15 Aug 2011

“In Britain, Everything Is Policed Except Crime”

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Mark Steyn tells us, describing the recent British riots and looting as the Welfare State’s logical dead end.

Her Majesty’s cowed and craven politically correct constabulary stand around with their riot shields and Robocop gear as young rioters lob concrete through store windows to steal the electronic toys which provide their only non-narcotic or alcoholic amusement. I chanced to be in Piccadilly for the springtime riots when the police failed to stop the mob from smashing the windows of the Ritz and other upscale emporia, so it goes without saying that they wouldn’t lift a finger to protect less-prestigious private property from thugs. Some of whom are as young as 9 years old. And girls.

Yet a police force all but entirely useless when it comes to preventing crime or maintaining public order has time to police everything else. When Sam Brown observed en passant to a mounted policeman on Cornmarket Street in Oxford, “Do you know your horse is gay?”, he was surrounded within minutes by six officers and a fleet of patrol cars, handcuffed, tossed in the slammer overnight, and fined 80 pounds. Mr. Brown’s “homophobic comments,” explained a spokesmoron for Thames Valley Police, were “not only offensive to the policeman and his horse, but any members of the general public in the area.” The zealous crackdown on Sam Brown’s hippohomophobia has not been replicated in the present disturbances. Anyone who has so much as glanced at British policing policy over the past two decades would be hard pressed to argue which party on the streets of London, the thugs or the cops, is more irredeemably stupid.

This is the logical dead end of the Nanny State. When William Beveridge laid out his blueprint for the British welfare regime in 1942, his goal was the “abolition of want” to be accomplished by “co-operation between the State and the individual.” In attempting to insulate the citizenry from life’s vicissitudes, Sir William succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. As I write in my book: “Want has been all but abolished. Today, fewer and fewer Britons want to work, want to marry, want to raise children, want to lead a life of any purpose or dignity.” The United Kingdom has the highest drug use in Europe, the highest incidence of sexually transmitted disease, the highest number of single mothers, the highest abortion rate. Marriage is all but defunct, except for William and Kate, fellow toffs, upscale gays and Muslims. From page 204: “For Americans, the quickest way to understand modern Britain is to look at what LBJ’s Great Society did to the black family and imagine it applied to the general population.”

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3 Feedbacks on "“In Britain, Everything Is Policed Except Crime”"

SDD

Life is about tradeoffs. Sure, you have a society full of drugged up slackers, illegitimate children, and violent thugs. But they can be counted on to vote Labor.



Maggie's Farm

Barbarians: UK Update…

Steyn:

As I write in my book: “Want has been all but abolished. Today, fewer and fewer Britons want to work, want to marry, want to raise children, want to lead a life of any purpose or dignity.” The United Kingdom has the highest drug use in Europ…



GoneWithTheWind

I have raised 4 children with moderate success. I would never do to my children what our government does to welfare recipients. They strip them of their will to work and succeed. It is difficult to watch your toddler fall or when they start riding a bicycle wath them crash but it is gratifying to watch them get up and keep trying. A child may be contented to eat, sleep and play their life away but as a responsible adult we encourage them to pursue an education and balance in their lives. By contrast the government gives welfare recipents everything they need to live comfortably and provides little or no encouragement for them to ever get out of the welfare trap. What we have done with our “great society” programs is a crime. We have literally destroyed millions and millions of lives. The government has proved it’s incompetence in rearing children or adults in need. They would have been better off with no assistance at all.



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