*
The debate is happening when attacks like the one in Orlando, Fla., have raised concerns about both Islamic radicalism and Islamophobia.
At what point does Muslim mass murder of non-Muslims rise to a level where a phobia about Islam is not concerning? 3,000 on September 11 was not enough, not for George Bush.
How about 15,000?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adana_massacre
How about 20,000?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicosia#Ottoman_rule
How about 52,000?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chios_massacre
How about 150,000?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assyrian_genocide
How about 450,000?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_genocide
How about a million? Would Islamophobia be OK for an Armenian in 1920?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide
* If you have another nationality, renouncing U.S. citizenship and nationality is fairly straightforward and it is not reversible in most cases. However, it does come with a nice hefty administrative price tag – something like $2500 – if you want to get the coveted Certificate of Loss of Nationality which thanks to FATCA since 2011 is necessary to prove to any credible bank outside the U.S. that they are not opening a can of worms by granting you an account. Also if your net worth is over $650000 you will have to show that you have declared your worldwide income, regardless of where you have resided, to the goombas in the IRS for the past five fiscal years or you will be hunted down for a hefty Exit Tax (basically the Death Tax for the living) and depending on the country you have expatriated to your new government (a NATO government in particular is not trustworthy on this point) might be complicit in helping them garnish your bank accounts. And if your net worth is over $2 million, as is certainly the case for Mr. Johnson, avoiding the Exit Tax gets even trickier.
* A number of years ago, Boris Johnson gave the most IQ supremacist/globalist speech any politician this side of Singapore ever gave.
In general, British politicians are a lot more intellectually agile than American politicians. The kind of pivot due to new circumstances that Pat Buchanan made at the end of the Cold War is pretty common among British politicians.
* I’ve mentioned before watching John Major do Question Time or whatever it’s called in the early 1990s and thinking, wow, I heard this guy was a zero, but he’s much better than American politicians at this.
The gladiatorial system in Parliament is clearly a better school, but I also suspect that going into Parliament is more attractive to the best individuals in Britain than running for Congress is in America. Britain and Israel have had more impressive politicians than America. Israel is small enough so that everybody who goes into the military the same year gets to know who is the best among your cohort. In the U.S., the country is so big that guys like the Bush Brothers can seem like top guys for awhile, mostly through misunderstandings.
* Lord Bryce had similar notions:
Why Great Men Are Not Chosen Presidents
Europeans often ask, and Americans do not always explain, how it happens that this great office, the greatest in the world, unless we except the papacy, to which anyone can rise by his own merits, is not more frequently filled by great and striking men. In America, which is beyond all other countries the country of a “career open to talents,” a country, moreover, in which political life is unusually keen and political ambition widely diffused, it might be expected that the highest place would always be won by a man of brilliant gifts. But from the time when the heroes of the Revolution died out with Jefferson and Adams and Madison, no person except General Grant, had, down till the end of last century, reached the chair whose name would have been remembered had he not been president, and no president except Abraham Lincoln had displayed rare or striking qualities in the chair. Who now knows or cares to know anything about the personality of James K. Polk or Franklin Pierce? The only thing remarkable about them is that being so commonplace they should have climbed so high.
Several reasons may be suggested for the fact, which Americans are themselves the first to admit.
One is that the proportion of first-rate ability drawn into politics is smaller in America than in most European countries. This is a phenomenon whose causes must be elucidated later: in the meantime it is enough to say that in France, where the half-revolutionary conditions that lasted for some time after 1870, made public life exciting and accessible; in Germany, where an admirably organized civil service cultivates and develops statecraft with unusual success; in England, where many persons of wealth and leisure seek to enter the political arena, while burning questions touch the interests of all classes and make men eager observers of the combatants, the total quantity of talent devoted to parliamentary or administrative work has been larger, relatively to the population, than in America, where much of the best ability, both for thought and for action, for planning and for executing, rushes into a field which is comparatively narrow in Europe, the business of developing the material resources of the country.
Another is that the methods and habits of Congress, and indeed of political life generally, seem to give fewer opportunities for personal distinction, fewer modes in which a man may commend himself to his countrymen by eminent capacity in thought, in speech, or in administration, than is the case in the free countries of Europe. This is a point to be explained in later chapters. I merely note here in passing what will there be dwelt on.
A third reason is that eminent men make more enemies, and give those enemies more assailable points, than obscure men do. They are therefore in so far less desirable candidates. It is true that the eminent man has also made more friends, that his name is more widely known, and may be greeted with louder cheers. Other things being equal, the famous man is preferable. But other things never are equal. The famous man has probably attacked some leaders in his own party, has supplanted others, has expressed his dislike to the crotchet of some active section, has perhaps committed errors which are capable of being magnified into offences. No man stands long before the public and bears a part in great affairs without giving openings to censorious criticism. Fiercer far than the light which beats upon a throne is the light which beats upon a presidential candidate, searching out all the recesses of his past life. Hence, when the choice lies between a brilliant man and a safe man, the safe man is preferred. Party feeling, strong enough to carry in on its back a man without conspicuous positive merits, is not always strong enough to procure forgiveness for a man with positive faults.
A European finds that this phenomenon needs in its turn to be explained, for in the free countries of Europe brilliancy, be it eloquence in speech, or some striking achievement in war or administration, or the power through whatever means of somehow impressing the popular imagination, is what makes a leader triumphant. Why should it be otherwise in America? Because in America party loyalty and party organization have been hitherto so perfect that anyone put forward by the party will get the full party vote if his character is good and his “record,” as they call it, unstained. The safe candidate may not draw in quite so many votes from the moderate men of the other side as the brilliant one would, but he will not lose nearly so many from his own ranks. Even those who admit his mediocrity will vote straight when the moment for voting comes. Besides, the ordinary American voter does not object to mediocrity. He has a lower conception of the qualities requisite to make a statesman than those who direct public opinion in Europe have. He likes his candidate to be sensible, vigorous, and, above all, what he calls “magnetic,” and does not value, because he sees no need for, originality or profundity, a fine culture or a wide knowledge. Candidates are selected to be run for nomination by knots of persons who, however expert as party tacticians, are usually commonplace men; and the choice between those selected for nomination is made by a very large body, an assembly of nearly a thousand delegates from the local party organizations over the country, who are certainly no better than ordinary citizens. How this process works will be seen more fully when I come to speak of those nominating conventions which are so notable a feature in American politics.
