Since no police force has the numbers to be everywhere at once, it maintains order through the force of its name, the power of the uniform. This was once known as ‘prestige’; today it is better known as ‘legitimacy’. Although as insubstantial as air it is as vital as oxygen. Without it things become very difficult. Once the authorities begin lose their prestige they must rely ever more heavily on force, of which there is never, ever enough.
In one sense legitimacy is the fiction on which society is based. It is to government what confidence is to a bank. As long as everyone believes that the bank will pay the depositor no one will demand all his money back. As long as most believe that the King’s justice is effectively invincible, no one will challenge it. But when a government behaves in a supine manner for an extended period — or a bank refuses to pay out without a good reason — then doubts begin to grow. Both legitimacy and confidence are more severely tested and once it is known that there isn’t enough money in the bank to pay everyone nor enough cops in the station house to arrest everyone then the fiction is bust.
A deadly cycle begins to set in. Both the government — or the bank — have to make payouts in force or money more frequently than they otherwise would. There is a “run” on this key resource and they are bankrupted. Financially in the bank’s case and politically in the case of government. When confidence finally dwindles to its last remaining levels the declining institution must either risk everything on the last throw to restore it or face collapse.
Belmont readers will recognize this situation as one the Three Conjectures sought to describe. It is same idea: you can deal with a crisis humanely and with procedural protection only if you act in a timely and decisive fashion; while you have confidence to supply what force cannot. But if you let things cascade then you will be left only with ever more draconian methods to reverse the decline.
Lee Smith talks about a similar, but not quite identical concept of the Strong Horse. Civil discourse in rough societies is never indulged in for its own sake, but only if it confers survival advantages. Middle Eastern societies will admire the beauty of a representative democracy; they may marvel at its freedoms and its creativity. But none of these will count for aught unless the beautiful horse is also the Strong Horse.
The Weak Horse always goes to the glue factory. Therefore be gentle, but never leave for the racetrack without the sub machine gun under your blanket if you would be the Strong Horse.
The commenters at the Belmont Club have coined still another similar idea termed the Design Margin. The Design Margin is a description of how much a system can be bent before it will break. A society in which there is a great deal of respect or authority and lots of money to square circles has a big Design Margin. A society in dire straits in which contempt for the authority is not only tolerated but encouraged by the cultural elite is a society with a small Design Margin.
But whether the preferred term for this quantity is ‘legitimacy’, ‘confidence’, the ‘strong horse’ or ‘design margin’, the presumption on the political Left since the War has been that Western Society has an infinite or nearly infinite supply of it. It seemed impossible to them that a society with a Big Design Margin might eventually become one with a Small Design Margin. And even if it did, why do Design Margins matter anyway?
There’s always another dollar to distribute or tax; another regulation to be imposed; another rule of war; another apology that can be made. We can play whatever the handicap. Haven’t we always won despite? Religion and national myth can be denigrated to any extent desired, while hostile ideologies can be simultaneously exalted. We’re so rich we shouldn’t care.
And even when societies are fresh out of all that, as evidenced by the disconcerting fact that the cupboard is bare, it can still be conjured by printing money or selling bonds. The stash is there because its always been there. The Man has it. As a last resort, as Jesse Jackson Jr reminds us, we can simply make it illegal not to have ‘legitimacy’, ‘confidence’ or a ‘design margin’ under the Constitution.
Or As Van Jones put it, if we don’t have money its only because some prankster is hiding the goods from us. Someone dangerous like Michelle Bachmann or Sarah Palin. If you’re short then “somebody has our money”. It’s a great theory whose only defect is that it isn’t true. Resources are limited; that’s the fundamental postulate of economics. Unfortunately for those would remake the world according to their druthers, there’s only so much of this or so much of that. Only so many police officers. Only so many cell phone and electronics stores to loot before the whole neighborhood is reduced to ash. And then that’s it. Once ‘legitimacy’, ‘confidence’ or the ‘design margin’ is spent, it’s gone. Truly gone. And the run on the bank will have begun.
The Daily Mail reports that the rioters in London have grown so bold that they are literally stealing the clothes off people’s backs. A run starts small but then progressively gathers momentum. By the end there’s no telling where things will finish up.
Thought 'stealing the clothes off your back' was just an expression, huh?
It seems like a simple idea and you wonder why not everybody gets it. But you have to realize that the Left, in accomplishing the ruin of a society — by debasing the coin of its culture if not its actual coin — always starts and finishes by meaning well. That’s the get out of jail card: idealism. They genuinely set out the improve the world and if you knew them you would have no reason to doubt the purity of their motives. In fact, they are genuinely just as surprised as anyone else when it doesn’t work.
The catastrophe, when it comes, begins always for the children, the youths, the yoots, the utes. Then it fails. But don’t worry. They’ll try harder the next time and then they’ll succeed. They’re idealists after all.
THE SERPENT. The serpent never dies. Some day you shall see me come out of this beautiful skin, a new snake with a new and lovelier skin. That is birth.
EVE. I have seen that. It is wonderful.
THE SERPENT. If I can do that, what can I not do? I tell you I am very subtle. When you and Adam talk, I hear you say ‘Why?’ Always ‘Why?’ You see things; and you say ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say ‘Why not?’ I made the word dead to describe my old skin that I cast when I am renewed. I call that renewal being born.
EVE. Born is a beautiful word.
THE SERPENT. Why not be born again and again as I am, new and beautiful every time?
– Back to Methuselah, GB Shaw
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Wretchard, I think you give the “left” in all it’s permutations, far too much credit.
“……….always meant well. They genuinely set out the improve the world and they are just as surprised as anyone else when it doesn’t work. It was always for the children, the youths, the yoots, the utes. But don’t worry. They’ll try harder the next time and then they’ll succeed.”
Ultimately, the point of their politics is that they get to RULE over all others. Reading through the translations of the letters and papers of the inner circles of the bolshevist cabal in early soviet Russia gives a clear indication of this.
There is, ultimately, no “sweetness and light” in what they seek.
Belmont readers will recognize this situation as one the Three Conjectures sought to describe.
Indeed. Good post, Wretchard.
You might want to link the Three Conjectures post (wow, eight years already!) for people who might not be familiar with it:
http://belmontclub.blogspot.com/2003/09/three-conjectures-pew-poll-finds-40-of.html
I have been exploring UK blogs. Civil authorities are being overwhelmed. A short protest may have been warranted, but nothing explains this other than minority power politics. Spillover appears not to have run into the 13 declared “Sharia Zones.” And during Ramadan, it could means Muslim on Black violence. Eventually, police will be cornered and will fire on the crowd.
The posted video, and numerous others, clearly reveals that this is an anti-police riot. The UK doesn’t have a National Guard. The UK military might be a stabilizing force, as were Guard troops at the Rodney King riots in South Central Los Angeles. So far this incident is not being well handled.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KTxjQPf9vk
See legendary UFC referee – Big John McCarthy – wielding a shotgun at the RK riots in 1991.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yafe9YBLv8&playnext=1&list=PL5BC15CC0E34C3C09
Politicians everywhere have no comprehension of the need to work for Stability. Come September, Israel faces a Norway backed move for UN recognition of “palestinian” Statehood, notwithstanding Hamas’ expressed desire to destroy Israel. The IDF lost 29 of their best tanks during the last intervention in Lebanon. Without infantry capability, a future conflict would inevitably escalate. That means more destabilization. And where is BHO in all this? He wants to give Hamas a salient, on Israel’s borders.
