At about 10pm British Summer Time on Saturday night, the London Bridge area was the scene of a series of vehicle attacks and stabbings. So my scheduled conversational topic with Judge Jeanine on Fox News was replaced by yet another discussion about terrorism. We'll link to any video that gets posted. I'll be back on Fox with Abby, Pete and Clayton tomorrow morning, Sunday, live at 8am Eastern/5am Pacific.
As I write, six members of the public are dead, and three attackers. I'm wary of weighing in as the situation is unfolding, but, though the details are always different, in the end the story is always the same. And, as I said only the other day, the reality of what is happening in Britain and Europe is that this problem was imported and that, until you stop importing it, you're going to have more of it.
No one likely to end up as Prime Minister or Home Secretary after this Thursday's election seems minded to say that, never mind act on it. Instead, we have the usual post-terrorist theatre: Congratulations for the speed of the emergency services, and sober anchormen announcing that Theresa May will be chairing a meeting of COBRA - as though a bunch of bureaucrats with a butch-sounding acronym has any clue about how to stop the corpse count from mounting. The cynical strategy of British and Continental leaders is to get their citizens used to this.
For that to work, it's not helpful for new attacks to follow so swiftly on the last attacks. After Manchester, Mrs May raised the official "Threat Level" from Mildly Perturbed to Somewhat Disturbed or whatever it was, and in order further to reassure the public put soldiers on London's streets. Soldiers aren't really much use at stopping homicidal car drivers or random stabbers. To do that, you'd have to ban motor vehicles and sharp knives, which, given the fecklessness and decadence of Europe's political class, I wouldn't entirely rule out. Absent that, it's unfortunate that the London carnage occurred before Katy Perry, Justin Bieber & Co had had a chance to hold their stupid, useless, poor-taste all-you-need-is-sentimentalist-delusional-crap pop concert for the victims of the Manchester carnage. Maybe they'll cancel it, or maybe they'll make it a twofer.
Meanwhile, even as the politicians trot out the rote response that these attacks "won't change us", everything changes: more armed police, more soldiers, more bollards, more security checks - and smaller lives, fewer liberties, less free speech. London Bridge still stands, but everything else is falling down, in Britain and Europe.
In Australia in recent days there has been some controversy over a Quadrant editor's response to the obnoxious remarks of someone on the ABC's Q&A panel that an American has more chance of being killed by a falling refrigerator than by terrorists. This happens not to be true. As far as I can tell, the only source of this bon mot is a US Consumer Product Safety Commission report that found that, between January 2000 and December 2011, toppling television sets, furniture, refrigerators and all other domestic appliances killed a total of 349 Americans - or 29 people per year.
For purposes of comparison, in Britain Islamic terrorists have just killed 28 people in 12 days. [SUNDAY MORNING UPDATE: it's now 29.] More to the point, your refrigerator is not trying to kill you, and not eternally seeking new ways to do so. You don't have to worry about your fridge getting hold of an automatic weapon, or a dirty nuke. The Islamic supremacists want to kill as many infidels by whatever means are to hand. Nor are statistics relevant: If you've lost your only child because she went to an Ariana Grande concert, that's 100 per cent of your kids who are dead. When it comes to deceased loved ones, the only statistical pool that counts is your family, not the nation or the planet.
This is a heartless sophistry from, in large part, the very same people who supported the policies that imported these pathologies to the west. It seems, at a certain level, incredible that you can have two major terrorist attacks in Britain's capital and second largest city in the days before a general election - and yet it will make no difference to Thursday night's result. For who among the major parties is offering any alternative to the disastrous, destructive conventional wisdom?
~If you're a Founding Member of The Mark Steyn Club, feel free to weigh in in our comments section. God knows, these guys could use some new ideas,
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Mark, Whilst you accurately record that 22 people were killed in Salman Abedi's Manchester attack, little attention is paid to the number wounded and what being wounded may mean. The number of Manchester wounded reportedly varied from 59 to 119, depending on the source. It transpires that the number 119 included those treated in a local hospital and then discharged. The 59 is the cohort who were wounded and are still in hospital; including a grandmother who has been in a coma since the night of the attack. So when one is doing a tally of "wounded" in terrorist attacks, this category ranges widely in terms of severity. Recall that one of the wounded victims of the Boston Marathon bombing had her leg blown off.
