They’re Rioting in Britain: But Why? The Bankruptcy of Liberal Ideology
The rioting continues unabated in London, and as of this writing, David Cameron has called out an extensive police presence and vowed to do everything possible to prevent them from spreading. Cameron should have acted earlier, but at least he cut short his Italian vacation to rush back to London and use his powers as prime minister to take the tough action that is needed. The measures include the stationing of 10,000 additional police throughout London, as well as the possible use of water cannons. He has good reason to enforce these measures. Last night, three men were killed when some of the thugs drove their car into a group protecting homes and businesses from looters. As of Wednesday, 1200 people had been arrested.
Londoners had good reason to applaud. An online petition was being circulated calling for rioters to lose all government welfare benefits they might have been receiving. The text said: “No taxpayer should have to contribute to those who have destroyed property, stolen from their community and shown a disregard for the country that provides for them.” And Cameron added that the problem was as “much a moral problem as a political problem,” referring to pockets of society that “are not just broken, but are frankly sick.”
That, of course, will not win him plaudits from the British and the international left wing. As expected, a New York Times report of the riots is written in the usual liberal style, to try and show sympathy for the looters. The story’s headline proclaims: “London Riots Put Spotlight on Troubled, Unemployed Youths in Britain.” It’s the old liberal shibboleth: the underclass riots when the welfare state has failed it. The reporters quote one rioter, 19, as explaining that he took a $195 designer sweater “to get my penny’s worth.” Why not? The culture has told him he has a right to get what the rich can buy, so why not just help himself? The Times story, however, tells readers that the riots “reflect the alienation and resentment of many young people in Britain,” where one million people between 16 and 24 years of age are unemployed. The story notes that “economic despair” and “racial tension and thuggery” derive from the new austerity measures that are starting “to take effect.” In other words: if only the British government had not acted to cut spending and get its economic house in order, then there would be no riots.
Moreover, the story blames teachers who spend time educating solid middle-class students and who ignore those who cannot keep up. As the story says, “the most vulnerable people feel trapped.” As one rioter told police: “You know you are all racist! You know it.”
The former mayor of London, “Red” Ken Livingstone, said that rioting and destruction of businesses had no justification — but as if to contradict himself “Red” Ken noted that they had to “have a serious discussion about why this has happened.” Hence he feared that “the police will be forced into escalating conflict,” by which he meant that they may actually stop the looters from rioting and burning businesses and homes, and take tough measures to stop the riots. The danger was not from the looters, but from Thatcherism. As he said, “We do not want to go back to the 1980s.” The fault, as he saw it, was “cuts being imposed by the Tory government,” as when “Margaret Thatcher imposed such policies.” Those cuts lead to “people losing control.” It is not the fault of the looters and their culture, but the Tory governments who stop giving them handouts.
Speaking to the press, Livingstone added that the riots were a “revolt” against budget cuts, as if there was a political program advocated by the looters and thugs. He said: “If you’re making massive cuts, there’s always the potential for this sort of revolt against that.”
How long will it take for Frances Fox Piven to go public and applaud the riots? As we know, last year she wrote, “So where are the angry crowds, the demonstrations, sit-ins and unruly mobs? After all, the injustice is apparent.” She has got what she called for in Britain. Perhaps she is waiting for similar examples of revolt here in the United States.
Back in the 1970s, New York City faced looting and rioting during the 1977 blackout. This led the late celebrated historian Herbert G. Gutman to rush to the op-ed pages of the New York Times and, in the July 21, 1977 issue, attack people like Herman Kahn, founder of the Hudson Institute, who had commented that the New York looters “have no idea of what moral standards are. This ‘suppressed rage’ idea is crap. This kind of reasoning will make the same thing happen all over again.”
Kahn, of course, was completely accurate in his response. But according to Gutman, the rioters were engaging in legitimate social protest, revolting against oppression in the only way they knew how. He had the nerve to compare the thuggish acts of looters in 1977 to the peaceful action in 1902 on the Lower East Side of New York by immigrant Jewish women who boycotted Kosher butchers they thought were overcharging for the meat they sold! It takes the mentality of a leftist New York historian to make such an inane comparison.
Gutman’s analysis, we can be sure, will once again be made by liberals and leftists in our country, as they are being made by those on the British left. Fortunately, serious commentary in Britain is already appearing. In today’s London Daily Mail, Max Hastings has written a devastating account, whose title says it all: “Years of liberal dogma have spawned a generation of amoral, uneducated, welfare dependent, brutalized youngsters.” Hastings covered the Detroit riots of 1967, in which entire neighborhoods were burned down by looters who destroyed their own communities. He was told then by a black reporter who accompanied him that the young rioters would smile and say, “It was a great fire, man!” He adds that a British girl told the BBC that they were showing the “rich” and the cops that “we can do what we like.”
Like Herman Kahn, Hastings writes that the looters today “have no moral compass” that would let them feel any guilt or shame. Calling them “wild beasts,” he uses the very animal metaphor to describe them that historian Gutman thought horrendous when used in the 1970s in America. They are what a police officer told him some years back: “feral children” who are no better than wild untamed animals. Rather than these people being punished as in decades past, Hastings argues that today “the welfare state has relieved them from hunger and real want,” and when they act out, there are no more sanctions for wrongdoing.
To put it another way, Hastings is talking about a culture of poverty that is being ignored, since, as he writes, society no longer is “imposing a measure of compulsion which modern society finds unacceptable.” No one wants to show these young thugs that they must act differently and accept the social norms of organized society. Instead, we are being ask to shed crocodile tears about the plight of youth who supposedly mean well but are forced to go unemployed because of budget cuts.
