I have had concerns that Britain is taking the disastrous road to civil disorder that occurred in this country in the 1960s. Theodore Dalrymle has voiced similar concerns. Now there is a tiny sign that someone is fighting back. It is a single story but a least it is in the press. I liked this quote:
“I have never used a weapon in my life and it was a great feeling.
Maybe there is hope after all. A recent article in The Telegraph about civil disorder and filthy toilets in British airports was followed by a letter from an expatriot Briton who now lived in Indiana. He wrote that he was surrounded by neighbors who owned and even carried guns. He had never felt so safe in Britain.
UPDATE: This is not good news.
Britain’s home secretary, Jacqui Smith, unveiled the new brand name in a speech a few days ago. “There is nothing Islamic about the wish to terrorize, nothing Islamic about plotting murder, pain and grief,” she told her audience. “Indeed, if anything, these actions are anti-Islamic.”
Has this woman ever read the Quran ?
I read that long article about drug legalization in the UK you linked to at FS. Do you think the legalization has caused the social decline there? I read some startling observations by Andrew Sullivan when he returned from a trip home, about the drunken dopers stumbling around London,a nd that it didn’t speak well for their drug policy.
Legalization is all we need to put the nail in our coffin here.
Because we have sadly witnessed Britain surrender its identity as they rolled over in submission to political correctness and Islam, this fighting back is almost shocking – and yet isn’t it what every man protecting his family would be expected to do?
“I would rather die like a man than a dog” – this is a man I can respect, and hopefully will become the rallying cry of a country realizing it has been overtaken by something far more dangerous than a criminal with a knuckle duster.
Great links Dr. Kennedy. Good thing that man was a great bare knuckled brawler. I wonder why he didn’t shoot the assailants instead of taking the chance of being overcome and having he and his family murdered. Not to take anything away from him, he is a hero, but that question came up immediatly. It it because British society is so against guns that the thought of pulling a trigger never occurred to him?
Growing up, I seem to recall the message was to ‘give up’ when threatened by a criminal. Now I seem to hear more and more that fighting back is a better action.
Societies as a whole can use the same lesson. New York City cut its crime rate drastically through enforcement.
People seem to lose their instinct for self preservation. I’m thinking of a test I read about, where participants drove a car along a track, and unexpectedly a barrel would pop up in front of them. They were allotted enough distance to stop, and a few drivers did, but some people just kept on driving, with no attempt to stop. It’s like they decided it was too much trouble to do anything. Another example is the recent genocide in Rwanda, where most victims cowered or meekly accepted their fate, when an organized resistance seemed in order.
From the Dalrymple link:
>>The judge in the case, however, said that sending the man to jail would “do nothing to protect the public,”…
This seems patently false, and for a judge to take this line makes me think the judge sees the criminal as some kind of buddy, like a customer to be catered.
I have two young sons. The schools all try to tell me that if a fight breaks out, BOTH parties are responsible. I stood up and said my piece: that doesn’t apply to bullies. And what about a student who doesn’t care about getting into trouble, forcing the “victim” to get into trouble just by defending him or herself?
The administrators looked at me as I was speaking Esperanto. But the parents were pretty much all with me.
The victim culture is, I think, tightly tied into the Left-Progressive movement. Oh, people from the Left will talk tough, and be verbal bullies and such, but generally speaking, they want The State to protect them.
Brrrr….
>>…that if a fight breaks out, BOTH parties are responsible.
This is a version of what I call the candy bar fallacy: one kid grabs another’s candy bar. An adult comes around the corner, sees the struggle, and says, “Be fair — split the candy bar equally.”
Of course the criminal element learns to exploit this thinking. In domestic disputes, when an aggrieved party seeks a restraining order, one tactic of the criminal is to get a restraining order on both parties. Then, “Officer, I wasn’t within 500 feet of her, she was within 500 feet of me!”
>>The victim culture is, I think, tightly tied into the Left-Progressive movement.
Oh absolutely. It arises from their narcissistic need to blame someone when their world view isn’t fulfilled. Often their world view is unrealistic, but they gain great solace from having someone to blame anyway.
DB, I’m pleased we agree. It’s a sick kind of joke. People claim to have liked the ideas of “It Takes a Village.” What they think it means is people looking out for each other, being thoughtful and kind. But that isn’t what HRC and her people think.
They know best. In fact, they know better than you do what is good for you.
So it doesn’t really “take a village.” It takes the Executive Director for Trans-State Administration of Village Programs, based in Washington, D.C., with a staff of over one hundred and an earmarked budget of a billion dollars.
And that is why we have the “bully problem” we are discussing. The adminstrators don’t know the bully or the victim. So both people get “equal time,” regardless of what happens. In companies, when one person is being a jerk to another, both people get called in for a review. As you say, this gives the bully/jerk more power than the victim.
Oh well.
Part of the bully problem may be that teachers have been denied their traditional role of discipline. Goldberg as a good analogy in his book. He says that ideal civilization of the Progressives is a college campus with someone else providing the essential services. No mention of who.
You ain’t kidding, Dr. K. Right now I am balancing students who sign up for a night lab, but feel that they need to switch so that they can “make” sorority rush. Of course, the Pan-Hellenic Council on campus says that none of their events EVER interfere with academic functions or classes.
Notice that what we used to call free time became extracurricular and now are called co-curricular. No fooling.
Anyway, tru dat about discipline. But what can you do?
In companies, when one person is being a jerk to another, both people get called in for a review.
That sounds a lot like a certain group blog. But like you said, what can you do?
Hey, Professor LaRoche, I’ll give you an example close to home. There is a tech person in my building. She works very hard, and is extremely aggressive at all times. Anyway, she and I had a difference of opinion last year (I’m supposed to be in charge, but it doesn’t work that way). It resulted in her shouting at me in front of students (which I consider to be completely unprofessional). So I pretty much left her alone after that, and worked hard to be polite and well spoken. Just say out of her way.
Then my boss calls us both in, and the woman gets to chew me out for 45 minutes, making things up, and so forth. I just sit there and take it, and I don’t respond aggressively. The woman finally lies in a very straightforward fashion that several other people have had troubles with me.
I immediately insist, right there, that we have meetings with those people, because I had no idea (says I). She went white.
Yep. She was lying, and she went too far. The people in question all called her a liar, and said I was fine to work with.
I thought it was over and done with until my recent review, where I was criticized as being “hard to get along with.” The other person didn’t have anything like that in her review.
The kicker? The woman in question has had fights with everyone in my building, pretty much, but does such an important job that they are afraid she’ll quit. She even had a shouting match with my boss.
Asymmetry. She was a bully, and I was not. Yet the altercation was treated as an “even blame” situation. This gives a huge advantage to bullies.
And those same bullies all laugh with derision at the people who think that they are being fair.
What can you do? As for academia, the infighting is so extreme because the stakes are so low!
Hang in there. It ain’t worth getting upset, I can promise you that.
>>What can you do?
Indeed. I wonder about that, too.
Thanks for the story, Eric. It really makes the point.
The ‘village’ is supposed to watch out for its members. But, alas, instead we get the Janet Reno types, like your tech person, waving a banner with an irrefutable slogan (Save The Children). And people defend them, like women defending their boyfriends on death row.
Sometimes, DB, we just have to do the best we have with what we have. I piped down at work and took the nonsense, because my job is not yet secure. I am much more militant about looking after my sons! Thanks for the thought.
And it doesn’t take a village, DB. It actually takes the Assistant to the Undersecretary for Village Research and Development, Department of Oversight and Enforcement, headquartered in the regional office across the state, and administered in DC. Brrrr.