London Riots: The End Result of the Leftist Agenda

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A worker stands guard beside the charred remains of House of Reeves furniture shop in Croydon, south London, which was burnt to the ground in Sunday night's violence.

Good editorial by Allister Heath today about the riots and the changes this event, and the poor, lackadaisical response by authorities, has wrought:

…From royal fairytale to banana republic in one summer: it has been a shameful, embarrassing disaster, not just for the tourism industries but also for foreign direct investment.

The cost in terms of lost reputation – internationally but also domestically – will be hugely higher than the £100m insurance bill. Global firms, already unnerved by over-regulation and excessive tax, will worry even more about allocating resources or key staff to the UK. Large retail chains will think twice about investing in many urban areas; the middle classes may follow suit and start moving out from many neighbourhoods. Needless to say, the human cost, in terms of deaths, injuries, shattered lives, ruined businesses, trauma and stress is immeasurable; the vast majority of the public is united in its immense anger at the savages and vandals that believe that they had the right to loot, pillage and maim. The way businesses and shops, often run by hard-working, entrepreneurial immigrant families, were targeted by low-lives was despicable; the greatest victims of these unforgivable actions were the very people who work the hardest, often for little pay, for their communities. It was so, so wrong, which is why Boris Johnson, David Cameron and also the wider political establishment are in much greater trouble than they realise.

What the riots most definitely show is the end result of the leftist agenda. To quote the mob itself:

It’s the rich people. It’s the rich people, the people who’ve got businesses, and that’s why this has happened.

Never mind that their Socialist society pays for almost everything, from housing to medical care. It’s still the fault of those damn business owners daring to employ their neighbors.

Belief in the “underclass” meme sets England’s anarchy apart from most other austerity-related vandalism. The protests in Wisconsin, for example, were a combination of well-to-do leftists chasing Vietnam-era nostalgia and a privileged public-sector union class who wanted to maintain their favored position. Conversely, the English rioters genuinely appear to believe that they are somehow cheated.

As a result, those who have their schooling, food, housing, and medical care paid for are now turning on their benefactors, ostensibly as punishment for the benefactors’ privilege. It is not so difficult to see how such a deeply ingrained sense of entitlement and backward view of personal property can come to exist.

Decades of Socialism have set this in motion. Decades of leftism have set this in motion:

What we have seen unfolding before our horrified gaze over the past four days in Britain is the true legacy of Tony Blair’s shattering defeat, in the two years or so after he came to power in 1997, at the hands of the ultra-feminists and cultural Marxist wreckers in his Cabinet and party who were determined above all to destroy the traditional nuclear family and institute the sexual free-for-all that exists today. Blair stood virtually alone against Gramsci’s acolytes, and lost.

One of them, Harriet Harman, was on TV last night preposterously blaming cuts in educational allowances, of all things, for the fact that teenagers and pre-pubescent children have been torching and looting shops and robbing and murdering people in the streets. It was Harman, of course, who was one of the principal forces behind the promotion of lone parenthood and the marginalisation of fathers as the only progressive position. Yet here she is, faced with the Hobbesian scenes of violent anarchy which are the result of those policies, still parroting the same old claptrap and still totally incapable of acknowledging the terrible damage to individuals, social destruction and de-civilisation she has helped wreak.

Add to this the associated breakdown in education, criminal justice and policing that have also taken place over the past three decades as a result of the same ‘long march through the institutions’, and you have the explanation of what the British riots actually signify: a society whose intelligentsia has been bent for three decades on social suicide — and which, having been the first into the Enlightenment, is now, as we can see from the ‘armies of ants’ torching and looting British cities, leading the way out.

Or as Max Hastings wrote “Years of liberal dogma have spawned a generation of amoral, uneducated, welfare dependent, brutalised youngsters”

Is this what we have to look forward to?

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It’s the rich people. It’s the rich people, the people who’ve got businesses, and that’s why this has happened.

Hmmm, where have I heard that before? Oh yeah! Was Greg vacationing in England?