One of the reasons why the concept of a diminishing Design Margin is so hard to grasp is that in societies have not experienced catastrophes for a long time it is an unfamiliar thing. Poverty is something people went through during the mythic Depression. War was something that happened in the 1940s when everything was black and white.
But while very few have direct knowledge of running across a beach for your life, hundreds of millions have experienced and come to expect air travel, IMAX movies, the Apple Store, air conditioning and hand-packed ice cream as their due in life. Butter pecan with M&Ms, crushed Heath, Oreo and hot fudge topping. Hold the whipped cream.
And as to problems the common experience since has been that you can always kick the can down the road. Square the circle from the storehouse in back. It has worked for long nobody can imagine a day when it will stop working. Even when the storehouse goods start running low you can never convince anyone the fatal day is nearing.
“America has always been and will be a ‘AAA’ country.” But beside the fact that President just said this, why should it necessarily be true? Because it’s always been true, so it will always be true. People have come to regard paved roads and 24 hour power as the natural condition of the world even though it isn’t. They’ve always been there and will always be there.
The the argument that the music must always play is irrefutable. Experience confirms it. As one commenter put it: who can believe that Amy Winehouse died from an overdose when she never died from one before?
Viewed from this psychological perspective the Left’s attitude may be irrational, but it is certainly psychologically understandable, at least in America. And this intuition may go far toward explaining why the most confirmed Leftists are people like Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers. To them reality has always been just a rumor whose actual existence is very much to be doubted but never actually seen. And when the long awaited day eventually arrives the worst thing possible is to accept it with an oriental fatalism.
No not yet. And Earth shall be a star and love its throne.
Wretchard wrote:
“Leftists are people like Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers.”
To a man/woman.
The only thing that varies among them is the level of guts/honesty they have in expressing their desires.
Where’s Napoleon and his “whiff of grapeshot” when you need him?
Here’s a snip from the current nyquist. Not very cheery. His last two or three have been relevant to out few days just past –the links are at the URL below, top o’ the column. Some thoughts on the Muirdoch case are valuable. How easily he –his organization –could attract serious enemies, who could easily infiltrate an employee who could then easily … well, what we saw.
http://www.financialsense.com/user/164
(snip)
The difficulties come in periods of depression, and they would be far worse if a depression at all protracted were to supervene.”
In that event, said Pareto, the social order would be compromised; especially since modern society is particularly volatile, lacking traditional cohesion. Today, under a rationalized bureaucratic order, Pareto argued that “no government could remain unaffected during such a period; and tremendous catastrophes might occur and in magnitudes far greater than any that history has hitherto recorded.”
Pareto was writing before the advent of atomic weapons, and before the social fabric succumbed to television and consumerism. Today people are increasingly isolated in a society that tends toward atomization. Decades of prosperity have made us more individualistic and less flexible in our dealings with others. As opportunity dries up, the existing system will find itself face to face with a mob of alienated, angry people.
In his book, The True Believer, Eric Hoffer wrote: “Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all unifying agents. It pulls and whirls the individual away from his own self….” Hoffer argued that the fanatical hatred of a mass movement could “fuse and coalesce” people “into one flaming mass.” He warned that such movements “can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil.” In other words, someone is going to be demonized. Hoffer then told the story of a Japanese delegation to Nazi Germany. They were asked what they thought of National Socialism. A Japanese observer replied, “It is magnificent. I wish we could have something like it in Japan, only we can’t, because we haven’t got any Jews.”
The demonization of Jews was the formula of Nazism in the 1930s. There is reason to fear that the demonization of wealthy Americans may be developing as the formula for the present decade. If that is the case, the dollar’s demise will mark the beginning of a global transformation. “In human societies,” wrote Pareto, “as known in historical times, the producers and holders of savings are continually being robbed of them.” He added that this robbery is carried out through a variety of means: “by violence – war, plunder, individual assaults; or by trickery and deceit – special tax laws aimed at holders of savings; issues of fiat money and certificates of public debt that are sooner or later repudiated in whole or in part….”
Historically, this sort of spoliation “takes place either in the form of catastrophes coming at long intervals … or in the form of developments recurring at briefer intervals, such as the losses inflicted on savers during ‘economic depressions.’” The stealing of vast sums from the wealthy occurs so frequently in history as to be normal. According to Pareto, people imagine that the catastrophes of earlier times cannot be inflicted on them. “That is just an illusion,” he wrote. “[because] they are, on the whole, as regular, as normal, as any other development in human society.”
(end snip, read the rest at the link)
“America has always been and will be a ‘AAA’ country.” But beside the fact that President just said this, why should it necessarily be true? Because it’s always been true, so it will always be true. People have come to regard paved roads and 24 hour power as the natural condition of the world even though it isn’t. They’ve always been there and will always be there.
A little of this attitude even creeps into BC, e.g., “America has been through worse.” “We’ll get through this and come out better than before!” That’s the flip side conservative version of the Left’s belief in excess design margin.
Maybe the two are not exactly the same, but both do take a lot for granted.
Here’s a line for Obama’s next speech, in an outdoor amphitheater with the reverb on so the entire world sounds like his auditorium:
I’ve come not to heal America and to make her economy whole! I’ve come to make America heel and to hole her economy!
Just a suggestion. Might reassure his base.
ugh –must proofread –”Murdoch” i meant.
The closest thing we have to human grapeshot, Angry Karl bears a look-see.
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=191778
(snip)
Global confidence has been effectively shattered. The outright lies of governments worldwide – that there was no need to de-lever, there was no need to take insolvent banks into receivership, we could spend more and more on “stimulus” programs along with social spending and that demand represented by deficit spending was all sustainable GDP – all is being exposed as an utter load of crap and the “valuations” these lies have supported are being systematically shredded.
There is no floor as things sit right now. From a volumetric perspective we have broken key levels with the next serious support in the 900s on the S&P 500.
Price is now back to levels last seen in the early part of 2009 and if the market does not hold up there we are headed for the 666 lows and below.
(end snip)
SP 500 –since we reject it, de Debbil must’ve latched on –the March 09, 09 low was 666, then yesterday it was down 6.66% –he be slammin’ Mammon –
Oh! Oh! Here is another line for Obama’s next speech!
You’ve nothing to want but want itself. And want is what I’ll give you. And when you get it, you’ll want more.
I know. I should be as serious as the situation. But if I was that serious I’d be on the floor having a heart attack.
Multiculturalism meets The Welfare State
The Whiff of Grape has been deployed more recently than people recall or know. The riots in Watts California and in Detroit were ended when the National Guard was sent in. In one particular instance in Watts an individual fired on National Guard troops from the cover of a car. The reply was a burst from a vehicle mounted quad .50 caliber machine gun set up. A local paper printed the photo of the car. It looked like a colander.
In Detroit after the guard was sent in they issued a curfew warning and also a lights out curfew warning for residences. One man made the mistake of lighting a cigarette while standing near his window looking down at the patrol. They hosed his apartment with a .50 M2 and killed him. Nothing was said to the Guard.
The Tea Party that the Elites complain about are trying to work with traditional political means peacefully. They are not what the Elites need to worry about. The Elites have no idea what is out there waiting.
