Monday, June 27, 2016

BREXIT

The results are in. The Leaves have carried the day. The deal isn’t done, of course. A referendum in the United Kingdom is only advisory. Final action, if any, to extirpate their nation from the European Union will only come when Parliament has voted.

Still, a referendum in a nation like the UK with an ancient democratic tradition, means a lot.

How did it happen? For the United Kingdom to exit the European Union is about like Texas and California walking out of the United States. What made them do it?

Whatever the economic and political advantages enjoyed as a member of the European Union, there were a couple of disadvantages that weighed heavily on the British people. Bureaucracy and immigration. They didn’t like the multiplicity of regulations that were coming out of Brussels. And they really didn’t like the swelling mass of immigrants disembarking from every train that arrived through the Chunnel.

Those immigrants were almost exclusively Muslims. Whatever the humanitarian motivation for receiving and harboring homeless, rootless, needy human beings, the fact has been that the Muslim birth rate in England has out paced native reproduction by a ratio of more than five to one.

Adding offspring to the surge of Muslim immigrants, the followers of Islam now represent the second largest religious minority in the nation.

Not only is the ratio of Muslims growing exponentially, but their disposition to settle in racially hospitable neighborhoods, has begun to create the phenomenon known as “no go” communities, where Sharia law is observed and enforced, so common in France and other countries.

The proportion of Muslims to the general population in the UK is just five percent, but there are three towns in which their ratio exceeds 40% and two more where the ratio is more than 25%.

Whether retreat from the EU will extricate the Brits from the influx of Muslims only time will tell. But the fact is that a united and explicit public policy will be needed to stem the tide.
Donald Trump, of course, has jumped on the Brexit vote as evidence that his restrictive immigration policies resonate with the working class. No doubt they do. Still, the Muslim population in the United States is only one percent, just a fifth of Britain’s.

But the herd instinct of Muslims has generated some very identifiable communities in our country. Among the most widely known is Dearborn, a suburb of Detroit with a 40% Muslim population in a town of just less than 100,000.

Less noticed, but more dramatic, is the Detroit enclave of Hamtramck, a town of 22,000 with a Muslim majority, both in population and on the city council.

The two square mile residential community, once an almost exclusively Polish town, is now dominated by four Mosques whose bells call the faithful to prayers just before dawn, at midday, afternoon, sunset and nighttime.

I first noticed the Hamtramck metamorphous when I read that Hamtramck High School found it necessary to host an all-girl’s senior prom, in deference to the fact that Muslim girls are not permitted to dance with boys.

Whether the Muslim majority on the Hamtramck city council will be disposed to enact Sharia inspired regulations, only time will tell. I suspect that Hamtramck will not be a friendly place to open a gay bar, an abortion clinic or a liquor store.

What concerns me more is whether Hamtramck will become a hotbed of Jihadist recruiting. rivaling Minneapolis and Saint Paul as an American center of ISIS harvesting. 

I came to maturity campaigning in Detroit. I learned a few Polish phrases to endear myself to the voters in Saint Hedwig’s and Saint Cunagunda parishes. I showed them my Kelly green vest and told them that after voting for Judge Stanczyk they should vote for the Irishman, because we are Catholics, too.


I have no doubt that Muslims vote for Muslims. The important question is whether, being elected, they will put their duty to the Constitution of the United States ahead of the arcane mandates of the Quran.

5 comments:

  1. Counselor
    Muslims have one goal- to eradicate all non believers. We are being taken over. I'm the scheme of their history slow infiltration is good. They have time and motivation. Unless the principles of the Constitution are upheld and our laws govern the people, we shall crumble as has the middle east

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  2. Under God, Muslim (and Christian) Stereotypes, The Common Good.

    You said: "The important question is whether, being elected, (Muslims) will put their duty to the Constitution of the United States ahead of the arcane mandates of the Quran."

    President Eisenhower said the following upon signing the change legislation on Flag Day of 1954: "From this day forward, the millions of our school children will daily proclaim in every city and town, every village and rural school house, the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty.... In this way we are reaffirming the transcendence of religious faith in America's heritage and future; in this way we shall constantly strengthen those spiritual weapons which forever will be our country's most powerful resource, in peace or in war."

    In my opinion, and according to the values that wound up instilled in me as a result of my Roman Catholic upbringing, officeholders and responsible voting citizens should govern for the Common Good, more than for selfish ends.

    According to my understanding of the arguments put forth by the Brexit proponents and what I have heard from Leave voters in the media, narrow-minded selfishness, often characterized as nationalism, is trending in the UK, as it is elsewhere in Western Europe.

    I don't know if "The Common Good" is a value that is taught in any Muslim communities or not, but apparently it is not a factor in Hamtramck, as it is not much of a factor among many vocal Trump supporters, Tea Partiers, or Leave voters.

    I myself have always liked the way JFK handled the issue of religious partisanship vs. the Common Good, as a Roman Catholic seeking the presidency is a Protestant country. I liked his bold idealism when he said to a gathering of skeptical Protestant ministers:

    "Whatever issue may come before me as President--on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling or any other subject--I will make my decision in accordance with these views, in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressures or dictates. And no power or threat of punishment could cause me to decide otherwise."

    I like that JFK did not overtly buy into, "Under God," This would be a good time to revisit the wording of The Pledge."

    Catholics were being stereotyped as so universally beholden to Rome that there were calls for JFK to repudiate his religion in order to prove his trustworthiness as a possible president. Obviously, JFK and his family did not fit that stereotype.

    You are advancing an unnuanced, undifferentiated, broad-brush Muslim stereotype throughout this essay, and you are using it to promote fear of Muslims as a way of influencing elections. The Leave proponents and the Trump proponents are exploiting this stereotypes, and you appear to be doing your part as well.

    Not every nominal member of a Christian denomination necessarily buys into ever nominal belief or doctrine. Roman Catholic Americans who use birth control, live together before marriage, are understanding of gays who want to marry, who do not believe in a male-dominated household, etc., do not fit the old-fashioned RC stereotype. But there are parishes and communities and organizations and websites that do attract a certain type of conservative and devout Roman Catholic. They are Roman Catholic stereotypes that do not apply to many, likely most, self-identified Catholics.

    The people who are attracted to live in Hamtramck probably are not typical of Americans who self-identify as Muslim, but they easily can be portrayed and exploited as a scary Muslim nose under the tent.

    While it would be prudent to develop reliable intelligence sources in places like Hamtramck , it is scare-mongering to spread the stereotype in the way that you do here.

    Does your essay promote the the Common Good?

    http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/JFK-Speeches/Houston-TX_19600912-Houston-Ministerial-Association.aspx

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    Replies
    1. I am sure there are cafeteria Muslims, just as there are cafeteria Catholics. I don't argue against conservatives of any faith, only that they should not attempt to impose that belief system on the community at large.

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  3. Your last sentence is the absolute crux of the issue of Islam in America. Many Muslims, like Dr. Ibrahim who saved so many lives in Orlando, are clearly Americans first. But when a Muslim's loyalty is to Islamic law first and that law is not consistent with state and federal law, that person can NEVER be a functional citizen of the United States.
    C. Bassos

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