Randy McDonald ([info]rfmcdpei) wrote,
@ 2008-02-07 22:12:00
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Current mood:annoyed
Entry tags:clash of ideologies, demographics, europe, european union, france, italy, politics, united states

[FISKING] A brief look at Mitt Romney
I was so struck by the BBC report of the content of Mitt Romney's concession speech, delivered topday at the Conservative Political Action Conference, that I Googled the Associated Press-sanctioned speech transcript. It's interesting. After saying that "unless America changes course, we could become the France of the 21st century," he goes on to talk about Europe and population.

Europe -- Europe is facing a demographic disaster.

ROMNEY: That's the inevitable product of weakened faith in the Creator, failed families, disrespect for the sanctity of human life, and eroded morality.

Some reason that culture is merely an accessory to America's vitality. We know that it's the source of our strength. And we will not be dissuaded by the snickers and knowing glances when we stand up for family values and morality and culture. We will...

(APPLAUSE)

Conservatives here and conservatives across the country will always be honored to stand on principle and to stand for principles.


1. The casual slam at France is unsurprising. It's equally unsurprising that a politically unified and internally integrated demi-continent of three hundred million people that has been spared the direct ravages of war could be more powerful than a country with a fifth the population and less than a tenth of the land area. Oh well. Maybe Romney's just bitter that he made two converts during his two-and-a-half years in France as a Mormon missionary.

2. The "China and India will dominate us" meme is amusing, given the United States' aforementioned size, its very significant economic lead in per capita terms over those two countries, and the meme's tacit assumption that economic growth in these two countries will continue in the high single digits for the next two decades. If. Anyway, all this assumes that anything can break the unstoppable dominance of the Japanese.

3. It's really annoying how so many conservatives have felt free to take the word "family" and limit it to only the sorts of families that they want. In any case, to the extent that there are demographic issues in Europe, countries like Italy where traditional families are strong aren't faring nearly as well as countries like France where, at latest report, 43% of children are born out of wedlock.

I could go into more detail, but I won't bother. Why should I devote more time to political losers if I have better things to do?

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[info]optimussven
2008-02-08 04:12 am UTC (link)
That whole speech was just ridiculous.

Maybe Romney's just bitter that he made two converts during his two-and-a-half years in France as a Mormon missionary.

ZING!

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[info]rfmcdpei
2008-02-09 05:56 am UTC (link)
Ba-da-bing.

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[info]mindstalk
2008-02-08 05:54 am UTC (link)
"But those are probably Muslim births, not real French people."

Then you'd remind them about the out of wedlock bit.

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[info]rfmcdpei
2008-02-09 05:56 am UTC (link)
"Their births aren't recorded. The suburbs are no-go zones, you know! Anyway Bob my dentist told me so, so there."

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[info]gareth_wilson
2008-02-08 10:10 am UTC (link)
It's ironic that Mitt Romney was making this particular argument. Because the reason why the US has reasonably healthy demographics is not because of religion or morality or conservativism. It's because it has lots of Mexicans. Non-Hispanic white fertility rates are below replacement, blacks are at replacement, and Hispanics are comfortably above replacement. In fact the only significant group of non-Hispanic whites who are actually replacing themselves are the Mormons. Romney himself has five children. To be fair, one of groups that are much more fertile than you'd expect from their education and income is, you guessed it, presidential candidates. There hasn't been a childless president in 150 years.

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[info]rfmcdpei
2008-02-09 05:55 am UTC (link)
Huh--I didn't know that about presidential candidates.

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[info]mmcirvin
2008-02-14 03:39 pm UTC (link)
It's ironic that Mitt Romney was making this particular argument. Because the reason why the US has reasonably healthy demographics is [...] because it has lots of Mexicans.

That's not ironic at all; part of the dog-whistle xenophobic subtext here is "the Mexicans are outbreeding us real Americans, except for the few like me who are having enough babies." His implicit analogy is between Mexicans in America and Arabs in Europe.

