Mark Steyn, a widely published columnist, is the author of America Alone: The End of The World as We Know It. For those unfamiliar with this outstanding book, it presents a compelling case of how western culture has increasingly been willing to exchange religious liberty for the temporary appearance of peace/stability in regions with growing Muslim populations. Steyn gives a primer for this best-selling book in a recent essay published in Imprimis. An excerpt:
We now have Muslim “honor killings,” for instance, not just in tribal Pakistan and Yemen, but in Germany and the Netherlands, in Toronto and Dallas. And even if there were no battles in Iraq and Afghanistan, and if no one was flying planes into tall buildings in New York City or blowing up trains, buses, and nightclubs in Madrid, London, and Bali, we would still be in danger of losing this war without a shot being fired.
The British government recently announced that it would be issuing Sharia-compliant Islamic bonds—that is, bonds compliant with Islamic law and practice as prescribed in the Koran. This is another reason to be in favor of small government: The bigger government gets, the more it must look for funding in some pretty unusual places—in this case wealthy Saudis. As The Mail on Sunday put it, this innovation marks “one of the most significant economic advances of Sharia law in the non-Muslim world.”
For more on this book, see this excellent review that my wife Marni wrote.