Regrets of the Greatest Generation
Britains’ greatest generation, those who fought WWII, no longer recognizes their own country, and many think their sacrifices were in vain.
[Hat tip: Artfldgr]
The New Neo
A blog about political change, among other things
Since, unless something changes and changes fast, we appear to be on the same path as Britain, but perhaps 10-15 years behind them — our WW II generation will be almost completely gone by the time we get to that point.
I think it is a blessing that our own WW II vets won’t be around to see the USA, circa 2020. And I feel for the Brit WWII vets.
My father-in-law served in WW II in the Army (and spent a couple of years in England) and passed away in 2006. My uncle was on a destroyer that was sunk off of Okinawa by the Japanese – he passed away in 2005. Both of those men would have been extremely distressed to see the current state of the Union and the direction we are heading.
As a veteran and someone whose ancestors came from Scotland, Wales and England–my motherlands–I feel deep pity and rage at what has happened to my ancestral home; conquered without a fight, really. Too bad that these honorable men are now too old to set things right and “scour the Shire.”
Having worn a uniform does not excuse xenophobia and racism. It merely disgraces that uniform.
Colin–I suggest that your purity is wasted on us here in the U.S. –if that is where you are–and I suggest that you remove yourself to the heart of the Muslim population concentrations in, say, London, Birmingham, Manchester, Luton or Slough, there to grace all and sundry with your righteousness.
There’s a big difference between xenophobia and mourning changes in Britain’s traditional culture and values brought about by new arrivals with different traditions. Or, if I’m wrong, and it’s always xenophobic to get upset when one country’s cultural traditions are altered by incursions from another culture, then I hope Colin never complains about America corrupting other countries’ traditional cultures with our fast food restaurants and hedonistic celebrity values. Only a racist xenophobe would be the least bit bothered by such things, after all.
Case in point. Why the emphasis on Muslims? I mean, given the shotgun approach Brits seem to take in their casual xenophobia – from Roma to Sikhs to Poles – why pick out Muslims in particular?
For the record, I spent most of a year living on the edge of the Muslim community in Sheffield. On average, they were friendlier than the Brits I met. Less racist, less smugly anti-American, more likely to smile at me on the street.
Hey, if people in Britain or India or Botswana want to eat McDonald’s, that’s there business. Culture is fluid, always has been, always will be. Nobody is forcing anybody to abandon their own private traditions. Just don’t expect everybody else to share those traditions.
It is telling that Colin automatically, dare I say in knee-jerk fashion, assumes this is about racism and xenophobia.
There are many threads forming the rope with which British society is hanging itself.
If I were to choose the core thread I would point to Statism as the culprit. The sacrifice of individual freedom and initiative, in favor of government solutions and priorities is the foundation for what has happened to England; as well as the trends we see here. The ascendancy of “group rights” over individual rights follows as night follows day.
Oh, and Islamic activists, among others, are adept at exploiting any opportunity to undermine host cultures. (You do realize that Islam is unabashedly a religion/culture of conquest, do you not?) And then folks, like you, are equally quick to throw rhetorical stones at people who wish to preserve their culture and heritage–not to mention their freedoms. Never mind that were Sharia law to become dominant the stones would fly for certain at any poor soul who did not toe the line.
Colin: If you actually pay attention to what these people are saying, it is almost always neither xenophobia nor racism. What they hate is the welfare state, and the loss of their own culture. Most of these people would welcome the addition of immigrants if those immigrants assimilated into British culture rather than appropriating it and milking the welfare state for all it’s worth, at the expense of these elderly vets.
Oldflyer – there was nothing automatic about it. The article itself contains a number of xenophobic comments collected from the “Greatest Generation”. That is what I was referring to.
neo-neocon:
The assimilation argument is garbage, frankly. You’d be hard pressed to even get people to agree on what assimilation is. My family speaks English, works hard in white-collar jobs, is highly educated, and appreciates the history and ideals of the US. We also speak Spanish, eat sheap brain cannelonis and rollo de carne on Christmas instead of ham or goose, and I’ve got a regional Spanish flag flying in my window. Am I assimilated? Many would say yes. Many others would say that the fact I’m speaking anything other than English 24/7 in the US is an outrage.
You know what the solution is? Let people do whatever they want unless it’s breaking a law. If the family down the street is Muslim, that doesn’t mean somebody has to stop being Anglican. If they speak Arabic or Urdu or Somali, that doesn’t mean one has to stop speaking English. If they want a halal butcher, just keep going to Tesco.
