Winning the war on terror by breeding

MarkSteyn is such a rabid Hypnochrist that I can't recall ever reading a single one of his columns and finding anything of significant value. Perhaps that's why the only job he can get is at the neocon support rag, the Sun-Times in Chicago. (Your one stop shopping home for all the important breaking stories such as Terry Schiavo, the imminent Rapture, and why Harry Reid is actually Satan.) His holiday column, however, is just bizarre enough to draw our attention.

You see, Mark hates terrorists. And good for him! Who doesn't hate terrorists? The problem is, Mark, like so many ultraconservative wingers, has reached the point where he has blended the ideas of terrorism and Islam into one single entity. They can't be separated. And that's why news about falling birth rates in predominantly Christian areas has Mark so alarmed. If those sneaky Muslims keep on breeding like rabbits and we don't keep up our part by making more Christians, their evil plot to take over the world will surely succeed. (Emphasis mine)

But the state -- at least in its modern social-democratic welfare incarnation -- needs children at least as much as those old-time Jews did. And the problem with much of the advanced world is that, like Elisabeth, it's barren. Collectively barren, I hasten to add. Individually, it's made up of millions of fertile women, who voluntarily opt for no children at all or one designer kid at 39. In Italy, the home of the Church, the birth rate's down to 1.2 children per couple -- or about half ''replacement rate.'' You can't buck that kind of arithmetic.

Demography is not necessarily destiny. Today's high Muslim birth rates will fall, and probably fall dramatically, as the Roman Catholic birth rates in Italy, Ireland and Quebec have. But demographics is a game of last man standing. It's no consolation that Muslim birth rates will be as bad as yours in 2050 if yours are off the cliff right now. The last people around in any numbers will determine the kind of society we live in.

That's not satire. That's an allegedly serious editorial piece which was published and shipped out to thousands of readers. And that's pretty damned scary. The wingnuts are actually wandering around thinking things like that. Do you suppose that this sort of mass hysteria panic is what's fueling, at least in part, the renewed push to overturn Roe v. Wade? I mean, abortions cut down on the number of births here in America. And if we don't keep up with the Joneses Muhammeds in the breeding arms race, we're doomed, right?

Man. Break out whatever is left of the Christmas eggnog. I could use a stiff drink after reading that.