Magic Statistics

Another article in the latest issue of The New Criterion ponders the impending demise of much of the western world. Focusing on liberalism as the root problem, Roger Kimball recalls James Burnham's prophetic 1964 book, The Suicide of The West:

In the subtitle to his book, Burnham promises "the definitive analysis of the pathology of liberalism". At the center of that pathology is an awful failure of understanding which is also a failure of nerve, a failure of "the will to survive". Liberalism, Burnham concludes, is "an ideology of suicide". He admits that such a description may sound hyperbolic. "‘Suicide,’ it is objected, is too emotive a term, too negative and ‘bad.’" But it is part of the pathology that Burnham describes that such objections are "most often made most hotly by Westerners who hate their own civilization, readily excuse or even praise blows struck against it, and themselves lend a willing hand, frequently enough, to pulling it down."

François Revel once said, "Democratic civilization is the first in history to blame itself because another power is trying to destroy it". How long can liberalism survive if it refuses to defend itself?

Read the whole thing.

Australia's Attorney-General has promised to change copyright laws that make criminals of millions of ordinary people.

Millions of Australians who tape TV shows and copy CDs will soon get the right to do it with a clear conscience. The Federal Government will next year legalise the video recording of television shows for personal use, and the transfer of songs from CDs to MP3 players, in a bid to overturn a ban which has made criminals of much of the population. Attorney-General Philip Ruddock has flagged tidying up copyright laws by adding fair-use loopholes that will clear the way for private citizens to copy the content without breaking the law.

In Canada, however, the government proposes to implement consumer-unfriendly "reforms".

Sam Bulte, the Canadian Liberal Party MP for Parkdale/High Park is having her election campaign bankrolled by the Canadian entertainment cartel. Bulte previously authored a one-sided report proposing crazy, US-style copyright laws for Canada, and now her pals from the Canadian Recording Industry Association are throwing her a $250/plate fundraiser — just the kind of high-ticket event that the poor artists Bulte claims to represent can't afford to attend. Instead, expect this dinner to be stacked with industry fat-cats.

Liberals want to impose "US-style laws"? And here I thought Liberals were anti-American.

Michael Geist, law professor at the University of Ottawa, has more here and here.