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]

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 believe in being vigilant, not in scaremongering. I do however believe the best way to preserve our culture and faith is by having children (and not ten per woman :P - only the most able bodied can handle that). Raising them well is also vitally important.

I do however think Huxley is getting pretty close in some of his predictions in "Brave New World". Luckily, Ford is out of the picture. Sanger has stepped up now to replace him.

[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.