Despite the increased police presence, violence continues and has spread to other suburbs around London. There is no doubt what this is, as I noted on Tammy Radio, it is the result of liberal entitlement hysteria and the collapse of the welfare state fueled, I believe, by international leftist rhetoric promulgated by people like Barack Obama. After all, when the president of the United States keeps attacking “The Rich” and those evil “Business Owners” what do you expect?
Here’s the clip I played earlier of two rioters (young women) talking with a reporter about why they’re targeting businesses in their own neighborhood. What they say can easily be translated in the latest Obama speech–blaming conservatives and business owners for their trouble. “Showing the rich we can do whatever we want” is their liberal refrain as it is Obama’s and every lout associated with him.
Over at NRO’s The Corner, Iain Murray nails what’s happening with London Burning and the collapse of political and social liberalism:
I think what we are seeing in Britain is a conflation of two liberal dreams — that of the 1960s, in which parenting and tradition went out the window, and that of the 2000s, in which self-help was replaced by easy credit, benefits, and an all-mighty “health and safety” bureaucracy — together with the unfinished nature of the Thatcher revolution. Mrs. T enabled economic Thatcherism but was unable to finish the project of what I termed social Thatcherism, whereby a free society recognized the importance of what once were called manners.
The result is a feral underclass without any understanding of tradition from right or left. Which is why I think Michael is wrong and it is doubly important that the looters be confronted not with water cannon or the army, but by the firm hand of a police force unencumbered by constraints of political correctness or “elfnsafety.” Then Her Majesty’s Government should press ahead with the education reforms of my old friend Michael Gove, which are aimed in no small part at teaching children what Britain stands for.
However, for the children brought up in the late ’90s and 2000s, I fear all is lost. I shall leave it to wiser men than I to suggest what can be done for them.
Linkage:
Guardian: London riots and UK unrest: fourth night live updates
Sadly, gone now are the genteel days of genial bobbies armed with just nightsticks as they patrol the equally famous nearly crime-free streets of Britain of yore.
I’ve never lived in Britain, have never even been there, but I miss that Britain sorely now.
It’s hard to think about that compared to this….31 lost, 31 unwanted visits, 31 doors receive that dreaded knock, 31 families with shattered hearts, 31 pairs of boots lined up with rifles and dog tags and helmets, 31 comrades remembered and grieved for, 31 funeral services, 31 names on newly made grave markers, 31 empty places at the table, 31 souls who gave all, whose lives leave a void, 31 gone forever. It made me sick to see the “Occupier of the Oval” doing his photo-op and contaminating holy ground when he boarded the transports on the tarmac carrying their remains.
I think the police should use the social media to set traps. Broadcast a tweet that will beacon in the rioters, something like “Wilding Horrid’s 123 Main in 15 min, plenty of bling, first come first served”. Let the crowds pile in, and then set off the dynamite and bring the building down on top of them. Then call a press release and announce they did it to themselves; they had planned to blow up the shop and the explosion detonated prematurely. Collect all the body parts in a big garbage bin, and invite the next of kin to come rummage around and tell them to file claims for any odd bits and pieces they think belongs to them. Do this a few times and your bad apples will mostly be either discouraged or dismembered.
I LOVE IT!
Hmmm, maybe we should call this “English Spring”.
By the way, with the Muslim Brotherhood gaining ground, can we stop calling it “Arab Spring” and start calling it “Springtime for Hitler”?
Let’s just accept the fact that this is no longer the Britian of Ian Flemming or Jane Austen.
It’s now the Great Britain of Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange. Sharpen ’em up for a bit of the old ultraviolence.
“a feral underclass” That is brilliant. I’ve always been at a loss to describe this lot. We have one of these growing right now in America. I shudder to think…