George Weigel is repeating some of the ideas, backed up with numbers, that I first encountered in Pat Buchanan's Death of the West. Europe is depopulating. It isn't merely holding steady, but it is (apparently) whole-heatedly embracing the idea that there are too many people by, over time, ceasing to be. This is, as Weigel states, a clear (to me, and, apparently, others as well) result of the failure to embrace the Catholic world-view and the morality that comes part and parcel with it. We have ceased to multiply more than the two point something replacement rate, and so are now being replaced by those who will.
This has profound implications for the future. Assuming this trend does not reverse, Europe is going to join the Middle East as an Arab land; the goal of the Medieval wars will have been accomplished. Mr. Buchanan is asking some of the questions this poses. Would we recognize an Arabian democracy? Would we want to live under one? For all their corruption, for all their inhumanity, many of the tyrants in the Middle East have been friendlier to other populations, so long as they stay quiet and powerless, than the democratic decisions of Arab peoples, and certainly more so than the democratic decisions of the Israelis. Is this because freedom is foreign to these peoples? Because they cannot handle democracy, because it is not good for us to introduce it to them? I disagree with Mr. Buchanan on these points. Yes, in the short run, perhaps they will vote in the harsh and inhumane Shara law. Yes, perhaps they would, and perhaps will, persecute Christians. The Protestants might be ready to buckle under such persecution, in the past they have mutated or fled from it, but the Church is familiar with it. The Church has thrived under persecution time and time again. It was in the bad times of the Roman Empire that we first came to earn admiration for the way the blood of the martyrs grows the Church, purifies it, strengthens it. But it could as easily be said today, where in Africa persecution yet persists, coming from the Muslim rulers already, or in China, where the communists have been trying for years to replace the Church with one modeled to their liking. Yet, in our prayers this Sunday, we included one for a group of priests arrested at a spiritual retreat there just days after the election of Pope Benedict XVI. China is clearly failing to suppress the faith.
I think, as hard as it might be for many to accept today, that democracy is not the best form of government. I think that our own founding fathers knew that in creating a republic rather than a democracy. That republic however, was founded on the Christian virtues, and is failing to hold up as the virtue of the populace declines. Today, we see things that would have our founding fathers rolling in their graves. There are restrictions on travel, when a man cannot board a plane without a photo ID. There are restrictions on speech, some of it is called "hate speech" and branded a crime, others simply require a permit. Other speech is deemed to be an illicit contribution to a campaign, and baned outright as political speech. There are restrictions on the right to bear arms. Again, I cannot fully exercise my right without a permit. Again, there are restrictions on how or when I can exercise it even then. Some say the National Guard fulfills the "militia" function envisioned by the Second Amendment. I tend to disagree, for the National Guard is ultimately under Federal control, as is seen now with so many Guardsmen in service executing our war in Iraq. The militia was the check of last resort on a State gone "mad." And we have no ability to check our government now were it to, did it now, descend into outright tyranny. We have given up our liberty for security, and as one patriot of an older age said, we thus deserve neither.
Contrast this with the Kings of old, held in check by their own limited funds, held in check by the power of their nobles, yet sufficient to hold those nobles in check. For if the rights of man then were not what we would want today, yet still they were consistent across the board, something we fail at today. If men were restricted then, yet still were they able to topple a tyrant king. I do not say it was better, but I do say that smaller government, less powerful government, less pervasive government is better. Let the social work be done by the Church, be done by the religious orders, be done by you and I, the people. Take back our sovereign rights into our own hand, again care for our brothers, our children, and our elderly ourselves rather than yielding them up to the state to raise. See then how long the Culture of Death lasts. See then how long abortion lasts, how long families fragment, how long filth pervades the culture when there is no state to protect it. In my reading today, Chesterton succinctly stated why oligarchy is worse than monarchy: the oligarchy is ruled by a class at once big enough to avoid individual responsibility (as the king is ultimately held responsible) yet small enough to yet be subjected to the worst vices of the monarchy. Fear the oligarch for the same reason you fear the mob, neither is responsible, neither answers for its own actions. When the country is in bad shape, the king is responsible and must fix it or be overthrown, but the oligarch, the republican, or the democrat can perpetuate the abuses beyond reason by blaming opposition to his plans from others on the council, in the congress, in the electorate.