Came across this gem by Mark Steyn on Friday.  It’s a good article.  From his last paragraph:

Recounting the Muslim march on France 1,300 years ago, Gibbon writes:

"The decline of the French monarchy invited the attack of these insatiate fanatics. The descendants of Clovis had lost the inheritance of his martial and ferocious spirit; and their misfortune or demerit has affixed the epithet of lazy to the last kings of the Merovingian race. They ascended the throne without power, and sunk into the grave without a name. . . . The vineyards of Gascony and the city of Bordeaux were possessed by the sovereign of Damascus and Samarcand; and the south of France, from the mouth of the Garonne to that of the Rhone, assumed the manners and religion of Arabia."  (Links added.)

Hmmm.  “Religion of Arabia.”  Wonder who Gibbon was writing about.

I’m in a playful mood, so let’s update Gibbon:

"The decline of the French monarchy and all subsequent republics has invited the attack of these insatiable Islamofascist fanatics. The descendants of the Franks long ago lost that original warrior spirit that once made them a world empire; and this has resulted in their being written off as weak, whimpy, whiny, and whipped—in short, wussies.  (What American, except for Liberals, doesn’t think of “French” as synonymous with “sissy”?)  Gutless wonders, they stand as they do because those whom they are tempted to disregard as barbarians have bailed them out of two world wars.  This, no doubt their last, Republic will end without even so much as a whimper when it is replaced by a new Sultanate.  Their youth will no doubt accept the rule and religion of Arabia as long as those rulers will promise not to allow their employers to fire them or extend the work week to longer than 30 hours." – Philologous Lector

(Now, pardon me while I rant a bit.)

Sadly, I doubt the French will see a Charles Martel rise to their defense.  But one good thing may come out the death of France.  There are those who will tell us that the goal of Muslim conquest is a phantasm.  As we watch France die, we’ll see whether or not this is true.  If the Republic of France is not replaced in a few decades by an Islamic Sultanate then we will know that it is true.  But if so?  On my view, for whatever it’s worth, France is already dead; the French just haven’t accepted it.  Yet.

And it’s sad because the solution to their dissolution is (pardon me for being graphic) right between their legs, literally and figuratively.  The French can regain much of what they have lost if they will do three things: (1) embrace the orthodox Christian faith of their forebears; (2) copulate like rabbits and raise families (as opposed to fornicating like porn stars and discarding the results); and (3) actually work hard for a living.

The second two are obvious enough I suppose, but why would I recommend the first?  Because Islam is a faith system and, for all that I oppose about it, it demands strength of will of its adherents.  What ails France right now is its secularism; and I mean secularism as a faith system, not in the simple sense of an approach to the relation of church and state.  What secularism promises is the only life one gets here and now.  It may sound like a whole lot, but it isn’t.  And those people than whom secularists think they are smarter see that secularism offers them nothing, even less than nothing, less than a handful of pebbles.  Enter post-modernism.

But assuming secularism makes a genuine offer, a commitment to all that you can have and be, here and now tends to make you a bit self-centered and very much inclined to make peace under whatever terms are offered you as long as your own personal peace and affluence are promised and protected.  The fewer children you have, the more for you.  And once child-raising is out of the picture there isn’t much reason to bother about marriage.  Loyalties shift, the primary loyalty being not to one’s nation but to one’s self.  A nation is in many respects an extended family whose members, by and large, bear allegiance to one another; when marriage and family decline, a nation degenerates into a collection of selves that begins to feed on itself, thus losing the ability to provide for its continued existence.  France’s continued existence depends upon reproduction.

This is why France will not continue as a Republic.  Presently, France must depend upon foreign nationals to populate her, because her own people have effectively achieved zero population growth.  Zero.  Null. No population growth means zero population life.   France is dead.  Those who are populating France, both by immigration and procreation, are, by virtue of being Muslims, a network of families with its own allegiances—a nation within a nation.  And that nation within a nation is a Muslim nation; and that nation’s allegiances, though in some respects similar, are not identical with the (secular) allegiances of the nation currently calling itself France.

Of course, what the French probably tell themselves is that all this is just proof of their tolerance and open-mindedness.  We have overcome the narrow allegiance to nation and state and have embraced all humanity, they might say.  To me, that sounds like what a cuckolded husband would say in response to his wife’s constant and repeated infidelities, instead of just confessing that he hasn’t got the stones to satisfy his wife—or to cut her loose if she won’t toe the fidelity line.

As any man knows: You’ve got to have—and know how to use— the right tool for the job.