If you carefully read Melanie Phillips essay, partly quoted above, you see that the Muslims who are calling for the institution/imposition of Sharia over all of the U.K. are the only ones in any position to grab the moral high ground.
Ms. Phillips concludes:

Welfare dependency further created the entitlement culture that the looters so egregiously display. It taught them that the world owed them a living. It taught them that their actions had no consequences. And it taught them that the world revolved around themselves.

The result of this toxic combination of welfare and non-judgmentalism
………..
[C]hildren were left illiterate and innumerate and unable to think. Abandoned to wander through the world without any guidance, they predictably ended up without any moral compass.

All of this was compounded still further by the disaster of multiculturalism — the doctrine which held that no culture could be considered superior to any other because that was ‘racist’.

That meant children were no longer taught about the nation in which they lived, and about its culture. So not only were they left in ignorance of their own society, but any attachment to a shared and over-arching culture was deliberately shattered.
…………..
Britain was once an ordered society that was the envy of the world — the most civilised, the most gentle and law-abiding.

Can Broken Britain be put together again?
………..
Repairing this terrible damage also means, dare I say it, a return to the energetic transmission of Biblical morality.

Anyone heard from the Archbishop of Canterbury about the riots? Anyone care to guess what he will eventually say about them? Quite.

When church leaders stop prattling like soft-headed social workers and start preaching, once again, the moral concepts that underlie our civilisation, and when our political leaders decide to oppose the culture war that has been waged against that civilisation rather than supinely acquiescing in its destruction, then — and only then — will we start to get to grips with this terrible problem.

Well, Melanie, which religion is NOT prattling like soft-headed social workers?
Islam.
Mohammad is already one of the top three names for newborns in the UK.
Brits are converting into Islam for the return to limits their own culture has failed to give them.

There are a lot of ways this might play out.
Muslims in Egypt are already calling it part of the ”Arab Spring.”

“Or as Max Hastings wrote “Years of liberal dogma have spawned a generation of amoral, uneducated, welfare dependent, brutalised youngsters””. Or as the good Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s 20+ year spiritual leader in the Chicago church, here in the US said. “The Chickens are coming home to roost”.

When people are reduced to the level of pet dogs, by providing for all their needs and asking nothing of them, a dangerous situation develops. I compare it to the bored pitbull in the apartment syndrome.

Pitbulls make wonderful pets and companions, but they need attention or preferably a job to keep them occupied and to give direction to their lives. Deprive them of these very real necessities and they become dangerous, similar to the human species. They will resent authority, especially if it is authority that is fearful and the results are often tragic for all that are involved.

The pitbull and the human are two similar personalities, their lives must have meaning and purpose. Take away all purpose or treat them like pampered lap dog you can expect the worst.

The Leftist ideology wants to be the symbolic earth mother to all the world’s poor and disadvantaged by holding them to her breast and giving them all their earthly needs; unfortunately, when the fangs reach up to savage the face of the eath mother she blames everyone and everything but herself. The blameless Obama syndrome.

Pit bulls are no different than high bred horses, I’;ve had them all my life. People consider them dangerous and usually end up having them put down because they are too dangerous. In reality it is the human that has ignored the facts of life. Animals and humans need work andf purpose in their life or they strike out at those around them. Treat them like lap dogs and children and they will hurt you or kill you. Not every animal or human is a sniveling useless coward that wants everything piled up in front of them.

The sense of purpose and accomplishment is everything; deny those from a human or an animal and you will have a monster on your hands.

Very good analysis, Curt, as usual – what we readers expect of you

I think this short video reinforces what you are saying:

BBC video (less than a minute) that has two “ladies” “explaining” why the rioters are rioting. There is one quote in this video that you may not catch: “It’s the (Conservative) government’s fault, and the rich people.”