So Hastings writes: “So who is to blame? The breakdown of families, the pernicious promotion of single motherhood as a desirable state, the decline of domestic life so that even shared meals are a rarity, have all contributed importantly to the condition of the young underclass.” It is, he argues, the “dependency culture” that causes a tragedy “for those who receive something for nothing.”
Hastings is tough. He concludes:
So there we have it: a large, amoral, brutalised sub-culture of young British people who lack education because they have no will to learn, and skills which might make them employable. They are too idle to accept work waitressing or doing domestic labour, which is why almost all such jobs are filled by immigrants.
They have no code of values to dissuade them from behaving anti-socially or, indeed, criminally, and small chance of being punished if they do so.
They have no sense of responsibility for themselves, far less towards others, and look to no future beyond the next meal, sexual encounter or TV football game.
Rather than curb their appetites and act against them, the liberal culture treats them as victims of the rich and the conservative leaders, who supposedly have taken away their opportunities.
Writing in a bit more refined and cautious manner, Aymenn Jawad, a student at Oxford University, argues in the Jerusalem Post that too many “commentators interpret these events based entirely on pre-conceived paradigms,” and he too refers in particular to the analysis of “Red” Ken Livingstone. Jawad points out that many of those rioting, contrary to the NYT report I cited earlier, “are not poor at all.” Rather, they are lower middle-class who are looting not the homes and businesses of the rich, but of middle and working-class neighbors. He nails it with the following:
Portraying the disturbances as an uprising of the “under-privileged” is to be expected from those who subscribe to the Marxist theory of historical materialism, according to which economic causes are the driving force behind all human actions.
The riots are also taking part in predominantly white areas of London, not in multicultural underprivileged ghettos. They also began when a 29-year-old gang member was shot a few days ago, while he was unarmed. The real issue, he writes, is that “youths driven by greed and a lust for senseless violence have taken advantage of the lack of trust between the police and local communities, using the shooting of Duggan as a pretext.” And, he says, the riots were planned, since many of the looters and burners got their brethren out by texting them on their BlackBerries. They also, evidently, handed out leaflets calling for the riots to take place. Finally, Jawad quotes one rioter who told a reporter about his motivation: “We’re getting our taxes back.” They steal designer clothes, TV sets, and electronic gadgets for one reason alone: “because they can.”
Until some perspective is attained to address the real issues behind the rioting, such events will break out again and again, even if Cameron’s tough measures put an end to the current outbursts. As in so many other areas, the ideology of a bankrupt liberalism encourages precisely the acts which its advocates think more welfare state measures will prevent. The ideology of supporting the thugs and seeing them as victims has to come to an end. If a reassessment fails to take place, we can only look forward in the near future to more of the same.
Here’s a short, good commentary (with photos) by the Brit who calls himself Archbishop Cranmer: http://archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.com/2011/08/fire-over-england-culture-of-rootless.html. It ends:
This is the price we pay for moral relativism. Parents and teachers can no longer instruct their children in the difference between right and wrong, and so there is no distinguishing between good and evil. If it feels right and good, do it: the moral course of action is what the individual determines. The truth is what you make it, for there is no universal view of morality; no absolute standard by which all may be judged. And so we must tolerate the beliefs and actions of others even when they impinge upon the rights and liberties of others.
Our politicians have spent decades dismantling the foundations of our moral order; fracturing and fragmenting the culture that made England cohesive and the United Kingdom coherent. They have created a culture of rootless individualism, for which we are now paying the price. May God forgive them.
I don’t see rootless individualism as the problem here; nor was England every coherent and free of class conflict. The welfare state in England (and in Europe as a whole) was the aristocratic, paternalistic response to industrialism. I wrote about that tradition here: http://clarespark.com/2011/07/16/disraelis-contribution-to-social-democracy/. I also recommend all my blogs on multiculturalism, a policy that is not anti-racist, but racialist, and is one way that elites attempt to micromanage group conflict.
What I left out in my blog on Disraeli was his hostility to puritanism; a problem that is not confined to this important figure, but permeates the academic study of American history. No puritanism, no work ethic.
Ok, so there have been 1800 arrests. What happened to those people arrested? My guess is that nearly every single one was let go and that they will face no real consequences.
Worse, they will end up being “rewarded”-ie.
training for something, more benefits, etc.
How many of those arrested in the English riots will be charged and convicted? That’s anyone’s guess but if they follow the Canadian model, it may be a very small number indeed.
As you may remember, Vancouver had a night of serious rioting after the home team lost the hockey championship a couple of months back. Citizens were outraged by the wanton destruction and eagerly submitted all the evidence they could, especially cell phone videos, that identified the perpetrators. Even many of the rioters were so ashamed after they sobered up that they turned themselves in.
So how many of the hundreds of rioters have been charged so far? Not a single one. http://www.theprovince.com/news/After+riot+Quiet/5239283/story.html
I think the arrestees will have endure the horrors of the Comfy Chair.
That’s the very problem, Jack. Few if any of these children have been taught that there are consequences to actions.
You’re wrong. They HAVE learned the consequences of their actions. Not to learning the error of their ways but that the more destructive the actions, the greater the rewards :special expensive trips to popular regions paid for under compulsion from taxes of working populations. Who have only dreams of affording for themselves such reward. Special training programs – very costly – for which they neither turn up – too early in the morning, too far, no taxis to take them there and you can’t expect them heaven forfend to take a bus, tube, or walk. If they bother to turn up disrupt the classes for others who might want to learn what is being taught And demoralising the teachers.
How brave when attacking as marauding gangs or generally non-combtive people. Of course forgiveness for their behaviours “for they know not what they do” from people who proudly proclaim themselves atheists and are not in the main the victims of these actions.
