DALLAS, Tex.—Political acquaintances ask whether I’ve exchanged my Conservative guru of some four decades, William F. Buckley Jr. for Herb Meyer, a one time senior intelligence adviser in president Ronald Reagan’s administration, and former top analyst in the Central Intelligence Agency.
As I strode through Dallas-Fort Worth Airport proudly sporting my ‘Republicans Abroad’ shirt, I was asked precisely that.
Well, no, my loyalty to Buckley, founder of the prestigious National Review magazine, and modern Conservatism’s most intellectual thinker and writer, remains solid.
But Meyer’s rising influence in Conservatism can’t be ignored.
Indeed, his thoughts—and warnings—are essential.
Coincidentally, Herb’s latest article, on the reports of the 9/11 Commission and WMD Commission outlining the failures of the U.S. intelligence community, is now on National Review Online. To say the least, it’s disturbing, if not frightening.
Meyer’s DVD The Siege of Western Civilization (http://www.stormkingpress.com) is still the rage amongst Conservatives in the U. S., Canada—and moving internationally.
In the column “Under Siege” (Dec. 2, 2004), I explained Meyer, who was awarded the National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal, the highest award a U.S. intelligence officer can receive, believes western civilization—democracy, culture, rule of law, separation of church and state—is under attack on three fronts. They are: Islamic terrorism, our own internal moral and ethical decay, and thirdly collapsing birth rates in democratic countries, including Western Europe, Japan—and North America.
It’s Meyer’s third thrust, western civilization’s collapsing birthrate, I’ll touch on today. As he puts it, “It’s amazing that in a society obsessed by sex, we’ve stopped breeding.”
The replacement level to keep a population intact is 2.1 babies: One baby to replace a father, one to replace a mother, and the 0.1 because some children die before they reach adulthood, and some adults don’t have any children at all.
In Western Europe today the birthrate is 1.5, some 30% below replacement level. Meyer notes if this continues when his college age children reach his age there will be 70-80 million fewer ‘Europeans’ than there are now.
“Three H-bombs and a plague couldn’t accomplish that.”
Japan’s birth rate is 1.3%, which means in 20 or 30 years time, there will be 50-60 million fewer Japanese. How would you like to be a producer of baby food or baby carriages in Japan?
This, says Meyer, has devastating economic consequence because without a replacement population manufacturing plants, shopping malls, and schools will be empty.
Western Europe (and Canada) have sought to fight the falling birth rate by mass immigration, often from countries that do not adhere to the values of western civilization. Hence its continuing collapse within our midst. Since Japan’s culture is not open to foreign immigration the economic consequences are already far worse than in Western Europe, where the economy has simply stalled. In Japan, it has crashed.
The U.S. birth rate is about 2%, just below replacement rate, but that is falling, too. The U.S. has about six to eight years to reverse the trend, predicts Meyer.
Meyer tells us to picture a Yuppie couple in a restaurant annoyed because a child is running around being a nuisance: “They don’t realize that child is their retirement pensions!”
Children are not only a blessing, they are consumers—thereby keeping people in jobs—and will soon be workers—thereby paying taxes—and keeping the entire web of education and social security programs funded.
He contends abortion is not only a human tragedy. Except for the millions of babies aborted over recent decades western civilization would not have a population crisis—or a cultural and economic crisis: “Marriage and family should be the centre of political life. We need one more Mom far more than we need one more tax attorney.”
Meyer doesn’t believe western civilization is yet doomed for sure: “We’re in check, not checkmate.”
We still have time to fight our way out of our decline—or, rather, breed our way out of it with babies.
He is absolutely right, unless we start rebuilding and defending our western values right now the society our grandchildren inherit will be far different than the one we and our parents grew up in.
Copyright ? 2005 Paul Conrad Jackson.
Click here to read Paul Jackson’s full and fascinating biography. Paul Conrad Jackson is one of Canada’s most distinguished and thought-provoking journalists. He is currently senior political commentator for the Calgary Sun and other related newspapers, after being both Editor and Associate Editor for a number of years. Mr. Jackson has interviewed such world famous political figures as Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Mikhail Gorbachev, John Diefenbaker, Brian Mulroney, Pierre Trudeau, Yitshak Rabin and Benjamin Netanyahu.
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