OPINION:
I recently saw the wonderful 1962 movie “How the West Was Won,” which dramatized the westward expansion from the Erie Canal to the closing of the frontier.
The cast included trappers and homesteaders, prospectors and railroad men, sheriffs and outlaws.
Imagine a movie that celebrated White men bringing civilization to a savage land. How hateful! Quick, somebody call the Southern Poverty Law Center!
Americans were optimistic then — a big, brawling, confident lot who lived in an eternal spring. Now, winter is closing in fast. British historian Arnold Toynbee observed, “Civilizations die from suicide and not by murder.”
The barbarians are not at the gate; they are inside. We let them in.
The foreign-born population of the United States is now 14.8% of the total, the highest ever recorded. This includes millions who invaded under President Biden, aka, the Welcome Wagon lady.
Many of these gate crashers don’t speak English. Most receive government benefits. The overwhelming majority are from Third World countries. Among their numbers are murderers, rapists and pedophiles. The left is fighting to keep them here.
Arrivals from the wonderful world of Islam pose a special danger. The number of mosques in America increased 32% from 2010 to 2020.
It is worse in Europe. The continent once known as Christendom is being colonized by the Religion of Rest in Peace.
Islam is the world’s fastest-growing religion. From 2010 to 2020, the number of Muslims worldwide grew by 347 million, versus the growth of 122 million for Christians. In Britain, the most popular name for baby boys for the past 16 years has been Muhammad.
It is difficult to imagine a religion less compatible with Western civilization than Islam. Tolerance? Pluralism? Seriously?
If you would like a taste of the creed’s modus operandi, then look at Britain with the regular rapes of “infidel” women and grooming gangs. If you have a strong stomach, read the full report of the horrors inflicted on Israeli women on Oct. 7, 2023.
Besides Judeo-Christian values, the West rose to greatness through capitalism, which brought us the Industrial Revolution and a booming middle class. Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations” was published the year the Declaration of Independence was adopted. One provided for a republic based on limited government and human rights; the other established the rationale for free markets.
Both are imperiled. A 2025 poll found that 62% of Americans younger than 30 support socialism. New York and Seattle have socialist mayors. Collectivism is a forced march backward to a world of serfs and lords. The great free market economist Friedrich Hayek titled his 1944 opus “The Road to Serfdom.”
The family is also on the decline. Although not a uniquely Western institution, it provides the foundation of Western civilization. In 1970, married couples were 70% of U.S. households. Today, they are 47%. Nearly 40% of children are born to unmarried couples. In 2024, the United States reached a record-low fertility rate of 1.6 children per woman, below the 2.1 needed to maintain population stability.
No industrialized nation has a fertility rate anywhere near the replacement level. Cradles are not empty in the Third World. In sub-Saharan Africa, the fertility rate is 6.0. Civilizations that are confident about their future have children. Those that lack confidence do not.
The West is also afflicted by what psychologist Gad Saad calls “suicidal empathy.”
On April 2, a liberal woman was accosted by a career predator on a New York subway train. She did not report the incident because she “didn’t want to put another Black man in jail.” On May 7, her attacker was charged with murdering a 76-year-old man.
Look at the assault on immigration detention centers and street takeovers by juvenile gangs and see a society devolving into chaos. We are putting radical judges on the bench, electing George Soros-backed prosecutors and installing Marxist mayors. The sheep have put the wolves in charge of protecting them.
It took centuries to build Western civilization. It is taking decades to demolish it. We were not paying attention to what our children were being taught in school and how the public was misled by media. We slumbered while America burned.
Winston Churchill wrote a book called “While England Slept” about how Western nations ignored the rise of Nazism. As prime minister, he spoke of a German victory leading to a new dark age.
If the West is lost, then a new dark age will descend in the blink of an eye. Instead of barbarians on horseback, Muslims with Shariah and Marxists calling themselves progressives will dance on the ruins.
• Don Feder is a columnist with The Washington Times.
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