One of the many fallacies of the Left is “Proportional Response.” They love it because it enables bureaucrats to sit in judgment. It is used to condemn Israel whenever she defends herself from noble stone throwing Yoots or a Columbia professor, who happen to be backed by a billion dollar infrastructure and long range missiles controlled by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Effective response is timely, that is ideally done at a time of your choosing, and disproportionate. You do not cauterize a wound by giving it a suntan. Any American Law Enforcement Officer would look at the rioters and think of the “Garner” Rule. Condensed, when confronting a person the proper response ladder is:
1. Warn,
2. Command,
3. Compel.
If the opposing force outnumbers you or is physically stronger than you or is unreasonably belligerent so that you are in reasonable fear then you can use Deadly Force.
The wiki article on Tennessee v. Garner includes this gem, “current research has shown that the use of deadly force contributes little to the deterrence of crime or the protection of the public.” Ever since bad social science, the psychological impact argument based on reactions to dolls, was admitted as evidence in Brown v. Board of Education, even if the judgment was morally correct, the course of justice has been perverted by shoddy studies with predetermined conclusions. This empowers the credentialed lawyers academics and advocates at the expense of the sovereign people. They seek to replace the functioning of a republican (small r) legislature.
Richard Daley was right, when faced by rioters “Shoot to kill.”
I know the people here are familiar with it but I find a certain perverse comfort in reading and posting it. Kipling’s:
”
The Gods of the Copybook Headings
AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.
We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.
We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.
With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”
On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!”
“Where’s Napoleon and his “whiff of grapeshot” when you need him?”
Oh, he’s out there – or at least the grapeshot is. We’ll be lucky to get someone with the capabilities and breadth of Napoleon. I fear we’re more likely to experience Yuddhishthira’s vision:
George Bernard Shaw, a man I’ve come to loathe. Isn’t he in some measure responsible for this? A member of The Fabian Society, drawing the cream of the crackpots of British elites, whose goal was to remake civilization according to their whims. Havelock Ellis, “sexologist”? Annie Besant, Theosophist? You want a fortune teller, someone who heard voices in her head, to create the future? Well, they did. Hey. Good Times.
What we are looking at in London is possible in every significant city in the Western world (with the possible exception of Salt Lake City). Here in Detroit we are one shooting, or a stoppage of Bridge Card (dole) payments, away from the same sort of events. Chaos is rising and most cities are reducing police forces as funding dries up.
The legitimacy that law enforcement has comes from the idea that they will show up and do their job, properly, fairly and quickly. The further that the cops move from that goal, the less legitimacy they have/earn. This mean they need to be more forceful the next time through, and so the downward spiral continues until you get to a place like Syria. The big problem in London is that they have surrendered large parts of the city to the barbarians, they have allowed the criminals to define the law and how it is to be enforced. When the “foreigners” (a.k.a. the Bobbies) show up to enforce the “outsider’s law” they meet with resistance just as if they were invading another country, because they in effect are. This is a common problem with giving up areas to gangs. The British infatuation with P.C. has come back to burn their cit. We are talking about a country that cannot see fit to imprison people that torture a child to death, what can be expected when they are dealing with gangs that are “only” buring down the city?
Society only exists because people believe it does. You can see its products; the order and bounty of a productive society, but you can’t touch it, pick it up or weigh it. We are nothing more than animals without it. The old analogy of the “fabric of society” is quite apt. Individually the threads have little strength and are useless as protection, together they are strong and comforting. The policies of the Left have worn away at that strength, shredded the fabric and frayed the edges. Now the cold winds of collapse blow through and they cry for warmth, demanding that “someone” give them with more of the protection that is provided by society, that same society that they so deeply despise.
I’ve recommended Barton Biggs’ book before, but will again (http://www.amazon.com/Wealth-War-Wisdom-Barton-Biggs/dp/0470474793/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1312895718&sr=1-1). It’s too late in the disintegration for this to be a self-help manual, but knowing about past episodes of wealth destruction nevertheless seems worthwhile.
There are groups in society that are regressing, not evolving.
Encouraged by haters of progress (as they jetset around the world), listening fools are regressing to the Hunter Gatherer lifestyle.
A Hunter-Gatherer just finds things, just consumes them, defecates where he is, and moves on when the smell gets too bad.
Listening to the looters on TV, I was struck by the fact that their English was incomprehensible. Not only have we raised a generation that cannot read and write, we have now a generation that cannot speak. Like they go shit an’ stuff. They were unemployable no-hopers. Hunters on the gathering.
The unintended consequence of socialism – neanderthals on the streets.
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know, like, shit an’ stuff.
Hey, you thought the economy was the problem?
ADE
“Maybe the two are not exactly the same, but both do take a lot for granted.”
Set Theory again. EVERYTHING has something in common with something else, even if it only existence as a physical item or an idea. The set of things that have mass and occupy space vs the set if things that don’t.
If I read you correctly (always an if. I find Carol an enjoyable and provocative poster while others think her deranged.) You are saying that since the left and the right both have delusions they are the same.
They are not. Their delusions are not the same either.
Plus delusions are not created equal.
So while set theory is useful for data base design and essential for systems work, applying it to human affairs is fraught with hazard.
What has always worked in the past is providing the yoots with weapons and sending them off to kill foreigners. At a profit, of course. What you are seeing in London is the blowback of 3 generations of peace. All the Americans fault, of course. No Americans and Europeans would have gone back to killing each other in wholesale lots in the 60′s or 70′s. Most of them wouldn’t be out rioting because their fathers would have died before conceiving the yoots in question.
Since the Mooslimes have a similar problem, they need to get together with the Euros and arrange a war. Since the purpose of the war is killing of troublesome yoots, there is no reason to spend money on weapons. Sharp sticks and wicker shields should do. Once the yoot population has been reduced to non-riotous levels, we can flip a coin to see who wins. The media will love it, since lots of blood to show the masses.
Since it’s my idea, I get the popcorn concession.
***I keep wondering when the Brit skinheads, tough guys, or whoever will show up—or maybe that’s where they are now.
***I predict an increase in concealed carry permits and purchases of stock in Ruger, Colt, etc.
***Re the Garner rule: for law enforcement, yes; in self-defense the rule is 1) attack suddenly, without warning 2) use unrestrained, overwhelming force 3) continue until the threat is neutralized. Given enough time/distance, one warning is OK.
W
“The catastrophe, when it comes, begins always for the children, the youths, the yoots, the utes.”
Last I heard the Utes, a Native American tribe in Utah and Colorado (which Utah is named after), were doing pretty well…no catastrophe yet…with typical issues like some of the other tribes. They put on a great Pow Wow recently in Salt Lake City.
Sadly I agree with Bruce @1. The goal of the center-left is to make things better according to their wishful thinking. The goal of the true left is to destroy. They are suffused with envy that makes them resent what the “other” has. The true left is like the person who discovers a genie and is granted a single wish — but only on the condition that their neighbor gets the same thing double. They wish, “Make me blind in one eye.”
Jealousy drives one to want what others have, but once that want is satisfied, the jealousy goes away. “My neighbor has a beautiful car. I am jealous. But after I was able to buy my own beautiful car I no longer covet his.”
Envy drives one to say, “My neighbor has a beautiful car. I will destroy it so we will be equal.”