“The sense of purpose and accomplishment is everything; deny those from a human or an animal and you will have a monster on your hands”. It goes much further than that. Add to that Obama’s firm belief in Black Liberation Theology preached by the likes of Jeremiah Wright, Moss, and visiting pastors such as Pflegler, and the fact that Obama and big Mo exposed their children to this hateful bigoted ranting, that blamed everyone, especially whitey, who had more that you. It is the propagation of class envy that teaches them that it is OK to take from the rich. Obama still preaches it every day. Big oil is bad, big corporations are bad, people who earn, yes earn $250,000 per year, except GEs Emmelt and other contributors, rich people are bad, except hip hop moguls and Hollywood supporters. Progs wallow in class envy, it is what keeps them in power.

@Buffalobob: Buffalobob (you are dating yourself :-)) Re: comment # 3, you have provided two very appropriate quotes.

Or as Max Hastings wrote “Years of liberal dogma have spawned a generation of amoral, uneducated, welfare dependent, brutalised youngsters”

Or it might be a result of the mindless consumerism favored by predatory capitalists, where society’s primary organizing values become monetary, where the acquisition of material wealth and goods is the only measure of success, and where certain segments of the population have little real hope of participation.

Is this what we have to look forward to?

Some people seem to be working toward it.

“The sense of purpose and accomplishment is everything; deny those from a human or an animal and you will have a monster on your hands.”

I couldn’t agree more.

One little reported fact is that these riotous mobs are made up of a high percentage of black “youths.” These are the British born children of immigrants from African nations, allowed because Great Britain did not keep up with its own poplulation needs through reproduction. So the UK allowed massive immigration in order to fill the employment needs of the country, only the immigrants had no skills that were marketable.. Mark Styne spelled this out quite clearly in his book.

Consequently, you have a generation that has been raised on the dole, with parents who have failed to assimilate (learn English) and have no loyalty to the nation that feeds them. How is that any different than what we have seen in the U.S. with gangs that are ethnically Central/South American? It is no different.

An article appeared in the left wing Guardian yesterday that warrants attention:

“For me, the deepest issue at play here is one of responsibility. Who is responsible for law and order in our nation? Who is responsible for the behavior of our young people? Can we blame the state when parents have been allowed to abdicate responsibility for the behavior of their children?

The biggest problem our country has faced over the last two decades is that everyone thinks the government should do everything. Personal responsibility and community responsibility have been replaced by state responsibility. If the riots have shown us anything, it is that this approach does not work.

In a way, we are all responsible for the riots, whether directly or indirectly. We watched the previous government talk up rights for young people but with no mention of responsibilities. We have not taught ALL our young people that an entitlement culture is morally wrong. And we have paid the price for this liberalism.”

The article was written by Shaun Bailey. Had that been written by an American journalist, he would have been attacked as a heartless racist who didn’t care about black people since a good percentage of the mobs are black. But Shaun Bailey is an African-Brit (is there such a thing, like an African-American?) who sees the end result of endless handouts with no responsibility placed on the recipient. And while I disagree with him that ALL Brits are responsible for what is happening now because many Brits understood that collectivism never works, no matter what form you give it, and those productive Brits were required by law to supplement the welfare system via taxation, how is that any different from our own nation?

The liberal mindset has always been that you could hand your kid a credit card and the keys to the car and the liquor cabinet, turn them loose on their own and nothing bad would happen. Thomas Sowell pointed out in his book, The Housing Boom and Bust that you could provide brand new public housing projects to those on welfare and within a couple of years those housing projects looked just like the ghettos the government moved them from. Now we have a system of Section 8 housing because the government’s mindset is if you improve the housing, you improve the persons living in those houses. Just the opposite happened; people moved into nice neighborhoods in Section 8 approved housing and turned that house into a ghetto, decreasing property values for their neighbors.

All the responsibility has been placed on the productive taxpayer, both in the UK and here. There isn’t even a requirement that a woman with a couple of kids who has no idea who the baby daddies are, keep their taxpayer subsidized housing clean. No requirement to pick up the trash on the law of the public housing complex. No requirement to get a GED and job training. You see, we do not have the right to demand they help themselves. We only have the responsibility to support the funds that allow them to remain comfortable in their poverty.

The certainty of Greg’s opinions is inversely proportional to Greg’s knowledge.

