Swedish Story

Once upon a time there was a quaint, civilized northern kingdom, a culture of people living comfortably and gently. People were industrious and frugal, and enjoyed adding color in their homes and clothing, to the white that covered the land through much of the year, echoing the northern lights in the long night sky.

photo from here

Despite the cold and other natural challenges, the people remained gentle and constant for a good long time.

And then something began to change. The people experimented in centralized ownership. Taxes became extremely high, but the people tolerated this in exchange for long vacations and guarantees of food, housing, health care, and other things they thought they ought to have but were tired of struggling for.

They decided to be the example of society working together for the good of all. Things that had been tried in nearby countries, to massive failure. But that was with the wrong kind of people These gentle people would be the ones to make it work.

For a while the world looked on in wonder: “See, it can be done. We want to do it like them.”

But after a time, they faced some challenges. Motivation to excel may have been one of them. Without the necessity of hard work to guarantee a family’s survival and thriving, less innovation took place. Less work got done. Even working together, and sharing alike and evenly, the standard of living wasn’t as high as many had foreseen and wanted.

Another thing that happened was a weakening of family strength. If the collective was going to take care of offspring, that meant a mother and father were relieved of the necessity of overexerting themselves to provide for offspring. It even meant mother and father might not stay together. Or they might not get married in the first place. The negative consequences of living without marriage, whether or not children came, were mitigated by the collective.

In time, a higher portion of children were born outside of marriage. And a smaller portion of adults had children, or fewer children. The next generation lacked the inculcation of culture that used to be a hallmark of this peaceful people. The next generation was taught more about relaxing and avoiding stress (not a bad thing in its place and in moderation)—but with greater burden per person to provide the collective needs.

The wealth and the culture of past generations was being depleted. Something had to be done. The logical solution seemed to be to invite foreigners to move in, to contribute to the collective work.

What they did not foresee was that inviting almost unlimited foreigners was a risk to the culture. The new workers did not want to settle in and become like the northern society; they wanted a new place to work and live, and they wanted their share of the guaranteed food, housing, health care, and the rest, if they were the ones adding to the workforce. But they wanted to bring their own culture with them. They wanted to be who they had always been—even thought that included being a people who had not made their former countries thrive.

It was too late when the northern gentle people realized the danger to their way of being. They tried making laws that would limit the invasion of a foreign culture. They tried altering laws to lessen the power of the collective. But without the power of family—which brings with it financial stability and continuity of culture—there was no vitality to stand up against the threat. It would not be long before the northern culture succumbed to the influx of an entirely different people. The centuries-old culture would disappear. Without war. Because of their own mistakes.

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I haven’t really exaggerated. This is Sweden. The northern centuries-old culture is one I love; it is my heritage. My dad was the first generation born American instead of Swedish. We keep a few of the traditions during the Christmas holidays.

But I’m concerned that it’s disappearing. Socialism hasn’t worked. And lately the country seems to be realizing that, and making adjustments toward free enterprise. (Read here and watch here.) That’s a good thing. But it might not be enough.

The refugee/immigration problem reached crisis limits during 2015. According to a story earlier this week at PJ Media:

When the small, crumpled body of 3-year-old Alan Kurdi washed up on the Aegean coast Sept. 2, Europe’s humanitarian superpower sprang into action. Sweden’s prime minister headlined gala fundraisers, Swedish celebrities starred in telethons, and a country that prides itself on doing the right thing seemed to rally as one to embrace refugees fleeing for their lives.

But after taking in more asylum seekers per capita than any other nation in Europe, Sweden’s welcome mat now lies in tatters. Overwhelmed by the human tide of 2015, the center-left government is deploying extraordinary new border controls and slashing benefits in an unmistakable signal to refugees contemplating the long trek to Sweden in the new year: Stay out.

When the people you invite into your homeland turn you into the rape capital of the world and threaten you with suicide bombers, it’s time to pull up the welcome mat and bar the door.

Sweden welcomes Syrian refugees
Associated Press photo found here

An American Thinker piece from late December said this:

Despite their embrace of political correctness, the Swedes are at heart very decent, humane people, their main faults being a desire to please others in their community (which leads to silencing dissent and conformity) and self-righteous hypocrisy.  But these are minor blemishes considering the personal decency most people center their lives on.

