THE West is suddenly suffused with self-doubt.



Centuries of superiority and global influence appeared to reach a new summit with the collapse of the Soviet Union, as the countries, values and civilization of the West appeared to have won the dark, difficult battle with Communism.



That victory seemed especially sweet after the turn of China toward capitalism, which many thought presaged a slow evolution to middle-class demands for individual rights and transparent justice — toward a form of democracy. But is the embrace of Western values inevitable? Are Western values, essentially Judeo-Christian ones, truly universal?



The history of the last decade is a bracing antidote to such easy thinking. The rise of authoritarian capitalism has been a blow to assumptions, made popular by Francis Fukuyama, that liberal democracy has proved to be the most reliable and lasting political system.



With the collapse of Communism, “what we may be witnessing,” Mr. Fukuyama wrote hopefully in 1989, “is the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.”

But couple the tightening of Chinese authoritarianism with Russia ’s turn toward revanchism and dictatorship, and then add the rise of radical Islam, and the grand victory of Western liberalism can seem hollow, its values under threat even within its own societies.

The recent flood of migrants and Syrian asylum seekers were welcomed in much of Europe, especially Germany and Austria. But it also prompted criticism from a number of less prosperous European countries, a backlash from the far right and new anxieties about the growing influence of Islam, and radical Islamists, in Europe.

Restore Christianity to its foremost position in Christendom.

Drive back the Turk.

Replace representative democracy with direct democracy unhampered by judicial-branch vetoes.

Hard money.

End free trade.

Punish corporations that break the law with jail. "Jail" them by pulling their business license for the period of their sentences. A criminal natural person cannot work, so why is a criminal juridical person permitted to do so?

A few brave left-wing minds are looking around the wreckage of the West and wondering why it doesn't look like the shiny sexy secular utopia of It's a Small World they were promised:Western values only exist for Westerners. They are not universal and merely claiming them to be does not make them so. Physical relocation to the land of magic dirt doesn't convert non-Westerners into Westerners just as moving to the New World didn't transform the Puritans into Indians. It's a simple and straightforward numbers game. It should not be a surprise, either, as ever since the Baby Boom was born, an increasing number of parents have been failing to raise their children as members of the civilized West.The current invaders aren't coming to America and Western Europe for freedom, democracy, or whatever other fiction the media is attempting to spin, they are coming to grab a share of the societal wealth that has been built up over the centuries. And by permitting them entry, the golden goose of the West is being gradually strangled.To begin restoring the West, straightforward steps are needed:

Labels: decline and fall