiles” or somesuch might make a good replacement. I’d really like for someone to oppose the idea of an Israel for European Gentiles. I have absolutely no idea what that opposition would look like. I’ve dropped this idea at Sailer’s, Mangan’s, Majority Rights, here, elsewhere, and I’ve never once, not once, encountered a single word in opposition to the idea. Ever. All I’ve ever gotten in response is utter, total silence. It’s a bit worrisome, as I’m used to tempering my ideas in verbal combat, lol. 🙂 My pet theory is that this is the perfect way to couch Euro ethnopatriotism in the age of global Jewish dominance. Sure, it’s slightly damaging to the pride, but it more than makes up for it in terms of efficacy.
“We want for ourselves what Jews have for themselves in Israel.” I think this makes yids cringe.
I enjoy lots of Steyn’s articles and his lectures.
But understand he is part/very Jewish – gets published Neo Con media.
I believe the correct term is “conversos” – a former jewish person who has supposedly converted the Catholic faith and is a patriot, nationalist, fighter for Christiandom…. but there is always something just not right.
In Steyn’s case, it’s not right that he will not allow Whites in Europe, or the US to simply ban NW Muslim immigration or tell the Chosen people to shut up, shape up or pack off to their beloved Jewish homeland – Israel the homeland of the Jews… only they don’t want to go home, preferring to be the Mayor of New York City, President of France, churn out terrible Hollywood movies, put together financial scam, bubbles etc.
Our people can say the the obvious things Steyn says, and we do.
We don’t want Europe to be conquered, colonized by NW Muslims.
Why didn’t we think of it?
Well we did – we’re just not allowed access to mainstream media to show OUR PEOPLE sticking up for our people.