If the West wants to continue as it did in the past, it must do three things.
The word for disengagement in Hebrew is “heet-nat-koot”. This word was used to describe Israel’s exit from Gaza in 2006 as well as the policy of not dealing with the Palestinian Authority during various periods after the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993. The word is generally used whenever Israel unilaterally leaves or politically distances itself from another entity.
If one thinks about the amazing success of the West, it is hard to describe how much Western culture has contributed to the world in which we live. Our generation lives at a level of comfort and ease unheard of one hundred years ago. Many formerly deadly diseases can be fought today, and we can travel, communicate, and do business in manners that would have seemed impossible at the beginning of the twentieth century. Think of the time required to cross the United States by covered wagon or even by train, and then think about your quick flight from New York to LA nonstop. Elon Musk can catch a 20-story rocket at its launch pad for refurbishment and reuse; NASA used to lose its Saturn V rockets into the ocean.
While the West has both built up an incredible standard of living and given the world many wonders in the form of inventions, drugs, and ideas (such as all men being equal), many people feel very queasy about the future of the West in general and the US in particular. Most polls see Americans feeling that the future will not be as rosy as their past and that their kids will have less to enjoy than they themselves have had. Elon Musk recently warned during a Trump rally that the failure to elect Donald Trump president all but guarantees an end to the wonders of the American experiment started by a group of plucky colonists so long ago. The rights, freedoms, and opportunities that we enjoy and often take for granted could be gone faster than we can imagine. In Europe, they already monitor online traffic (as do Democrats and their partners in censorship at social media companies), and the US forced millions to take an experimental vaccine, whose outcomes are becoming worse as time moves along. “It’s my body” somehow works for abortion but not for unwanted injections.
The potential election of Donald Trump would definitely be a shot in the arm for American freedoms. If the Republicans take the House and Senate, the ability to chart a positive future course for the country would certainly be enhanced. But for the US and the West to succeed, many things need to be fixed, changed, or improved. Three that come to mind:
1. Increase birth rates.
2. Remove China from the World Trade Organization (WTO).
3. Stop immigration from Muslim countries and reverse illegal immigration back to the same.
Except for Israel, no Western country shows birth rates in excess of 2.1 children per woman, the number needed to keep the population unchanged. All Western European countries stand significantly lower than this number, as are ideologically different countries such as Russia and China. If Western democracies want to continue, they need future citizens. One of the major drivers for the insane levels of illegal immigration into the US and Europe is the lack of babies to make up the next generation of workers. Countries cut to the chase and brought in twenty-something year old males, and the social problems have only gotten worse over time.
There are only two ways to encourage a population to have more children. One is by the people becoming more religious. “Be fruitful and multiply” is a religious command, and in Israel the two cities Jerusalem and Bnei Brak, with the largest concentrations of ultraorthodox with large families, are also two of the poorest cities in the country. When God commands to bring children into the world, the faithful do so. The other way to get people to have babies is by making economics more appealing. Everyone knows that bringing up children today is very expensive—from food to schooling, the costs are high for the average family. The generation that produced the baby boomers certainly were more religious than the present generation and would say, “Merry Christmas” and not just some anodyne ‘Happy Holidays”. But it was their economic optimism when the US emerged as the sole superpower after the war that helped bring a huge growth in children born in the US—to the point that my high school had to build a whole new campus when they came of age. Good economies encourage growing families.
The second order of business is to boot China from the World Trade Organization. Between Covid and their self-serving mercantile policies, China has done enormous economic damage to the West. How many millions of Americans lost their jobs to factories set up in China or their lives to a virus engineered in a shoddy Chinese virus lab? China is gunning to replace the US as the top economic and military power in the world. The time has come to pull the plug on the China Experiment started by Richard Nixon’s surprise visit there 50 years ago. The Chinese have grown their economy at the expense of the US and the West, and the West needs to remove them from the WTO and suffer the economic consequences that they deserve.
And finally, Western countries must send home Muslim immigrants who refuse to integrate into their Western host societies. Being accepted to live in the US or Europe should be seen as a privilege that comes with responsibility. But more and more, we see Muslims who demand Sharia law supersede local law and custom. Just this week, Muslims protested in Hamburg that they want Germany to become part of a caliphate. The West does not have to tolerate this hatred of hosts or honor killings or no-go zones. Those who wish to integrate, welcome aboard. Those who do not should be shown the door, just like illegal immigrants in the US will face deportation under a future Trump administration.
The West does not have to commit suicide. The countries that have given the world art, literature, science, philosophy, inventions, and worldly comforts do not have to exit stage left. Countries must make conditions that encourage and support larger families. Additionally, China needs to be removed from the economic life of the world, something that they have abused since their accession to the WTO in 2001. And finally, there is some percentage of Muslims who come to the West but refuse to become a part of the local society and culture. Those people should be given an opportunity to integrate or be sent home. The West does not need ingrates from within who have been welcomed only to slap the face of their host.
The West can have a brighter future if it so chooses. But it must move with alacrity. The time is running out, especially with low birth rates and more and more illegal immigrants coming and refusing to accept the laws and customs of the land.