What Do You Mean by “Our” Civilization, Wingnut?

Rep. Steve “Calves Like Cantaloupes” King tweeted this recently:

Kind of takes your breath away, doesn’t it?

Slammed because his tweet was rather nakedly racist, King said on CNN,

“I’ve been to Europe and I’ve spoken on this issue and I’ve said the same thing as far as ten years ago to the German people and to any population of people that is a declining population that isn’t willing to have enough babies to reproduce themselves. And I’ve said to them, you can’t rebuild your civilization with somebody else’s babies,” King said on CNN. “You’ve got to keep your birth rate up and that you need to teach your children your values.”

King then lamented that the U.S. has “aborted nearly 60 million babies” since 1973 and claimed that there is an effort to “replace that void with somebody else’s babies.”

“That’s the push to bring in much illegal immigration into America, living in enclaves, refusing to assimilate into the American culture and civilization,” he said. “Some embrace it, yes. But many are two and three generations living in enclaves that are pushing back now in resistance against the assimilation. It’s far worse in Europe than it is today here in the United States, but I want us to be looking at that, promoting the birth rate in America, restoring the rule of law, putting an end to illegal immigration and recognizing that we need to be a country that’s pulled together on similar values.”

Never mind that in the 19th century Americans were saying the same things about the Irish that they’re saying about Syrians now.

The CNN host told King that the congressman has appeared to push for white people to raise their birth rate, prompting the congressman to argue that he has talked about “culture,” not race.

“I did defend western civilization,” King said. “If we have an element of Americans here — and that’s a big element — that reject western civilization, then what have we? This is an effort on the left I think to break down the American civilization and the American culture and turn it into something entirely different.”

“This western civilization is a superior civilization and we want to share it with everybody,” he added.

The Republican-dominated federal government is poised to do away with the National Endowment for the Arts, and this clown is concerned about western civilization because there aren’t enough (white) American babies? That’s rich.

Western civilization is doing just fine, actually. There’s an all-Beethoven program scheduled for the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra. The National Ballet of China will be performing “Giselle” later this month (and also that perennial favorite, “The Red Detachment of Women”). And check out the schedule for the Royal Opera House Muscat in Syria.

What’s great about western civilization is widely appreciated just about everywhere but in the U.S., it seems. And I don’t think that has anything to do with who’s having babies.

See also Charles Pierce, “This Is the Most Blatantly Racist Statement from a Member of Congress in 50 Years.”