Britain has some of the most absurdly generous welfare arrangements in the world. Whether “students” or “the poor,” the rioters of the past half year or so are the beneficiaries of a vast and surreal cornucopia of free money and benefits. It is a fact that these people largely do not want to ‘participate,’ i.e. do not want to take entry level jobs. They prefer to remain perpetual students or remain on the dole or both. If you looked into this at all Greg, you would know that.

New immigrants from places such as Poland, Turkey, and Pakistan travel to Britain and quickly take the entry level postions that these yobs scorn as beneath them.

The police in Britain do not uphold the law. They have stood by and let a lot of this stuff happen. They harass the law-abiding and protect the law-breakers. It is famously a nation where people who defend themselves against criminals can face prosecution. And to be a productive law-abiding member of society in Britain is to face endless petty harassment and extractions of fines for minor traffic offenses and things such as putting the wrong thing in the recycling bin.

The British system has (1) bred an entitled class that gets free money and sees no need to work, (2) told this class over and over that they are victims, (3) given them to understand that the police will not do much to them if they commit violent crimes, (4) also made it clear that the law-abiding will be constrained from defending themselves.

It’s not rocket science. The progressives worked long and hard to engineer this debacle.

And just look at the rioters. They are clearly having the time of their lives. This is not warfare. For them, it’s a trip to Disneyland.

Incidentally, Greg, you’re just spouting Marxist boilerplate now like a parrot. There is clearly no thought put into what you wrote. Why do you even bother?

@Wm T Sherman, #10:

You don’t seem to have understood a word of what I said. Any criticism of the potential pitfalls of unrestrained capitalism and consumerism–and there certainly are some–seems to be taken around here as an advocacy of Marxist ideology.

The fact that mobs of young hooligans are wrecking parts of their city to get at consumer goods they don’t actually need to live suggests to me a seriously flawed hierarchy of values. It’s not like they’re starving people stealing food.

“We’ll be fighting in the streets with our children at our feet, And the morals that they worship will be gone. And the men who spurred us on sit in judgment of all wrong. They decide and then the shotgun sings the song. I’ll tip my hat to the new constitution.”

Lao
An American Expat in Southeast Asia

Greg,

I understood what you wrote. Which is to say, clearly saw that it was a non sequitur.

Did the police fail to act because of consumerism?

The problem is socialism. It is the depraved British welfare state. The state has trained the rioters to riot. And it has removed them from the capitalist economy by supporting them for life. According to you, if they act out by looting a store it’s bad, but if they act out by beating up strangers and burning cars and apartment buildings, that’s OK because no consumer goods changed hands. The acts themselves do not appall you – only what you consider to be improper motiviation for the acts.

There are columnists at The Guardian who agree with you, who literally claim that throwing a rock through a window is not real violence, but that hyprocritical talk is.

From the Vancouver Sun, youths involved in the riots justify their behavior.

We ain’t got no jobs, no money… We heard that other people were getting things for free, so why not us.”

The police stood by until today and let the rioters run wild and what did they accomplish?

@Skookum: Hundreds, thousands of the real tax payers – such as the furniture store owners whose business had been in that spot for 92 years – are now ON THE DOLE.
The Brits are going to find out that not everybody can be on the dole at the same time.

Nan G, are you referring to the government proclamation that everyone will be reimbursed whether they have insurance or not? I heard damage estimates at $300 billion. I think that is a conservative estimate.

As I see it, the immediate problem with the riots was the lack of any credible response. These aren’t peaceful protesters and what they’re doing isn’t passive resistance. Whoever the rioters are, and whatever their excuses might be, they’ve declared war on a city. When someone declares war on your city, you defend it. A person with a firebomb intent on accomplishing arson in a populated area should be considered deadly menace. The authorities should have given a clear 24 hour warning, and then the response should have corresponded with the level of the threat.