These rousters are not so dumb that they do not understand their bullying and disruptiveness is a very satisfying way of life for them.
See how well prepared they are:
http://i.imgur.com/bOPNv.jpg
And there will be scores of libtard lawyers [a tautology!]
to help them, even ‘pro bono libtardii’.
My bet is only the white ones will face any consequences.
The scary thing is, people still want the government to do something about these “misguided youth.” I’m not sure how that’s supposed to work.
Think about yourself. The U.S. Government didn’t teach you to be honest, to take care of yourself, or that stealing was wrong, that grownups have responsibilities and don’t burn down the city when they don’t get their way. It took an entire culture to do that – your parents, your friends, your teachers, the clergy, public figures, the characters you saw on TV and in the movies, all showing you how to be a member in good standing of your society. The government was for when you FAILED to learn the usual way. In case something went wrong with your mind or your upbringing, the government was there to protect society from YOU. Government reflected society’s values, not the other way around.
So tell us, what kind of new “scheme” will HM Government implement to reverse sixty years of social engineering?
What the government should “do about” these “misguided youths” (streetthugs and hooligans is what I’d call them, mixed with a lot of Jihadis, who see this as the UK equivalent of the Muslim Brotherhood takeovers in Tunisia and Egypt, and possibly with very good reason once we track where the money comes from) is that they should all be rounded up and dumped 200 miles out to sea without life preservers or boats.
Sink or swim, kids.
Every rioter not born in the UK should be deported IMMEDIATELY – along with their families – and forever denied the right to return.
Every native-born rioter should be forced to clean up and rebuild what they destroyed, and to work to make restitution to their victims. Just for starters…
Bugs, I’m somewhat in agreement. While society can influence if parents were doing a proper job, their children would have a better chance of adjusting. As a parent and grandparent, for the last 40 years or so, I’ve seen the influence of the social programming engineered by the incompetent social engineers (psychiatrists and pshcologists, etc.) cause so much interference in child development by “progressive” government functionaries, that parents who want to exert control are afraid of consequences and in some cases their children period. I’ll also have to note that many “progressive” parents don’t want to be parents but “buddies” with their children. None of which bodes well for the raising of responsible adults.
The government had much to do with morals, before recent history and after. In an earlier part of history, government kept it hands off approach with semi libertarianism, but with that came mob vigilantism which consisted of the morally good, who were in majority, ganging up on the morally bad, and making the price of public activity of immoral nature no where near worth the cost. Hangings for horse theft, beatings for peeping toms and ungentlemanly behavior towards another man’s date, outright tar and feathering of the degenerate, conman and the corrupted official. Society kept itself quite well policed of the immoral. Those who were immoral hid and did not seek out the spotlight and corrupt more towards their depravity, which requires strong self discipline to avoid.
Today, no morally good person can so much as raise their voice in opposition to the immoral, as the immoral are today’s protected class of society. So, government had a hand in keeping society moral years ago, but today it is argued government is helpless to instill morals, good or bad, I find that argument lacking in evidence. It is very instrumental in pushing for immorality, which helps feed its desire for more and more power over the individual. I could be just as empowering for the forces of good morality, if it just simply chose to do as it did in years past and simply left the activity of policing societal norms to those who are closest to it, the people, and let them battle (as in real battles) it out.
The murder of 3 devout young Muslims who were watching their Mosque and business by a gang of African-Caribbean looters in Birmingham last night is a major game changer.
The devout Muslims were running a business, providing employment, paying taxes.
The African-Caribbeans involved are murderous thugs, known thugs and drug dealers, living on welfare and contributing nothing to UK society.
While the UK Telegraph is not PC in telling the truth–the rest of the UK PC gang will try to make the old excuses.
The UK needs to move in combat hardened troops with .50 caliber automatic weapons to end of life these arsonist, looting, violent thugs.
Enough is enough
The vendettas will go on for generations–at least the UK Telegraph is being truthful in saying that 95 % of these arsonist, looting, violent riots are by African-Caribbean ( the UK Telegraph term ) thugs.
These murders will be a turning point
Victor – are you still peddling this utter nonsense?
As a Brit, living less than 50 miles from London I’ve already dealt with all your ludicrous allegations and yet here you are again: different thread, same old propaganda.
A year or two ago some English chap was tending his garden when he noticed a paper bag against his fence. He picked it up, opened it and found a loaded handgun inside. He immediately drove to the nearest police station and handed the weapon over to the constabulary. He was then arrested. It seems he had broken a law that fobid anyone from handling firearms. His act of bringing the handgun to the police came under the definition of “handling.” What he should have done (it was explained) was call the police and have the gun “handled” by certified and qualified personnel (sort of like you would with an unexploded bomb.)
I have relatives in England and this is not an isolated example. The British police are positively ferocious when it comes to petty code violations and minor infractions of the law. When it comes to the bigger stuff well….not so much. In many cases they have been so emasculated by “cultural sensitivity” that they are paralyzed when an incident crosses racial or ethnic lines. Attempts to clean up gang-infested urban neighborhoods (many of which are pretty damn dangerous) often run afoul of montebanks like Ken Livingstone who are quick to champion said gang members as “victims of oppression.”
I’m not surprised the rioting has gone on as long as it has. The rioters truly have little to fear from either the police or the government. In some dim way they probably understand that a large chunk of the English “establishment” will excuse their actions and indeed applaud them. I read Hasting’s article and it jibes with my experience. To paraphrase the old joke about the French……”God wanted to make one perfect place so he created England. Then he realized he had gone too far so he created Englishmen.”
Yea I heard about that case from the NRA for over a year. England is just topsy turvey in their enfocement and their punishment. Mainly because it’s easy to punish the law abiding who make a mistake then those who constantly and regularly break the law and don’t give a damn.
