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But they failed every time. Armed Hungarian families stood in the way on several occasions from the early 1500s. And defensive Christian armies ended the jihad assaults in 1683. Until Vienna opened her borders to illegal immigration in the 21st century. Update from September, 2024:
"In Vienna, a quondam capital of Western culture, 70% of all the students in the public schools are Muslim, and their percentage increases with each year that passes. This has caused all sorts of problems, with Muslims harassing girls who do not follow a strict dress code, to complaining about everything from non-halal meats served in the school cantines, to the absence of a Muslim prayer room, to certain subjects that they are unwilling to study. Then there is the terrific expense of additional classes in German language training and violent threats made by Muslim students to teachers, staff, and classmates. Teachers, unable to stand the strain, are leaving their Viennese posts in droves."
-- Hugh Fitzgerald
Today marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of fiction author Jane Austen, who examined ordinary, day-to-day, small-town family life within an Overton window-frame which once included Biblical civilization and ethics.
The world of Jane Austen's generation was rapidly pivoting the Overton window to a secular worldview, and so were the cultures of contemporary nations.
Lord David Cecil, a biographer of Miss Austen, noted this comparison between authors:
"If I were in doubt as to the wisdom of one of my actions, I should not consult Flaubert or Dostoyevsky. The opinion of Balzac or Dickens would carry little weight with me: were Stendhal to rebuke me, it would only convince me I had done right: even in the judgment of Tolstoy I should not put complete confidence. But I should be seriously upset, I should worry for weeks and weeks, if I incurred the disapproval of Jane Austen."
"We are smack in the middle of a Fourth Turning, and the turmoil of it all has affected the entire West. Over the last five years, virtually every major institution has disgraced itself. What used to be a high-trust society has been blown to smithereens, and nobody knows what to think anymore. And even when an individual person’s convictions haven’t changed, despite the societal turmoil, it is very difficult to know who to think those convictions with. This implosion of all the trusted institutions and relationships has of course included those of us on the political right.
"...So what am I saying? When being normal is weird, be normal. When being normal is normal, remember why you should be normal, and be prepared to defend it, which cannot be done apart from Christ. And when being normal is weird, don’t be extra weird. Be extra normal. Normal you say? By what standard? To the law and to the testimony. Exactly so."
Doug Wilson