The welfare state is a problem, sure, but it’s a problem that stretches WAY beyond immigrants. How many Anglo-Saxon chavs are milking it for all it’s worth?
Colin: well, I guess that since you say the assimilation argument is garbage, that must make it so. I beg to differ, and have written about the issue at some length already, here and here.
The welfare state is a big problem in general, as you say. But it makes sense that these elders in Britain are not only incensed about it in general, but in particular about the fact so many immigrants coming to the area from abroad benefit from it at the expense of those who have lived there all their lives. These members of the “greatest generation” may in many cases suspect—and rightly so—that some of these immigrants have come for just that purpose, rather than out of some general desire to be part of the prevailing culture. That is not some general hatred of people who are different, it is a very specific beef with certain immigrants and their motivations and agenda, and how all of this intersects with the welfare state.
Colin: As for why Muslims in particular—surely it hasn’t escaped your notice that a certain small but active percentage of that group has committed random violence on civilians in Britain for the sake of jihad. This doesn’t appear to be true for other immigrant groups. And then there’s this (from January, 2009):
Colin, why pick out Muslims in particular?
[from Roma to Sikhs to Poles]
ah… i see… well the brits dont mind the sikhs, except when their socialist given cultural knowlege makes them think they are arabs pretending to be sultans with head garb… duh
the roma, what are called gypsies, have a long and vibrant tradition of supporting themselves at the expense of the people around them who are not roma. that is, their culture is about stealing. they are grifters and parasites….
ah… but the muslims. they have a special place.
from the black muslims who commited over 2000 bombings in the US since the 60s. then of course 9/11… and then there is the subway bombings… ah, but there is more..
like the use of gang rape to intimidate the people of the country they moved into. here are some from australia, sweden, and england.
On August 16, New South Wales Judge Michael Finnane sentenced a 20-year-old youth to a 55-year jail term with a 40-year non-parole period after he was found guilty of leading a series of gang rapes in Sydney…(this)…lifetime imprisonment follows the conviction and sentencing of two other young men-Belal Hajeid and Mahmoud Chami-for their part in the crimes. Hajeid is serving a 23-year sentence, with a 15-year non-parole period, and Chami, an 18-year term, with 10 years non-parole. A week after the 55-year jail term decision, a 19-year-old youth who also participated was sentenced to 25 years imprisonment. Three other teenagers-18-year-old Mohamad Senussi, his 17-year-old brother Mahmoud Senussi and 18-year-old Tayyab Sheihk-were sentenced today to 21, 11 and 15 year jail terms respectively.
The sexual assaults, which X is alleged to have organised, took place on three separate occasions in August 2000, just before the Sydney Olympic Games. The first occurred on August 10 when eight young men forced two teenage girls to repeatedly perform oral sex on them in a suburban park. The girls were threatened and bashed during the ordeal. Two days later a 16-year-old-girl was taken to a local park. Two cars arrived on the scene and she was forced to the ground, partially stripped and raped by two men. She was threatened and a gun held to her head to stop her struggling. She eventually escaped and was given sanctuary by a man from the local neighbourhood.
On August 30, another young girl was raped by a total of 14 men, including X. She was sexually assaulted by four youth in a public toilet, then passed over to a group of three who drove to another location where she was raped again. The girl was transported to an industrial estate and sexually assaulted by two other groups of youth, who then hosed down the distraught teenager in a final humiliation.
none of the other groups do this as a matter of political and religious action.
These socialists/liberals didn’t blame the rapists, guess who they did blame?
…Crime is not treated as a social product of social existence, but is caused by evil individuals or “ethnic gangs”. Every crime, especially those involving working class youth from immigrant backgrounds, is proclaimed a slur on the “Australian way of life” and used to further inflame racist sentiment, ratchet up a climate of fear and justify even harsher law-and-order measures. Anyone voicing concern about this primitive reaction or criticising its reactionary political agenda is attacked for giving succor to criminal elements.
so i guess we know where colin stands on gang raping non islamic women to gain compliance and terror in the population.
“There was a trial in Lille where a 13-year-old girl was gang raped by 80 men. Sometimes, it’s 80, or 50 or 10. It’s absolutely terrible,” says Bellil. “In the case of Argenteuil, it was horrible. A young woman was raped in a school. Of course, everybody knew, but they’re so afraid of these young men that they prefer to close their eyes. That’s the price of peace in the ghettos.” When the verdicts came down in this case, the courthouse turned into a madhouse. Eighteen teenagers were convicted of raping a 15-year-old girl over a two-month period. But what really shocked France was how the mothers of those boys reacted. “You call this justice, seven years in prison for some oral sex,” says one mother. “It’s the girl who should be behind bars.”
