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VFR on Mark Steyn: a collection
Below is a collection of VFR’s articles on Mark Steyn, which has been continually added to since the entry was created in January 2006. The articles are arranged in four categories: Steyn on the Islam threat, the EU, and immigration (though he never once talked about immigration until June 2009); Steyn and the Bush doctrine; Steyn general; and the Canadian Human Rights Commission charges against Steyn and MacLean’s magazine, with the entries in each category listed chronologically. Steyn on the Islam threat and the EU Steyn sees fatal threat of Moslem immigration, but … [A 2003 e-mail to Steyn about his sayiing we should “cherish the absurdities” as we allow ourselves to be taken over by Islam.] Steyn articulates global neocon nightmare [Steyn says the West is becoming Muslim, therefore all we can do is try to pacify them, and we must do that by spreading democracy in their native lands even as we continue letting them take over the West.] Steyn turns from political and military triumphalism to cultural despair Steyn and the neocons—going where no man has gone before [Steyn speaks of a future Islamized Europe as a good thing for the United States, though he worries that the path to this desirable goal will be “messy and violent.”] Steyn’s inadequate response to Islam, part XIV Spoonfeeding liberals the truth U.S. pushed incoherent, sharia-based constitution on Iraq Earth to Mark Steyn: Therefore, what? Steyn inching toward the truth about Islam Is Steyn calling for ethnic war against Muslims in Europe? Steyn calls for the destruction of Europe Readers’ comments on Steyn and Islam [Dec. 2005. Contains very tough comments about Steyn from a variety of readers.] Mark Steyn’s dishonest article on the European crisis [My first and main article critiquing his “It’s the demography, stupid” article.] Explaining my criticism of Steyn [An e-mail to a defender of Steyn’s January 2006 New Criterion article, “It’s the demography, stupid,” in which I explain how Steyn’s argument, which my correspondent called “brilliant,” comes to nothing. If we did everything Steyn says we should do: have more children, stop believing in PC, start believing in ourselves again, that would still leave completely unaddressed and unanswered the question: what do we do about Islam? The whole problem is that STeyn gives readers the illusion that he’s addressing a problem, when he’s only putting them to sleep.] A VFR reader shrewdly sums up Steyn Churchill to receive Mark Steyn award Death of Britain watch (but I also believe in rebirth) Goldfinger, Steyn, and Europe: an unserious but serious exchange Pope’s refutation of the moderate-Islam fantasy hits the mainstream Pope refutes idea of moderate Islam The Mark Steyn phenomenon continues [October 17, 2006. Summary of Steyn’s position on what to do about Islam: “Imagine an American people that took Steyn’s prescriptions seriously. Such a people would do precisely nothing to defend themselves from Islam. They would not change their immigration laws, they would not deport jihad and sharia supporters, they would not shut down extremist Mosques, they would not create a more unfriendly environment for Muslims that would encourage Muslims to leave. What would such an American people do? They would start manically pumping away trying to create as many babies as possible, in the faith that the sheer number of babies would somehow, magically make the Islam problem go away by itself (just as the neocons including Steyn believed that holding an election in Iraq would somehow, magically, make the terror insurgency go away by itself).”] The worst of Steyn, redux [January 2007. Defending my position on Steyn as a traitor to the West, by quoting earlier entry, Steyn calls for the destruction of Europe. Also quoting Spencer’s demented attacks on me.] Steyn’s nightmare agenda endorsed by Pipes Steyn, in 180 degree switch (which he does not admit to), now says that Islamic reform and assimilation are impossible [Alex K. points out that in new introduction to his book, Steyn dismisses people who pin their hopes on Islamic reform, while not admitting that in that very book, Steyn himself is pinning his hopes on Islamic reform. I conclude that since Steyn has given up on reform, and will not endorse any other measures, such as immigration changes, he will now return to his earlier mode of post-modern irony about the death of the West.] The establishment conservatives’ indifference to the looming EU superstate [Brilliant analysis by Alex K. on why the neocons brainlessly follow Steyn’s evasive pronouncements on the EU.] Chavez indicts Republicans because Hispanics are hostile to them [“(Linda) Chavez’s proposal—we should surrender to the aliens, then assimilate them—is virtually identical to an idea floated by Mark Steyn a couple of years ago. He said that as Westerners give way to Muslims, we must make friends with them and try to win them to Western ways so that they will be nice to us after they’ve taken over. It’s the type of absurdity that only a neocon could conceive. How can people who are in the midst of transferring control of their society to their adversaries assimilate their adversaries to that society? The