Spengler

I think it was Jose who first called my attention to Spengler (the Asia Times columnist, not the German philosopher). I don't think anyone reads all the way through a "Spengler" article without disagreeing vehemently with something in it. On the other hand, what you don't reject will look like brilliant insight. Or else provocative perspectives that you want to test to see if they work.

This new one is a classic.

He confronts the legacy of his namesake, the future of Europe, the Dresden firebombing, and American exceptionalism, all under the aegis of some weird illustration that appears to be Hitler Photoshopped into a Gustav Dore lithograph from an early canto of Dante's "Inferno."

Those who seem to think that such provocations as the murder of Theo van Gogh by terrorists will revive Europe's will to live, eg Victor Davis Hanson, sadly misestimate the depth to which Europe has sunk. After World War I, I wrote two years ago, "no shred of credibility was left in the Christian idea of souls called out of the nations for salvation beyond the grave. In 1914 Europe's soldiers still fought under the illusion of a God that favored their nation. Germany fought World War II under the banner of revived paganism. For today's Europeans, there is no consolation, neither the old pagan continuity of national culture, nor the Christian continuity into the hereafter" .... Europe will offer no resistance to Islam, which will triumph in that continent no later than 2100, according to Bernard Lewis.

Even if Washington succeeded in establishing friendly regimes in most of the Middle East, an eventual Arab majority in Europe will confront America with a hydra-headed beast that cannot easily be thwarted.

The graph showing the projected numerical decline of Europe's native populations is truly sobering. You can jaw about socialism, hard power, soft power, the EU Constitution, but you can't argue with the simple math of reproduction.

[Hat tip to American Future]