Mark Steyn's latest is deserves the praise it's getting, so do go on and have a look. It's a bit long and there's a lot that could be said about it, but I'm just going to hone in on this little laugh-till-the-coffee-comes-up-your-nose bit:
This [demographic threats to women] ought to be the left's issue. I'm a conservative--I'm not entirely on board with the Islamist program when it comes to beheading sodomites and so on, but I agree Britney Spears dresses like a slut: I'm with Mullah Omar on that one. Why then, if your big thing is feminism or abortion or gay marriage, are you so certain that the cult of tolerance will prevail once the biggest demographic in your society is cheerfully intolerant? Who, after all, are going to be the first victims of the West's collapsed birthrates? Even if one were to take the optimistic view that Europe will be able to resist the creeping imposition of Sharia currently engulfing Nigeria, it remains the case that the Muslim world is not notable for setting much store by "a woman's right to choose," in any sense. I watched that big abortion rally in Washington in 2004, where Ashley Judd and Gloria Steinem were cheered by women waving "Keep your Bush off my bush" placards, and I thought it was the equivalent of a White Russian tea party in 1917. By prioritizing a "woman's right to choose," Western women are delivering their societies into the hands of fellows far more patriarchal than a 1950s sitcom dad. If any of those women marching for their "reproductive rights" still have babies, they might like to ponder demographic realities: A little girl born today will be unlikely, at the age of 40, to be free to prance around demonstrations in Eurabian Paris or Amsterdam chanting "Hands off my bush!" Just before the 2004 election, that eminent political analyst Cameron Diaz appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show to explain what was at stake: "Women have so much to lose. I mean, we could lose the right to our bodies. . . . If you think that rape should be legal, then don't vote. But if you think that you have a right to your body," she advised Oprah's viewers, "then you should vote." Poor Cameron. A couple of weeks later, the scary people won. She lost all rights to her body.This is a humourous way to deal with the dark subject Steyn has raised. None of it is news to me. The fly in the ointment, if there is one, is that it presumes that present trends continue. That isn't always a safe assumption. It's too late for the boomers to do anything much about this problem first hand (as it were) but they might have a indirect influence through consultation, law, etc. I think that's not bloody likely, however. That leaves generation X, of which I am at the very tail end. Sadly, I don't think my peers even know there is a problem (most of them). So that leaves generation Y. These kids are still being formed, some as lefty as their boomer parents, others leaning south park conservative. It's unlikley that they'll hold those views well into adulthood, when life begins to pare away at opinions in a darwinain way. If those conservative kids mature in their conservativism early enough, it's possible - perhaps - that we might see the beginings of a change. When the failings of earlier generations begin to be more obvious, the ways of those earlier generations will begin to become discredited and they may root around in various older traditions in a search for a way forward. That's been my story, to some degree. So Bob's yer uncle then. Remember all those folks saying Canadian PM Paul Martin was going to walk away with the house of commons? He's turned out to be a minority leader in danger of losing even that (and it couldn't happen to a nicer guy). Motto: don't count your chicks before they hatch.
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