Whenever the sophist of the day remarks that Americans have a better chance of being killed by a left-handed three-toed sloth, or refrigerators, or climate change than an Islamic terrorist, my response is to concur with their mathematics, even if they are mistaken, as Mark points out in the case of refrigerators, and ask them if they would like to keep it that way or if their goal is to even up the odds. In fact, the odds being a victim of a terrorist attack have grown significantly since 1993.
Mark, you write "The cynical strategy of British and Continental leaders is to get their citizens used to this". I am in London right now and almost every broadcaster and politician is using the same phrase - "this is the new normal".
Fighting an enemy resident within our free society will be very difficult. It was always much easier when the enemy was defined by national borders, or clear delineation of some group or membership. Mark is right that it makes no sense to import any more, but there is already quite a bit of anti-western Islamic terrorism imported; the "war of ideas" must be first fought on the home turf, and not just Britain. This will require those of us interested in protecting Western Civilization to define and sharpen the values we cherish, then be ready to fight like hell for them, both with ideas and likely physically.
I think we need to start with language. We need clarity, and the term "political correctness" is a big part of the problem. That's THEIR term. Even if we mock the idea of "political correctness" it still contains a whiff of something with good intentions (and yes, I know about the road to hell paved with, etc...). It's not that political correctness kills, it's that political leftism and its torrid love affair with radical Islam kills us. Everyone talks about identifying the enemy and then babbles on about Islamists and "political correctness". I think we "normals" have to stop ceding territory in the language sphere. If we cannot take back clarity in language we will have zero clarity in action and that remains an extremely convenient thing for our wanker, supine political class all over the Western world.
There is only 1 way to stop motorists from randomly crashing their vehicles into pedestrians or strangers from attacking people with knives - remove the perpetrators from society. As the problem has been imported, the solution is by exporting. Expel all Muslim immigrants from the UK. Expel UK Muslims that fail polygraph tests about their loyalty. Stop importing the killers and make the problem manageable for the security services. The problem is existential and requires a corresponding solution. Poland illustrates the wisdom of a minimal Islamic presence. Until the problem of Islamic fanaticism is eradicated, Islam should be treated like rabies.
Who will take that first step? Which politician will not sidestep this Islamist problem as is they'd encountered dog mess on the pavement? Islam is THE planet's problem. Islam loves peace..by piece by piece, sometimes a hand, more usually a head. This planet and human civilisation has an infection, we are in dire need of an antibiotic.
Whether we like it or not, the effectiveness of any reasonable argument is greatly empowered if it can be condensed into a slogan that resonates. The one I would suggest is
POLITICAL CORRECTNESS KILLS
And there is no shortage of examples to justify the statement:
In the Fort Hood shooting case, there were plenty of reasons for concerns about Nidal Hasan but everybody was too politically correct to raise them.
Before the San Bernardino Christmas party, the neighbors noticed "suspicious activities", and reportedly, some even have reported their observations. But nothing has been done.
According to some reports, even in the case of 9/11, the boarding clerk felt uneasy about Mohammad Atta - yet political correctness got the better (or rather worse) of her.
POLITICAL CORRECTNESS KILLS
It would help if the media and politicians just once stated what the terrorists are trying to achieve. They want to establish a caliphate in Europe. This is the purpose of the killings. Once this is acknowledged then steps can begin to be taken to counter this threat. The most useful one would be stop the indoctrination of children. They will grow up imprinted with Muslim ideology. This suits the imams but divides our society. I would also discourage the wearing of dress (actually uniforms) that display adherence to a particular religion. Muslims in particular make a point of dressing to kill except of course in the literal sense when they disguise themselves as kaffirs. The burkha wearer is being very insensitive at best and at worst oppressing people who they can see while remaining hidden themselves. We must remain a free and open society. It is time to make these values mandatory.