Isn’t that so true. A 65 year old priest I know got a ticket, huge fine on his bicycle,had to go to Safe Driving Class. We laughed a lot, but, this is probably much more than what will happen to these rioting thugs..
We have the same rediculous laws in Canada. We are supposed to keep our guns unloaded and locked separately from the ammo. It makes no sense whatsoever….if someone breaks into your home in Canada, even if you own a gun, you will most likely be killed by the time you get your unloaded gun out of it’s locked container. Too bad he was an honest man, he should have kept the gun and not told anyone.
It’s that institutionalized cowardice in which they feel ‘strong’ beating down those who are largely reasonable and law-abiding while ignoring (out of cowardice) those who openly break the law and brag about it.
Water cannon, tear gas and pepper spray should have been deployed at the onset. Citizenry should be allowed to carry pepper spray canisters when they feel threatened.Shopkeepers should have a larger spray device to deploy. Pepper spray is very effective and the assailants cannot ward ii off effectively. No injuries or deaths would occur.
Maybe some injuries and deaths SHOULD occur! Why is everyone so worried about the fate of feral criminals, and so UN-worried about people losing their lives and their property?
The riots are an addiction response to the withdrawal of the drug of government support. And they’re not even getting cut cold turkey, merely lowering the dose.
Mr.Hastings is correct and it parallels our own ghettos full of seething feral youth.
Can we do something before this occurs here?I doubt it.We need government support to do anything.Obama would deny,delay and debate the issue until it died.
Government should be a moral,financial and educational role model.Ours is,well……nothing.A bunch of people that suck up our money,spend it on nothing that benefits tax payers,argues to look like they are doing something,then go on vacation.They are just as hollow,morally bankrupt and feral as the ghetto residents.
Children are just parrotting what the media,politicians,teachers and their role models say and do.As demonstrated by Rappers,Rev Wright and basketball players.
I recently saw a woman on tv telling single mothers welfare was their Constitutional right.
The next day’s news covered a man selling fresh vegtables in Chicago ghettos,good idea.Then i read a story on him that included him lecturing customers on their civil rights to have fresh vegetables brought to them and how whites won’t open stores there because they want them to get high blood pressure,diabetes etc.
We are Britain and our children are our future.
I just got done reading an article by Max Hastings at the UK Daily Mail online about what he think is the cause of all this crap:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2024284/UK-riots-2011-Liberal-dogma-spawned-generation-brutalised-youths.html
Can’t say I disagree with him overly much.
There’s a whole hell of a lot of crap going on over there that’s coming over here as well. I’m not quite sure if it’s too late to put the breaks on all of it though.
Theodore Dalrymple, writing for City Journal,
http://www.city-journal.org/2011/eon0810td.html
says the riots should be no surprise to anyone who has looked around him, but that “it took a peculiar cowardly blindness, one regularly displayed by the British intelligentsia and political class,” not to see it coming. As a doctor who worked among them, Dalrymple has been writing about the lumpenproletariat for years.
I read his article last night and my impression was that I’d never, ever, read such a terse, succint and true description of our current state. Beautifully written article.
I’ve posted elsewhere that we Americans should be watching carefully how the U.K government and public at large handle these animals after the riots themselves have been stopped; and let these nasty events be a lesson to us Americans, pointing out the practical consequences of this dangerously emerging “entitlements” mentality.
I hope our current Obamaesque “administration” collective have the wit to see the long term folly of unfunded election-prose promises.
That’s our hanging, nagging question right now.
I thought exactly the same thing about Dalrymple’s piece.
Theodore Dalrymple is brilliant and is my favourite living essayist. I recommend all of his many books and articles highly. I also recommend the writing of his alter-ego Anthony Daniels. (“Theodore Dalrymple” is actually a pen name for Dr. Anthony Daniels.)
Daniels is a fascinating figure, a medical doctor who has practiced on four continents and visited something like 80 different countries, including some very perilous ones at the height of their most dangerous times, such as Liberia and Guatemala during their greatest periods of unrest. The bulk of his practice was in a Birmingham England where he worked in both an inner city hospital and a nearby prison. He had many years of contact, up-close and personal, with the “underclass”. He is NOT an elitist though; he is a decent and compassionate man who cared about his patients – he retired a few years back – and is an eminently decent human being.
Daniels/Dalrymple is simply a revelation. He is one of the few people appearing in the media who actually writes about the REAL World.
If you want to know about how life really is in Britain, there is no better source than Theodore Dalrymple/Anthony Daniels.
I have spent a good deal of time in the UK over the years, mostly for work. The more time I spent there, the more concern I had about the deleterious effects of socialism on a country and its people. About four years ago I remember watching a report on tele by some little duly concerned reporterette revealing the horrible plight of a singularly noble and corageous family coping with the (presumed) miserly hand of government.
It seems our corageous family of four (and one on the way) were distressed by the meager free house they had been given by the local council to live in. The house was hardly big enough for four much less the five there would soon be. The little reporterette did her Liberal best to sympathize with these poor victims and their shabby treatment by the council and ended her report with the question “How long with the family will have to suffer we do not know. The council has refused so far to respond to the urgent request by the family for more appropriate housing”. That free house was in addition to a slew of other hand-outs from the national government that kept the noble, corageous family together even on sundays, when they could be found at their local, swilling ale while pushing the pram back-and-forth all the while complaining to anyone who would listen what noble and corageous victims of an unfair government they were. In fact the family could be found at that local almost any afternoon because neither of the parents worked, so they had plenty of time to complain.
