Thus poor Americans can have children they can't feed knowing the public schools will provide breakfast, lunch, snacks and sometimes dinner for those on the "free lunch" program. Students can borrow thousands of dollars to spend six years in college pursuing majors for which there is no reasonable expectation of employment, confident that if they carp loudly enough, the government will force taxpayers to forgive their loans. Boys and girls who don't see the benefit of education and have no skills can get jobs in businesses requiring no skills or education knowing the government will force those businesses to pay a steadily rising minimum wage, at least until they go out of business.
The crisis currently engulfing the Middle East and North Africa is the result of the West trying to give democracy to Muslim countries who have neither experience with nor desire for it. The result is pandemonium. While Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qaddafi might not have been altar boys, they were products of their religion and culture. They may have been hard-nosed dictators, but when they were in power, their population(s) weren't taking to leaky boats to escape across the Mediterranean to try to break into Europe. Bashar Assad is not a candidate for the Mother Theresa Humanity Award, but Syrian children weren't washing up on the beaches of Greece until the West decided to side with those trying to oust him from power. It's Egypt's good fortune that the Egyptian military stepped in to undo Egypt's foray into what passes for Muslim democracy (one man one vote one time) else Egyptians might well be joining their fellow Muslims in mass migration to Judeo-Christian-secular Europe, too.
But why Europe? Why climb aboard leaking vessels headed for Orthodox Greece and Catholic Italy? Why take trains and footpaths, crawl over barbed wire fences to try to force your way into Hungary and Austria? Syria shares a long border with Muslim Turkey. Why don't the Syrian refugees go there? Iraq borders on the Islamic Republic of Iran, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait? Why aren't Muslim refugees beating feet to join their co-religionists in those nations? Libya borders Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria. Islamic countries, all. Why don't Muslims want to live with other Muslims? Especially when the journey is not half so dangerous as the journey across a large body of water. And most importantly, why aren't our pundits and leaders asking these questions?
To his credit, Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawaris has come up with a solution to the growing crisis. Claiming there are numerous deserted islands in the Mediterranean, Mr. Sawiris wants to purchase one to give refugees a temporary shelter until a long-term solution can be found (1).
But why should Mr. Sawaris's island be a temporary solution? Why doesn't Europe which is spending billions of dollars on refugee camps join forces with America and take up Mr. Sawaris on his offer, but instead of temporary settlements, build a permanent country? With a modest investment in infrastructure and housing, Muslims who by fleeing are stating they are opposed to the chaos that arises in every Muslim-dominated country could build a new nation and by doing, prove to the world that Muslims, who can't get along with any other religion, at least can get along with themselves. Or is that what they really want? What if they have fully embraced the West's quaint notion that everyone is responsible for everyone but himself?