Ladies and gentlemen (and trolls):
The problem is Statism.
Statism is a flawed moral philosophy which holds that the State can be all things to all persons.
Statism is the flawed theory that actions are never accompanied by consequences.
Statism is the aberrant notion that something for nothing exists.
Statism is the disproved theory that the State can satisfy all of your needs.
And the Statists have run England for 15 years, without interruption. They have completely implemented their moral philosophy, and are now bearing the direct consequences of their choice.
Marriage: dead. Authority: there is none. Love of country: forget it. Respect for other persons: never.
All of the fundamentals of Christian morality have been overthrown. Humans, deprived of a consistent and coherent moral ethic, turn in to feral creatures. And the feral creatures are enjoying themselves tremendously right now. They fear no consequences, because it has been their experience that their actions do not have consequences. That is the moral result of the abdication of authority.
This is the human equivalent of what happens to a pit bull (a dog bred for a purpose) is given no purpose. The dog, having no requirements, invents its own purpose and savages whatever comes near.

But the Statist has only one morality: what is believed in the heart is right. Nothing else matters.
Except when your world falls apart.
Who is England going to tax, now that all income earners are toast?
How will they run their country?
It will be ugly, that is for sure.

@Nan – this has little, if anything, to do with Muslims. By and large it wasn’t them who were rioting. Indeed a lot of local shops which were looted and torched were owned by Muslims and many of them came out to defend their businesses.

– if you knew anything about the UK you would know the majority of Black British come from parents/grandparents who cone from the English speaking Carribbean islands or English speaking African countries – so speaking English is not the problem. Also there were plenty of whites as well causing trouble. This wasn’t a race riot.

The problem as I see it is quite deep and goes back decades. The riots were sparked by the MET police shooting dead a drug gangster in North London. I don’t care about that gangster but it’s legit for people in that area to protest in a non-violent way and for the incident to be investigated. However rumours spread via blackberries etc and soon more people gathered and hijacked it into an ugly violent situation. This further broke out to copycat riots in other parts of London and the rest of the country. The scum that are the looters, muggers, arsonist and rioters were not doing this for any real political reason – they were mindless and interested in getting a thrill, fighting the cops and nicking stuff. The left have tried to use this to make out it’s the poor ‘disenfranchised’ protesting against capitialism, Thatcherism, bank crisis, no jobs/opportunities, consumerism etc. This is bollocks. They can afford blackberries and are hardly starving. These aren’t bright students being denied university places. There are jobs because over a hundred thousand eastern Europeans have settled in the UK and have found jobs. It’s just jobs the rioters don’t want (although note not all were unemployed). The neighbourhoods that have been set alight were in a lot better state than they were in the early 80s. And yet they get free education until 16, free child benefit, free healthcare and probably family credit, housing, unemployment benefit. So they hardly been ignored in fact they have had plenty of money thrown at them. They want opportunity handed to them without bothering to create any opportunity for themselves. Yet this is a small minority of people from the mainly working class. Plenty of the working class have come from harder backgrounds and have had values to hold down a job, follow the law and keep their kids in line. The left makes excuses for the scum we have seen destroy their own neighborhoods. The problems lies in broken homes and poor parenting- and that’s a hard area for governments to intrude. Welfare and benefit traps certainly make things worst. Those who riot etc need to be caught and punished. In the long term I would like to see emphasis on apprentice training and stopping benefit for those who don’t get off their ass. And those who mess about and play truant at school need to be expelled so other kids don’t follow on their ways. And unfortunately I thinks schools need to teach civic values because these days you can’t rely on some parents teaching their kids the difference between right and wrong.

The problem is easily rectified…Allow business and property owners a means to defend themselves, yes that means ownership of gun/guns, then the problem goes away…

Example, young holligan gang breaks into your business/home with no other intention than to take something that is not rightfully theirs. You shoot the first one in the kneecap so that he/she has a permanent limp. That doesn’t impress the rest of the mob you take the next one in the chest…Odds are you will run out of mob before you run out of bullets…

The UK, along with most of Europe, have allowed themselves to neutered…Seems to be working out really well for them right now doesn’t it…

@ Greg, #8

Or it might be a result of the mindless consumerism favored by predatory capitalists, where society’s primary organizing values become monetary, where the acquisition of material wealth and goods is the only measure of success, and where certain segments of the population have little real hope of participation.

