U.K. Elections: What The Problem Is, And Isn't
Various people have expressed concern about British National Party gains in the U.K. elections. One commentator seemed to be missing the point here:
"Check out the BNP results here. Notice that the BNP is up in nearly every district compared to 2001: 16.9% in Barking; 13.1% in Dewsbury; 9.7% in Dudley North where their raw vote count more than doubled over '01. And this is during good economic times in a country free of jihad attacks."
Ah, but it doesn't take jihad terrorism, as such, to cause people to see fringe parties as the answer. It takes a combination of two things:
And later in an update, the same commentator said
"But another party without their historic baggage could tap into the same issues and emotions if these are not addressed in a responsible way. Ignoring, mocking and dismissing the people who voted for the BNP is a mistake."
Yes—a big mistake. One that's been made by neoconservatives in the US, and Tories in Britain. However, the BNP still gets less than one percent of the population.
Another group is much larger in British politics: Muslims. According to the New York Sun,
"Across the country, city after city with a large Muslim minority showed an above average swing against Mr. Blair and Labor. It seems pretty clear that the great majority of Britain's 2.5 million Muslims obeyed the instructions of their imams or community leaders and voted en bloc for whichever antiwar party seemed to have the best chance of defeating the Blair government." [Islamism Brews in Britain, by Daniel Johnson]
So, perspective time.
BNP voters, and the BNP, are a small group, no real threat to anybody.
Muslim voters, and radical Islam, are supportive of international terrorism, and the enemies of Britain and America.
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Slip of the Derbez tongue. I noticed this too, but Heidi said if first and best: while Mexican Foreign Minister was calling for the prosecution of the Minutemen, he said this
"'Because [the Minutemen] feel frustrated or whatever reason they are doing this,' Derbez said. "They are trying to take the war into their own hands.'"
HE!D! wrote:
"Did you catch his wording?! What war, we might ask!? Is there a war going on for our country that the American people aren't even aware of? The Mexican Foreign Minster seems to think so!!!! The literal invasion [see definition: The dramatic increase in the number of individuals in a non-native population, accompanied by an expansion of range] of our nation by 25 million illegals would appear to support that, too!" [Mexican Foreign Secretary envisions the inevitable INTEGRATION of U.S. and Mexico]
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Via Day By Day cartoons and Patterico, I learn that the LA Times is playing the Nazi Arnold card. After criticizing Schwarzenegger for supporting the Minutemen, and for complaining about the "Los Angeles, CA, Mexico" billboard, LA Times writes "And as someone born and raised in the shadow of the Third Reich, he should also know better than to be fanning this anti-foreigner frenzy." [May 2, 2005, Easy Target, Cheap Politics]
But Arnold wasn't born and raised in the "shadow of the Third Reich," he wasn't even born until 1947.He was raised in the shadow of the Soviet Union, which was occupying Austria until 1955, and represented a constant threat of invasion for over thirty years.
Perhaps that experience has made him a little suspicious of the current Mexican attempt at Anschluss.
Queen Margrethe of Denmark was recently the subject of an authorized biography. She is quoted as saying that people have to take the "challenge" of Islam seriously: "We have to run the risk of being labeled in an unflattering way, because there are some things for which we should display no tolerance."
A Muslim living in Denmark has said that what she really meant is that she is opposed to "radical Islam."
The problem with this distinction is that radical Islamists are supposed to be ten percent of the Muslim population, which means that every hundred thousand Muslims will contain ten thousand radicals, which is a lot.
(Something to think of when formulating immigration policy.)
"He said the government has enacted laws that many Muslims see as unjust and discriminatory.
"'A law, for instance, gave private companies the right to reject the employment of any applicant without citing the reason, which is tailored for hijab-clad Muslim women. In the past, no one dared to fire or reject an employee because of his/her ethnic backgrounds,' said the Muslim activist." [Media Distorted Queen's Islam Remarks: Danish Muslim}
This is amazing. This makes Denmark much freer in its employment laws than the United States, where employers are persecuted by lawsuits, and by the Justice Department, if they are accused of firing the wrong people, or not hiring enough of the right ones.