Taking advantage of Sweden’s generosity, Muslim immigrants have been arriving in large numbers and, in recent months, catastrophically overwhelming the country’s budget and facilities to house and feed them.

That piece recommends watching this Pat Condell video from 2010 called “Goodbye Sweden,” showing the problem isn’t new; it’s just lately intensifying.

When I watched that video, YouTube next recommended a Pat Condell video from 2014, adding more evidence that the country is dying a sort of suicide by political correctness, called “Sweden Goes Insane.”

We should have seen this coming.

I’ve quoted British psychological researcher Daniel J. Unwin before. In the 1920s he did an exhaustive study of every civilization around the world through world history for which he could gather data. His purpose going in was to prove that marriage didn’t matter; that was his personal belief. But that was not his conclusion:

The evidence was such as to demand a complete revision of my personal philosophy; for the relationship between the factors seemed to be so close, that, if we know what sexual regulations a society has adopted, we can prophesy accurately the pattern of its cultural behavior….

Now it is an extraordinary fact that in the past sexual opportunity has only been reduced to a minimum by the fortuitous adoption of an institution I call absolute monogamy. This type of marriage has been adopted by different societies, in different places, and at different times. Thousands of years and thousands of miles separate the events; and there is no apparent connection between them. In human records, there is no case of an absolutely monogamous society failing to display great [cultural] energy. I do not know of a case on which great energy has been displayed by a society that has not been absolutely monogamous….

If, during or just after a period of [cultural] expansion, a society modifies its sexual regulations, and a new generation is born into a less rigorous [less monogamous] tradition, its energy decreases…. If it comes into contact with a more vigorous society, it is deprived of its sovereignty, and possibly conquered in its turn.

It seems to follow that we can make a society behave in any manner we like if we are permitted to give it such sexual regulations as will produce the behavior we desire. The results should begin to emerge in the third generation.[i]

It has been a decade since investigative journalist Stanley Kurtz wrote about “The End of Marriage in Scandinavia.” He referred to British demographer Kathleen Kiernan, who places Sweden in phase 4 of a 4-phase movement away from marriage, from which no culture has ever recovered.

There are some who would claim all of this concern is just homophobia, xenophobia, and/or Islamophobia. They shut down the discussion by saying so, and that is harming Sweden and its dying culture. It would be like shutting down discussion of cancer by calling a cancer patient cancerphobic.

A better solution would be to identify the problem with exact truth, and then do everything necessary to get rid of the problem(s) and recover. A dying patient who fears public opinion might call them “not nice” (as though that could ever stick with the people of the traditional Swedish culture) is not going to survive.

It’s likely that the language and culture of France will be gone within another generation as well. And quite likely the same is true of Germany.

But my main concern is my home—the United States. Just in the past decade we’ve been pushed from phase 2 toward phase 3 on Kiernan’s loss of marriage scale. I don’t know exactly how to fit Unwin’s prediction with Kiernan’s. I would guess that the US started to lose family strength with the implementation of no-fault divorce, court-legalized abortion, and the normalization of sex outside of marriage by media—at least by 1970. That puts us possibly 45 years into a 75-100-year death.

If there is a chance of recovery, we must take the healing actions right away. These are the simple, but not easy, principles that lead to civilization.

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[i] Joseph Daniel Unwin, Ph.D., “Sexual Regulations and Cultural Behavior,” address given to the Medical Section of the British Psychological Society. (Library of Congress No., HQ12.U52)

America--Worth Seeing, Worth Saving

Read the book, watch the movie.

This past weekend we finally got to see Dinesh D’Souza’s movie America—Imagine a World without Her. For someone who loves America, it was beautiful. For someone who hates America, they probably didn’t go, but they need to.

It’s always been puzzling to me that people hate America and list all these evils we’ve done, some of which I have personal memory to disregard, but some are supposedly the history that was glossed over in my education.

The first two thirds of the movie specifically deal with these accusations, or indictments, against America. I don’t know how D’Souza accomplished it, but he spends a lot of time with spokespeople for the various indictments, to give them latitude to express their point of view, without comment or debate, just building their case. It’s kind of painful, because, sitting there, you get the urge to defend. Only knowing who did the movie gives you the patience to sit through this painful part.

Visually, with each of the indictments, he takes a symbol of America and dissolves it—literally uses CGI to turn the symbol into tiny particles that fall to smithereens. He does this with Mount Rushmore, the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, the Statue of Liberty. I’m probably missing some.

