[Don Jones]

All politicians draw advantages from circumstances, Bill. That's the nature of politics. Woe to the politician who doesn't. For example, Lincoln had to suspend habeas corpus in Maryland during our civil war. An ugly but necessary move as the nation's capital could not fall to the Confederates. Your arch-enemy FDR used WWII for his own purposes.

[Bill Carpenter]

Thanks for your reply, Janice. Yes, Daniel Pipes is a long-time pundit on Western-Mid-Eastern relations. Self-repetition is an occupational hazard. However, early responses to the attacks have borne out his prediction. Still, I think my prediction that takes into account the threat posed to the UMPS by the FN is more accurate. There will be apparent change as the anti-nationalist establishment attempts to capitalize on nationalist feeling to fend off the FN.

Thanks for putting the interrelationships between finance and self-determination front and center. I doubt if Hungary's loan agreements with the IMF specified that accepting cash implied surrender of control over Hungary's borders and demographic and cultural self-determination, but the Hungarians were naive not to understand that was implied, as the other eastern EU countries were naive not to anticipate the scope of outside power they were accepting.

You seem to be advocating rule by benevolent elites as the only alternative to tribal slaughter, until such time as the people are sufficiently informed to rule through democratic institutions. That only works as long as the benevolent elites are actually delivering enough of what the people want to be satisfied with the arrangement. It is still working in the Far East, but it is starting to fray in the West. Prolonging economic growth by demographic engineering is not what the Western peoples want, though the elites might reasonably ask, OK, what's YOUR strategy for prolonging economic growth?

Old left and old right mythologies crumble as events show their irrelevance. Vive la polyèdre! Bill

[John Whitworth]

The root cause is Islam, not this kind of Islam or that kind of Islam, but Islam.

Do you believe in freedom of speech?
Do you believe no man has the right to strike his wife?
Do you believe apostasy from the religion you were born into is permissable?
Do you believe a woman can marry the man she chooses?
Do you believe adulterous women should not be stoned to death?

If you believe these things you are not a follower of Islam.

[Roger Slater]

So what should we call you now, John? As an expert in Islamic beliefs, are you an Imam or a Sheikh?

That's pretty much as ridiculous as my saying that if you are a woman who has used birth control, you are not Catholic. Let's leave aside the fact that 98% of Catholic women have used it.

And that part about stoning for adultery is also in the Old Testament, along with lots of other ridiculous commandments that hardly any Christian or Jew subscribes to today.

[John Whitworth]

Let us not quarrel, Roger. What you and I think is of no account. I gave my opinion. What Catholics believe or do not believe is quite irrelevant.

Islam is a very simple religion. It is what believers say it is. And they cannot pick and choose as we Westerners can.

[R. Nemo Hill]

The simpleton has spoken.

Nemo

[Ed Shacklee]

Originally Posted by John Whitworth

Islam is a very simple religion. It is what believers say it is. And they cannot pick and choose as we Westerners can.

Sunnis and Shiites, to name two prominent factions, have been fighting over that 'simple religion' for centuries, John: there's a lot of "we" in how "they" go about things, it seems. IS has maybe 30,000 soldiers -- many times that number of Iraqi civilians were killed during the U.S. led invasion of their country, which was not even involved in 9/11. There are probably a billion or so Muslims who are saddened by what happened in Paris.

Best,

Ed

[Roger Slater]

John, you are entitled to your opinion but you are not entitled to have it go unchallenged when you reject your own logic as applied to religions other than Islam. If you can't be a Muslim without believing that adulterers should be stoned, then by the exact same token you can't be a Jew or a Christian without that same belief. Why don't you just stop for a moment and try to honor your own logic by either taking back what you said or affirming it is true for Christians and Jews as well?

[Don Jones]

To Bill's point, Hollande is asking for more powers in appealing to articles 16 and 36 of the Constitution.

This is to be expected. Even welcomed if with some trepidation. A weak state cannot wage war. It is a trade-off.

[Janice D. Soderling]

You seem to be advocating rule by benevolent elites as the only alternative to tribal slaughter, until such time as the people are sufficiently informed to rule through democratic institutions.

I don't know what makes you extract those thoughts from my head, friend Bill. Was it perhaps this in my first post?

Furthermore democracy cannot be imposed top down onto a population long subjected to an authoritarian government and with no or weak structures for self-rule.

That is not an original thought hatched by me. It was said better by Francis Fukuyama in his "Political Order and Political Decay".

Sequencing therefore matters enormously. Those countries in which democracy preceded modern state building have had much greater problems achieving high-quality governance than those that inherited modern states from absolutists' time. State building after the advent of democracy is possible, but it often requires mobilization of new social actors and strong political leadership to bring about.

Further, Fukuyama makes the point that political development rests on a balance of three categories of institution: the state, rule of law (not to be confused with rule by law), and the mechanisms of accountability. The alternative is a failed state.

Yes, I do believe that the nation-state has passed its heyday. The current global response to the Paris attack seems to confirm that. Breaking down larger states into smaller ones based on religion or ethnicity with no overarching political deterrents (i.e. the EU) will make the individual state more vulnerable to warring neighbors. As we saw in the Yugoslav Wars, as we now see in the Ukraine.

Why should one be willing to regard the United States of America as a viable entity, or the former USSR, but not a future United States of Europe? Both of the former encompass a diversity of cultures and ethnicities. The USA has the advantage of a common language but certainly people in Texas or the Appalachians or New York City represent different cultures. Most European countries teach English as a second language because it is the lingua franca of politics, science and transcultural social communication. Add to that the globalization of culture via the Internet, television and smart phones. In Sweden children start learning English from the first grade. Two year olds (and not only here) used mobile media devices. The political atmosphere of the next generation will be nothing like the present one.

The reason that particular section of Paris was attacked is because it is known as a multi-culti center. ISIS cannot accept gray zones. They want us to be black or white, like their flag. It will get worse before it gets better, but we got through the Spanish Inquisition and we will get through this too. We must not succumb to hate.

I would caution Norman that your link to the Russian news source is that of a well-known propaganda site set up explicitly to influence. No intellectual in Europe would cite it as a trustworthy source. It is the Russian equivalent of Fox News. Designed to brainwash, changeable in content, now you see it, now you don't.

Roger has anticipated me in his reply to John. Thanks for saving me the trouble of quoting chapter and verse.