And yes, this is absolutely true. Americans reading this might find this unbelievable and think I am embellishing here, but there is no embellishment needed. Now multiply this by hundreds of thousands of families living in MIlton Keynes, Luton, Manchester, ad nauseum. Anyone who espouses Liberal dogma and policies as soultions to any societal problems need to be publically shamed, humilliated and forbidden to work for the government – ever.
I’m going to be totally UN-PC and just say it…
It’s called “CHIMPING OUT”.
Welcome to the jungle, brutha.
“London Riots Put Spotlight on Troubled, Unemployed Youths in Britain.”
This reminds me of the looting that went on right after hurricane Katrina. I saw on TV video of people dragging away big-screen TVs from a store and nobody stopping them. What dragging away a big-screen TV had to with surviving after a hurricane never really made sense to me, and it didn’t to the police, either. These people were not going after food or even clothing, although some did go into clothing stores. But it looked liked these people were going for anything they could get, rather then getting things they could use to survive, and that is the difference. It was just, plain, looting. And the thugs doing it were laughing while they were doing it.
Finally, National Guard troops and police brought order back to the streets of New Orleans and the riots ended. Obviously, it was only the use of massive force that stopped the looting.
Ask any police department in the US-a “show of force” is necessary to
prevent this from breaking out in any major city on any given day-
it’s “there” all of the time…
Note how the headline focuses on the “plight of the criminals” and completely ignores the victims.
This is how civilizations collapse.
” shot a few days ago, while he was unarmed…”
I think that according to the IPCC’s report, Duggan was armed but did not shoot.
Why? Because it’s FUN!
The ruling class in Britain and here HATES, positively hates the good, the decent, the law abiding herd. Why? Because the great decent middle order BORES them. Bores them to tears. They crave excitement. Well, now they’ve got it. Excitement as far as the eye can see. More social engineering required. With the decents’ money. What fun!
While this may be true “thoughtwise”- don’t blame
this on the elites, man. Just because I “think something”
doesn’t mean it will manifest itself. This comes from
within the culture of those participating-they are not
mind-controlled by some vindictive elites..
Ricpic, the English chattering classes (and for that matter, ours, too) love to see rioting and such, what they consider an upsurge of authenticity, rebellion, etc. But note that they do this from Hampstead and Chelsea; they’d never actually live in a neighborhood where rioting might go on.
The brutal truth is that there are few effective treatments for a sub-proletarian class of youths without morals or character. The application of the few effective treatments requires a level of hard-headed realism, and cold-blooded acceptance of the need to do what has to be done. I doubt Britain has either, though it does have the means.
The most effective treatment, and the one most likely to ensure than further rioting does not occur, is the liberal application of machine guns. This is a relatively modern remedy, last used by Britain in Amritsar, India, shortly after World War I. Unfortunately, the British public recoiled and that was the beginning of the end of the Raj.
The other, less effective but traditional, treatment is the application of cold steel. This can be done with cavalry (the Household Cavalry is available….) using sabers, or by infantry with bayonets. Modern bayonets are too short, and modern assault rifles themselves too short, to inspire the sort of fear 18″-24″ bayonets at the end of 5′ long muskets did, but they make up in fire power what they lack in ‘fierce face’.
The Progressive left has been beating into its supporters and sympathizers heads that they are the enlightened. That they are being exploited. That the rich and the corporations are stealing their wealth. That they are victims of injustice. The conservative God is evil and the State Supreme. That if it feels good, just go do it. That they are entitled. It just goes on and on. Now everyone is somewhat surprised to see the “feral children” (I like that one!) acting out. Heck, they’re just doing what they’ve been taught.
The rioting has made the case crystal clear: abolish welfare. Without the enabling of welfare this trash would either straighten up and fly right or die. A win-win proposition. And these riots are proof positive the police can’t stop these organized mobs. That is what the Army is for and what being allowed to defend one’s self is for. Had the Army shot a few rioters in the beginning the riots would have ended quickly.
I have just gone over the commentary on the 10 largest news sites in England. Just to check the pulse and vibe…
The vast majority of the opinion goes along these lines:
It is Maggie’s fault.
You heard that right. They are blaming over 20 years removed Ms. Thatcher.
Sound familiar?
When will the fools ever figure out that attributing blame never solved anything?
And why in the world are leftist so hell bent on solutions that created the problems in the first place?
Hardly surprising. The hatred of Margaret Thatcher in liberal circles always remains evergreen. One of the posters above speaks of how much the British elites loathe the middle class. That was never better illustrated than when Mrs. Thatcher was Prime Minister. She was constantly being snidely referred to as “just a shopkeepers daughter” by the lords and ladies of both the Conservative and Labour parties. British feminists, whom one would have expected to be enthusiastic about a woman in ower, despised her because she was “middle class.” That fact that the always lugubrious chattering classes of England are blaming her for these appalling riots simply shows how morally and intellectually bankrupt they are.
Here are two more articles that concisely explain what’s gone wrong in Britain:
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2011/08/corrupt-and-decaying-from-top-to-bottom.html
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/british-rioters-the-spawn-of-a-bankrupt-ruling-elite/story-e6frg6zo-1226112640970
It is important to understand that these riots are a symptom of much deeper problems. Contempt for the institutions of authority is widespread at all levels of British society. The underclass thinks “they can’t stop us” and the middle class thinks “they won’t help us”.
The bitter fruits of the welfare state.
As one rioter told police: “You know you are all racist! You know it.”
And this is a good way to convince us not to be?
The 20th Century was an exception to history. In the 19th century and before, London was packed full of uneducated, immoral, unpatriotic scum. Back then more of them (but certainly not all) were English.
The difference – if they had rioted in the 19th century, an official would have read The Riot Act. After “God Save the King” was proclaimed – a company of Royal Marines, Soldiers, or deputized civilians would have proceeded to kill anyone who failed to disperse.