Then he takes the indictments, point by point, and gives a different side. He doesn’t erase the accusations, but he does give perspective that changes the sense of anger and shame to something much closer to “way to go, America!”

It was dark in the theater, so I couldn’t take notes. I had bought the book the day before (at Sam’s Club, as a statement against Costco, which had temporarily taken the books off their shelves for obviously political reasons, until the backlash shamed them into reordering the books—but in fairness, I have a Sam’s membership because it is nearby, and don’t have a Costco membership, because it’s a half hour drive). I had hoped, for the sake of this post, that the book would be arranged in the same way as the movie. I haven’t read it yet, but a cursory glance doesn’t give me that straightforward list of indictments. So I’ve probably missed something (I think there were five or six), and won’t say them as well as the movie does:

·         America stole the land from Native Americans.

·         America stole half of Mexico.

·         America earned its wealth on the backs of slaves.

·         America has been imperialistic throughout the world.

·         Capitalism steals from the poor.

D’Souza is surprisingly calm throughout the assault of indictments. I guess that’s how he persuaded the haters to participate in his movie. But they must have known he would go on to give the other side. Which he does quite beautifully.

He identifies much of these indictments coming from a “history” book written by Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States. Early in the book D’Souza says,

This is probably the most influential history book of the past half century. Zinn makes no effort to conceal his perspective. “I prefer to try to tell the story of the discovery of America from the viewpoint of the Arawaks, of the Constitution from the standpoint of the slaves, of Andrew Jackson as seen by the Cherokees, of the Civil War as seen by the New York Irish, of the Mexican war as seen by the deserting soldiers of Scott’s army, of the rise of industrialism as seen by the young women in the Lowell textile mills, of the Spanish-American war as seen by the Cubans, the conquest of the Philippines as seen by black soldiers on Luzon, the Gilded Age as seen by southern farmers, the First World War as seen by socialists, the Second World War as seen by pacifists, the New Deal as seen by blacks in Harlem, the postwar American empire as seen by peons in Latin America.”

Zinn is not afraid to give a one-sided picture. He does not believe there is such a thing as objective history; therefore, he wants to present his side. And what is his side? Zinn believes in global economic equality, looking forward, as he puts it, to “a time when national boundaries are erased, when the riches of the world are used for everyone.” (pp. 13-14).

Zinn wants worldwide socialism, with America totally out of the picture. He wrote a “history” book as a persuasive tool toward that end. Zinn’s book is widely used in high schools and colleges—as a text, not as supplemental reading of a different point of view. But he isn’t a history scholar; he is a man with an anti-American agenda, and he cherry-picks details to form propaganda that will serve his ends. In the movie, D’Souza interviews a historian, whose name unfortunately I don’ remember (and haven’t uncovered yet in the book), who verifies that Zinn is not a historian; Zinn is content with distorting facts and context, and even putting forth verifiable untruths as “facts.” Zinn is nothing more than a public opinion manipulator--unfortunately a successful one.

An obvious point here is, if young people are being taught Zinn’s America-is-guilty-of-great-evil theme, they’re being duped. And the lies need to be laid bare, so we can see America clearly. [May I add here—this is yet another reason to homeschool.]

The most beautiful part of the movie came at the conclusion of the defense against the indictments. D’Souza debunks them point by point, with evidence. And then, with that done, he “rebuilds” the symbols. From disintegration, Mount Rushmore re-solidifies into reality, as do the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, Statue of Liberty and the rest. And we are so relieved to see them as they are again.

Mr. Spherical Model suggests the movie, up to this point, could easily be shown in schools, as a nonpolitical educational movie. I even thought for a moment, while viewing the movie, that this was the end. It would have been satisfying with just that much.

But then I remembered that the previews had suggested the movie would talk about, “Obama didn’t create this movement; the movement created him.” So there had to be more.

The remaining third of the movie answers the question, Why do people choose to hate America? A stunning point in the movie comes during D’Souza’s interview with America hating professor Ward Churchill. D’Souza asks him, if America is indeed as guilty of the evils he claims, would it be “just” to destroy America with a nuclear bomb. Churchill seems to be thinking through the full line of his reasoning, and then concludes the answer is yes. He believes America—even while he lives in it—should commit suicide.