Wow! I was just not raised to believe I would never have a chance at participating in the American dream. I know this article is about England, but I can’t imagine anyone telling a kid they don’t stand a chance. “Yo, junior, put that book down! You’re never gonna be anything but a welfare recipient, just like me and all our family before me.”
Now I know why your posts are so sad Greg, your outlook on society is downright depressing.

@Greg
This really isn’t about consumerism. If you have a look some of the things these scum are tealing are really piss poor. One kid stole a bin. Although they are by no means rich – they aren’t dirt poor. All these things they are taking they may already have. And plenty aren’t stealing but are setting fire to things and throwing what they find at cops. They are doing it because they are largely non political non- authority feral scumbags doing it for the thrill. Mob mentality. There has been consumerism for over a century. Beyond the riots last year by the students over fees which was also wrong but was political – there hasn’t been any major riots, certainly not on this scale, in England since the early 80s. Unemployment is lower now than it was in the early 90s and there was no rioting then.

@Bobschek
Uk hadn’t been neutered – as it hasnt had a love affair with guns in the first place. So far one guy has been shot dead and three more were killed when a car purposefully ran over them. Most people on the UK don’t want guns. How many people died in the LA riots?

@GaffaUK:

@Nan – this has little, if anything, to do with Muslims. By and large it wasn’t them who were rioting. Indeed a lot of local shops which were looted and torched were owned by Muslims and many of them came out to defend their businesses.

I agree, GaffaUK.
I was pointing out the Melania Phillips essay’s conclusion that a moral compass is what is needed….among other things.
And who, in the UK, has been exhibiting morals these days?
The Muslim community.

But then there are the invisible instigators, some of whom happen to also be Muslims.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/in-online-forums-islamic-militants-urge-rioters-in-britain-to-topple-government/2011/08/10/gIQAmpbc6I_story.html

CAIRO — Militant online forums are abuzz with calls to Muslims in Britain to launch Internet campaigns in support of the British rioters and to urge them to topple the government.
…..
One contributor says the rioters should adopt slogans similar to those used by Arab protesters during the uprisings in the Middle East this year.
…..
Another contributor says an Internet media attack is very important and that “chaos is useful to militants in London.”

Then there’s a bit more here:
http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/08/10/would-be-terrorists-looking-to-capitalize-on-u-k-riots/

NEW YORK — Islamist extremists are trying to capitalize on the riots engulfing Britain, calling on their followers to help incite further violence so that a terror attack can be launched amid the chaos.

Via “jihadist” websites, the extremists say English-fluent Muslims should infiltrate social media with messages that encourage the rioters so that the police remain “preoccupied” by the disturbances, according to the Washington-based monitoring group SITE.

The extremists are characterizing the violence as “useful” for London-based terror cells, saying the rioters are young and impressionable, and can be easily manipulated if the messages appear to be the sort of things they would write.

The extremists reason that by extending the violence, the police will drop their guard against jihadist terror planning.
….
“Just as they supported the Arab revolutions through Facebook and Twitter, and elsewhere, we want to export these revolutions to them,” this site says. “Enter their pages . . . and spread photos of their revolution and incite them to continue. Make video clips of their protests and heroic acts.”

This site posts a picture of three masked youths, the centre one holding the Union Jack, as smoke surrounds London’s Big Ben. “Welcome to London and Europe: Spring Revolutions World,” the picture is titled.

“Those who are demonstrating are mostly young people, and it is easy to make use of their enthusiasm,” the site adds cynically.
….

Useful idiots on the streets.