Today, the police run away from the rioters and populace is disarmed. Of course it spreads.
While the author has a point, a factor often ignored by both sides of the political spectrum is over regulation. It’s more difficult for young people to provide for themselves in such an environment. If a kid can’t run a lemonade stand without being harrassed, fined or even arrested, where does that leave the teenagers and young adults, let alone their parents?
Telling a kid to stop rioting and get a job or start a business is one thing. Getting off your butts and ensuring that the government is out of their way so they can start one, is quite another.
Great point. One that we should consider here in the U.S., too.
Two years ago my cousin from Northern Ireland (uk) and an avid viewer of t he BBC came here to visit and proceeded to tell us how fortunate we were to have elected Obama. The BBC had been crowing for years about the evil of George Bush and the wonder of wonders of Obama. The British socialists are now getting their own from people who are cut from the same cloth as Obama and who support the culture of dependency. I do not know if my BBC watching cousin is still going on about the wonders of Obama and socialism as he watches London burn and probaly will see his own area soon break out in flames. British socialism is harvesting what it planted and to paraphras H L Mencken democracy/socialism is the people getting what they deserve and getting it good and hard.
Reap what you sow, in this case the will to carry out your own laws. Britain deserves what it gets and what it is getting now, is the US next?
It has taken Britain 60 years to fall from world power to socialist basket case,
is the USA next? Now Britannia fools not rules.
Britain gave up it’s last aircraft carrier and it’s ability to call it’s self a world power, has the US just done the same in giving up today’s ocean of the world, it’s space capabilities?
The socialist path ends when other peoples money runs out and yours is running out fast. Get rid of these socialist hicks anyway you can and fast or your fate is sown.
Allison Pearson in the Telegraph had one of the best commentaries I’ve seen on this: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/8693536/Raised-to-rampage.html.
The Left’s take on this is precisely the kabuki theater that mayors of major American cities danced in the 1960s during those “long hot summers”:
Some incident would occur. Or maybe no incident, just tempers flaring in the sultry summer nights.
Smashing car windows.
Smashing store windows.
Looting and burning.
Some people killed.
The next morning, the mayor “walks the streets,” arm in arm with some of the same black agitators whose inflammatory rhetoric helped provoke the violence in the first place. As he walks, he promises this handout and that favor and this largesse and that social program.
The violence quells–for the moment.
But next month–or next summer–it starts up again.
The result of this kabuki theater:
Decent people of all races decide that they can’t abide the violence–including black storekeepers whose stores were looted and torched–and flee, leaving behind an impoverished inner city.
My solution: Call in the Air National Guard instead. The “shock and awe” of being strafed by Maverick air-to-ground missiles will not only stop the rioters, it will deter any other young toughs from trying it. They would never dream of being attacked from the air, and I’ll bet they wouldn’t have the stomach for it. Afghans they are not.
“It is not the fault of the looters and their culture, but the Tory governments who stop giving them handouts.”
So for the Left, the welfare state is really just an update of the Danegeld.
Until some perspective is attained to address the real issues behind the rioting, such events will break out again and again, even if Cameron’s tough measures put an end to the current outbursts.
Tough measures? What tough measures? Water cannon? The louts, thugs, rioters, looters, arsonists, and murderers must be shaking in their stolen luxury shoes.
Then again, we can’t have a gasp disproportionate response, can we? (Unfortunately, once things die down for the time being, charges of disproportionate response could get British officials hauled before UK and EU courts.)
So predictable:
1. Liberal Big Government creates and fosters a culture of dependency.
2. Eventually – As Lady Thatcher so famously said – Liberal Big Government runs out of other peoples money and the outlays to the Dependent Class can no longer be sustained.
3. By this time, the Dependent Class have had the independence, self-determination, and self-reiance bred out of them so they have nothing left but to riot.
This right here is the essence. I wish the GOP candidates would put an effort into explaining their policies like this instead of the constant stream of old cliches and empty talking points.
In the U.K., everyone who cannot and does not want to work gets subsidized; it’s been that way for generations. Health care is free, schooling is free, and it used to be on the University level. Although I suspect it is not as expensive as college in the US is. The “poor” and “underprivileged” of the U.K. get everything they want. I doubt the riots have any political context.
I like the way the English speak; I enjoy visiting the country. However, their general character leaves the impression of bitter surliness, which is not present in Americans, Germans or Italians. The media portrayal of British politeness is a far cry from the reality.
I think the problem is that the English do not know who they are anymore, and do very little to reinforce that sense of self through social means. Maybe they need to consider forcibly making the young go into the military, charm school, and provide some years of social service for their communities. Too many idle hands are the devil’s playground.
It’s scary watching a cornerstone of Western Civilization crumble so quickly.
Very well said. That is my experience too.
Shoplifters and purse snatchers have evolved into a higher form, it is the flash mob. High-tech goodies was stolen while the London police were frozen in shock. In the jungle the hyena`s suddenly arise to steal the food from the unsuspecting lion.
to compare hyenas to “flash mobs” is an insult to hyenas
Too many bleeding hearts, not enough bleeding heads.
This is why governments shouldn’t became charities. Those receiving charity should show appropriate appreciation and humility, indeed gratitude at accepting the sacrifices of others to support them. When the government becomes the charity, those receiving lose their gratitude because they look on it as the government’s job vice the sacrifice’s of the taxpayers.
Couple of lines floating around the blogs that I liked:
New corallary to Heinlin’s “An armed society is a polite society”– ‘A disarmed society is a violent society’.
What enabled the London rioters? Lack of incoming fire.