The movie covers the plotting of Saul Alinsky, with his Rules for Radicals, including its dedication to Lucifer. A young Hillary Rodham Clinton was introduced to Alinsky and given his book as a gift. Her later contribution was to take his ideas, which worked first to manipulate public opinion through community organizing, and push them through politics, which she saw as a quicker means to the socialist end. A young Obama was attracted to these radical socialist ideas, sought them out, and then went to serve the cause in the central headquarters for idea manipulation through community organizing: Chicago.

One of the interviewees is Stanley Kurtz, who wrote Radical in Chief, about Obama and his connections to a long, interconnected list of these extremists. I wrote about the book, during the first month of this blog, back in 2011 (Part I, Part II, and Part III). I knew enough of the details in 2008 to know who Obama was. The information is there, for anyone with eyes open and willing to see. But for those who have kept themselves unaware, this portion of the movie is a pretty clear indictment, especially following the first two-thirds of the movie.

It was kind of painful, however, to go on from the “We have reason to love America” conclusion, and wade right into “We’re surrounded by elected officials, media, and other powerful elites that are trying to destroy the America we love.”

But we have to see the truth of where we are, diagnose it, see it clearly—so we can take action to restore America after the decay.

God bless America! I pray that we can restore her.

Here’s one of the movie trailers:

 

Devaluing Marriage: Part II--Death of Marriage in Scandinavia

In 2004 investigative reporter Stanley Kurtz wrote a series of essays related to marriage in Scandinavia. In summary, his hypothesis, based on available data, was that, where marriage is already in decline—not valued as it had been previously—the additional burden to marriage of “same-sex marriage” is not very noticeable, but marriage as a major factor contributing to civilization is ending nevertheless. Then, where marriage was less devalued and then “same-sex marriage” is imposed, the decay to the institution of marriage and to society is more dramatic.  

The question was whether or not imposing “same-sex marriage” was a cause of decay of marriage, or merely an additional symptom. There was no question about whether it offered any positives to society as strong marriage does; it simply does not. “Same-sex marriage,” rather symbolized the separation of marriage and parenthood. 

In Sweden, where marriage was already radically separated from parenthood, and largely equalized with cohabitation in legal-financial terms, gay marriage was more effect than cause. But in Norway, where the decline of marriage was only partial, gay marriage had a greater role as a facilitator of marital decline than it did in Sweden. In the United States, the effect of gay marriage would be massive (“Deathblow to Marriage,” Feb. 5, 2004, National Review Online). 

Gay marriage began (either outright or by giving benefits equivalent to marriage) in Denmark in 1989, Norway in 1993, and Sweden in 1994. So, as Kurtz writes a decade in, we can see the status of marriage and family a decade into that experiment: 

A majority of children in Sweden and Norway are born out of wedlock. Sixty percent of first-born children in Denmark have unmarried parents…. Same-sex marriage has locked in and reinforced an existing Scandinavian trend toward the separation of marriage and parenthood. The Nordic family pattern—including gay marriage—is spreading across Europe. And by looking closely at it we can answer the key empirical question underlying the gay marriage debate. Will same-sex marriage undermine the institution of marriage? It already has. 

More precisely, it has further undermined the institution. The separation of marriage from parenthood was increasing; gay marriage has widened the separation. Out-of-wedlock birthrates were rising; gay marriage has added to the factors pushing those rates higher. Instead of encouraging a society-wide return to marriage. Scandinavian gay marriage has driven home the message that marriage itself is outdated, and that virtually any family form, including out-of-wedlock parenthood, is acceptable” (Stanley Kurtz, “The End of Marriage in Scandinavia,” Feb. 2, 2004, The Weekly Standard). 

Norway has been helpful to observe, because, unlike Sweden, there are parts of Norway that have retained (until more recently than these articles) a respect for family. By comparing areas, we can see that “the parts of Norway where same-sex unions are most accepted have by far the highest out-of-wedlock birthrates” (Stanley Kurtz, “Dutch Debate,” July 21, 2004, National Review Online).  

Of interest is that, wherever “same-sex marriage” has been imposed, a relatively small percentage of homosexual couples “marry”—possibly because of the implication of fidelity marriage implies. And few remain “married” for long. So the institution of “same-sex marriage” has little benefit for homosexuals, but the outcome for the actual institution of marriage is significantly negative. 

