now to connect the dots...

The year is 2019. A recently enlarged United States faces its first serious crises post-President Rice. Several Canadian states, Australia and Cuba, after a violent civil war following Castro's death finally in 2011 all became part of the United States. Secret negotiations are being conducted between the US and Taiwan in an effort by the Taiwanese to become an American state. The PRC learns of this and reacts harshly. They seize the Spratly's and an assortment of other smaller islands claimed by a diverse lot including Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore. The newly minted blue water navy that the PLA spent decades dreaming about blocks the shipping lanes in the South China Sea and demands that Taiwan accept immedate reunification. The United States declares Taiwan a territory and begins sending troops immediately.
Who are our allies in such a fight, not including the sizeable additions to American strength that the red-state Canadians and the Aussies would make? Would our few remaining allies outside of Japan and Britain wind up categorized as such:

We keep assuming that Europeans are like Britain and Japan when in fact long ago they devolved more into a Switzerland and Sweden—friendly neutrals, but no longer real allies. In the meantime, let us Americans keep much more quiet, wait, and watch—even as we carry a far bigger stick.

Because this is where we're heading toward right now. The end of the West. Some projections have European becoming a majority Muslim by the middle of this century. Of course, projections are just projections, but the problems that they already have that aren't being talked about except by genuises such as Mark Steyn and even when he talks about what's really happening in Europe I don't think any of the Europeans really hear him. They made read the article, they might even laugh, because if you can't laugh at Mark Steyn you are a humorless, empty vessel of a person. But I'm sure that there are those out there would who scoff at his ideas. Just as that woman who claimed after the 1972 elecion that "she didn't know anybody who voted for Richard Nixon." I'm sure there are quite a few liberals right now who couldn't name anyone that they personally knew who voted for Dubya.

The end of the West--or, at least, the end of the West in those countries that created the West, that forged the nation-state, that brought forth the industrial revolution, the Renaissance, the Reformation--even in Britain, where more people attend Friday prayers that people attend Sunday mass. Now, I myself am areligious. I find all religion suspect, because it always, even in such decentralized forms as modern Protestantism, always has some kind of earthly authority figure who acts as an intermediary, an authority if you will, on the supreme being and what we know about that thing that we call God, but I say God and that is but another word and what is another word but...? Anyway. So, while at first glance I have no problem with fewer and fewer people attending secularized Europe (mainly the core of the EU, FrancoGermaniaBenelux, Britain and perhaps a few others) I do have a problem with more and more people attending mosque.

Whoa, slow down there Hamey. Are you saying that we should actually be advocating that Islam is an unfavorable religion, that it somehow, it seems, manages to produce individuals capable of highly irrational behavior, such as strapping explosives to their bodies and blowing themselves up? That there is something about the particularly virulent strain of Wahhibism that has infected the Islamic world and spread its influence into any and every Muslim community that it can? That we should be appalled at the Dutch reaction to the killing of Theo van Gogh? Just for comparison imagine if Muslim terrorists tried to kill Clint Eastwood for instance. Clint of course, probably carries a weapon with him everywhere, so there's not much chance there, but the point is that instead of showing his movie at their little film festival or in the theaters or whatever, they pulled it. Worse, they then showed films promoting multiculturalism and Islamic propaganda. While change is happening, as the Cedar Revolution proves, which I hope that someone gets into the Tent City in Beirut and helps them organize and maintain the pace of their protests until the Syrians get out and stay out. If the Orange Revolution in Ukraine is any indication of the potential for people power we should be very optimistic and we should open our eyes to the substantive reforms that are taking place throughout the Arab including the Gulf States and even to some degree Saudi Arabia which held municipal elections last month and Egypt which just announced some modest, unspecified electoral reforms. The more states there are that embrace the three most important values of the Enlightenment: the rule of law, the market economy and representative government, the easier it should become for those states acting in concert to liberate even more states. Until the entire planet is composed of nothing but nation-states that adhere to those three principles.

For some reading that you may not really enjoy but need to be aware of, go here and just read it. Fr something that you don't really need to be aware of but will enjoy reading, go here. Sorry for the absense over the past week or so, but we had practice for our last show every night last week. Just shows you how hard it is to replace one person in a band. Took four of us to do it.