By Thomas Madison

I apologize to all Powdered Wig readers for my absence the past few days. I have been in Indiana and Texas attending to business and a family reunion.

While I was away the horrific massacre in Brussels has dominated the news and the consciousness of the world’s civilized and decent people.

The part I don’t understand is the shock and surprise. Europe has been inviting this evil menace into its midst for decades. Why are Europeans suddenly indignant over the tragic events in Paris and Brussels? They stood by complacently while their continent was being overrun by foreigners, many of whom were intent upon killing them, as their “moderate” brethren cheered them on, or at best smiled silently in the face of this demonic horror show.

From The Connor Post

“But Mama there is always a terrorist attack” protested my sixteen year old daughter as I refused to let her travel from Munich to Berlin as the Islamists were busy blowing up Brussels. Yes, I thought, this is is the new normal we are asked to accept: regular terrorist attacks, group assaults on a thousand women at a time, skyrocketing rape statistics.

The Guardian says our response to the Brussels attacks should be Patience and Restraint. The newest government spin is that this crisis will take a very long time to solve because the jihadists are often home-grown, hence unlimited, although these terrorists have been clearly documented as arriving with the recent refugee influx. Nonetheless we are to accept it and get used to it. It has nothing to do with Germany’s insane migration debacle.

But of course it has everything to do with this invitation to allow unlimited Muslim migration into Europe courtesy of No-Plan-B Merkel. I wonder if Germans are really okay with all this. Because, although I was encouraged to see the AfD make headway in the last election, one could hardly call it a rout of the established parties.

Did not Merkel respond to her election losses by inviting seventy-five million Turks to visit, visa-free followed by a fast track for Turkey’s EU membership? This pretty well expresses her contempt for the 13-24 percent AfD populist vote. One cannot help but wonder who is still voting for the CDU/CSU/SPD/Linke/Grüne block of mush which backs Merkel’s dangerous and unlimited migration plans.

I like to ask my intelligent, well-educated, professional friends and colleagues after the obligatory 45 minutes of harangue against Merkel and her immigration mess (which accompanies all social discourse today) if they would consider voting for the AfD. The answer is almost always “no, no way” although they cannot defend or explain this choice. When I point out that AfD is the only party willing to speak out against unlimited mass migration they just sputter and stammer as that chip which is implanted in all German brains at birth begins to fire and they can only mumble about WWII and right-wing extremists.

Never mind that this mass Muslim migration mess has nothing to do with WWII and that Islamic terrorists certainly seem themselves to fit the bill for extremism. And certainly over the likes of Petry, Farage, Trump, Blocher, Wilders, Fico, Strache, Zeman, Le Pen, Dahl, Jensen or any other of the popular leaders, both on the right and the left, that have come to dot the European landscape. In many cases these people represent the most popular parties in their countries. Really, do almost 30% of all Swedes, Swiss, Poles, Slovakians, French, Hungarians, Dutch and Czechs support extremists? Of course not, and it is absurd to even suggest it.

But no, as unhappy as they are, the Germans cannot contemplate voting AfD. One university professor shook his fist in my face at the mere suggestion. Another university professor claimed that this was all a grand plan from Merkel so that when we see how bad all this migration is we will not protest when she halts it. Huh? Another told me of a lovely video where a child asks his father how he will protect him from the terrorists: “with flowers” says the father, “we will fight them with flowers.” Poor kid; I bet he feels really safe in bed knowing Daddy will be fighting with a daisy.

The liberal Guardian says Merkel has placed her CDU left of center. This is correct, that the party that used to be known as the Conservative party has veered dangerously to the left. And good luck to them fighting for oxygen with all the other German left of center parties.

But now that the CDU has turned into just another left wing party, and if the AfD is “far-right”, what pray-tell is in the vast space between the two? The AfD is, in fact, not extremist, far-right or radical at all. The views of the party would roughly line up with those of main stream Democrats in the USA. (At least the Democrats of 20 years ago!)

They are simply the only party which speaks against open borders and unlimited immigration. As with the UKIP and the National Front the media uses buzz words (extremist/far-right/populist/radical) to intimidate voters. And it works, to the point where Germans will ignore the only life-line being thrown to them, or more accurately their children, by refusing to consider the AfD.

The Greek legislator Solon is quoted as having said “Wrongdoing can only be avoided if those who are not wronged feel the same indignation at it as those who are.” Does every single German have to see his daughter raped or his brother bombed before he will demand security and functional borders? Opening the gates of Europe does not end the wars in the Middle East or the poverty in Africa. It just means that our children are no longer safe. Is that the new normal for Europe? Is that the new normal we want for our children?
— Helena Conrad