Across Europe, Worries on Islam Spread to Center - New York Times

The article linked below is well worth reading. The Europeans have begun to realize, almost across the board, that it will soon be too late for their societies unless they can figure out a way to assimilate Muslim transplants into their culture, or otherwise deal with the often violent tendencies of Muslim culture when confronted with "sacreligious" criticism (basically, any criticism of their religion or its values). While some moderate Muslims have called for non-violent protest and social discourse (i.e., Western values) and a halt to Muslim violence that seems to come out of every Western cartoon or other negative pronouncement about Islam, it is clear that their is a strong tolerance of such violence in Muslim culture and leadership in the West that either has to change or be eradicated from our midst. Europe does not have the US "melting pot" experience of digesting immigrants into our general value system (though, to be fair, we may now be choking on too many immigrants from Latin American countries, and are not as successful into turning them into Americans who become part of our culture). In the US, the "American Dream" has allowed this country to digest "even" Muslims from Arab countries, though ethnic separatism, "tolerance", inferior "values" education and perhaps, a failing of our certainty in the superiority of our culture (at least within our own shores) have started to fray the threads of this integrating capability that has been successful for hundreds of years here.

When the Pope made his carefully calculated remarks "quoting" a medieval observation regarding the violence of Islam through the ages, he was kicking off his campaign to save European civilization from meekly melting away under the population wave and negative forces of the Islamic invasion of Europe. He is in the midst of urging Europe to turn away from secularization and moral relativism and to return to its Christian roots, and reasserting certainty and confidence in its values.

The handwringing Liberals of all stripes will be very concerned that this trend will just exascerbate the dangers of repression of other views in the US and Europe and the beginning of a great Crusade to force our views on other societies (as they whine today about the threat that the "Christian Right" poses to the American Way). However, isn't it enough to simply want to maintain the value systems that have made American and European culture generally successful and flourishing (subject to several horribly violent spasms) for the past 200 or so years? What is the alternative, head dresses for all our women?

Across Europe, Worries on Islam Spread to Center - New York Times