In Australia’s New South Wales Supreme Court in December 2005, a visiting Pakistani rapist testified that his victims had no right to say no, because they were not wearing a headscarf. And earlier this year Australians were outraged when Lebanese Sheik Faiz Mohammed gave a lecture in Sydney where he informed his audience that rape victims had no one to blame but themselves. Women, he said, who wore skimpy clothing, invited men to rape them.
american feminists are silent… they are on the same side as the terrorists… did you think th ey actuaally cared for women? sheesh… they dont, anyone with any brain who took the time to read what the leaders say would know that.
in Copenhagen, Islamic mufti and scholar, Shahid Mehdi created uproar when – like his peer in Australia – he stated that women who did not wear a headscarf were asking to be raped. And with haunting synchronicity in 2004, the London Telegraph reported that visiting Egyptian scholar Sheik Yusaf al-Qaradawi claimed female rape victims should be punished if they were dressed immodestly when they were raped. He added, “For her to be absolved from guilt, a raped woman must have shown good conduct.”
we know what colin beleives!!
eh colin?
this is what you stand for, right?
Gunnar Larsen stated that the steady increase of rape-cases and the link to ethnicity are clear, unmistakable trends. Two out of three persecutions for rape in Oslo are immigrants with a non-Western background and 80 percent of the victims are Norwegian women. In Sweden, according to translator for Jihad Watch, Ali Dashti, “Gang rapes, usually involving Muslim immigrant males and native Swedish girls, have become commonplace.” A few weeks ago she said, “Five Kurds brutally raped a 13-year-old Swedish girl.”
hey! maybe colin, and these guys can get to gether, and get roman polanski off!!! he drugged and raped a 13 year old too.. as did the woman in the scene coochis snorcher in the vagina monologues! they called that a good rape, and seems like these are, since colin and his side seems to defend them!!!!!!!!!
[he probably liked sutti too, and thought the brits were animals for stopping the practice!!]
Western women are not the only victims in this epidemic. In Indonesia, in 1998, human rights groups documented the testimony of over 100 Chinese women who were gang raped during the riots that preceded the fall of President Suharto. Many of them were told: “You must be raped, because you are Chinese and non-Muslim.”
such a lovely practice… its justice right colin?
a 9-year-old Pakistani girl was raped, beaten with a cricket bat, hanged upside down from the ceiling, had spoonfuls of chillies poured into her mouth, and repeatedly bashed while handcuffed. Her Muslim neighbours told her they were taking revenge for the American bombing of Iraqi children and informed her they were doing it because she was an “infidel and a Christian.”
colin… you ask why muslims… because they are the only ones who can stop their own people!!!
if anyone else tries, we get colin the defender!!!!
In Sudan – where Arab Muslims slaughter black Muslim and Christian Sudanese in an ongoing genocide – former Sudanese slave and now a human rights’ activist Simon Deng says he witnessed girls and women being raped and that the Arab regime of Khartoum sends its soldiers to the field to rape and murder. In other reports, women who are captured by government forces are asked; “Are you Christian or Muslim?” and those who answer Christian, are gang raped before having their breasts cut off.
and here is a friend of colin setting the record straigt! when journalist Paul Sheehan reported honestly on the Sydney gang rapes, he was called a racist and accused of stirring up anti-Muslim hatred. And when he reported in his Sydney Morning Herald column that there was a high incidence of crime amongst Sydney’s Lebanese community, fellow journalist, David Marr sent him an e-mail stating, “That is a disgraceful column that reflects poorly on us all at the Herald.”
yes… reporting on gang rapes of pre pubescent girls by muslim men for religious political purposes is a disgrace.
heck.. i have gotten wrong numbers and have had them threaten to rape my wife because who they were looking for was not at this number!!!!!!!!!!!
[the telephone company granted me blocking and such due to that]
In Malmo, the third largest city in Sweden, the police have admitted, Dashti says, that they no longer control the city. “It is effectively ruled by violent gangs of Muslim immigrants.” Ambulance personnel are regularly attacked and spat upon and are now refusing to help until a police escort arrives. The police are too afraid to enter parts of the city without backup.
lovely…
In July 2005, Melbourne Sheik Mohammad Omran told Sixty Minutes that “…we believe we have more rights than you because we choose Australia to be our home and you didn’t.”
yeah…. really? well, i guess he doesnt know australias as well as the US history… no? hey! neither does colin!
hey! how about next we go over the work of the gangs from south america! beheadings, rapes, dismemberments, vivisection!!! and even military operations over the border to assasinate people!
want to hear the way its being solved?