@Nan

Waving the Muslim bogeyman flag doesn’t cut it as it’s not relevant. Who’s providing the moral compass on the UK? Well that would be Cameron (listen to his speeches and let me know if you strongly disagree with his words), plenty of other politicians (although some on the left ate trying to score cheap points), yes the police – the MET was not ready for this as the scale of it was unprecedented – hard to stop looting when you don’t have the manpower immediately to hand but in London where I work they have trebled the officers on Tues to 16,000 and the trouble has pretty much stopped in London, you also have the different religious (not just the Muslims) and non-religious groups and ordinary Londoners coming together to clear up the mess.

Who cares what some religious nutters are saying in Cairo? There are probably right wing Norwegians muttering dark thoughts and giving ‘moral’ support to the fascist English Defence League but unless your antenna is tuned to your own prejudices – picking out such relatively trivial background noise is beside the point. As I say it’s not about Muslims this time.

@Greg

Any criticism of the potential pitfalls of unrestrained capitalism and consumerism

Name one nation that has ever practiced unrestrained capitalism and consumerism.

This is about lawlessness, vandalism, pillaging and wanton destruction. There is no purpose or reason for it aside from victimizing others for the sheer fun of it. It is only a few steps away from a recreation of the type of insane criminality that ended in the terror-filled bloodbath of French Revolution, but there is no noble ideology in these kinds of riots. Such mob rule leads to anarchy and rule by fear. This is where the continued socialist rebel rousing towards class warfare leads.

Looks like Liberal Policies and Liberal Agendas are blowing up in the Liberals faces…. Great ‘end result’ …. Really encouraging…. really Rich… This is what happens when the money runs out… Are they this angry because now the have to get a JOB like the rest of us and Actually work for a living?

Writing about the London riots without once mentioning race and immigration is ignoring the elephant in the room. Yes, leftist ideology is a problem, but the kids aren’t out in the streets because they’ve been reading Engels. These are race riots first and foremost.

I thought it was interesting that the Prime Minister of UK threatens to interfere with private cell phone transmission (and presumably other similar devices) so that people cannot ‘collude’ with one another–that’s the same thing Iran did during their election demonstrations. In both cases, people are demonstrating for economic and political freedom, and against repression–which have been prevalent since the dawn of society. Also, there have always been those who oppose such demonstrations.

It is coming here, first in the trickles you see now such as the Wisconsin Fair mobs, the union thugs, etc. What we are seeing is the culmination of sick immigration policies that allow the incoming people to live under their own rules rather than assimilate into their new society, the welfare/Socialist state mentality and an open race war. It is coming here!

And what a surprise. the exact same crap is going on here! Since the President, media in general and unfortunately much of the public have chosen to use class warfare and racism to propel their failed agendas, since we now have a majority of lazy bum welfare state advocates whose only belief is let the workers and successful members of society support them, and since our government openly allows not only illegal immigration but in fact defends their forcing people here into adherence of asinine Anti-American stuff like Sharia for instance I’m afraid we really need to brace for the worse! IT IS COMING. And sooner than one thinks!

These are race riots first and foremost.

No, not really. Some of the protestors are individuals who are trying to make the Mark Duggan shooting into a race issue (i.e. political opportunism, a classic tactic from the progressive toolbox):

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/mark-duggan-man-sparked-london-riots/story?id=14264320
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8690855/London-riots-Mark-Duggan-died-from-single-gunshot-to-chest-post-mortem-reveals.html

It appears that his death was due to a police officer with a too quick trigger finger, but there is no evidence that Duggan was ‘shot for being black’. The riots that have erupted have nothing to do with racism, but are due mostly to using it as an excuse for opportunist criminality. We have seen many examples in the past of street thugs making use of protests to incite riots so that they can practice their criminal acts in the confusion that erupts.

I learned two things since I last read down this thread:

1. The British judges have been letting anyone caught and arrested for the looting, but who is a minor go.
The ”child” is given almost immediately back to his parents.
No juvenile detention whatsoever.
I wonder (and don’t know) if the looted goods are confiscated from the family.

2. There was an online petition that got over 100,000 signatures in a few hours.
It demanded that any person arrested who is living at taxpayer expense, in ”council” housing be put out of such council housing.
The looter (and his/her whole family) will have to move in with relatives or go to a charitable shelter or some other non-taxpayer housing solution.
What was really amazing about this petition is that it got agreed to by the PM.
So, whole families are being evicted.