assimilation process would seem to be going in the opposite direction, wouldn’t it?”] Have I lied about Steyn? [Responding to the charge by quoting Steyn passages discussed in other articles in this collection.] Why Steyn is a traitor to the West and makes his “conservative” readers traitors to the West, cont. Steyn is shocked, shocked, that mass non-Western immigration has been going on in this establishment [June 2009. After remaining totally silent about immigration for his entire writing career, even while writing innumerable columns and a book on the looming Islam threat in Europe (any reader of Steyn would get the impression that all those millions of Muslims in Europe had gotten there by popping out of the ground rather than by immigration), Steyn suddenly discovers a Tamil population in Canada and wonders how they got there, then he complains that the word immigration is all but verboten in polite society.] STEYN SPEAKS! … ABOUT MUSLIM IMMIGRATION [August 2009. In response to Christopher Caldwell’s book on Muslim immigration in Europe, Steyn, writing in Maclean’s finally breaks his silence on the issue, and admits many things he’s never said before. But in the end he returns to his defeatism.] Derbyshire and Steyn pretend to talk about Muslim immigration [December 2009. Four months after his Maclean’s article in which he finally broke his silence about Muslim immigration, Steyn has an article purportedly about Muslim immigration in which, returning to his pre-Maclean’s pattern, he does not once use the word immigration and does not propose doing anything about Muslim immigration, but talks around the subject. I write: “Steyn has been writing about the Islamization of Europe for how many years, and, as he here admits, he has no idea why the Europeans allowed this to happen or failed to stop it. Ironically, however, Steyn himself supplies the answer to that question, by his own evasive and politically correct handling of the Muslim issue. Through all those columns and his book about Islamization, he has never once mentioned the thing that allowed it to happen, Muslim immigration. The issue didn’t exist for him. The word never appeared in his writings, just as it does not appear in his present article (except for his quotation of Derbyshire). Steyn is like someone who has written dozens of articles and a best selling book about the problem of out-of-wedlock pregnancy, without once mentioning out-of-wedlock sex. “Thus Steyn through his own miserable example has answered his question: why would societies allow themselves to become semi-Muslim? If he, whom legions of brain dead conservatives regard as the top authority on the Islamization of Europe and indeed as a hero of the anti-Islamization cause, absolutely refused all these years even to refer to the fact that the Islamization of Europe had been and was still being brought about by Muslim immigration, let alone to say that therefore such immigration should be reduced or stopped, why should European leftists have done what the great conservative himself resolutely declined do so? Steyn, and the Europeans he looks askance at, all support or refuse to oppose Islamic immigration, because the ruling principle of both liberals and “conservatives” is that it’s wrong to discriminate against or exclude a non-Western or nonwhite group. If Steyn wants to understand the mental processes that allowed the disastrous growth of Islam in Europe, he only has to look at himself.”] . Am I being too mean to Steyn? [For the nth time, a reader complains that I’m being too tough on Mark Steyn, and asks why I don’t try to be friends with him instead.]
Are neoconservatives “Trotskyites”? Further thoughts on the evolution of neoconservatives into revolutionaries. Glasnost, Steyn-style [March ‘06: Steyn pretends he has always been a critic of Bush’s democratization policy.] Steyn recants his recantation of the Bush doctrine—in the same article The Hyper-Bushians [Steyn fully endorsed Bush’s insane 2005 inaugural address. Hyper-Bushianism means, pedal to the metal on forcing democracy on others. But as I point out, in the absence of Separationism as an option, if one doesn’t want to surrender to Islam, Hyper-Bushianism becomes the only logical option.]
Steyn opposes marriage amendment Steyn’s indeterminate self. [Summing up all his ambiguous identities] More on Steyn’s weird role-playing The things Mark Steyn finds really interesting People still can’t figure out where Mark Steyn is from Steyn: The (Multinational) Shadow Google results for VFR pages calling Steyn a trickster The conservative without a country Steyn in Vancouver [He gives a speech; a recapitulation of many Steyn themes.] The joking defeatist [Jan 2008: Steyn unhappy with McCain, but doesn’t even mention possibility of supporting Romney] Who is Barack Obama? [Obama as trickster and con artist—and comparing him to Steyn.] The latest Steyn article that has the entire conservative world swooning [January 2011. A discussion on the causes of Steyn’s incredible popularity among mainstream conservatives.]
How neocons learn about reality [One of the few times when everything Steyn said was laudable.] What the attempt to banish “Islamophobia” really means
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