Among the immediate fallout in Scandinavia was a sharp increase (12% higher) divorce rate among heterosexuals. Cohabitation has become so commonplace that even identifying married couples has become a statistical nightmare. Family dissolution is difficult to measure, because so many Scandinavians now rear children without marrying either before or after their birth than divorce rates don’t tell the story. Yet studies in Scandinavia and in the West show that “cohabiting couples with children break up at two to three times the rate of married parents. So rising rates of cohabitation and out-of-wedlock birth stand as proxy for rising rates of family dissolution” (“End of Marriage…”). 

What has been the outcome for children of the dissolution of marriage? Regardless of economic or social status, parental breakup wrought negative consequences for children’s mental health—especially for boys living with divorced mothers. “Children of single parents in Sweden have more than double the rates of mortality, severe morbidity, and injury of children in two parent households” (2003 study by Gunilla Ringbäck Weitoft, et al., cited in "End of Marriage") 

Wherever there is dissolution of marriage, wherever there is out-of-wedlock birth, or single parenting, you see the burden on children for lack of fathers—and sometimes mothers. While some couples do share childrearing duties after breaking up (not always to the benefit of the child), many children are simply abandoned by at least one parent. 

The causes for marriage dissolution, particularly in Sweden, are instructive. Sweden is the most secular country in the world. It also has the highest percentage of public employees. The state’s secular progressives have become the arbiters of morality. The state has become the provider—replacing the family. This allows for birth outside wedlock without the risk of becoming an underclass; it also allows for divorce without significant financial costs—thus encouraging both of these behaviors. Taxes are so high that women must work, making staying home to raise children mostly impossible, and discouraging fertility.  

Worldwide, the furthest along the path to marriage dissolution (measured by out-of-wedlock births) are the Scandinavian countries, with France joining them. But closely behind is the second tier: the Netherlands, Belgium, Great Britain, and Germany. The US and Canada also fit this second tier, recently joined by Switzerland and Ireland. Slightly more resistant have been Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Greece, mainly because of Catholic traditions. (By measures of low fertility, or devaluing having family with offspring, most of these countries sink below the US.) 

Yesterday, we discussed the three generations during which weakening of marriage leads to cultural weakness and eventual defeat. I don’t know whether these three tiers fit the generations, or whether there’s a little more time. But if Unwin is correct, cultural extermination is likely within fifty years. 

Kathleen Kiernan, a British demographer, uses a four-stage model to gauge a country’s movement toward Sweden’s current situation.

1. Cohabitation is seen as deviant or avant-garde, while the vast majority of population has children within marriage.
2. Cohabitation serves as a testing period before marriage, generally before producing offspring.
3. Cohabitation becomes increasing acceptable, and parenting is no longer associated with marriage. (Norway was mostly here, until recently joining Sweden and Denmark in the fourth phase.)
4. Marriage and cohabitation become blurred, with most children raised outside of wedlock.

There are no examples of societies returning to an earlier phase. Sweden has recently adopted free-market reforms, since its socialist economic model was unsustainable, but so far there has been no return of marriage, which would automatically alleviate some of the financial burden.  

I’m not fully prepared to say that the total demise of Scandinavia—and much of Europe—is imminent. But as immigrants come in and take over the culture in many of these countries, it does look more plausible. Even without war, it may be that France is less than a generation away from having no native French culture. (At least they have left a sizable heritage in writings and cookbooks.) Britain, our mother culture, is not far behind France. 

Sweden is more homogeneous, which may give it a little extra time. But a few years ago I described Sweden’s condition to my dad, who was born to Swedish immigrants and spent three years there before and after WWII. To him it was a romantic, beautiful culture; he couldn’t hear the deterioration and believe it. Even for us here, it boggles the mind to consider the possibility that marriage will not always exist, if we don’t protect it. 

I would say the US is probably at phase 2, moving to 3. It might be possible to go back, but not by “progressing” down the Scandinavian path. We need to stop subsidizing out-of-wedlock births (and instead encourage marriage or adoption). We need to repeal no-fault divorce experiments that have been failing families for the past several decades. We must repeal where necessary and prevent where we can the imposition of “same-sex marriage,” which insists that marriage and parenthood are unrelated. Only re-instilling value into marriage and family can we recover from the ongoing decay.