Apart from the fact that fridges and bathtubs don't belong to a network that conspires to kill people in ever greater numbers with a political goal in mind, what's worth mentioning is that somebody killed by a falling piece of furniture or drowning in a bathtub doesn't cause major disruption of public life.
Even leaving aside the financial cost of such disruption (both in paying for whatever needs to be done and in loss of business for affected neighborhoods and industries), the loss of life is - at the very least potentially - greater than the number of directly killed victims. The disruption in traffic may very well result in ambulances not reaching hospitals in time to save lives that could have been saved and treating the victims can temporarily stretch hospitals beyond capacity and thus result in some premature deaths that were medically preventable but for the delay.
I haven't read all the comments, but I haven't seen this one on this thread yet: the classic purpose for terrorism is to make Government of the terrorized appear ineffectual. This intended purpose should give us pause as its real intent is a recruitment tool for the "strong horse."
One "royalist" Persian I've spoken with is firmly convinced that the only reasons Abu Bakr and his ilk were able to succeed in the original Muslim conquest of the Persian Empire in the East (around 700 CE) was this type of raiding/terror campaign and the war-weariness the Persian Empire had after decades of war with the Byzantine Empire - these two massive and highly civilized empires rolled under the terror of the savages all the way up to the Bosphorus. Does any of that ring a bell?
The curious thing about our current situation is how easily we are discouraged. The problem seems unsolvable because we can't reverse the clock. But this presumes that nothing short of a "perfect" solution will be adequate. The same was said of Trump when he spoke of the problem of illegal immigrants. He was said to be speaking nonsense because dealing with ten to fifteen million deportees would bankrupt the country, let alone complete the ossification of the Federal judiciary as it attempted to confront scheduling fifteen million hearings with publicly provided legal assistance for those interned by the government. But there seems to be some indication that the threat of Trump's policies is having a beneficial effect, without the need to deal with all fifteen million illegals. Under Trump, illegals seem to be less likely to want to cross into the U. S. and put themselves in jeopardy, and those who are here already, particularly those who have something to lose, are looking at retaining their gains and returning voluntarily before something unpleasant happens. And the crackdown on those who were deported and have returned yet again illegally is making it clear that ... sanctuary cities and counties not withstanding ... these felons will be dealt with, and perhaps harshly. Which will also work in the right direction.
Europe and the UK have the problem that they have created all sorts of entitlements, and they pretend that these gifts from the authorities demonstrate their support human rights. But these are not individual rights. The legal basis for these "rights" is obviously suspect when they arrest people and seize their computers for the crime of expressing an opinion that doesn't align with the government's narrative. The Magna Carta Libertatum's focus on the responsibility of the King to serve the people is largely ignored by Brussels. Trinkets and the dole are offered instead. Looking on this from the vantage of North America, these "rights" are just baubles that have no more permanency than the next election, or perhaps the next G7 meeting. So the idea that nothing can be done about those advocating the overthrow of the government in favor of a malevolent theocracy is simply part of the current narrative. Like the regulation of toasters that can be sold in the UK, this could be transformed with a few directives from the authorities. For example, if the property ... clothing, cars, houses, bank accounts, governmental benefit authorizations, memberships in health clubs ... of the twelve people who are said to have helped the Manchester jihadist are seized or destroyed, as their participation is confirmed, without regard to the collateral damage such destruction might cause for their dependents, it would signal a level of seriousness that is presently lacking in the "War on Terrorism". And this would be consistent with the treatment of those who simply express an opinion that is contrary to the government's official narrative. The same treatment could be afforded those who advocate the overthrow of the government in the name of a so-called religion. Knock down a few mosques with imams preaching sharia law, and seize their financial assets.
This would insert a degree of reality into the situation. And this would have profound impact as it ripples through those who are on the edges of the conspiracy to overthrow western governments. The terrorists would find it much more difficult to swim in a sea of co-religionists who understand that their access to the west's dole is contingent on good behavior. And removing the safe harbors of radical mosques would isolate the jihadists further. Who knows, these immigrants might even find it beneficial to integrate in western culture. But this will only happen if we create incentives that affect individual behavior. As Trump is doing in the U. S.
