France’s Agony

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8 responses to “France’s Agony”

1. 

   Joe Odegaard

   July 1, 2023

   We must regard our own civilization as superior, because it is, and we must try to live by the values of our civilization’s high points, and I can tell where these points are, as an architect, by looking at what we have built. Buildings will tell you that the pinnacle of it all is the High Middle Ages, because what you do shows who you are inside.
   None of the Cathedrals are finished. We need to finish them. It would do us good.
   As for the world elite? They detest MY civilization, and I detest them.

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2. 

   Vito B. Caiati

   July 2, 2023

   While Dreher is right in condemning the ideology of the elites of most European nations that has permitted mass immigration into the continent from the Middle East and Africa, his assertion that there “is a direct line between the hubristic, cruel, catastrophic US invasion of Iraq to make it a liberal democratic bastion” and the current crisis in France is simply wrong. Largely ignorant of the history of France, he confuses the mass migration of Iraqi, Syrian, and Afghan refugees into Europe following the Second Gulf War, which led to the collapse of those three states and the rise of Islamic terror, with the decades-old movement of people from the Maghreb, principally Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia, the first two former colonies or protectorates of France, and somewhat more recently from sub-Saharan Africa. In 2020, these two areas taken together, the Maghreb and sub-Saharan Africa, accounted for 50 percent of persons (3,208,000) from other countries currently living in France. In comparison, only a small number of Syrian (about 39,000) and Iraqi (about 8,000) refugees abide in the country, which is a tiny fraction of, for example, the number of the former admitted to Germany (about 665,000). The sources of the current mass violence in France are to be found in the colonial past of France in North and Central Africa and in the lax immigration policies long pursued by the French state, whether under governments to the left or to the right of center, (importation of cheap labor, especially during the trente glorieuses; a lenient policy of familial “regroupement;” and a host of legal obstacles preventing swift deportation) for many decades. The great majority of these immigrants, overwhelmingly Muslim and neither economically nor culturally integrated into the larger French society, are the denizens of high-density urban enclaves, some of which are so dangerous that the police dare not enter them. They constitute, in effect, an anti-nation within the nation, one whose demographic expansion will to make the mass violence and destruction of the past week but the prelude to a much more destructive domestic warfare, at the heart of which lies the irreconcilability of cultures and religions.

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3. 

   BV

   July 2, 2023

   Joe,
   Well said!
   Vito,
   Excellent comment. I trust your judgment way over that of public intellectual Dreher because you are a Ph. D. in history and have been a long-time resident of France. But content is king and what you say coheres with my understanding of things.
   >>The sources of the current mass violence in France are to be found in the colonial past of France in North and Central Africa and in the lax immigration policies long pursued by the French state, whether under governments to the left or to the right of center, (importation of cheap labor, especially during the trente glorieuses; a lenient policy of familial “regroupement;” and a host of legal obstacles preventing swift deportation) for many decades.<< Question: to what extent does 'white liberal guilt' play a role in explaining France's foolish immigration policy? Further: to what extent are the French lazy and decadent as compared to us? And then there is the decline in Xianity and the rise of clerical complaisance and abdication of authority. As I have been saying for years: Immigration without assimilation is a recipe for disaster.

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4. 

   Allan

   July 2, 2023

   Finding more information on the riots and destruction is rather difficult. Or, I should say, it’s difficult if one focuses only upon the US mainstream media. Not even Fox seems to care. [I am less surprised by that now than I would have been a decade ago.] The only headline I could find on CNN was a follows: “Protests Rock France.”
   Uh-huh. “Protests.” That’s what’s happening, alright. I protest when a waitress serves me the wrong meal. I do now, however, physically abuse her before setting fire to her place of employment. As you say often, Bill, linguistic precision matters. And I can’t help but think that those who wrote that CNN headline know exactly what it is they are doing. Which, of course, is despicable.

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5. 

   Joe Odegaard

   July 2, 2023

   Christian values have not made me unfit, because at my core I am a barbarian. I know this with certainty.

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6. 

   BV

   July 2, 2023

   Joe,
   But then Christianity has not brought about metanoia in you, Umgestaltung in Christus (Transformation in Christ) to borrow a title from a book by Dietrich von Hildebrand, an author I recommend to you.

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7. 

   BV

   July 2, 2023

   Joe,
   You are glossing over a very troubling problem that I set forth in “David French, Christianity, and Politics.” https://williamfvallicella.substack.com/p/david-french-christianity-and-politics

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8. 

   BV

   July 2, 2023

   Allan,
   Fox has fallen since the defenestration of Carlson, Bongino, et al. but is still delivering some worthwhile content, e.g., that of Mark Levin.
   But I take your point. What the CNN effers are doing is as despicable as what they did during the Summer of Floyd.
   After years of reading my blog, the above is your very first comment. This occurrence has a Special Meaning which I will communicate to you in a private message.

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