Already bleeding heart’ers are moaning that this will just make the looters angry and more likely to commit crimes against the taxpaying people.

Also it seems the police crackdown has worked.
The looting has pretty much stopped.

Gee, who could have predicted that?

Those who substitute right wing stereotypes and bullet points for rational thought deserve what they get, which is the perpetuation of the problems they decry. Rather than accept uncritically the cartoonish portrayal of British society by conservatives as a bifurcated population of indolent shirkers supported by virtuous taxpayers, you might first consider the facts, say, at http://www.poverty.org.uk/summary/what%20is%20new.shtml. Most of the the readers and posters at this website fall squarely within the American middle class, at least as an economic demographic, which means that the vast majority of you support policies that are antithetical to your own best interests. England is merely a harbinger of things to come in this country, so watch them carefully., then listen to what right wing Republicans are saying. Romney, Bachmann, Perry … they all intend to take this country down the path on which Britain has already embarked. When middle class British families begin losing their homes and savings in great numbers, say goodbye to your own home; and, when British kids – and later working class adults – begin dying in the streets, hug your own families close. Do you think we’re different from them? We’re not. We’re next!

@AJHill

The increased poverty and economic downfall of the European nations is due to their embracing of progressive government, and that, along with the “free trade at all costs ” establishment Republican globalist agenda, is what is creating the decline of America.

If America were ruled by conservative middle-class minds, this nation would not be in the risky position it is. Both parties are behind the destruction of the middle-class ‘atomic family’ and the American dream, as a result of progressive policies that have expanded the economic separation of the haves and have-nots to the point that the middle-class is being moved closer and closer to the have-not side of the economic scale.

@retire05: You know, this ludicrous right wing stereotype of welfare recipients – based more on the right’s fevered imaginings and hatred than on fact – reminds me of the real-life behavior of American corporations. Demanding (and unfortunately receiving) a constant stream of tax-payer provided benefits, modern corporations reject any idea of public responsibility, while trashing the environment, abusing their employees, and seeking only to maximize profits no matter what the adverse consequences may be for the society that protects and nurtures them. If Corporations are indeed “people”, as Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney maintains, they are undoubtedly the worst and most irrresponsible “citizens” any country could have. If anyone should be cut off the public “dole”, it’s the American corporation.

@Ditto: It’s “nuclear family”, not “atomic”. and, as for your characterization of European progressivism, among the most progressive nations in Europe are countries like Germany, Norway, and Sweden, whose economies are thriving and whose citizens enjoy one of the highest standards of living of any industrialized nation. Unlike Americans, they also receive superior publically supported healthcare, education, and retirement, and, while they are working, better job security, job safety, more liberal vacations … the list of their advantages is impressiive; but few people on this side of the Atlantic are familiar with them. These are the progressive success stories that right wingers conveniently overlook, when they criticize European liberalism. Frankly, if I could live my life over, I’d have moved to Germany or, better still, a Scandinavian country long ago; and, if I could persuade my kids, they’d emigrate there tomorrow! Unrestrained corporatism and the right wing agenda are driving America into a ditch, depriving us of freedom, happiness, and security and converting us into a true “nation of serfs.” Von Hayek had it entirely backwards!

@AJ Hill:

Frankly, if I could live my life over, I’d have moved to Germany or, better still, a Scandinavian country long ago; and, if I could persuade my kids, they’d emigrate there tomorrow! Unrestrained corporatism and the right wing agenda are driving America into a ditch, depriving us of freedom, happiness, and security and converting us into a true “nation of serfs.” Von Hayek had it entirely backwards!

Why not make your dream come true rather than pining for a redo? What’s stopping you from going there now?

Curt ended his post with:

Is this what we have to look forward to?

retire05 mentioned Thomas Sowell, which reminded me of a recent series of articles of his:

Social Degeneration

Social Degeneration Part 2

Social Degeneration: Part 3