Support and encouragement of terrorism should result in confiscation of assets and eviction from the country. Fighting for ISIS should result in permanent banishment and loss of citizenship. Families of ISIS fighters should lose any and ALL government benefits, including housing, and should be subject to deportation and banishment.
The problem is not lack of tools (policy, economic, etc.) but a lack of will.
We bombed Dresden in WWII, and sadly innocent civilians were killed. The time has arrived to bomb Raqqa. The time has arrived to declare a unified international war on ISIS. The leaders of the civilized nations of our world need to acknowledge that the line has been crossed. The future as described in some science fiction novels of the last century is here, and the Android in those novels living amongst us meaning to do us harm is the Islam fascist of today who is armed with generic vans, trucks, Henkel knives, sharp hardware from Home Depot and house cleaning chemicals. Time to unleash the full force of the civilized world on them, so we can live in relative peace and safetly again. Whatever it takes to destroy every last one of them is fine by me. Let the avenging begin.
The Wall Street Journal online as an image up of a woman carrying a bundle of roses with the caption "London responds to terror attacks." This cannot possibly improve until such things as that are considered too ridiculous to post
We must expect the most absurd of the absurd now from the liberal "press" and media that have invested so much in a lunatic view of the world. For every dozen red roses in public, I suspect there are hundreds of tears grieving in private.
They've run out of teddy bears in Britain and elsewhere. We shall see if any spines strengthen. Their backs are coming up against the wall and PM May is now a tea bag in hot water. She'll have to get strong as a leader or be replaced.
At the risk of sounding flippant, I would add to the refrigerator analogy that an imported refrigerator is no more likely to kill you than a domestically produced one. Not so with ideology.
Excellent point.
(Now, theoretically, it's possible to imagine fridges produced in a way to be more likely to flip and kill. Fortunately, places where somebody might devise such a scheme are not typically mass exporters of fridges.)
GK Chesterton spoke about the dangers of Islam. He also pondered the strange obsession by the ruling class with Islam combined with self loathing of British culture. It took a mighty push from the grassroots to resolve it in the Chesterton universe. I wonder what he would have thought of the weakening if the grassroots by deliberate policy? The contrast between President Trump recognizing that climate obsession is not healthy and sound immigration policy is healthy, and the unhinged lefties who think the opposite cannot be more stark.
If you need an example of just how unhinged certain members of the left have become, see the story at the attached link. It is interesting how the Left feels the need to act out its most outlandish fantasies. I guess it is just part and parcel of the "narrative trumps reality" mindset. No pun intended.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/03/theater/building-the-wall-closing.html
Which books were those? I'm not surprised at all to see him criticizing it, given that his close friend Hillaire Belloc wrote an entire book decrying Islam, but I haven't come across it yet in my Chesterton readings.
As Mark had pointed out, these leftist pols seriously believe they can save the world by recycling, changing their light bulbs, eating organic, etc., yet cannot think of a way to save their citizens from known terrorists. Maybe we're approaching them all wrong. Maybe we need new slogans. If we equate Islam with the lack of biodiversity, unsustainability, a source of carbon footprints, or non-organic non-locally sourced, maybe that would catch their eye. Sounds crazy, but we're dealing with fanatic nuts - both the terrorists and the crazy politicians.
Most of the most savage, murderous, thuggish leftist "leaders" and personalities throughout the ages have always been much more concerned about saving "the planet" or "the country" etc..than "saving" even their own flesh and blood/biological children. I'm not sure if they honestly believe that they can save the world, but it's certainly a much more convenient, less demanding and much more profitable religious belief system than say, actually fighting back against the jihad.
Forgive me for being darkly amused that my sophisticated friends in Britain and on the Continent will abide a large-scale display of weaponry and patrolling from their government "authorities" that no vulgar, gun-lusting American would.
So many great comments, I wish there was a way to like or up vote them!