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[info]rdi
2008-02-08 12:25 pm UTC (link)
Given that China is now the sweatshop of the world, and India is catching up in economic terms, I'd say that they both have a good chance of establishing economic dominance over the course of this century. It's not just a question of them catching up to the US; there's also the matter of the economic decline of the US. As to the Japanese, I'd say their moment has passed already. A lot of what used to be made in Japan was offshored to Korea and China in the 80s and 90s, laying the ground work for their economic rises.

China's currently taking steps to secure its resource base overseas (e.g. in Africa and Canada), and there's not much the US can do to stop it. The eventual China-India conflict may be interesting, for the "may you live in interesting times" definition of interesting.

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[info]rfmcdpei
2008-02-09 05:54 am UTC (link)
As to the Japanese, I'd say their moment has passed already. A lot of what used to be made in Japan was offshored to Korea and China in the 80s and 90s, laying the ground work for their economic rises.

But, but ... Didn't you see Rising Sun? They'll buy up all our companies and kill our supermodels!

;-)

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[info]agirlnamedluna
2008-02-08 01:23 pm UTC (link)
I haven't had the time to read over the transcript (and probably won't), but what I find funny is how Romney takes a stab at France, and with it at Sarkozy, who is desperately trying to reunite with the US and more particularly with Bush, which doesn't make him so very popular over here.

Didn't he mention emancipation of women as a cause for lower demographics? Because in that logic, the fact that women aren't content with a position as breeding machine anymore should also lower natality. Perhaps polygamy should just be legalised then ;)

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[info]rfmcdpei
2008-02-09 05:55 am UTC (link)
He might take to that.

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[info]schizmatic
2008-02-08 02:27 pm UTC (link)
Like I mentioned elsewhere, it's interesting the way that the Islamification of Europe has become axiomatic in the American right over the last few years. It fits in with certain pre-established narratives, viz., "immigrants who breed like rabbits," but it makes it much scarier. After all, "there are brown people drawing welfare checks" is okay for outrage, but nowhere near as good as "the terrorists will take over by outbreeding us and voting Western Culture out of existence."

It's also peculiar in that there is talking out of both sides of the mouth going on. Folks in Washington generally have to keep to some sort of basic line about respecting Islam and only condemning terrorists blah blah blah. The base, though, is fine with a hate-on for Muslims in general, which is somewhat vile since in Afghanistan and Iraq several thousand Muslims have died fighting alongside U.S. (and Canadian) forces.

Of course, it's even more amusing for a Mormon to wave a red cautionary flag against monotheists who deny the Jesus Christ is co-eternal with the father and have some sects which practice polygyny.

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[info]rfmcdpei
2008-02-09 05:58 am UTC (link)
The base, though, is fine with a hate-on for Muslims in general, which is somewhat vile since in Afghanistan and Iraq several thousand Muslims have died fighting alongside U.S. (and Canadian) forces.

Sometimes I think that more than a few people, somewhere but hopefully not in positions with too much power, wants us all to support some goal like reclaiming Constantinople and the holy cities for Christendom.

All I can say is that one can have a clash of civilizations only if one wants one.

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[info]gwdanton
2008-02-09 12:32 am UTC (link)
"..Oh well. Maybe Romney's just bitter that he made two converts during his two-and-a-half years in France as a Mormon missionary."

He actually made two French citizens convert to the Latter-Day Saints? Wow! Most Mormon missionaries don't do even that well no matter where they preach...

"I could go into more detail, but I won't bother. Why should I devote more time to political losers if I have better things to do?"

True. But the game is interesting to watch, eh? ;-)

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[info]rfmcdpei
2008-02-09 05:58 am UTC (link)
I know, but it's just disturbing.

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They're Jacque-Mormons Now
(Anonymous)
2008-02-24 09:48 pm UTC (link)
(sorry, couldn't resist)

Randy, thanks so much for not imputing Romney's views to all Usonians (http://www.jamesrmaclean.com/mw/index.php/Usonian). He actually thinks that if the >60% of Usonians opposed to his ideas root & branch get their way, it'll be a "surrender to terror." This is really a cold [civil] war.

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