Nick, suppose that you decide, as you to seem to consider later in your post, that Muslims really do pose a threat to people in their everyday lives. In the the face of the evidence just on this threat, will you apologize to the original letter writer for the personal attacks on her in your first sentences? It is rare to see a letter from an Islam apologist contradict itself within the space of two paragraphs, but you and your low rent Garrison Keillor imitation seem to have done the trick.

Multiculturalism is how the neoliberal, elite overclass investors/megacorps ensure that they are able to cram more and more cheap labor into the First World countries. If the citizens of the first world are not accepting of cheap labor immigrants, then the workforce will not grow so fast, and labor prices go UP, and working people get more money, and investor profits go down. Oh, the horror!

So in order to avoid this situation, the elite overclass created the FakeLeft and its multiculturalist diversity-is-strength quasi-religious dogma. They did this primarily through decades of propaganda churned out through fakeLeft nonprofits and think tanks. Over the years, they have "braingrown" millions of first world fakeLeftists, who put the interests of the overclass and third world cheap labor immigrants over the interests of their fellow first world citizens.

of course the plush welfare state and forgiving culture of europe has given many of these thord world immigrants and their descendants the chance to be oh so naughty. Hence the rapes.

And of course those auslanders will be naughty--they are low on the totem pole of social status. And they want revenge, of course. Wouldn;t you?

Here in the USA, however, the harsh, darwinian, neoslave-colony american culture does not allow the same indulgences as in europe. And also 3rd world immigrants here are not necessarily the lowest on the social status totem pole. Inner city blacks are.

I predict it will all end badly. But there is always a silver lining. The good news is that perhaps Americans will realize what many europeans already know--that small, homogeneous, somewhat insular nations are those that work best; they are those that best allow the workers to organize against the overclass. Return to articles of confederation! Return to TrueLeftism!

You see, diversity is only strength for the overclass. For the rest of us, diversity is weakness. The more fragmented the workers, the more easily the overclass can rule.

go to the halls of power, my friend. We're all children of poor dirty immigrants, in a way. Lots of Italians and Irish in the house and senate. look, we just got our first muslim representative, we have our first half-kenyan senator.

just go to med schools and grad schools in general, and you will see that many many of the studnets are children of immigrants.

It's not just about cheap low-level labor.

Dear LW,

I think your concerns are real. Like you, I always carry pepper spray, but then Hurricane Katrina happened in my state of Louisiana. At first people got carjacked at the local grocery stores or robbed by gunpoint near LSU's campus. A couple months ago a woman in Metairie was raped and killed in a park. She had been waiting for her son to finish jogging. Her rapist ran her over with a vehicle. Needless to say, everyone was horrified when the news broke out. It got to the point where I was afraid of going to the grocery store by myself.

I decided to research martial arts. It turns out there are many books on women in the martial arts. And the arts all have different focuses and attributes. To make a long story short, I checked out some local classes and have now taken about 3 months of white crane kung-fu. I'm very happy with the instruction. (But I have to say that all of the martial arts classes I checked out (aikido, jujitsu) had high levels of instruction; it's much more intensive than an aerobics class at your gym. Another great thing was that there were women in the class with high ranks. The instructor is willing to work with people in all types of physical conditions: old, young, overweight, etc.

The kung-fu class starts out with about 30 minutes of stretching so it is very similar to yoga. The amount of flexibility I have gained is amazing. My posture has noticeably improved. Everyone will tell you that having a good posture is essential for self-defense and for you own confidence.

Then there's the actual defense part of the class. The instructor tailors it to suit your body type so you don't waste time learning a self-defense that's next to impossible to perform. Finally, the instructor makes all students wait one year before beginning sparring. This was important to me because as a woman I'm not used to having rough physical contact with others. This allows time to build up your confidence and to get used to the idea of sparring by doing partner drills instead.

Aikido and jujutsu also focuses on intense partner drills instead of sparring. The debates between sparring and partner drills are endless. Doing research and actually seeing a live class are important so that you can decide what style suits you better.

From what I researched, jujitsu and muy thai kickboxing are the most effective martial arts for self-defense. But you have to factor other things like 1.enjoyment 2.being comfortable in class 3. instructor, etc. If you don't like the class or instructor, you will slack off and will find ways to skip it.

The one thing I encountered in books and in martial arts forums is that a 6 week self defense course is barely adequate. They recommend at least 6 months of training by the best instructor you can find and afford. Then if you become serious about self-defense, it's more like 6 years to master the techniques.

I recommend guides like "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Martial Arts" by Cezar Borkowski. Then there are martial arts magazines like "Inside Kung Fu" to check out. Also Chuck Norris's "The Secret Power Within" is a good, quick read to find out what martial arts is all about.