I’ve been expecting things like this since it became clear a few years ago that NO government today – not even the Russians or the Chinese, who traditionally have not let modern notions of “civil rights” interfere with their methodology – is capable of dealing with Somali pirates. It should be a simple problem – until recently, everybody everywhere knew what to do with pirates, and they didn’t have to kick the problem upstairs to the bureaucracy for action (or, as it turns out, inaction). Now, societies and governments alike seem to be helpless when presented with even simple problems like primitive piracy, and are even more helpless when dealing with more complex problems, such as feral domestic populations. Government CANNOT turn machine guns on rioters; then you’ve added massacres and more resentment to the mix, for merely transient gain. However, victims can defend themselves without waiting for government to fail to do it. At least they can in the US, where ammunition sales are the only part of the economy which is performing respectably.
Last I heard, pirates were avoiding Russian ships. The Russians have been letting the pirates go when they catch them – a thousand miles out to sea without a boat or lifevest.
Reminiscent of the Russians when Arafat’s thugs tried terrorism on them – said thugs were returned to them, piece by piece.
Somali pirates-could have been erased long time back.
Any country can make it plainly clear -no rioting,
no looting. Peaceful protests, yes. Riots,no.
Stopping riots and looting -permanently is justifiable.
The libs taking the same old social justice line is the path of least resistance. Someone else is always preventing them from solving the worlds problems etc, etc, etc. Social problems existing keeps them working. And it never seems like their stuff gets burned down.
They’re rioting in Birmingham,
Observers from Iran,
If you believe the BBC
you’ll be mugged by your fellow man.
Thoughts from a long-time, close-up observer:
http://city-journal.org/2011/eon0810td.html
What happens next? My votes go to (a) civil war, or (b) mass exodus of the productive classes — until there is nothing left of Britain but the government and the yobs they created.
As one “disgruntled” rioter and looter put it, “Nobody’s doing nuffink for me!”
To which the only intelligent response is, “You’d better get used to that.”
He didn’t even ‘axe’ nice like!
Yes, you can really see the results of his (free) $80,000 education, can’t you?
Is there something in the African gene that dictates its bearers simply cannot play well with others? Here in America, whites and Asians have to duck as our brown and black brethren blast each other into smithereens. It appears that in England, it’s a different kind of brown trying to blast the blacks into smithereens in retaliation or self defense. In the pictures from London, I’m seeing an occasional white face but overwhelmingly black with the ubiquitous hoodies because they’re too poor to come up with a real mask — and now drawn forward hoodies have come to represent a real with-it and fashionable street punk.
One would think that if you are on welfare and you are readily identifiable by your racial characteristics as being part of a group of antisocial trouble-makers, it would behoove you to hunker down and behave yourself, lest your welfare check disappear. Because you *know* these rioters and flash mobbers on both sides of the Atlantic do not have the skills to ever get a job, nor the inclination (or ability?) to educate themselves to make themselves employable.
Do they not realize how easy it’s going to be for Big Brother to cut off their checks when we reach that point in the budget debates, not to mention to cease all public transportation to and from their habitats so they’re not allowed to get out and make a nuisance of themselves?
I’d like to see some evidence for the central thesis of this piece – which I assume is that “Years of liberal dogma have spawned a generation of amoral, uneducated, welfare dependent, brutalized youngsters.”.
If you look at the ONS (office of National Statistics) figures, you can see that in the UK there are fewer young people working than at any time in the past two decades.
According to the ONS two-thirds of these 16- to 24-year-olds are staying on in education. Why? A possible answer is that there are no jobs available. Currently there are half a million vacancies in the entire UK economy. There are 2.5 million unemployed chasing those, and a further 1 to 1.5 million currently on incapacity benefit (due to ill health) the government will shortly seek to push out into the job market.
Meanwhile, 40% of those who are working are in what the ONS defines as “elementary” or “service jobs”, ie working in bars or shops. These will generally be payed minimum wage, and because of the cost of housing in London, people will likely need to have some sort of government supported housing to pay their rent.
The UK government has also been criticised for its abandonment of the Educational Maintenance Allowance (EMA), which helps poorer students into further education with a £30 per week grant. The Education Select Committee reported this month that the cuts and its replacement by a new bursary, were “rushed and ill-thought through reforms”. This has led to widespread protests and student riots earlier in the year. With youth unemployment so high, it is very difficult to see how young people from poor backgrounds in London and elsewhere will be able to fund themselves to stay on in school or higher education, and will instead join the welfare line and economically inactive population.
The causes of recession set out by the economist J K Galbraith in his book, The Great Crash 1929, were as follows: bad income distribution, a business sector engaged in “corporate larceny”, a weak banking structure and an import/export imbalance.
In the bubble of the 1920s, the top 5 per cent of earners creamed off one-third of personal income. Today, Britain is less equal, in wages, wealth and life chances, than at any time since then. Last year alone, the combined fortunes of the 1,000 richest people in Britain rose by 30 per cent to £333.5 billion.
Adam Smith recognised that a well-ordered society can never develop when a sizeable number of its members are miserable and, as a consequence, dangerous. This is not a gospel of determinism, for poverty does not ordain lawlessness. Nor, however, is it sufficient to heap contempt on the rioters as if they are a pariah caste.
Hoodies are shielded from the cold and wind, but they are also shielded from Facial Recognition Technology(FRT). Banning of the hood will eliminate looters who will easily be identified. It is a small sacrifice to pay for ending the reign of the flash mobsters.
I’d love to see that but I’m afraid it isn’t practical. Hoodies are an essential part of the modern “thug on the go.” The importance of the hoodie isn’t limited to concealing the face. Those who sport hoodies choose to wear them in sizes two or three times too large. The purpose is to “appear bigger” and make it easier to intimidate others. (Sort of the way a cat will stand sideways and puff out it’s fur when threatened.) Almost our entire urban subculture is based on strategies intended to inspire intimidation and this is also true for England.
