Europe’s collapses are reoccurring, such as in World War One, during the rise of the totalitarian dictators, and the “follow up world war.” Avoidable stumbles one could say. Americans are inclined to see Europeans as knowledgeable about the world. In truth, the Continent is often inept to handle its problems and to defend what deserves protection. An illustration comes from the Cold War. Of its own volition, a prosperous and populous Western Europe relied on the for-free protection of a benign extra-continental power.

No matter how unkind it sounds, and even if such views are soft-pedaled in polite transatlantic society, the theme needs to be exposed. Again, the old continent is headed toward a breakdown. Merkel’s chest thumping, that due to the migrants things will “never be the same again” being true, the depth of the pit is yet unfathomable. Without intending suicide, the Chancellor has jumped from the 87th floor.

Alas, at times, Germans are led to pursue goals that dwarf their means. There was the top blue-water navy before 1914, thereafter came world dominance by a state cast for a millennium. Today, elites wish for a gold medal in the nice guys league. Thus, they indulge in the recurring error of overlooking limits. As the political class cheers its moral virtue, the claim and the expectations created dwarf the available means — and the ultimate willingness of the people to carry the burden.

Arguably, the instigator of what might ruin Germany and undermine Europe is Chancellor Merkel. “Duly Noted” calls this nominal conservative the country’s “best Socialist governor ever.” In an emotional reach for a “feel-good” PC nirvana, Merkel, until now a “Teflon” politician, has gone for ruinous superlatives. It began by lecturing that Islam “belongs to Germany.” Then followed the jubilant prediction that, thanks to the migrants, the country, “enriched” by them, will never again be the way she had been. Lastly, the inventor of the “culture of welcome” has opined, while millions are sucked in by her promises, that moral action has “no upper limit.” Those that fear the culturally not only alien but potentially also hostile mass oozing in should join welcome committees. Not to worry: “we will manage.”

It is an aspect of this limitless generosity, that from the high ground of morality, Merkel practices a derivate of the classical “Indian giver.” Yes, Merkel accepts all. Then she demands that the rest of Europe absorb its “share” of these persons. Oddly, the talk is of 120 000 although half a million have arrived and hundreds of thousands will follow.

Ignoring reality in the name of morality shows that the collision with facts unmasks the pompous exhortations as pious lies. Well-intentioned fibs that become policy lead into a dictatorship of virtue. Ominous signs of that are gathering.

A few weeks ago, the writer has joked about where the “Syrians” — often neither Syrian nor refugees — will be housed once all school gyms are filled. The yarn suggested that empty flats might have to be requisitioned. Low and behold, about two days later, an article suggested that. But not as a joke. By now, you encounter that idea as an echo from the forest of politics. Well, farces that “cannot happen” have a way of coming true.

Having perused the foregoing, the reader could conclude that the policy on migration that Europe’s “political class” (and others elsewhere) pursues is a silly exaggeration. In fact, the matter is serious for it threatens to undermine a successful civilization. Subversive forces are set free to imperil a good system by exploiting its political culture’s norms to sedate it.

Two out of several budding calamities deserve to be described.

First: The EU has rules to secure its internal function and its global interests. Now it faces the challenge of a riotous mass that, endowed with victim status, demands room-and-board on a share-the-wealth basis. Declaring forfeit, the EU proved incapable to assert itself. Instead of facing the rowdy invaders, taking a stand was skirted with the excuse that women and babies are at the gates. Accordingly, the only government that insisted that the standing rules of controlled immigration be enforced, was labeled as “right-wing.” The defiance has provoked a knee-jerk while bending backward. What stance will be taken once the challenger is mighty, such as Russia, China or a militant Muslim entity? For those that follow the thought, the implications for the value of the NATO alliance will be difficult to ignore.

Second: How will what passes officially as “Europe,” cope with the throng that Merkel has foolishly “invited” to Germany? Two problems emerge.

To begin, Merkel has with her “moral imperialism” as PM. Orbán put it, cajoled other countries to take “their share” of the migrants. Oddly, that will be the easy part. Once the migrants are to be dispatched from Germany to lesser countries, they will rebel. Note that in this case, “rebel” will not be limited to a figure of speech.

Concurrently, a snag will emerge from the notions in the mind of the assertive intruders. The predicament flows from the need to cope with chimeras sprayed on the clouds by governors that said what they felt before turning on their brains.

Official Germany — and those in her tow — have painted two distorted images as they vaulted over reality. One is that the migrants are meek refugees and as such in need of protection. The newcomers from an underdeveloped milieu that shaped their mind-set are depicted as skilled specialists. They are to meet the economy’s demands and their contribution will right the demographic imbalance of an ageing society.

The role projected upon the migrants and their actual skills are a mismatch. Normally, that would invoke an attempt to remedy the deficiency through retraining. However, in the light of the value system and the emphasis on dogmatic religious training this will, added to the language barrier, prove to be a rocky road. A culture that emphasizes resistance to alien influence coupled to a commitment to remain within the confines of a way of life that has no common denominator with the ways of the host society, limits adjustment. Not every culture makes the attempt to reinvent oneself an easy task.

The foregoing is not speculation. Germany has failed to assimilate the Turkish migrants imported for the kind of menial jobs that have largely disappeared since then. In fact, their third generation rejects German ways more violently than its grandparents had. In Switzerland with 24% foreign born in the population, they supply 47% of the welfare recipients and among asylum seekers that number rises to 83%.

The foregoing tells that Muslim migrants are not successful cultural learners because, since they ignore the failures of their culture, they are convinced of the superiority of their ways. This tells that, while some success stories will be written, most migrants will remain alien outsiders in the hosting economy and its society. Ask yourself, how many dishwashers are needed in an economy that manufactures dishwashing machines?

Skip the economic consequences of an imported self-perpetuating welfare class: the coming blow will be more severe. At first, the dole will satisfy those that settled not for protection but to enjoy the good life. In time, the benefits of consumption will be discovered and be coveted in the self-chosen ghetto. Many will discover that they will not attain the ends that they wished to attain. Not being able to share what others have, envy, resentment, and rejection will result. The hand that feeds, being nearest to the jaw, will be bitten.

Lastly, to the coming resentment of the host. Frustrated disappointment will pass through an amplifier. The catalysts will predate settlement. By imported standards, the majority is a community of unclean unbelievers that eat and drink wrong, whose women are prowling whores, and whose schools teach the godless denial of the truth of the Prophet.

Once discontent prompts action, an already discernible but ignored trait will determine events. On their way to “Europe,” the migrants have demonstrated a remarkable inclination to apply force. Violence or its threat was used to enter Greece, to break through Macedonia, and while traversing Serbia. Pressure only failed to work when the Hungarians erected a barrier to block the nomads that defied the law of the land and EU rules. The result was an attack on the border and its guards. (Typically, while the letter writers applauded, the Hungarians were condemned by official Europe for defending it.) Having met resistance, the throng turned toward Croatia and overwhelmed it. Currently, the road is free through Austria that found an excuse not to try to control the march to Germany.

The crucial consequence is that violence has not only been applied, but that it has paid ample dividends. The inevitable awakening from the dream will bring a return to that tested approach to achieve concessions. Once that conflict is upon us, it will be difficult for the responsible elites to find a way out of the mess, that is, to look good while capitulating. That breakdown promises to bring the end of a number of now impressively shining careers and the fading of numerous pleasing illusions.