The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Review of Douglas Murrays' book The Strange Death of Europe

This book looks fascinating. I’ll be trying the library.
The review is entertaining.

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It’s more than entertaining if you live here.
Looks like an informative read. Enjoy.

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I picked it up at the library just now and will take it and a cigar and some good strong coffee out to the garden in a few minutes.
John I did not know, or I forgot, that you lived ‘over there’. Where?

I’m about 60 pages in, and so far I would say the above review is spot-on, as is the history and analysis in the book. It’s one I wish we could all read.

I live in Scarborough (the real one as in the fair) Yorkshire, England.
I’ve always found Douglas Murray to tell it as it is. We need more people like him.

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An absolutely fascinating interview with Douglas Murray:

I enjoyed that and learned some things. He is a thoughtful man.

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I’m about 1/2 way through the book - it’s been cold and rainy and I have no projects in the shop this week, so we stayed in, got comfy, and read most of the day. The kind of freedoms worth keeping imo.
America is tangentially and seldomly referred to in the book, which makes for a more interesting read. It’s all about Europe and the history of immigration into Europe (and touches on Australia as well - interesting) but the parallels of what Europe has been going through, ahead of us by 20 years or so, with what America is struggling with - those parallels are really instructive. He does not mention those parallels - maybe he will later in the book - but we who are living through the beginning of sorrows here can easily see the same mistakes in seed form that have had a benighting effect in Europe.
Really - if we don’t learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it.

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I’m much more fascinated at the moment with the failures of Europe and the resulting and ongoing devastation of traditional European culture. I will continue to focus on that as I go through the book since that is the theme of the book. The US will have to learn from that failure, or we are probably doomed to imitate it. This is history, not political philosophy.
I think the USA is worth saving.

Whats happening in Europe is happening. It could have been avoided. I would have us avoid that if we can. Is that ok with you guys? Sounds like you want to roll over and die, with a sense of wordly-wise gravitas and a long sigh?
Is nothing worth saving?

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True. There were fear stories abounding about Germany in the 1930s. They’ve gone now, but so did many of our young men and over 6 million Jews.

True again. Do you know how many people have been slaughtered by Communist regimes (and are still being murdered to this very day).
And I don’t have the figures as to how many innocents have been brutally killed (or worse) in the name of Allah in the past two decades but the numbers are increasing.

Scapegoat? You’ve lost me now. Who exactly has been scapegoated?

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The past almost 2,000 years actually, but I get your point.
If anyone thinks that Communism is dead, a good education otherwise is to read David Horowitz. The C’s turned themselves into the progressive party in the 30’s. It’s a matter of public record, not conjecture. I am not blanketing the entire current ‘Progressive Party’ as being Communist; but the driving force has always been communist ideology. This is not a political statement, but an historical one.

But we digress from Murray. The force of the book, and the fairness with which the history is handled, cannot be gainsaid by ad hominem attacks or fin de siecle world weariness. Here’s why:

“With the right political and moral leadership this could all have worked out differently. Chancellor Merkel and her predecessors would not have been unsupported or unaided had they taken a different set of steps from the beginning.
They could have started by asking themselves the question Europe never did: should Europe be a place to which anybody in the world can move and call themselves at home? Should it be a haven for absolutely anybody in the world fleeing war? Is it the job of Europeans to provide a better standard of living in our continent to anybody in the world who wants it? To the second and third of these questions the European publics would have said ‘no’. (He has the sources for this claim). That is why the supporters of mass migration - who would have said ‘yes’ to all three - found it ‘convenient’ to elide the boundaries between those fleeing war and those fleeing something else. What, after all - such people asked - is the huge difference between being at risk from bomb and at risk from hunger”

Before you answer that too quickly, you should have read the 200 pages of the history of mass immigration in Europe and followed Murray as he traced out the destructive harvest that Europe has been facing and will for at least another generation.
Could we substitute ‘America’ for ‘Europe’ in his statement? Not yet - but we are heading there from all acounts.
A powerful book that is illuminating. Not fear-mongering, so you can stop that thought.

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I’m done with the book. A masterful treatment.

“Many of our coastal elites see nothing much exceptional in America, past and present. They prefer the culture and values of the European Union without worrying that the EU’s progressive utopian promises have been wrecked by open borders, economically stultifying regulations, and unapologetic and anti-democratic efforts to curb free expression and local autonomy.” - Victor Davis Hanson https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/victor-davis-hanson-death-american-citizenship

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Here is a chronological list of school shootings in Europe.

