It's the assimilation, stupid!

Of all places, the New York Times has a sensible essay on the failures of multiculturism in Europe, and especially in Britain, though the same issues apply to the United States today. The op-ed is entitled "Assimilation's Failure," but of course the problem is quite the opposite: not assimilation's failure but the failure to assimilate.

Britain never tried to assimilate its minorities, nor did France or Germany or any other European country that I know of. Even a tourist in London can click off the ethnic/religious/racial/national groups as he goes down the street: there a Sikih, there a Muslim, there a Nigerian.... Who's the true minority in London now? Why, it's the Englishman!

A Polish friend tells the story of riding in a London taxi which came to a screeching halt to avoid hitting a brown-skinned man in a turban. "Bloody British passport!" cried the driver, a reference to the policy that allowed any resident of the British Empire to claim the highly valued, dark blue hardcover book that was then the UK passport.

"I'm a British passport too," Basia chided him.

"Yes, love," he answered, "but you're different." Right: different because she was white, she was pretty, she was conventionally dressed, and she spoke English without a notable accent. In other words, she had assimilated.

In multiculturalism lies the destruction of cultures. European countries are now paying the price of that mistake, and the United States seems ready to follow them. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

Mr. Obama's coal-burner

It was a tight squeeze, but the president got his photo op the other day, sitting at the wheel of a Chevy Volt to boost his administration's plan to oblige automakers to average 56 miles a gallon across their fleets of cars and trucks. Huh. What do you suppose the chances are that Mr. Obama will every actually drive a 56 mpg automobile, as opposed to the black SUVs with hidden machine guns that convoy him around every day?

The solution would be a Volt, I suppose, assuming it could be modified to a comfortable fit. If he returns to Chicago after his presidential tour is over, the $41,000 automobile would be powered in reality by electricity generated in--yes!--a coal-fired plant. That would seem to conflict with another of his pie-in-the-sky goals, that of a pollution-free environment. "If ever a president seems to have learned nothing from the times he's living in," writes Holman Jenkins of the Wall Street Journal, "Barack Obama is it. Economies around the world are foundering from an accumulation of policy excesses produced by the sort of straight-line, robotic thinking he's applying to so-called corporate average fuel economy rules." Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

Assassination as statecraft

I've long been uncomfortable with the notion of sending in commandos with the mission of killing someone the current administration doesn't like. Why this should be so, I'm not entirely sure: I don't have the same queasiness when it comes to troops invading another country, or even of sending a Predator drone to blow the same evil-doer into oblivion. Now here come two British academics who ponder the larger question of Targeted Killings. Among their points:

The United States is intensifying its targeted strikes in Afghanistan and Pakistan to a level causing astonishment even among Israeli security specialists. American forces now carry out more targeted killings than any state in the world.

The writers object to the use of the word "assassination," since it's a moral judgment. They go further, to argue that international law explicitly condones such killings:

Article 51 of the UN Charter permits states to defend themselves against actions attributable to other states, but also to sub-state and nonstate entities threatening their national security. That is, targeted killings undertaken in self-defense—to include preemptive attacks—do not breach international law.

It goes on. None of this may interest those who argue, simply, "whatever it takes!" But it does interest me. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

Bronze Rons, all over the place

Here's Ronald Reagan newly burnished in Budapest. A British version--twelve feet tall!--will be unveiled in Grosvenor Square later this morning. As is appropriate for an homage the Great Conservative, the two thousand guests will have paid for their tickets! That tidbit comes from the BBC story, which is hilariously sour. The Daily Mail is more generous. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

The Deluge

What better way to absorb history than sitting back and watching a handsome rascal and a pretty maiden brighten dreary events? In the case, the event is the Swedish invasion of Poland in the 17th century--what Poles call "Potop" or The Deluge. One quarter of the population died. (Yes, the Swedes were once the bloodiest interlopers in Europe. Perhaps it was their brush with the Poles that reformed them?) No matter: it's a splendid film, sprawling across two disks and more than five hours. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

Oops, sigh, sorry!

 

The unlovable groper, M. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, has been released from his luxurious house arrest in Manhattan, though prosecutors are holding his passport for the time being. Seems that his accuser has been lying about some things, which leads to the perhaps unfair assumption that she has been lying about everything. Sigh. I suppose I owe him an apology for the mockery that I among others heaped upon his noble head this spring. But there's a bright side! It may be some little time before the next overpaid international technocrat makes a grab for the maid in a $3500-a-night Manhattan hotel suite. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

Memo to the debt-limit negotiators

Townhall.com is a right-wing magazine, and Victor Davis Hansen is an eminent and conservative historian. All the more notable then is Mr. Hansen's column of June 23,  in which he takes on the U.S. Department of Agriculture:

"The Department of Agriculture no longer serves as a lifeline to millions of struggling homestead farmers. Instead, it is a vast, self-perpetuating postmodern bureaucracy with an amorphous budget of some $130 billion -- a sum far greater than the nation's net farm income this year. In fact, the more the Agriculture Department has pontificated about family farmers, the more they have vanished -- comprising now only about 1 percent of the American population."

Can that really be true? The USDA spends more money in a year than American farmers earn? It's unbelievable ... almost!

So here's a challenge for farm-state Republicans who want budget cuts in return for raising the debt ceiling: what if we abolished the USDA? For its last act, let it identify each American farmer by name and address, and mail him a pro-rata share of $130 billion along with a farewell note of thanks. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford