Monday, January 11, 2016

A Quick Run Around the Web--January 11, 2016

Signing of Declaration of Independence by Armand-Dumaresq, c1873

News that CAIR has demanded an apology from Donald Trump for evicting a Muslim protester at his rally and reports that left-wing protesters and police have turned out in force to bottle up "far-right" demonstrators in Germany bookend a single story.  It's on -- the long-awaited fight against PC orthodoxy is finally on. Trump is unlikely to apologize, and CAIR is even more unlikely to back down.  With 3 million Middle Eastern and African refugees due to arrive in Europe this year, the clashes between German protesters are only likely to intensify.
    The commotion you hear is not going to stop, it will only get worse. The Western Spring is finally here, and before it's done it threatens to change everything.
      The tension between the forces of political correctness and the pent-up forces of repressed cultural traditions is now bursting like a spring wound up beyond containment. ...

        * * *
          A political crisis of the kind which may engulf Europe has a destabilizing effect analogous to free-surface flooding in ships. This occurs when tons of liquid slosh inside a ship and slam it from one side to another. The great transatlantic liner SS Normandie sank during WW2 in New York harbor from the water pumped into her by firefighters trying to put out a blaze. Suggestions from her designer to flood her to shallow bottom were rejected in favor of a failed program of flooding and counter-flooding which caused her to heel over and capsize.
            In the same way, periods of political upheaval will threaten to overturn societies unless people pay attention.  One advantage the United States theoretically enjoys over Europe during periods of free-surface flooding is the Constitution. This serves as a foundation, a sort of ballast which lowers the meta-centric height of the ship of state and keeps it on an even keel in all but the roughest sailing.
              It was meant to provide a check against excesses from either side in a political duel. The Constitution itself  used to rest upon an even more basic rock, a widely shared set of assumptions, moral and religious beliefs which obtained at the beginnings of the nation. That gave it tremendous stabilizing power.  Unfortunately the left has steadily chipped away at this Constitutional ballast and the stone on which it was builded, a fact they may regret before long.
              Unfortunately for these immigrants, they may find that Europe is harder to escape than to enter.

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              Weekend Reading -- A New Weekend Knowledge Dump

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