More symptoms of insanity on the American right

[fpb]

In yesterday's American Thinker, a man with the Italian name of Bonelli wrote the following, extremely offensive statement:

The United States is different from most other countries in many ways. One unique aspect of our country is that our elected officials, officers of the court, and the military, all pledge their allegiance to the Constitution and not to an office, individual or party. This assures continuity of the ideals set forth by the founders.

As an Italian citizen, I have personally sworn to defend the Constitution of my country when I served in the Italian army. The presumption involved in this ignorant display of insular arrogance is an insult to every constitutional government in the world.

Comments

[marielapin.livejournal.com]

Sir, I hope you know I have a great deal of respect for you, and that is the truth. My knowledge of Italian poltics is nil, apart from what you have written. I am not in the least bit arguing that I know anything of them, and I have read your posts on Italian politics with the utmost interest and trust. What I am trying to argue is that what you are saying of American politics is not hitting the target according to mine own experience in daily life in the conservative south.

I do not insist that if a Catholic practiced his faith he would have ten children. Please give me more credit than that. I am one and have only two children. I know, accept and try to live with the utmost of my being the teachings of the Church. I am discerning whether or not to become an NFP teacher and counselor. However what I am trying to argue is that faithful Catholics are bound to reject artificial birth control and are to be open to life, within their responsible means. Does a 1.3 birth rate reflect this if the majority of the country is Catholic?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

It does if the majority of the persons of child-bearing age do not feel able to marry and get a home. Successive economic crises, rigid career structures, and a slow labour market (in spite of everything that our Constitution can say about right to work) mean that three generations of young Italians have adopted a very defensive attitude. In this kind of situation, a strong family structure actually works against birth: young people who rely on the support of their families will not get married or pregnant against their will. Conversely, Britain, with the feeblest family structure in Europe, has the highest birth rate AND the highest abortion rate, including the highest teen pregnancy and teen abortion rates. British kids do not feel obliged to follow their elders' views; in fact, I know of families when they are more or less kicked out at sixteen.

[marielapin.livejournal.com]

I have read about how young Italians are foregoing or delaying marriage in order to live with their families. Would they be in abject poverty if they got married? Italy must now be a country full of very frustrated celibates.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

They would be, and yes it is. The problem of poorly employed, part-employed, or unemployed educated youth is a major one in the country - we call it "precarious labour". And if you ever are able to compare the two countries, you will find that Italy, unlike England, is not geared towards having a large population of floating singles. Rent laws, for instance, favour long-term occupancy, whereas in England they favour short-term contracts. There are not enough small flats for singles in Italian cities, and Italy does not have any unemployment benefit. What it does have is a system where people who had had a permanent job but were partially or totally laid off have their earnings integrated by government; a system that favours older workers and the heads of families.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Apples and oranges, much? The reason why people don't get work has nothing to do with the health service.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

The shortage of entry-level jobs in Italy has nothing to do with the state, let alone the national health service. If anything, young Italians have the advantage over young Americans in that prospective employers don't have to tax themselves to offer health plans. The Italian jobs market is tight for a number of reasons, but you have managed to home in on the one that has absolutely nothing to do with it.

[marielapin.livejournal.com]

From what you are saying, Italians may have free health care and security for older citizens, but its youth are tied and not free to marry and start their own families until it is almost too late to have a family at all. The culture is dying. If this is true, then can you not see that a lot of people in America have a fear that to give the state such control of our lives means we will actually lose control in other areas?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Third time - what is going on?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

My country also has one fifth of the population of the USA over one fiftieth of the territory. We cannot afford to treat land and real estate as though they were endless. We also have in trust a very large part of the artistic and historical inheritance of Western civilization, and we would be ashamed to behave like a certain country that allowed its building speculators to raze Indian mounds and destroy areas of natural beauty to make a buck. Our Constitution (see article 9, second sentence) makes this one of the fundamental tasks of the State. We take the stewardship of the Italian territory, on behalf of the whole world, quite seriously, and if that leads to some restriction in the ability to pour concrete where and how people please - TOUGH!! In fact, I do not think our laws are restrictive enough.

[marielapin.livejournal.com]

I'm going to try and not delete any more posts because this replying to old posts is frustrating me as well. So whatever idiotic thing I say is just going to stay for posterity.

So my question is this: is the safeguarding of land and buildings worth it to do so much harm to the family and to the demographic future of Italy?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Do you have the least idea what the Italian artistic heritage is? Let alone the natural beauty? Sixty million Italians are enough. We do not need demographic growth. We do need to preserve our literally unimaginable heritage. I tell you that at almost every street corner of every village in Italy there are wonders that would be enough to define the identity and form the national pride of any other nation. And these things are always under threat. They are fragile. Our duty is to preserve them, not for our own convenience (although it improves immeasurably the life of every Italian to live in constant touch with overwhelming beauty), but in the service of all mankind, past, present and future. End of story.

[mentalguy.livejournal.com]

At a fertility rate of 1.3something, demographic growth is hardly a danger. That's more in the range of demographic collapse.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

It would be, if we weren't in the path of the largest migratory wave in history. Italy faces Africa; makes your problems with Mexico look small and manageable by comparison. As it is, the country is overcrowded and population is rising. At any rate, I am convinced that the birth rate will rise. And none of that alters the fact that Italy is a small, densely crowded country with a quite extraordinary amount of areas of outstanding natural or historical beauty. To even conceive of damaging that heritage for the sake of extra dwelling units really would be to sell - not even our inheritance, but mankind's - for a mess of pottage.

[marielapin.livejournal.com]

I'm really not following you. I mean I understand how you want to preserve your heritage. I have no problem with that. But what about your culture? If your culture collapses and is replaced by that of the immigrant nations do you think they will have as much revere for the things you love as you do?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I am not concerned about "immigrant nations" other than the Muslim ones. Most Africans are Christian and Catholic, and will integrate. Even Hindus and Sikhs make good citizens, although their management of their own affairs is less than satisfactory from our point of view. And as for Muslim immigration, we shall deal with them.

[marielapin.livejournal.com]

How?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Jail, expulsion, and leaving those who live peacefully alone.

[marielapin.livejournal.com]

And what if those who live peacefully are able to reach such a number as to have a ruling hand in government?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

That is the be-afraid-be-very-afraid version of history. It's not going to happen, for a number of reasons, of which the most important is that the capacity of the system to resist is much larger than that of any minority to assault it. We have broken the back of Communism. Unreformed Islam is not going to be more dangerous.

[marielapin.livejournal.com]

I pray it is not.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

We have to avoid both excesses. You are not in danger of the one that underrates the enemy - that fails to realize its radical alienness to Christian civilization, or, for that matter, the centrality of Christianity to our civilization. On the other hand, we must not surrender to imaginings of doom. Remember, George Orwell concluded 1984 with the statement that the future was "a boot stomping on a human face - for ever". It was not. Orwell had a just appreciation of the evil of Communism, but not of its weakness, and for that reason, though he fought it, he could not imagine it going down. It did.

[marielapin.livejournal.com]

I guess I was editing my entries when you were posting. I have a bad habit of deleting the old ones.

And I'm not saying that universal health care is CAUSING these other problems. I'm saying that in America, people FEAR more direct control over individuals lives because of restricted freedom in other areas. Your country has restrictive rent laws, which cause folks to not be able to have their own homes at an early age. It may favor the established but does not help start new families.