It is true that we cannot depend on government alone to create jobs or long-term growth, but at this particular moment, only government can provide the short-term boost necessary to lift us from a recession this deep and severe. Only government can break the vicious cycles that are crippling our economy—where a lack of spending leads to lost jobs which leads to even less spending; where an inability to lend and borrow stops growth and leads to even less credit.

“Only government” – this is the socialists’ mantra that we hear all too often these days. This time it is the American president-elect Obama speaking just a few days ago.

Good luck to all my Americans friends – you’re going to need it!

As we all know (and if we don’t better get informed) a deep financial crisis is slowly engulfing our globalized economy and some countries start to sink. Iceland was doing what the bigger economies were – money-printing driven bubble pumping. Now a reality check came and Iceland’s PM went on national TV to announce the whole country might go bankrupt. Naturally, feeling the heat they turned for help to their traditionally allies, which we may safely assume included the US. But those allies refused having the very same problem on their hands. So Iceland turned to… Russia and Russia will give them €4bn loan.

Icelandic officials quickly denied that their “new friendship” with Russia includes any kind of military cooperation, for example giving Russians access to an airbase vacated by the US Air Force in 2006. Well, a 19th century Russian diplomat, prince Gorchakov used to say: “I don’t believe in news that are not officially denied” – and I think it very nicely applies here. Have a look on the map and see where Iceland is, how big it is and what resources it can offer. The fact is the only thing Iceland can offer is its strategic position. Except for some fish there is nothing there and I don’t think Russia is in particular need of Atlantic fish. But assuming Russians would get there it would allow them to control strategically important sea routes on the North Atlantic and would help them in their bid for control over the Arctic.

This just shows how wise Russia is playing its cards since Putin’s clique of ex-KGB officers took helm from the ailing Yeltsin. A very, very wise move on their part. And also very worrying for Europe, especially its eastern part.

The debate that occurred when I posted a few days ago about Google’s support for gay “marriages” was a surprise, especially because it largely concentrated on this particular issue, not on the point I was making. It has been, nevertheless, a good example of madness that is engulfing our supposedly rational civilization.

This madness boils down to belief that there is no objective truth, and therefore no laws governing human societies. Also, only truth accessible to man is the scientific “truth” – that is current theory backed by empiric verification. And since there is nothing besides what can be seen or measured then there is no purpose whatsoever to life other than pleasure and work to get means for more pleasure. Therefore there is no solid ground to base any moral or ethical reasoning on, so basically “anything goes”: all is good and should be respected if those involved in it like it and feel good about it.

This madness leads probably well-intentioned and passionate people to methodically dismantle our civilization’s foundations and cut off its roots.

Western civilization was built on the traditions of ancient Greece and Rome and was deeply rooted in Christianity. In fact it was Christianity that was shaping West’s values and morality for centuries, that was literally driving it. No surprise here – there was never in history a civilization that did not have a spiritual core and that was embracing absolutely everything. Also, there was no civilization in history that was not protecting family by ensuring its special social status and protecting marriage that creates it.

It looks, though, like we are finally getting one. Supposedly rational modern liberals want to built an utopian civilization with no dominant religion, no set of universally accepted moral values (and any reference to supernatural reduced to vague, easily dismissible “spirituality”) and no family as we know it. Reading some of the voices in this discussion it seems there is nothing they abhor more than Christianity and its values and they strive with great success to remove Christianity’s influence on Western societies.

Given the historical evidence it is very unlikely for this experiment to succeed, but it will have its consequences. The problem is those consequences are not immediately visible, but take decades to surface. Some we can see already, but those are the consequences of changes introduced long time ago. We’ll have to wait, maybe a few decades, for the results of what is being done now.

We see exactly same things happening with the economy, where current crisis is a consequence of a systemic error made decades ago in the US. Of course, few notice because only few are really interested in history. People don’t see real causes of today’s problems because for the most part they lie in the past when most of current population was not even living. Ideas tried before are not recognized as such, but rather welcomed as new – and re-applied perpetuating the problem (like the infamous $700bn bailout).

