The Coalition of the Swilling

(Not that any democracy seems to work for these a$$holes, but that's another post.) That was over 5 months ago and things are still fired up. Literally en fuego.

From a City Journal piece, this observation rings ever so true, along with some frightening thoughts for Britain.

Even if for no other reason, then (and there are in fact other reasons), young Muslim males have a strong motive for maintaining an identity apart. And since people rarely like to admit low motives for their behavior, such as the wish to maintain a self-gratifying dominance, these young Muslims need a more elevated justification for their conduct toward women. They find it, of course, in a residual Islam: not the Islam of onerous duties, rituals, and prohibitions, which interferes so insistently in day-to-day life, but in an Islam of residual feeling, which allows them a sense of moral superiority to everything around them, including women, without in any way cramping their style.

...Surveys suggest that between 6 and 13 percent of British Muslims—that is, between 98,000 and 208,000 people—are sympathetic toward Islamic terrorists and their efforts. Theoretical sympathy expressed in a survey is not the same thing as active support or a wish to emulate the “martyrs” in person, of course. But it is nevertheless a sufficient proportion and absolute number of sympathizers to make suspicion and hostility toward Muslims by the rest of society not entirely irrational, though such suspicion and hostility could easily increase support for extremism. This is the tightrope that the British state and population will now have to walk for the foreseeable future; and the sweet dream of universal cultural compatibility has been replaced, in a single day, by the nightmare of permanent conflict.

Paul Belien of the Brussels Journal noted that there are two reasons for the appeasement of politicians:

The first one is that the Muslim population in Western Europe has become so large that politicians fear what it might be capable of.

...while invoking that most French of disasters in the second...

A second reason why some politicians try to appease the Muslims is that these are now a substantial segment of the voting population. Demographics are deciding the fate of Europe’s democracy. Time is running out. If Sarkozy cannot win the battle today, it is unlikely that he or anyone else will be able to do so tomorrow. If Clichy turns out to be Sarkozy’s Waterloo, it will be a catastrophe not just for France.

I wish I could say my money was on the French...or the Dutch...Danish*...or anyone on the Continent. And I'm so worried for the Brits. As Piglet goes, so goes Picadilly? Or Poughkeepsie.

Perish the thought.