Jecca,
I feel that I have to point out to you that the Left is not anti-gun. They're are just against anyone other than themselves having a gun. In fact, they're perfectly happy to hold you at gun point to enforce their agenda.
Cheers.
I've often had the same thought! (about the great comments and wishing I could up vote them).
Your other comment is an excellent observation. Another interesting point is that my neighbors here in Massachusetts, a very leftist state for those of us living east of route 495, were all comfortable with being confined to their homes when Joker Tsarnaev was still on the loose. I suspect that my friends in Montana would have been out with their guns helping to hunt him down.
So disgusting to see the enervated, spineless and pathetic EuroPols come out yet again with their slimey evasions. Can't call it what it is, can't save their citizenry, can't prevent any of this. Can't end mass muslim immigration- don't even have a politician running right now who will broach the subject. Won't let Britons own a pistol or think for themselves, so their solution to a bunch of guys yelling 'allahu ahkbar' near you is to Run, Hide, Tell.
How about Cock, Aim, Fire.
This is why the 2nd Amendment is so incredibly important in America. Governments time and again, all over the globe, have proven that they can't or won't protect you and your family. You must be able to do it yourself.
Britain, a once great nation for which I held out hope (after Brexit!) is in a sad state of affairs.. Sad sad sad. For multiple reasons.
It is a question we will find answered soon, just what frequency of attacks will the British people put up with before they realise their leaders have no answers. Just keep soaking em up guys, I am sure this will all blow over soon.
It is so ironic to listen to the utterings of these so called leaders and realize that they are the same ones who will save us from climate change. Has the world gone mad?
It's like pancreatic cancer. It lurks and grows and when finally diagnosed, it's already too late. It is one of the most treatment-resistant forms of cancer there is. Cutting it out usually does not get it all and causes huge collateral damage to the existing body. Radiation and chemo usually only slow it down. I fear Europe has pancreatic cancer and there is no cure.......it's too late.
Solutions?
Yes, stopping immigration from dangerous places or by dangerous people can be implemented, but that would not address the fact that the enemy is already within the gates, and in huge numbers. Besides, no political will to do that, except by Trump, and the euros have turned him onto a laughing stock (they will belatedly recognize the common sense, but whatever).
Until mind readers are developed, or pre-crime units (Minority Report-like), that police or anti terror units can employ. Don't hold your breath.
Israel is now become safer from terrorism than Europe. The Israelis pleaded with the west for decades to help them defeat terrorism, but were met only with 'You have it coming. If you would just agree to die, you wouldn't have terrorism.". Well, now the shoe is on the other foot.
Can Europe adopt Israeli methods? They are non PC, but they seem to work, and are one step short of population transfer/expulsion, which is the next step.
The ridiculous talking point statistic about death by fridge is typical of how government cookie pushers think. It reminded me of the time I learned that the US Agricultural Department sets the "allowable number of rat hairs per hot dog" at two. Any normal human would prefer zero. When they want citizens to "get used to it" I wonder where the commissars will set the "allowable number of deaths by Muslim jihad"? Unfortunately, their seems their threshold of pain for their own citizens might be quite high.
Wait a minute. Isn't reporting someone said "This is for Allah" a hate crime?
You may recall that the way to make perfect toast is to wait until smoke is rising and then take the toast out two minutes earlier. So the way to stop all these ghastly things happening is to go back to the 1960s and prevent Islamic immigration - except they couldn't, since the immigrants were Commonwealth citizens, and had a right of entry.
There are certain things that could be done - for instance, not allowing any Moslem who'd been out to Libya, Syria or the like back into the country. But overall, it's very hard to work out ways of actually preventing these attacks.
If it ever dawns on the citizenry at large that "this problem was imported", there will be fury. Actually, On the Beach is not a bad metaphor. The radiation is spreading. Instead of trying to stop it, countries are trying to get in on the action.
London's Mayor: 'We Will Never Be Cowed By Terrorism', translation, we will do nothing to protect innocent people from the hands of these identified killers with a specific ideology.