One commentator in the discussion here, Kevin, said that “the ground which humans have built on for thousands of years is eroding out from under our feet”. Cheer up, Kevin – it is eroding, but for the most part only under the Western Civilization. There are other civilizations – in fact if you look at the map of the world most people live in other civilizations. And all of those civilizations with no exception stick to their traditions and values, which incidentally all include protection of family as the basic unit of society. Of those the Muslim civilization is most visible in the West, because it is in fact slowly taking over Western Europe.

So, the brutal reality is that if our civilization wishes to commit a slow motion suicide the world will just shrug. There may be a crisis when it falls but others will fill the void. In fact many around the world can’t wait when it happens, because they hope it will be their civilization that will be more powerful and influential then. Christianity will survive West’s fall as well, just as it survived the fall of the Roman Empire, the passing of the Carolingian Empire and all the kings and emperors that threaded the Earth during those 2000 years since Our Lord has been here.

Nothing of this is news – I’m not discovering anything in this humble post. Wise men saw this coming long ago – like Pope Pius IX or Oswald Spengler to name just two writing decades ago – and many after them. So the problem now is not whether this is happening – the big question we should consider is: is this process inevitable? Can this be reversed? Can Western Civilization be resuscitated? And if yes – then how?

But even if it is not someone who thinks the biggest issue of our time is to push for mentally disturbed individuals to be allowed to “marry” each other and thus helps West’s “slow motion suicide” in his small way is well… a fool.

My recent little post has spawned a debate in the combox essentially about whether Mr. Brin is right supporting homosexual “marriage” or not. However, my main point is not whether this is good or bad – after all Mr. Brin is entitled to his opinion just like everyone else. But, he somehow felt that his own name is not enough, that he has to make it his company’s official position. My main point was that this action is bad and has serious implications.

For example all Google employees who are Muslim or christian or just believe differently than Mr. Brin find themselves in a strange position of working for a company that has an official position on a moral and political issue that is strongly against their own. One could say this is their problem, but I find this troubling.

Is it right for a company manager or even founder to impose his views on all of his workforce in this way? Isn’t this arrogance (as rightly pointed out by CMR)? After all he is not representing those people in any way when it comes to issues like this one. Would it be ok if Mr. Brin said that it is official Google position to support Obama or McCain for president? Would that mean he represents the votes of his employees?

Again, I believe private corporations should be allowed to hire whoever they want or do jobs/projects they want (so I find a recent case of prosecuting a photographer for not wanting to cover a homosexual “marriage” outrageous) or have their own criteria for benefits etc. But all this is quite different from publicly weighting on a piece of legislation pertaining to moral or social questions.

Next, someone called me paranoid for even suggesting that Google’s search results and not only results might be affected by their management’s views. A few words on this one too.

First, please notice that over-reliance on Google can affect your worldview anyway – which is something I wrote about long ago. Notice too, that Google is dealing with lots of content, they are not only delivering search – they also host web sites, they host videos, they host groups, they gather and process news (through news.google.com) etc. They have immense power over what is getting through to the majority of Internet users, especially in the English-speaking countries. This power goes unnoticed, people concentrate on press and TV – but truth is newspapers circulation is down, and TV is evolving towards Internet, not away from it.

Now, call me paranoid all you want, but I find this combination of power and strong political views troubling. I have no proof that Google is meddling with search results as such, but considering supportive evidence I don’t think one can rule this out and continue to trust them.

What supportive evidence? Well, there is even a page on Wikipedia devoted to Google’s censorship and you can easily find cases of troubling disappearances of content from Google’s sites:

Then there is the case of Google’s refusal to run pro-life ads while at the same time running abortion clinics ads. This is clearly using the power they have over what contents get through according to their own beliefs and views.

Reasons why all those things happen might be different, but those are all examples of power Google has over content. As I wrote above – add strong opinions to power and trouble is likely.

To sum it all up: I think Mr. Brin has stepped over the line he shouldn’t have crossed. At least for me it means I can’t trust Google anymore to provide fair and equal treatment to all opinions in their handling of web content.

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