I no longer hold that the true left is idealistic and filled with noble ideas. That may still apply to the center-left but not the true left. The true left wants destruction driven by their envy. What they can’t build, they wish to destroy.
And by what I understand as the principles of entropy, what takes centuries to build can be destroyed in years or months or days.
Toadold #13:
A friend of mine was a fireman in Detroit at the time of the 1960′s riots. They were escorted to fires by tanks. Tanks, as in M48′s or M60′s. He described one case in which they were fighting a fire next to a large high rise building in a “poor” area. The tank that covered them pointed its main gun at the high rise; one sniper and they would have blown the whole building away.
As you say, the Tea Party is trying to change the course of the country the “nice” way. And the same people will also be the ones that win the nasty way, if it comes to that. We ain’t played Tea Party Cowboys and Indians yet.
Archie Bunker once said; ‘England is a fag country’. As over the top as that may have been, Norman Lear’s ‘All in the Family’, a knock of the British sitcom “Till Death Us Do Part”, was mocking the bigotry of middle-class America. Wikipedia describes Archie Bunker thusly –
“Archie Bunker (Carroll O’Connor), a working-class World War II veteran. He is a very outspoken bigot, seemingly prejudiced against everyone who is not a U.S.-born, politically conservative, heterosexual White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, and dismissive of anyone not in agreement with his view of the world. His ignorance and stubbornness tend to cause his malapropism-filled arguments to self-destruct. He often responds to uncomfortable truths by blowing a raspberry. He longs for simpler times when people sharing his viewpoint were in charge, as evidenced by the nostalgic theme song “Those Were the Days”, the show’s original title.”
When one mocks Sambo one may wonder who the bigot is and who the stereotype is. But in All in the Family we witnessed the birth of Political Correctness, it sounded the call to the dark recesses of the mind that must conjure up hate and bigotry;”here is your n!gger behind the tree, come thee and smite him.”
What a different scene it must have been when a line of British Red Coats took up position in front of a crowd with their muzzle loading muskets, bayonets fixed, and hurriedly read a decree from the queen demanding their dispersal. I wonder how confident the youthful agitators would have felt then. Were things more peaceful in those days? Probably not but you knew that the police would do their duty and the mobs, they would disperse or die whatever their nature.
“Thought ‘stealing the clothes off your back’ was just an expression, huh?” That scrawny youth was obviously ‘oppressing’ that big noble black man. There should be laws to make sure that the locals don’t take advantage of those important guests, oh yeah, there are laws.
This situation in the UK reminds me of the situation in aerodynamics called the area of reverse command. When an aircraft is in normal flight, lift balances the weight and thrust developed by the engine equals the drag of the airframe, and the aircraft flies in balanced flight.
In “equilibrium” society, the police keep the deviants from society from causing anarchy. There are relatively few criminals to deal with and the society is in equilibrium.
In the area of reverse command, the angle of attack of the wing creates lift, but a lot of drag is also induced. It takes a lot of power to go slower and to fly—much more than normal flight. Pretty soon you get into a situation that all the power available cannot hold you up and your wing stalls. Hopefully you have enough altitude to recover and to get back into equilibrium.
I was looking at the video Wrechard posted. This is the area of reverse command. There was no respect for authority or the veneer of civilization. The force of the police were outnumbered by the rioters. Society is in a stall. Down it goes. Once the rioters take command, they loot and destroy civilization, and it is gone. You cannot restore it except by massive amounts of power, in this case, force by the authorities.
In the case of London, there is not much altitude to recover. We in the US are not immune to it, except we have enough force to prevent widespread rioting, in the short term.
How many believed that none of these scenes were going to happen here?
And how many were informed about Philadelphia city’s (and possibly other large metro areas) flash mobs problems, and how severe those random violence had become?
Regular media won’t tell you, hence “there are no problems”. And people continue to believe that those riots will never happen here, until it does.
Batman/24—
Envy drives one to say, “My neighbor has a beautiful car. I will destroy it so we will be equal.”
A Russian friend told me a joke as typical of the mentality in the old USSR:
A very poor Russian peasant only had one real asset: a milk cow whose production was enough to allow him to sell excess in the village for cash.
One day he found his cow dead. “Oh, woe is me, what will I do? Now we will have no money!”
Suddenly an angel appeared and said: “Ivan, in this moment of tragedy I will grant you one wish.”
He thought for a minute and said, “Let my neighbor’s cow die also!”
Just another version of the old crabs-in-a-bucket story.
The Design Margin is the tolerance a rational, economic technocratic society has for people unable to plan, think, or control themselves. The surest method to maintain a rational society is to ostracize (or exile or transport) those incapable of even menial tasks.
“whether the preferred term for this quantity is ‘legitimacy’, ‘confidence’, the ‘strong horse’ or ‘design margin’…”
It strikes that this is the same concept referred to by the Chinese as “The Mandate of Heaven”; not surprising that every civilisation that has been around for a while has had experience with it. I have always been partial to the Chinese phrase – although it sounds spiritual, it has a very practical, real world sense about it, especially in that once the Mandate of Heaven is lost, there is no way that it can be recovered by those who have lost it. That Government – or that society, if the rot has gone that deep – must fall completely and be replaced with something new and fresh. Without the Mandate of Heaven, every move the old guard makes will be cursed with failure, and the people must throw them off if they are to survive.
And as Confucious emphasized, the “Rectification of the Language” is the very first step in setting society right again. He had problems with the PC of his day, too.
Alaska Paul #27:
The problem is not that the USA, an armed society, lacks the power to impose order. As I have said, Joe Sixpack has the police outnumbered, outgunned, outsmarted and surrounded. And he also has the criminals in that same position.
But if riots break out by the proletariat, or the righteously aggrieved downtrodden minorities, or the kids who got in with a bad crowd, or whatever we call them this week, will Joe Sixpack with his deer rifle or Garand or single shot .22 be allowed to protect his life, property and the general welfare? The lessons of the last 50 years argue that he better not try. And if he does bear arms, he better plan to plug’em and plant’em, and tell nobody nothing.
A repeat but worth reviewing.
Why the left is more likely to impose harsher penalties on blacks:
http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/prison.htm
New UK – “Two girls who took part in Monday night’s riots in Croydon have boasted that they were showing police and “the rich” that “we can do what we want”.
The pair who were drinking wine looted from a local shop at 09:30 BST on Tuesday morning, spoke to the BBC’s Leana Hosea.”
Wait until the boys show the girls that they can do what they want. PC deconstructionism leads to tribalism which leads to might makes right. When one attains their low druthers they’d wish for a cohesive culture. But in this case, a hardcore contingent faces down the police and they fold up like a $2 suitcase. Once the order has been breached the rest of the followers are stirred up into a hedonistic riot-fest, fashionable, beats what’s on the telly.
The left does not start or finish by meaning well. We confuse that with their total immersion in Eliot’s “endless struggle to think well of themselves”.
RWE #32—-Civilization is indeed a thin verneer, and your points are well taken. A breakdown in civilization as you describe is a definite possibility, especially in urban areas. 10K rounds of .223 will not help in a human sea of rioters and looters.
And in this day and age of economic troubles, there will not be the funds to rebuild, so you will have blocks of burned out buildings with nothing to support the populace.