Politically correct Scotland Yard chiefs have stopped using the term ‘gang rape’ because it is too ’emotive’, the Mail can reveal.
Instead officers have been advised to use the long-winded phrase ‘multi-perpetrator rape’ when describing sex attacks involving three or more culprits. …
Some community activists had previously suggested the phrase ‘gang rape’ had racist connotations.
yes… when 20 men beat up a 13 year old girl, hang her upside down, spit and piss on her, rape her repeatedly, and they are all islamic and doing what they think god wants… you must not insult them..
Details of the latest police terminology are contained in an official Scotland Yard report which reveals a sharp increase in the number of gang rapes in the capital.
New figures revealed there were 93 gang sex attacks in the financial year 2008-9, compared with 71 in 2003-2004.
Meanwhile the age of victims has fallen with 64% aged 19 or younger in the last financial year compared with 48% in 1998-9.
and yet… all those racist brits… and racist americans.. and racist australians, and racist swedes.. have done almost nothing!!!!!!!!
that is, rather than hang them as the democrats did blacks in the south…. or kill them as other cultures do… they tolerated them, and so the incidents went UP!
Thomas Anderberg, responsible for statistics at the Malmé¶ Police, says there was a doubling of the number of reported rapes by ambush in 2004, following what was already a decade of steadily increasing numbers of sexual crimes. – I think that’s great news, says Anna Gustafsson, head of the Domestic Violence Unit at the Malmé¶ Police. She suggests that the increase is due to the fact that women who otherwise wouldn’t press charges for rape now choose to contact the police.
they were hiding the gang rapes before…
probably blaming their boyfriends… or maybe walking into a door.
The German journalist Udo Ulfkotte told in a recent interview that in Holland, you can now see examples of young, unveiled Moroccan women with a so-called “smiley”. It means that the girl gets one side of her face cut up from mouth to ear, serving as a warning to other Muslim girls who should refuse to wear the veil. In the Muslim suburb of Courneuve, France, 77 per cent of the veiled women carry veils reportedly because of fear of being harassed or molested by Islamic moral patrols.
cant you just feel the love colin?
Nobody is forcing anybody to abandon their own private traditions.
colin… want me to show you? heck… its someone elses turn…
Anyone who argues that the Islamification of a Western country is a good thing is one of four things:
1) Ignorant of both the history and the current state of affairs in most Muslim countries for non-Muslims.
2) A transnationalist who see open borders as the sure way to destroy Western Nations so that world government may come about. Such persons I beleive are predominately leftist. You will find they also usually “believe ” in Global Warming.
3)A muslim who understands what Islam really is about….
4) a moron.
You know what the solution is? Let people do whatever they want unless it’s breaking a law.
and so, the neo liberal comes full around and joins the conservatives.
what the heck do you think conservatives stand for dippy? my father is latvian… my mother is slovak… my family has combined their cultures. my wife is indonesian. i have a cousin who is in a spanish family.
they are conservatives and they have all assimilated.
what does that mean?
it means that they accept the US, that they like the laws and the merit over statism. that they like working their jobs and spendin the money that they earn, and do not want the state in their lives. they speak english in public. they carry english AND foreign names.
but unlike the people that are being complained about, they did not come here to the US with the idea that they were going to make it like the home they fled from!!!!
assimilation means you bring everything with you except the politics of your homeland.
in your words i know who has taught you.
the same people that taught the spanish man to slam a door in my wifes face almost hurting here, while digging into me. there we were on the street. my wife in fear for her life and chinese. her husband wondering if he can move fast enough to kill him before he reaches behind himself. and the spanish man, telling us how my ancestors ruined america, calling me a nig*er, calling me a racist.
why?
because he brought the same cultural political facts with him that you carry with you! you didnt learn about america in truth, you learned what some political hacks wanted you to know, and in that, made you an active thorn in the americn system, all the while pretending to yourself that your a part of it.
take a lesson from a family who had no ancestors here before 1920.. we came here because we had the kind of state that they are making now, and we came here because we thought america the best place. not becuase of equality, we had that (and stagnation). not because of politics, we had that (and it killed most of us). not because of money (we left our castle, families, property, history, language to come here).
we came because we knew we could win in a fair race. we came here because of the rule of law that meant that we could stand up on merit. we came here to be free because unlike most here, we knew what it was like not to be so.
you think your so smart because you memorized what someone told you to memorize, and you answered their questions fine, and they patted you on the head and sent you along.
did you know that some of that prattle is almost directly from stalin and lenins own writings?