Why can't we comprehend what is in front of our face? While habeus corpus should and must be honoured - for all our sakes - the fact that Western governments are not even attempting to control the controllables in relation to continued Islamic immigration is an abdication of responsibility on an historic scale. We are presented with a false dichotomy that you are either for untrammelled and unquestioned free-for-all immigration, or you are anti refugee.
The West should not look on with dishonour as ISIS butchers christians and yazidis in Syria, but the answer to this is not to open the borders of Europe to anyone from the Middle East and africa who wants to come: that is an existentially threatening non sequitur for which our leaders should be held in eternal disgrace.
Our emasculation as a culture is (I hope) almost complete: let there be a response, a reaction, from somewhere. almost all western leaders are either too blinkered or too morally bankrupt to name the problem, with the exception of Trump. That a man with all the obvious failings of The Donald is our beacon of hope highlights our predicament, but let him at least be a harbinger of a more honest and robust engagement with the challenges our culture faces in future.
Douglas Murray's column from 14 months ago still holds true: http://bit.ly/2srYrhD
I'm not sure if I'm more saddened or disturbed that I find the reaction to terrorism as repulsive as the terrorists
I can not escape the cruel irony of the "Katy Perry - Let's build bridges, not walls - types". Well you see now what happens on bridges in England and causeways in France. What is going on in England, and will continue to escalate is the Haute elites saying "Nothing to see here. Move along. You might want to avoid that bridge." This will only end when things get so bad that the people will scream " MAKE IT STOP" . When that happens... look out, because the world will forever change and it scares the living hell out of me.
Mark, as I have said many times before on various commentaries, their Book is to blame and as you point out, Japan doesn't have a Muslim problem. Small wonder. They have virtually NO Muslims in Japan. End of story!
Clearly the British are the Masochists par excellence,as witnessed by the latest Islamist attack. They're like the battered wife of Europe. Every outrage brings the usual tears,self-pity and consolation by friends,but still they elect to stay with their Islamist tormentor,convinced,despite all the evidence to the contrary,that they can make him love them! Verily is that saying true-"he who would have peace,must prepare for war". If the British want to genuinely live in peace,free from the sorts of atrocities as witnessed today,not only must they start preparing for war,they must have the courage to declare they really are at war and have the will to win it. If they don't do that, they're finished.
Battered wife - a perfect metaphor for this insanity.
They have not fully recovered from WWII and it is quite facile for anyone to think that people who have lived in an unreal world can suddenly pop out of it. Are the people in NYC more-than-maoschists? At least the sliver of them who voted for BigMouth De Blasio. Every time there is a terrorist attack, anywhere, he has to open that trap of his and shout there is no terrorist attack in NYC!!
Sadly, the Muslims were let into the island to prop up the lower class to create a false middle class. That started at least 50 years ago. Concurrently, jobs were being lost in an increasingly socialist state. And the truly British lower class eventually got the shaft from factory jobs that were shipped overseas to Asia (Taiwan and then to China). So the sense of depression descends into despair --
and, yes, it will take a long time, in American-stop-watch timing, for the Brits to clear this rubble of a mess that has been going on for a long time. Margaret Thatcher did her best and who speaks of her now except conservatives in America. Did our worthless "Pres" (the Big Zero) even go to her funeral?
The 10-year subprime mortgage scheme here in the USA attempted the same thing of propping up a false middle class. That farce crashed down and we got The Great One in 2008, the blank slate onto which knee-jerk despair-addicts drew all kinds of fantasies. Here in the Land of the Free, we are still preparing for the war that only 50% of the electorate realize is real.
Brilliant and succinct as always Mark. But I understand your weariness with finding new ways to express horror and anger at each atrocity. Imported indeed. More of it indeed. Betrayal by our "leaders" and the MSM and their apologists and sophists, of which Australia has many, mostly in our national broadcaster the ABC. Yes, to whom can we turn to restore our way of life in the face of this imported and now lethally entrenched menace. I read also that "celebrities" , some publicly having campaigned for open borders and smearing opponents as "racists", are now "tweeting" whimpering prayers "for London" (insert city here). The solution to these murdering Islamists instead was a team of sharpshooters.