I hope that we do not cross that Rubicon, but I do fear for our country.
an armed people can resist sometimes long enough for the police to show up. Sometimes they can threaten resistance, and that deters violence. sometimes their resistance is enough to end the threat.
an unarmed people is unable to resist.
RWE – “will Joe Sixpack with his deer rifle or Garand or single shot .22 be allowed to protect his life, property and the general welfare?”
There are three distinct phases that might affect this 1)Nominal civil order; vigilantism will not be tolerated. 2)Decent into civil disorder; vigilantism will not be tolerated except those at the temporal apex of the civil conflict. 3)Unmitigated civil disorder, complete break down of civil society; vigilantism will be promoted and will grow from neighborhood to neighborhood, barricading out those not from the neighborhood and supplicating by threat of force those who do.
I witnessed phase 3 during the Watts riots when locals in our fairly affluent enclave shut of roads with barricades and armed men checked each driver and made sure that weren’t a group of gangs. The reason that rioters always trash their own neighborhoods or a downtown district is, at least here in America, no way that they’d do very well if they took on Joe Six Pack’s turf. No, things would not go well at all.
DonM – “an armed people can resist sometimes long enough for the police to show up”
The fact of the matter is that the LA police department has recently stressed that their policy is to protect themselves in the case of civil unrest. So when the sh!t hits the fan, the police department is going to be busy pulling in their forces from the edges and to make sure where ever they are, that they have critical mass to protect themselves. For the same reason, police are starting to promote the idea of CCW and an armed citizenry as backstop to the thin blue line of LE. So in the case of riots, don’t plan of the police coming to the rescue. You do not want to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Reginald Denny could expound on that.
RWE – “will Joe Sixpack with his deer rifle or Garand or single shot .22 be allowed to protect his life, property and the general welfare?”
Allowed by whom? If the police can’t control a few rioters, what hope do they have against an angry general population? They’ll die twice as fast, with bullet holes in front and back.
…Some of these scenes could certainly happen here, but I think the ending would be very different. It’s pretty clear from the comments above that Belmont clubbers are more than willing to go…..clubbing. Having been a club carrier for 32 years in my youth, I’ve seen American law enforcements response to anarchy. It is nothing like English law enforcement. Besides, we have Korean convenience store owners in reserve. The threat of deep kimchee will sober up the most jaded looter.
36. Alaska Paul
“And in this day and age of economic troubles, there will not be the funds to rebuild, so you will have blocks of burned out buildings with nothing to support the populace.”
Have you been to Detroit? If you had you would be speaking in the past tense. The riots killed Detroit, there are still buildings that were destroyed in 1967 that stand like rotten teeth against the Detroit skyline.
You are right that 10K of .223 would do little against a sea of rioters if it were being fed to one gun. I live uncomfortably close to Detroit. My neighbors and I have many guns between us, a goodly amount of ammo (150K+), and the training (military and law-enforcement) to use both to good effect.
Rioters are bullies and cowards, they move elsewhere when confronted with force. The problem in London is that the Bobbies cannot use force due to the leftie P.C. culture, these are just misunderstood “yoofs” after all. The time to stop this riot was right after it started, or fifty years ago…….
But whether the preferred term for this quantity is ‘legitimacy’, ‘confidence’, the ‘strong horse’ or ‘design margin’, the presumption on the political Left since the War has been that Western Society has an infinite or nearly infinite supply of it. It seemed impossible to them that a society with a Big Design Margin might eventually become one with a Small Design Margin. And even if it did, why do Design Margins matter anyway?
The left lives in the romantic fallacy, that we would all live in paradise except for the evil that men do. They do not see the world as constructed and only held together by the good that men do.
So all of their “design margin” is bad, “design” is bad. How then do they view their own “constructive” efforts at regulation, taxation, government? As the acts of angels and impossible to miscarry. “The people can do no wrong” Rousseau wrote. But I guess “the people” are only those on the left.
In the complex world it seems it’s too easy to want to take these self-centered, idiosyncratic positions. But then, “the world is too much with us” is an ancient thought, that complexity was already there in Roman times, and probably with Ogg in his hunter-gather tribe twenty thousand years earlier. Fine for them, but what do we do about it now?
The Brits are in one helluva fix. They are now debating the use of “plastic bullets” and other stern but nonlethal measures as if the use of deadly force is completely out of the question. Even in the US, the use of deadly force during civil unrest is officially unacceptable and only takes place in those rare moments of bureaucratic sanity when public officials simultaneously agree to shut their eyes for a few bloody hours.
The UK thing should be a matter for soldiers. Gurkhas would do nicely. Not the few remaining in the UK who would be subject to litigation and persecution in the aftermath, but some imported directly from Nepal for the occasion. It would work wonders but the PM would have to take responsibility for the bodies.
@22. Jockstrap
I used to worry that the government would ban the sale of firearms and etc.
However, since you need to purchase firearms from someone with an FFL, the sale of firearms is a guaranteed source of sales taxes for the states. Since Amazon is taking away a lot of their other sales taxes, I imagine that the states will be unwilling to give up the sales taxes it gets from firearms.
We’ve heard reports of burning and looting, but what about rapes? Have rape reports gone up? Think about it.
do the english rioters prove the swedish mass murderer’s point?
Singapore started construction of a desalination plant slated for completion in 2013 that will deliver desalinized water for .45 @ cubic meter or $555@acre foot. The current record is held by Israel for desalinized water at just over 700@acre foot.
http://www.waterworld.com/index/display/news_display/1454672358.html
This article discusses the way to make desalination even cheaper.
http://www.tgdaily.com/sustainability-features/57709-desalination-could-be-made-cheaper-says-team
When water desalination costs hit +-$200@acre foot –these price points will justify high value food crops. At +-$50@ acre foot desalinized water will be cheap enough for field crops.
This will make it possible to double the size of Africa and turn the Sahara green. About this time imho the Europeans will kick out their unwanted minorities… again…
#38 and #40:
I can think of two cases in recent years in South Carolina, not a state noted for its leftward lean, in which homeowners responding to burglaries were assaulted after the fact by the legal system. One shot, but did not kill, the career criminal burgler after being fired upon; he lost his house when the burgler sued and won. The other man ended up in jail when he shot and killed a teenager who broke into his house at 1AM; the teenager’s family was outraged that the homeowner only got 20 years and vowed to go back to court to see that he got life.
And neither of these were cases where the homeowner heard a noise in the night and emptied a magazine into the azalea bushes just on general principles. There was actual late night breaking and entering in both cases, and for the man who ended up losing his house, an actual and substantial exchange of gunfire (as in criminal empties a stolen 9MM at homeowner and then reaches for a .357, only to be stopped when the homeowner hits him with a single shot .22).
So at what point do you decide to rock and roll – and at what point to fertilze the azaela bushes with the results?
If there is an armed mob – armed perhaps with bricks and broken bottles – coming down your street with no law enforcement in sight, then you may well judge it is time to risk being judged by 12 rather than carried by 6. But it may not be that clear a choice.
And even worse, at what point do you decide to go explain to the legal system that your neighbor losing his home for being so arrogant as to defend it, or being incarcerated for doing so, is simply not acceptable. And at what point does this disagreement move from the voting booth to a necktie party on the courthouse lawn with the legal system itself as the guest of honor?
Do as I and keep not only plenty of firearms and ammo on hand but also some firecrackers and M-80′s so to explain the noise should police finally arrive.