Sorry to throw cold water as somebody who lives in Britain but it was that generation that created the welfare state and voted for generations of socialist politicians. I bet they hated Thatcher for breaking up that lovely country where people were always friendly and everyone whistled cheery songs. I am being ironic but to listen to these people you might be excused for thinking that all problems started about ten years ago. They started right after the war.
from the black muslims who commited over 2000 bombings in the US since the 60s.
this statement was supposed to list a lot more groups than one… but between the left groups and the muslim groups and other subgroups… and including small and failed attempts, there have been more than 2000 incidents in the US.
Ya know I might be somewhat sympathetic to the strident, insistent, ever broadening Muslim claims for “accommodations” to their ways here in America–the advance of the “peaceful” arm of Islam’s Jihad–if it weren’t for pesky facts like the fact the no Christian or Jew is allowed to enter Mecca (http://img112.imageshack.us/img112/7893/waytomecca13hm.jpg), or that Christians and Jews are forbidden to build any church or temple anywhere in Saudi Arabia, and that Muslims are raping, torturing and killing civilian “unbelievers”–Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Animists–in carload lots all over the world (http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/), but somehow we aren’t returning the favor.
From Helen: “…it was that generation that created the welfare state…”
Bingo
Right on target.
While I sympathize with the WWII folks who were interviewed in the Mail, it is they themselves who got the ball rolling on it all.
They came back from the war and had millions of kids – the baby boom. Then they let the kids run wild. (1950’s – 1970’s) Those kids are now in charge.
And Artfldgr; that was quite a barrage, but also right on target.
“Why the emphasis on Muslims?”
How about because the majority of British Muslims want to make sharia the law of the land.
“Nobody is forcing anybody to abandon their own private traditions.”
See above.
One of the most contemptible ploys of progressives is to smear all whom they disagree with as racists, fascists, etc.
“The assimilation argument is garbage, frankly. You’d be hard pressed to even get people to agree on what assimilation is.”
False reasoning: You’d be hard pressed to get people to agree on what true Christianity is, and yet no sane person argues that there is no such thing as Christianity. Likewise, there is great disagreement on just about any philosophical question you might name. You can’t even get agreement on a definition of fascism, communism, socialism, republicanism, democracy, etc, etc.
I’m with Helen, “It was their generation that started the welfare state”. This is what statism devolves into in a generation or 2.
I remember seeing a play about 10 years ago, written in the post world war 2 era, by J.B. Priestly, called, An Inspector Calls. The theme of the play was “in your face” socialism. it criticized business, the murder victim was “everyone’s responsiblity” etc.
Reading about Priestly and the time and place in which it was written, gave me the impression Britain started going socialist about that time.
Priestley was, indeed, a socialist and that play is absolutely terrible. In every way. To think that I liked it once. Mind you, I was about ten years old but still.
And most British Muslims do not want sharia, though enough do to make it a problem. Quite a few, when asked, do not even know what sharia means or implies. Then again, neither does the Archbishop of Canterbury and he says that “elements of sharia are inevitable”. The man is an embarrassment.
A nation’s culture is not based on private traditions, but rather on public traditions. I think Colin misses the boat there.
All families have their own private traditions, some based on silly things, other on culture. As a child, my family celebrated regular Christmas and Orthodox Christmas in January. That is something the older generations brought from Eastern Europe/Russia where the *culture* celebrated the Orthodox Christmas.
In the US, we celebrate the western Christian Christmas.
I don’t think that’s so hard to understand.
And in the Chicago metro area, many Mexicans celebrate their own Independence Day (a semi-private tradition), but also the 4th of July as well (a cultural tradition).
I assume that I can stop spelling out something so basic.
Helen: yes, but isn’t it possible to have regrets when one realizes, too late, where it all led?
A post on the Obama speech??
Wow.
Colin got smacked down like a cute, unveiled Swedish girl in Malmo….
Thank you, neo, for pointing out this excellent article. I’ve added the book to my Amazon wishlist, and look forward to reading these vets’ accounts and reflections at greater length.
Much the same may be happening among our own aptly named “greatest generation” vets here in the U.S. — at least, if this moving letter to Obama from 95-year-old WWII veteran Harold Estes is the real deal. Heartbreaking stuff, to me.