Mark, you write, "It seems, at a certain level, incredible that you can have two major terrorist attacks in Britain's capital and second largest city in the days before a general election - and yet it will make no difference to Thursday night's result. For who among the major parties is offering any alternative to the disastrous, destructive conventional wisdom?" That's a choice. I mean, people refuse to insist on harder-nosed politicians even though they are free to do so. They prefer to signal their virtue by sacrificing their children. It's easier than facing reality. In the aftermath, they gladly listen to obvious nonsense and humbly believe. Change?: What if, the next time a politician insists that the mass murders have nothing to do with Islam, people just quietly tune out and walk away. Just so we can start imagining what it feels like to be someone who wants to live. How about refusing to attend or support the Manchester concert that is marketing deadly evasions to all of us? Let the celeb dweebs who have security details market the lies to each other, all by themselves.
This morning I just UNsubscribed from the London Times' alert service because they reported on the story without mentioning Islam. It's not a "boycott," as if I were mad about something they wrote. Rather, what they wrote lacks news value because they leave out a critical part of the picture. I cannot afford to waste my time on them. If they ask me why I unsubscribed (many services do), I will tell them so politely. My point is, anyone can start to do things like that without taking a public stand. It may be the best place to begin if one dislikes confrontations with one's snarling intellectual betters. Perhaps one toughens over time.
My Mom was born in Liverpool and many of my relatives were Brits in England during WW 2 and when an enemy threatened their shores, they acted effectively to repel that enemy and keep it out. They didn't welcome it to their shores with open arms. Churchill's eloquent leadership certainly led that winning cause but they are now led by apologists, progressives and moderates. Churchill would be ultra politically incorrect today and would not be elected. He would be in jail or investigated for hate speech and ostracized like Katie Hopkins. Many of us watch the horror with some disgust directed at the present political state of Britain as well as the terrorists.
----Mark's appearance on Judge Jeanine was excellent but it was too short and I can't understand why FNC hasn't placed him in a permanent gig on their network. Steve Hilton starts tomorrow and he's no slouch on these matters but FNC might have reached their accented quota.
How about his own show -- Mark Steynardo and His Royal Canadians??
Some people have said that Brexit is more consequential than the Trump election, I disagree. The immigration policies that have ruined the UK were enacted by its own politicians, Tony Blair at the head.
A recent article on Zero Hedge caught my attention "Five Reasons Why America Is About To Become A Very Conservative Country" mainly because of demographics, the growing conservatism of kids under 20 and the left's last gasps. I'll believe it when I see it, but I don't see any comparable trends in Western Europe. With Trump the U.S. now has a leader who will push the Supreme Court to the right, end economy-killing programs like the Paris (Honda) "Accord" and build a wall while deporting illegals.
As Mark has pointed out, the UK elections don't even give voters a choice for a nationalist candidate. I'm counting my lucky stars here in Warsaw that Poland has thus far resisted the multicultural insanity that has gripped the West and ever new attack will steel that resolve to never allow it to happen here. Britons need to recruit Nigel Farage, Tommy Robinson or whoever else they can get to push nationalism in the way Trump did. With options like the feckless May and Marxist Corbyn, the UK would be better off with 10 Downing St. staying vacant.
Here in Oz, our opposition leader Bill Shorten reserved his strongest condemnation (and only show of anger) for One Nation Leader Pauline Hanson, who peddles the really dangerous evil of suggesting we stop Muslim immigration.
On the same news report, shortly after mentioning that 3000 people are currently on the UK terrorism watch-list, we were assured that it's impossible to prevent such random, senseless acts of violence.
It's become a sickening, humiliating spectacle.
The visual take homes from this event were:
* British subjects being marched along the street with their hands above their heads, like criminals
* British police hysterically screaming at people to 'get on the ground' in a pub
* British official communications repeating the sickening mantra of "Run, Hide, Tell".
Run, Hide, Tell seems to me to be a perfect metaphor, for the future of the UK. It is utterly demeaning and infantilising.