I’m sure I’m not the first to note that the goings-on in Britain are reminiscent of A Clockwork Orange?
Fiction is often the first draft of history.
re: 45: Fortunately for anyone wanting to obtain a firearm “off the record”, it is still legal to buy from a non-dealer, non-FFL holder. No paperwork, no tax, no entry on a government record for future government use. This “loop-hole” will not last much longer, most likely.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-most-powerful-man-on-earth/2011/08/08/gIQA49w72I_print.html
Dana Milbank, certified leftoid at WaPo, disrespecting POTUS. Is that a crisis in legitimacy? But at least in normal times we have huge design margins in our US government. Milbank asks if Obama should be doing something, and Jay Carney says something about separation of powers. Indeed. It is hardly POTUS’ job to regulate markets, even when they crash. Of course, it’s nice if POTUS doesn’t *cause* the markets to crash, but that’s another subject.
I was going to say what AM said here, that in Los Angeles we have several good instances of not waiting around for the police when things get dicey. Of course in the UK, waving a kitchen knife in your own defense can get you locked up these days, and tell me if that isn’t as much of their problem as the economy. Heard some “reporter” from UK this morning on the radio, excusing the rioters because the government’s financial cutbacks did not have their full popular support. Weirod to hear this bleeding-heart excuse even in the middle of the basic reporting, but the UK has strange cultural currents to this day, that have never been here in the US. The people there still tend to revolt against the aristocracy only three hundred years after their glorious revolution, though I guess that was not *exactly* a democratic uprising.
Once the authorities begin lose their prestige they must rely ever more heavily on force, of which there is never, ever enough.
When a society comes to believe they have peace and security because they have a strong police force — and worse, when the police come to believe they are the sole line between civility and chaos — that society is very close to enslavement.
We Americans used to depend on something more: doing right when no one was looking.
A relative told me a young boy went into Walmart with him and asked “Do they have cameras here?” (meaning, “Are we under surveillance?”) because he planned on doing a little shoplifting.
Shoplifting at Walmart, rioting in London, Detroit or Los Angeles: it’s only a matter of scale.
We need to remember the never-sung stanza from America The Beautiful:
America! America!
God mend thy every flaw.
Confirm thy soul in self control,
Thy liberty, in law.
LONDON (AP) — Britons swept up, patched up and feared further violence Tuesday, demanding police do more to protect them after three nights of rioting left looted stores, torched cars and blackened buildings across London and several other U.K. cities.
Police said they were working full-tilt, but found themselves under attack — from rioters roaming the streets, from a scared and worried public, and from politicians whose cost-cutting is squeezing police numbers ahead of next year’s Olympic Games.
London’s Metropolitan Police force vowed an unprecedented operation to stop more rioting, flooding the streets Tuesday with 16,000 officers, nearly three times Monday’s total.
Although the riots started Saturday with a protest over a police shooting, they have morphed into a general lawlessness that police have struggled to halt with ordinary tactics. Police in Britain generally avoid tear gas, water cannons or other strong-arm riot measures. Many shops targeted by looters had goods that youths would want anyway — sneakers, bikes, electronics, leather goods — while other buildings were torched apparently just for the fun of seeing something burn.
Police said plastic bullets were “one of the tactics” being considered to stop the looting. The bullets were common in Northern Ireland during its years of unrest but have never before been used in mainland Britain.
Someone mention Detroit?
I live nearby too. And I remember talk about the riots in late 2008 and early 2009 when many people I knew were buying AR-15s and stocking up on bullets.
Surprising, since most of us hadn’t even been born when the riots occurred. But such things leave a long memory.
I bet the same will be true of Britain, assuming they are able to get things under control eventually, despite their crushing PC handicaps. In important ways I suspect England won’t really be the same country, just like Detroit wasn’t really the same city after 1967.
I’d guess political parties like the BNP and UKIP will do better. The mavens of political correctness will have some explaining to do – and explain they will. Of course it was all because of the evil and brutal cuts made by the despicable Cameron who only cared about his rich banker friends and not the poor and downtrodden, etc.
Of course their solution will be more of the same policies – more welfare state, more taxes – but if the UK government could realistically done that, it would have done so before the last election.
A conundrum, it is.
How about CA?
For 55: I was born in California and lived there most of my life. I left 25 years ago. I don’t know the rules there now but I’m sorry if you still live there.
49. Roughcoat
‘I’m sure I’m not the first to note that the goings-on in Britain are reminiscent of A Clockwork Orange?’
Exactly right. In the past riots took place for some obvious reason – hunger, oppression, injustice, an attempt to gain freedom. What are these British riots for or against? Are they rioting in the name of liberty and justice? – apparently not. Are they rioting to have their government dole stopped? – don’t think so.
The rioters are superannuated drones. If they were civilized they would at least make sure they were ornamental in some way – like Bertie Wooster and the Drones Club. Is this the revolt of the physically living but spiritually dead? Maybe they are rioting against themselves.”When all men are paid for existing …” as that great Kipling poem posted by toadold says – maybe there is nothing left to do but to destroy their own existence.
As that old Buffalo Springfield song goes – “There’s something happening here; what it is ain’t exactly clear”
@45 Ever hear of gunbroker.com?
Often items are cheaper than retail, despite transfer fees and shipping. And it has the same sales tax policy as Amazon.
Then there is the possibility that someone will move into the “vacuum” left by ineffective law enforcement. Think Tongs. Warlords that will tell the police to piss off and stay out of their way. Restricted access enclaves protected by mercenaries. People that don’t give warnings, they just kill to get peoples attention. Ye olde Feudal ages with modern weapons. Even now you don’t start shit in China town or little Italy. Watch some enterprising Muslim’s offer “protection” in London. Or perhaps some experienced Eastern Europeans. Danegeld. Then there were the guys that went to a Yakuza bar in Tokyo to pick fights and were never heard of again. Then there was the local Korean who told me when I asked if he was going to get his CHL, Nah, to much money too much work, baseball bat and shotgun handy enough. Form up platoon right quick.
rwe @ 48: And even worse, at what point do you decide to go explain to the legal system that your neighbor losing his home for being so arrogant as to defend it, or being incarcerated for doing so, is simply not acceptable. And at what point does this disagreement move from the voting booth to a necktie party on the courthouse lawn with the legal system itself as the guest of honor?
As it happened in the LA riots, when the entire neighborhood is guarded by organized and armed citizens I think your later options are much in everyone’s mind and the civil authorities are slow to overstep. OTOH, thinking of the Koreatown citizens, once they *showed* their force I’m not sure it was ever actually used. But the danger was never a mob as such but just roving cars full of bandits, opportunists. And many of those who might have been shot would not necessarily be eager to tell the police how or why it happened. If a dozen citizens behind cover started shooting into a torch-carrying mob of hundreds, well, … are there any precedents for that in US history?
We do have this case now in Fullerton (Los Angeles suburb), of a young schizophrenic adult being beaten by police and then died, accused of trying to steal a car. Exactly how things escalated to that point are unclear, but as usual the police are claiming procedure, even though that is prima facie at odds with the results. And apparently the father was involved in police training at some point, on just these kinds of situations. The point of all this being the complexity of the real world, especially when things slip.