And that list does not include the 2011 Norway attacks by Anders Behring Breivik, in which an explosion killed eight people and injured at least 209 people, twelve severely, followed by the fatal gunning down of 77 individuals at a youth summer camp on the island of Utøya —which was therefore technically not a “school” shooting.

Denmark’s Social Democrats swept the polls on a platform that combines left-wing economics with immigration restrictionism, going so far as adopting a cap on the number of non-Western immigrants allowed into the country. It is becoming increasingly clear, said Social Democrat leader Mette Frederiksen, “that the price of unregulated globalisation, mass immigration and the free movement of labour is paid for by the lower classes.” Though they have since reneged somewhat on their populist promises, what matters most is that the people of Denmark approved of them.
In the Netherlands, Thierry Baudet of the Forum for Democracy affirms the “fundamental truth” that his people “have a right to exist,” to be “proud of their country and defend it.”

Australian evangelical Prime Minister Scott Morrison delivered a stunning upset at the polls, confirming fears of a “Trumpian uprising” in the Land Down Under. The pitchfork wielding plebs are fed up with mass immigration and with the bugmen in Sydney and Melbourne who are only too happy to see the jobs of the unwashed offshored.

In Finland, the anti-immigration, anti-climate action Finns Party is the country’s most popular political movement. “The eternal and unlimited right to always decide freely and independently of all of one’s affairs lies only and solely with the people, which forms a nation separate of others,” reads the Finn’s program.
In France, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally triumphed in the European elections. She subsequently called President Emmanuel Macon to dissolve parliament. “He has no other choice to dissolve the National Assembly and choosing a voting system that is more democratic and finally representative of the real opinion of the country,” she said. Macron, who fancies himself a Roman god, has bled.

In Italy, the nationalistic League emerged from the rubble of the European elections as the largest political party in that country. Its embattled leader, Matteo Salvini, now struggles against an establishment that promises to hold its ports open for the wailing refuse of Africa. Salvini is down, not out, and his platform resonates with the people.

Some 83 percent of Italian voters see refugees as a threat; 80 percent demand limits to the number of refugees and are against welcoming them with open arms. Salvini has tapped into a yearning for something that Italians feel in their bones, and whatever it is, it is not “democracy,” which somehow always seems to favor the oligarchs.

Across the pond, Nigel Farage was deemed the most dangerous man in Britain after his Brexit Party went from nonexistent to first place on the island. Now Prime Minister Boris Johnson may usurp Farage’s title, as he flirts with bypassing, or ignoring, legislation to prevent a no-deal Brexit if it is forced through parliament by Remainers. Brits are leaving Brussels in the rearview, one way or another, singing “England for the English!” all the way home.

The point is that nationalism has gotten a bad rap from globalist perspectives, but the globalist aims are not working, and are in fact helping to destroy cultures and economies.

https://amgreatness.com/2019/09/28/41982struggle-for-the-world-anew/

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That’s very interesting.
Politics and big money = a sad state of affairs. What power do the citizens have?

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Thanks for that reminder!
I’ve been pondering the following for a couple of days and it has much truth in it. It is a call to back off that which does not warm the heart. Talk of this sort has cooled mine for too long. It is such a temptation.

CHAPTER TWENTY: The Inner Flame.
If anyone pours out water or dirt upon the light of a lamp, it goes out, and this also happens if they simply pour all of the oil out of it … in the same manner the gift of grace is extinguished. If you have filled your mind with earthly things, if you have given yourself up to the cares of daily business, you have already quenched the Spirit. The flame goes out when there is not enough oil, that is, when we do not show charity. The Spirit came to you by God’s mercy; and so if it does not find corresponding fruits of mercy in you, it will flee away from you. For the Spirit does not make its indwelling in the unmerciful soul. —St. John Chrysostom

Coniaris, Anthony M… Philokalia: The Bible of Orthodox Spirituality . Light & Life Publishing Company: www.light-n-life.com. Kindle Edition.

Agreed! Just look at Warren, Bernie,Harris & others. What is the difference between their policies and Communism, not very much!
More good news, NYC wants to fine people 250K for using the phrase “illegal alien” The New Thought Police are on the march!

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This should come as no surprise. But what do you think is the choice? Give up your culture, and welcome the world in indiscriminately?

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