Wish I had time for more. I’ll have to leave it at “thanks!” for now.
Shorter Colin:
If you are English and you aren’t okay with ever growing Sharia being imposed in your country; along with the cultural changes (like family honor killings, forced wearing of burkas along with other revocations of women’s rights, etc.) that come with it – you are a xenophobic racist.
Okay.
But hey – I’m all for being sensitive and accepting ‘multi-cultural diversity’, no matter how allegedly “barbaric” it may appear to our dead white men Western Civ eyes….
….Just like Sir Charles Napier was when sensitively dealing with the customs of Indian locals, a long long time ago.
“You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: When men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks, and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”
A few days ago I was lucky enough to buy a wonderful Everyman’s Library hardback of Orwell’s essays for $15. This morning I began reading Orwell on TS Eliot’s later poems and was gobsmacked, as some say, to see this passage:
There was, however, a sense in which the charge of “decadence” could be justified [in Eliot’s poems]. Clearly these poems were an end-product, the last gasp of a cultural tradition, poems which spoke only for the cultivated third-generation rentier, for people able to feel and criticize but no longer able to act. E. M. Forster praised “Prufrock” on its first appearance because “it sang of people who were ineffectual and weak” and because it was “innocent of public spirit” (this was during the other war, when public spirit was a good deal more rampant than it is now). The qualities by which any society which is to last longer than a generation actually has to be sustained — industry, courage, patriotism, frugality, philoprogenitiveness — obviously could not find any place in Eliot’s early poems. There was only room for rentier values, the values of people too civilized to work, fight or even reproduce themselves.
— George Orwell, “Review: Burnt Norton, East Coker, The Dry Salvages by T. S. Eliot” 1942
I love “Burnt Norton” but Orwell sure nails a strain of effete fecklessness that has long bothered me about Eliot — even though Eliot became a reactionary and tried, in his way, to hold the line on cultural values.
Almost seventy years later and here we are. Orwell saw the writing, not on the wall, but in the highest of high canon modern poetry.
james.
I don’t think Colin and his like actually think like Sir Charles. It only goes one way.
Example. The lion can lie down with the lamb. If we disarm–become the lamb–the lion will inevitably become peaceful and not threaten us ever again.
“That’s guaranteed?”
“Guaranteed. God says so.”
“Well, how about I be the lion? Still works, right?”
“Ummmmmmm….
MY modern day version of Sir Charles:
“So you say it is your accepted, established and morally proper cultural custom for a Father to be authorized to discipline his daughter by severely beating her with a stick, to the point of breaking the bones in her face, should she bring “dishonor” upon your family, by say – being seen holding hands with a Jewish boy. Or for leaving the house while not fully covered head to toe in order to hide all of her skin.”
Very well. You are residing, volunarily mind you – (and be sure to notice that our borders are not closed for anyone wishing to leave) – in our country.
And we too have a custom. We arrest men who commit what we refer to here as “domestic violence,” and we charge them with what we call a “felony,” of “assault with a deadly weapon”, and “aggravated battery.” If convicted, you will reside for several years in what we call in our culture, a “penitentary.” If you happen to murder her in the course of upholding your “family honor” you will spend the rest of your life in said “penitentary.” Protests from your local Iman, nothwithstanding.
So. You may follow your custom. And then we shall follow ours.”
THAT firm, line in the cultural sand, attitude, is what is being lost, in Great Britain. To bemoan its loss is what is labeled as “xenophobic” and “racist.”
Shut up and pretend Sharia is not growing and expanding with each and every year. Or we’ll shame you into shutting up by calling you a racist.
You know where you can stick those labels. Hint: The sun doesn’t shine there.
People always throw around the scary “assimilation” word like it means brainwashing or something. In the US, I’ve always understood it to basically mean:
1) Learn the language.
2) Support yourself.
3) Obey the law.
Is it really expected to be any different in the UK or other western democracies?
Whew, if the above was a bit spicy for you, do yourself a favor and stay the hell off the BNP webboards/chats…oi!
for people able to feel and criticize but no longer able to act.
the “reasonable”…
I think a British friend of mine put it perfectly: The Empire Strikes Back.
Neo, a rather belated reply: of course it is possible to regret what you have done when you see what it leads to. It’s just I do not think that is what we are seeing here. (Incidentally, we never call them the greatest generation.) It is all somebody else’s fault and, anyway, things were better when we were young. They weren’t. But they were younger.