And yes it is very Clockwork Orange over there in UK.
http://www.lyrics007.com/Sublime%20Lyrics/April%2026,%201992%20Lyrics.html
April 26th, 1992,
there was a riot on the streets,
tell me where were you?
You were sittin’ home watchin’ your TV,
while I was paticipatin’ in some anarchy.
First spot we hit it was my liqour store.
I finally got all that alcohol I can’t afford.
With red lights flashin’ time to retire,
And then we turned that liquor store into a structure fire.
Next stop we hit it was the music shop,
It only took one brick to make that window drop.
Finally we got our own p.a.
Where do you think I got this guitar that you’re hearing today?
Hey!
#59 toadold
The London shopkeepers are already “taking care of business,” according to the Telegraph: “In one of east London’s most fashionable districts, shopkeepers brandishing makeshift weapons took to the streets.
As nearby Hackney was targeted by rioters and looters, the mostly Turkish owners of barber shops and food stores in Dalston pulled the shutters down on their premises and stood guard outside.
Some were seen carrying tools to protect themselves and their businesses, as police officers were scarce in the area late on Monday night.
When suspected looters were seen in the area, the shopkeepers and their families ran shouting after them up the main road, Kingsland High Street.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8691761/London-riots-residents-fight-back.html
If Drudge is to be believed, American baseball bats are the weapon du jour: (via Althouse): http://althouse.blogspot.com/2011/08/american-baseball-bats-selling-fast-in.html
58. Xennady
Yes. Great site.
Actually if you Google “flash mobs” you’ll see that gangs of blacks in many cities across the USA have taken to attacking whites for fun and profit.
http://bit.ly/pUm33X
Annoy@ 30 “The fact of the matter is that the LA police department has recently stressed that their policy is to protect themselves in the case of civil unrest.”
That describes tp a tee LAPD’s behavior during the Rodney King riots. Their motto ‘Protect and Serve” applies to themselves only.
In places like LA, other than arming yourselves – if that doesn’t work for you -, may I suggest a commercial security patrol, which are not that much money if enough people chip in. All the neighborhoods around where I live have them. The LAPD just doesn’t have the manpower to police the white neighborhoods even if they had the inclination.
Wall Street had expected the Fed to jump in today and to try and reflate the markets in some way or other.
The Fed just bailed. Although their statement puts a brave face on things, you don’t have to read very deep to see that the Fed has just chosen to do nothing at all.
Has the Fed just given up?
Roughcoat @ 49 said:
“I’m sure I’m not the first to note that the goings-on in Britain are reminiscent of A Clockwork Orange?”
Despite the violence, “A Clockwork Orange” is one of my favorite movies. Take a look at how “Little Alex” appears today:
http://static1.purepeople.com/articles/4/14/89/4/@/71481-malcolm-mcdowell-637×0-1.jpg
Now that I have your attention, remember this picture of Carrie Fisher as “Astro Babe”:
http://www.treksinscifi.com/babedaily/babes/2008-07-07-Carrie_Fisher.jpg
Here she is today as “Hog Woman”:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/File_Carrie_Fisher_at_WonderCon_2009_4.jpg
Besides being “too old”, Fisher smoke, drank and had a serious cocaine problem which is why she’s such a mess.
The DJIA has gone negative again. What is it about 2:15 EDT? Is that when the PPT algorithms shut down? Maybe somebody figured out how much freshly printed money is budgeted to the PPT and concluded when they’re most likely to run out of cash for the day?
wws @ 65 asked:
“Has the Fed just given up?”
I suspect it’s “harvest time”. The Fed spent trillions of dollars pumping up the markets. They’ve now pulled out their money along with a significant fraction of your 401(k) money. This is a form of “voluntary taxation” courtesy of the US Federal government.
[#1 of 4]
If your domicile is just an island in a sea of humanity, then you have a big problem with your and your family’s security on a breakdown of law and order. It is of the utmost importance to develop a sense of community, based upon shared values and interests before things are tested. The more self sufficient you are the better off you are.
Here in Alaska, despite the inroads of just-in-time supply chain practices, many of us still practice that self sufficiency. Stores in Anchorage and the Mat-Su would have about 4 days of inventory on hand. We get the bulk of our groceries by barge and container ship several times a week. An interruption in that supply chain would cause a crisis in a week.
65 & 66
Same strategy different tactics.
Continue to transfer wealth from producers to elites and those who support them.
Alaska Paul @ 67 said:
“If your domicile is just an island in a sea of humanity, then you have a big problem with your and your family’s security on a breakdown of law and order.”
After TSHTF (which maybe happening as we speak), simply being armed and having lots of MREs is insufficient. All that really achieves is making your family a target and providing you with the opportunity of being killed with your own weapon. True security can come only through being part of a larger group of people (100 or more?) who have armed themselves and secured their food supply. When local order begins to break down, I’ll be trying to join a group of armed and prepared families. I suspect that being armed and prepared will be a prerequisite for joining.
[#2 of 4]
The video clip is fascinating. You can see the leaders of the mob taunting the cops…once it is clear they can do nothing, the mob advances. Drop a couple of guys and the mob turns and flees.
But the cops had no guns.
26 Annoy Mouse:
“Archie Bunker (Carroll O’Connor), a working-class World War II veteran. He is a very outspoken bigot, seemingly prejudiced against everyone who is not a U.S.-born, politically conservative, heterosexual White Anglo-Saxon Protestant
The composite that Norman Lear created is such a fraud. A real Archie Bunker in 1970′s New York would have been an Irish Catholic, which means he would likely have also had Italian relatives. There was nothing “WASP-y” about Archie.
In California, Irish Catholics have Mexican relatives (or spouses). Different coast, same deal. Norman Lear made it simple but the real world is much more interesting.
72. Stephen:
Very logical actually. Both ethnicities, Italian and Mexican, have similar flags to the Irish, and are both primarily Roman Catholic. The bond between Mexicans and Irish started with the Mexican-American War, of all things.
http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/09/stock-market-drops-vcs-hold-partner-meetings-what-happens-next/
The sins of the socialists come home to roost
The goddess of chaos lives still
Mistaken belief in the power of guilt
To hold those in thrall to its will
Creating beholders to state run largesse
Gives birth to resentment and rage
A triggering spark is but all that it takes
To loosen the bars on the cage
So now there is nothing the state may command
The mob runs amok mouth agape
Unknowing, uncaring that soon they will face
The scent of the first whiff of grape
CA Tax Revenues 10% below expected for July:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/july-california-tax-revenues-plunge-more-10-below-expectations
Independent Music Labels devastated by riots (fires):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/14460204
How strange it all is. In my youth in south Texas the people of the Flash Crowds would have been gunned down without mercy. And it would not have been done by the local police. For the most part it would have been the job of the police to arrange for the disposal of the corpses.
An armed society is a polite society. In such a society the terminally rude and bandits tend to be drop kicked out of the gene pool. That is a good thing.
78. Tcobb—
How right you are!! I grew up in Corpus Christi and I’ve often thought the same thing. Given the apparent ethnicity of the rioters it probably wouldn’t have seemed wrong at all in those days.
The folks over at Zerohedge were confused by today’s market action. First the PPT allowed the DJIA to drop by 200 points, apparently some sort of head-fake to draw in the bears for slaughter. Then the PPT goosed the market by 600 points. The MSM cover story that attempted to justify today’s market action was the ambiguous information that came out of the Federal Open Market Committee meeting. Why is the Fed doing this?
