On Dec. 19, Berlin was hit with a terrorist attack, killing 12 and leaving dozens more injured. Another historic European city to add to the list of terror attacks in recent years.
For the daily life of a European in 1016, the threat of your town being raided by a foreigner who doesn’t share your culture and customs and wants to inhabit your land was a very real threat.
One thousand years later and it seems that this problem persists. The only difference is that in 1016, it was considered righteous and noble to fight back.
In 2016, it is considered bigoted and racist to take a stand for your family and country.
As Americans, we can look to Europe to see what the embrace of a culture that does not respect the laws and values fundamental to our society – coupled with an unshakable feeling of guilt – can do to a country.
We can see what we need to avoid.
Obviously, the terrorist attacks are what draw the most attention in the media and to the average citizen. They are brutal and destructive, and in many ways leave people with a sense of fear with regard to what can happen in their own lives and their own cities.
However, the terrorism is just the tip of the iceberg.
In Germany, many buses and subways are now segregated, not between black and white or between Middle Eastern and European, but between men and women.
This has become a necessity as the number of sexual assaults and attempted sexual assaults on subways has become so dramatic that men and woman cannot justifiably be allowed to stand close to one another.
And while many parts of Europe have issued orders to their police forces to stop giving physical descriptions of suspects and assailants, we know from an overwhelming number of reports and victim testimonies that these assailants are not native Europeans, but in fact asylum-seekers and migrants who have flooded the borders of Europe over the past few years.
In the United States, sexual assault is a serious and heinous offense, and we treat it as such, so much that when there are cases of sexual assault not prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law there is a political and social uproar.
In Germany, this was by and large true in the years prior to the refugee crisis. The Germans were not some backward barbarians who did not care about the issue of rape.
However, since the massive influx of refugees brought in by Chancellor Merkel, sexual assault is an issue that has been almost shrugged off by Germans and the German media in particular.
This new social dynamic has been a problem throughout Europe, where now there are certain areas the police choose not to even patrol, letting Sharia law take control.
Let us be clear: This is a direct affront to Western law as a fundamental institution of our societies.
The societies that the United States came from, namely those in Europe, are under assault at the very core of their being.
The refugee crisis, coupled with the lack of will that European governments have to take a stand against these injustices, has created a scenario in which the civic virtues that make up our identity as westerners are being trampled and disregarded.
Fortunately, the situation has not become quite so dire in the United States, and we can learn from the lesson of Europe. Immigration is not wrong, but it is always wrong when people do not respect the laws of whatever land they are in.
If we want a future that continues to be built on Greco-Roman ideals, then we must shed, as fast as we can, the guilt that plagues Western nations and holds us back from realizing our true potential to create a more perfect society for all of our citizens.
