WILLisms.com: Trivia Tidbit Of The Day: Part 206 -- Riotous French.

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Trivia Tidbit Of The Day: Part 206 -- Riotous French.

What Is Behind Those Parisian Riots?-

No doubt by now you've seen the pictures. Paris remains in a state of chaos, after several days and nights of Muslim youth rioting.

So what the heck is going on? Isn't France a bastion of tolerance, understanding, and... free health care? Didn't France oppose the Iraq war and support Saddam Hussein? Doesn't France oppose Israel at every turn? What on earth could be the problem?

Well, unemployment, for one:

Unemployment, however, is more of a symptom of what ails France than a cause of what's going on. Not only are France's socialist economic policies failing, but its pie-in-the-sky social model is crumbling. Muslims keep pouring into France, and France has responded by compartmentalizing them, rather than assimilating them. They've done this in the name of respecting every culture, equally, all the time, no matter what. It means Muslim enclaves run things much the way they were run back home.

"Because that's their culture."

But it's not just a matter of accepting it. It's a matter of endorsing it, of promoting it, with a lavish welfare state.

And the cycle has fed off itself, creating radical demographic changes over the past few decades:

France’s Muslim population, estimated at 5 million, is Western Europe’s largest.

What comes next?

Backlash, most likely, from France's far right. That's not going to be pretty, either.

It's a tricky, embarrassing situation France finds itself in today. It's also sad to see into the future of Europe, if Europe continues to pursue its failed agenda of economic and social experimentation.

Incidentally, the U.S. unemployment rate now stands at 5.0% (.pdf).

This is down from the post-9/11 peak of 6.3%:

And yet, Democrats want to talk about the American economy like we're some sort of third world country. We need to be more "progressive," they say. They want to move us closer to the French social model.

How L'Dumb.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Laffer Curve.

Posted by Will Franklin · 4 November 2005 12:09 PM

Comments

That was awesome.

Posted by: Rob B. at November 4, 2005 01:19 PM

Will: the one saving grace behind the Social Security train wreck is that the crisis will hit Europe - harder - before America starts to breathe hard. Thus, we're likely to see a large influx of young, experienced Europeans who want to live in a country with 1) jobs and 2) tax rates somewhere below 80%. This brain drain will help to ease the entitlement crisis in America, but make it MUCH worse over there.

Posted by: Eric Lindholm at November 4, 2005 02:39 PM