I have thought a lot about this because I teach a freshman college students at an urban campus and the most truculent and ill-mannered invariably sport giant hoodies. They are also convenient for concealing your Blackberries, i-Phones and Game Boys particularly when class is in session.
Why?
Welfare gives them the free time and the lack of self-respect essential to a rioter.
“Looters: them our us?”
http://www.oakhill.ac.uk/commentary/11_summer/looters_them_or_us.html
The riots in Europe are the outgrowth of an anti-life philosophy that these thugs have embraced and that has been fomented by the entitlement socialist state of Britain. Unless man embraces reason, personal responsibility, and liberty then he has no protection from these mobs of death. England is now sleeping in the bed that she has made.
Years ago there was a time-honored tradition of sending the criminal element to far flung tropical paradises to serve their time. It should be revived. And I am curious just when the first lawsuits are filed against the ‘social networking sites’ such as Twitter are filed. Contributing to violence and all.
Who cares about the reasons behind it. They commit crimes, they go to jail.
Hear! Hear! Stop rioting, looting, violence-NOW.
When your house is on fire- it is not the time to stop and chat…
It’s simply unbelievable that anyone is defending these amoral, violent thugs and trying to justify their actions. What a load of horse manure!
A decade ago, I was unemployed for ten months. At no time during that period did I smash windows, rob stores, or set buildings on fire. Being unemployed was awful, but I did NOT use it as an excuse to turn my back on Western civilization and become a looting, pillaging barbarian.
Shooting the looters is a no-brainer, but somebody needed to hang Herbert Gutman ‘way back when. Same theory as many prosecuters and law-enforcement officers who often remark that they’d be willing to let the perps go if they could just execute the defense attorneys, who are the more serious problem, after all. Always aim to kill the head.
I was / am appalled at the trouble on the streets of my country. But can any one explain, apart from the violence, the difference between a young unemployed black kid stealing a t.v and overpaid M.P’s stealing through their expenses?
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/author/peteroborne/
It’s not just the unemployed and the youth of this country who have to take a good long look at themselves.
Moral relativism, removing the concept of right and wrong, and the undermining of society’s pillars – marriage, family, commitment, valour – and all the other components that together hold a civilization together are a direct result of western society’s infection by liberal ideology. The question that needs to be asked is why liberal ideology so urgently required the destruction of these underpinnings of civilization. The answer is quite simple. In order to soften people up to accept lifestyles hitherto considered abhorent, disease-ridden, and destructive the moral outrage usually expressed against these lifestyles had to be disengaged. The revulsion normally expressed by normal people in a normal society against abnormality and sexual deviance a great campaign was undertaken shut down defence mechanisms that protect most people against abnormality. In the process of normalizing abnormality and sexual deviance the ten commandments were driven from classrooms. Human Rights tribunals modeled after the Soviet Block Committees were set up to prosecute and persecute those opponents. In order to overturn one man-one woman concept of marriage that carries with it thousands of years of tradition and history you cannot avoid at the same time doing damage to society as a whole. The irradiation of a cyst unavoidably damages the rest of the body, and so it is with the march of liberalism in western society. The damage caused to society in order to promote what is medically and in every other way very harmful and destructive behaviour on the part of a small but highly activist group is now plain for all to see. Unfortunately, the wide breach in western society will undoubtedly be exploited to the fullest by Islam. The time has come for everyone to consider their personal responsibility for having failed to check liberalism’s long march through western civilization over the past four decades.
Its funny…if the people were Irish Catholics, the water cannons and plastic bullets would have been used the minute a group of them gathered around a church to peacefully protest. After that, live rounds.
Why is it alright to shoot Catholic men, women, children, and priests…but allow hooligans burn London for days straight?
What are you talking about?
Are you referring to Northern Ireland which is part of the U.K?
All sides of the community riot all the time there,the police get in the middle and then they both attack the police.
They use petrol bombs,pipe bombs and live ammunition.This was only in july.
http://news.sky.com/home/uk-news/article/16028699
The police force of Northern Ireland represents ‘catholics’ as well.
So those who you call Irish Catholics are the ones using water cannons against these thugs .
Why do you believe that people protesting now peacefully in a church would be shot?
Protesting what?
Are talking about Bloody Sunday?(over 40 years ago)? Which has nothing in common
with recent events here.
The inquiry has said it was wrong but also said there was armed I.R.A members on the March.
Cameron has apologised in Parliament.
Are you saying that the actions of the I.R.A was acceptable?
One of the oddest comments i have read here.
London looters were endowed by Mother Nature to be well qualified for their task. They moved at lightning speed and had legs that were powerful enough to kick in the thickest window. Their fists broke the jaws of anyone that stood in the way. They are natural born looters and kings of the urban jungle.
The single most effective action against the looters was the club armed Turkish shopkeepers. But they are currently worried that the police will arrest them for daring to protect themselves.
I love the sound of cop batons cracking anarcho skulls early in the morning. It sounds like…good housekeeping.
Lets look at this like a liberal (progressive, democrat)
The poor child I know we let him pass grades in school even though he failed only so he would not feel bad. And now that he is not employable material we will just have to provide for him (or her)
So just from that we see that this problem can be laid at the feet of democrats, they caused a problem then they found a so-called solution to it The only thing is it is costing tax payers and now store keepers.
I watched a show on the BBC and it had on 1 rapper 1 student and 2 older adults, the rapper and student blamed everything under the sun the adults said they needed to be in prison. I go with them.
I hope the rioters are rounded up, deprived of their British citizenship, and dumped on the coast of Somalia. That way they wont need to steal sweaters and TVs to survive the British winter