Worse still, we will now have to endure the increasingly ridiculous protestations about causation, emanating from the liberal media. No discussion, no debate, just consensual repetition of the Official Lie, which Mark has so eloquently described in the past. This will be followed by consensual advocacy of the need to suppress 'hate speech', which will not of course be directed against the Islamist, so much as against any citizen who dares to question the Official Lie.
Oh, and if the opinion polls are correct, it would appear that Diane Abbott is about to take office in the role of Home Secretary.......
The one crumb of comfort was the Editorial in Spiked written by Brendan O'Neill after Manchester, which I commend to your readership.
'God grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, and Wisdom to know the difference.' At this point we urgently need Courage and Wisdom.
Yes. The visuals of law-abiding citizens doing perp walks under the command of authorities is nauseating when contrasted with the same authorities' unwillingness to inconvenience known Islamic radicals. Plus, of course, the willingness of these same authorities to investigate and rough-up anyone who speaks out.
When a Canadian politician and a British diplomat were kidnapped in 1970, the War Measures Act was brought down in Canada by papa Trudeau. One wonders if politicians were being mown down and stabbed, would the response from our leaders of today be more forceful.
It is worth noting that those killed and terrorized in the shadow of the Shard were probably mostly leftists. You would think after similar attacks on them at the Twin Towers in NYC, at the German New Year's celebration in Cologne, and in French restaurants, they would get up in arms about it. Perhaps they will, but I think not, because they have not after decades of watching their fellow travelers get raped, fall, burn, bleed, and die. They believe, really, that there are too many people in the world and that you just have to accept this kind of thing. They Lord Mayor of London, Mr. Khan, said so earlier in the day. It is the death cult dealing it out to a culture waiting to die, a culture that has given up.
Well I haven't.
Mark, The Euro-a-sexuals who lead over there have no plan nor clue.
That frog has been boiled.
Americans rejected the Obama, Kerry, Gore, Hillary style of nambi-pambi leadership and voted a real red blooded American male into office. Obama was the fever, Trump is the cure.
"everything charges"= changes?
Thanks, Mark. Your description of the concert is right on the money. At this rate, they'll start having backlog of such events.
Timing is everything, in life, in death, and it appears that the timing of the Love-On people for their "benefit" concert is horrendous. Naturally your timing on the Judge Jeanine show was most beneficial because you understand as best as anyone can this crisis that no one wants to face in the UK or Europe.
The people there in London (with a Mayor named Khan, whose wrath will escape us all) have to do more than face their present danger. They have to face the truth that their view of the world is flat-out wrong. 180 degrees out of phase.
This reversal of thought — needed to even begin to effect a reversal of fortune — is not easily accomplished, if it is done at all. The pacifist in "The Lady Vanishes" dies waving a white flag, saying he does not understand. Indeed.
While we watch in sorrow and frustration, or for patriots like you with fury, we have to admit that there are too many people in denial about this reality — in England, Europe— New York City, San Francisco, the crescent-shaped area between Santa Barbara and San Diego that determines the voters' decisions for all of California, Boston, Chicago (a crime zone even without the terrorism), the list is long of major cities unable to come to grips with the assault on Western Civilization.
To quote the English bulldog, Winston Churchill, in a BBC address to the French people 21 Oct 1940:
Good night then: Sleep to gather strength for the morning. For the morning will come. brightly it will shine on the brave and true, kindly upon all who suffer for the cause, glorious upon the tombs of heroes. Thus will shine the dawn.
How many dead does it take before the UK wakes up to the fact they are under invasion by radical Islam?
Thanks Mark for once again saying what needs to be said, Europe's immigration policy has doomed itself. Like you say, your posts on terrorism are different yet they are always the same.
I am worried that there will be a backlash.
The BBCSkyC4 meeja will be sending reporters out to fearfully report from dealer forecourts across the UK, lest there be a backlash against White Van Man (an especially feared urban species, known to force cyclists off the road with gay abandon).
We must hope that the UK remains backlashless.