I've been doing more reading than writing both online and offline since the first of the year. A lot of the reading I have done has been forgettable (as is all of my writing). But a common thread has emerged from the hours spent buried in magazines, books and websites. What I have read that I have found to be unforgettable, important and meaningful has had a long view of "things": the world, society, politics. It is imperative to keep short term issues in mind, but if we neglect attention to the long term impact of our short term decisions, we do it at our peril.

One of the best "Long View" articles I have read recently comes from a writer who is a favorite around here, Mark Steyn. Steyn's article, "It's The Demography, Stupid," has been referenced and linked in several places from the Fire Ant Gazette to Instapundit. I think James Lileks (potential future Midland resident!) said the article was "...relentlessly depressing." It is still a must read. The article was written for The New Criterion and was published by the Wall Street Journal as well. It is a long read, but well worth the time.

The opening salvo:

Most people reading this have strong stomachs, so let me lay it out as baldly as I can: Much of what we loosely call the Western world will not survive this century, and much of it will effectively disappear within our lifetimes, including many if not most Western European countries. There'll probably still be a geographical area on the map marked as Italy or the Netherlands--probably--just as in Istanbul there's still a building called St. Sophia's Cathedral. But it's not a cathedral; it's merely a designation for a piece of real estate. Likewise, Italy and the Netherlands will merely be designations for real estate. The challenge for those who reckon Western civilization is on balance better than the alternatives is to figure out a way to save at least some parts of the West.

Our way of life is at stake, for us probably but certainly for our children and grandchildren.

There are many trouble spots around the world, but as a general rule, it's easy to make an educated guess at one of the participants: Muslims vs. Jews in "Palestine," Muslims vs. Hindus in Kashmir, Muslims vs. Christians in Africa, Muslims vs. Buddhists in Thailand, Muslims vs. Russians in the Caucasus, Muslims vs. backpacking tourists in Bali. Like the environmentalists, these guys think globally but act locally.

Yet while Islamism is the enemy, it's not what this thing's about. Radical Islam is an opportunistic infection, like AIDS: It's not the HIV that kills you, it's the pneumonia you get when your body's too weak to fight it off. When the jihadists engage with the U.S. military, they lose--as they did in Afghanistan and Iraq. If this were like World War I with those fellows in one trench and us in ours facing them over some boggy piece of terrain, it would be over very quickly. Which the smarter Islamists have figured out. They know they can never win on the battlefield, but they figure there's an excellent chance they can drag things out until Western civilization collapses in on itself and Islam inherits by default.

...big snip...

One way "societies choose to fail or succeed" is by choosing what to worry about. The Western world has delivered more wealth and more comfort to more of its citizens than any other civilization in history, and in return we've developed a great cult of worrying. You know the classics of the genre: In 1968, in his bestselling book "The Population Bomb," the eminent scientist Paul Ehrlich declared: "In the 1970s the world will undergo famines--hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death." In 1972, in their landmark study "The Limits to Growth," the Club of Rome announced that the world would run out of gold by 1981, of mercury by 1985, tin by 1987, zinc by 1990, petroleum by 1992, and copper, lead and gas by 1993.

None of these things happened. In fact, quite the opposite is happening. We're pretty much awash in resources, but we're running out of people--the one truly indispensable resource, without which none of the others matter. Russia's the most obvious example: it's the largest country on earth, it's full of natural resources, and yet it's dying--its population is falling calamitously.

Go read the rest. The point is that, on our current path, the birthrate of Western countries will ensure that, in one generation (or two, depending on the country you are looking at) the "Westerners" of that country will be outnumbered by Islamists. Will they be the friendly "religion of peace" types of whom we keep hearing, or will they be murdering Jihadists of whom we keep seeing their bloody actions?

2006 is time to get real about what is really at stake in our short term world of the '06 and '08 elections, materialistic desires, "reality" TV, sports shows and anything else that distracts us from the Long View.

Mark Steyn has provided an invaluable wake-up call for the West. Read. Think. Understand.