[#3 of 4]
Riot Aftermath …
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2024035/UK-riots-2011-Twitter-RiotWombles-clean-march-yobs-devastate-London.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
egg @ 80: The folks over at Zerohedge were confused by today’s market action.
Good. If they said they understood it, I wouldn’t have believed them!
As I read it, TPTB have for the moment arrested the downward momentum, I mean seriously folks I’ve got to start trading my own advice, but they let it spike down to penetrate the 200ma, and then closed it up against the bottom of the 20% bollinger volatility band.
http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=$INDU&p=W&yr=3&mn=0&dy=0&id=p88111224666
In normal times I’d read this chart as presaging new lows over the next two weeks or so, about 80% probability, before managing any real rise. Probably after a little more snapback rise over the next day or two. BUT I’ve seen the PPT over the last few years, and they don’t seem to like that classic pattern, they will try to use the current spike as a market bottom and rise slowly back up instead.
WSJ today chock full of columns saying how the overall world economy is no worse today than three days ago, and I suspect that’s right. And I am totally mystified at the spike down in oil stocks, that normally would rise alongside gold prices. Suspect some major opportunities there in arbitrage.
But meanwhile The Bernank says he’s going to hold rates at zero for another two years. I mean, S&P scared everyone that US treasuries should be downgraded so what happened – the world demanded more of them! Beam me up, Scotty, …
[#4 of 4]
#79. Moot
Yes sir. If you grew up in Corpus Christi you probably know where Calallen is–that’s where I’m originally from. Its changed beyond recognition from my youth when most of it was rural or semi-rural and you could hear the coyotes sing at night. People were kind but not stupid. Strangers who broke down there were treated with exquisite kindness, but the rude and criminals were shown no mercy. Everyone had guns and knew how to use them, and most everyone had the best burglar alarm ever made–a dog. Most people didn’t bother to lock their doors or their cars. It wasn’t necessary.
How sad that those days are gone.
I think the author’s concept of legitimacy is very similar to Burke’s decent drapery of civilization discussion in his Reflections on the French Revolution. We don’t realize how illusory the foundations of civilized conduct are until they are suddenly stripped away.
When things like this happen my mind turns to the Lord of the Flies, or the article in The Onion, where people trapped in an elevator are rescued after a half-hour ordeal and are found to have cannibalized one of their number already thinking that they might not survive.
Mkts zoom upward and close on high, making up a large chunk of yesterday’s losses.
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Harry Reid makes his three picks for the super senate: Patty Murray, John Kerry, and Max Baucus. Dunno about Baucus, but if Kerry gets his way, that 50% DoD cut will be a fact soon. Murray, a far-lefty also has DoD interests in her state so who knows. Baucus? Makes me want to join Caligula and appoint my horse in the senate.
Kerry, recently trying to pin the downgrade on Tea while psychotically almost simultaneously advising the world to ignore Tea as ”not real”, also wanted a ”controlling authority” over free speech as late as the 2004 election, and in a “best of John Kerry” moment, denied the post USA southeast Asian bloodbath that he himself had played such an intimate part in arranging.
IOW, of the three responses available, that is [1] to apologize, or [2] to just shut up, or [3] to more or less urinate on the survivors by murdering the memory of the dead rather than admit to any error in his perfect being, he, without hesitation natch, chose number three.
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Last of the tv news update, Obama announces new fuel standards –by 2014, the big rigs, the 18 wheelers, will need to have –what was it, a 23% improvement in mileage? OIf course, every big rig on the road –most of them owner-operated and already on a shoe string –just got in a financial Obama-driven head-on collision.
Who delivers the food to the cities? Oh yes, forgot –the admin is putting together its pro-riot incitement-weapons inventory.
Papers on rioting and economics:
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2011/08/the-economics-of-riots.html
“The folks over at Zerohedge were confused by today’s market action.”
Why? Remember the drunk falling down the stairs? I was off a little, expecting about a 300 recovery off a 500 drop. Tomorrow it will drop again. Just a tad. There are no amateurs left in the market. Under the theory if you can hit a Nolan Ryan fastball, you are not an amateur. Some time tonight, the pros will realise they have been Bernaked, and that America still has the same problems it did Monday, that Freezing Fed rates won’t change anything, Congress is still going to steal (tax) and spend any profits they create.
So it will dip again, under the theory that sheep get sheared because they have no choice. When the gate is left open the sheep leave. Bump slide bump slide slide bump bump bump….. Under 10 by the end of August. Gold over 2000.
AK Paul (36),
Agreed, 10k rounds in the hands of a single individual won’t do much. But how many riflemen would it have taken, from the same overwatch position that that video was shot (plus similarly positioned across the street), to have prevented the mob from surging down the street? I’d say 4, or 2 if they were really good and/or lucky.
83. Tcobb
A plea for indulgence to BCers but, man, you gave me flashbacks!! My best buddy had an uncle who farmed cotton out there and we would work for him at times, mainly because he had two beautiful daughters. I well remember one lunchtime when we took turns standing on the rim of the cotton trailer and jumping down in the cotton (I itched for 5 days after).
Later I also did oilfield labor in that area.
You mentioned locking things: at the time I was old enough to drive (you could get a license then at age 14) people didn’t take their car keys out of the ignition, just left ‘em. Cars weren’t air-conditioned, either, so you not only didn’t lock the door but you also left the windows down, at least in hot weather. Nothing ever happened.
One year the police chief was interviewed in the paper, together with a publicity campaign, to get people to stop leaving keys in their cars as it made theft easier.
There was a firestorm of indignation; why, if some lowlife steals my car it’s not my fault, it’s his!! Why are the police criticizing the drivers?
Those times are as far past as Atlantis.
RWE (48),
I cannot speak for SC (though I’d love to see some links to accounts of both those incidents), but only note: here in WA state, there was some recent uproar when the (now-thankfully-departed) Mayor of Seattle tried to promulgate some kind of firearm ban on City property (completely w/o authority due to WA’s exemplary state preemption of firearm law.)
As part of the festivities, someone from OpenCarry.org emailed the King County Prosecutor’s Office asking about their position regarding self-defense and prosecutions. An assistant prosecutor replied saying that, as far as he and anyone he talked to could remember, Seattle had never prosecuted anyone for shooting an intruder to their home.
Make of that what you will, but I’ll just add that Seattle is so liberal that they keep returning Jim F’n MacDermitt to Congress by single-party-state margins, so if that’s how self-defense is viewed here, imagine what it’s like in the rest of the state!
Legitimacy, confidence, design margin …… They’re all different words and concepts that are just different facets of the same basic idea…. Trust.
We have been subjected to so many scams, cons, political correct judgements, and a zillion other insults to our common sense that we no longer can trust anyone in government, media, and just about every other part of our life. I seems that almost everybody (most BC’ers excluded) is out only for himself. Get what you can while you can. We can no longer respect those whom we have chosen to lead us, either intellectually or ethically. Somehow, we need a big reset.
On Drudge tonight – Confirmation of what all of you seemed to be saying. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/katharinebirbalsingh/100099830/these-riots-were-about-race-why-ignore-the-fact/ But news that the riots seem to be spreading to other cities, and even to other countries and continents.
So Merkel and Sarkozy are proven right – diversity is a recipe for disaster.