The rioters’ total victory, and the lesson Britain’s authorities have taught them

Tim M. writes from Britain:

You wrote:

[C]an there be any doubt that this commission will find that the cause of the riots was “neglect of communities,” racial bias, that kind of thing? In which case my prediction in the previous entry—“Two-to-one this national fightback turns into a fightback against, you know, intolerance and discrimination”—will be confirmed.

I suspect that you’re right in your prediction about our national debate on the cause of the riots, but at least we will debate it. No one is asking the question: what caused the riots to end? In fact the rioters ended the riots unilaterally and spontaneously. The riot was not suppressed by the authorities; it ended of its own accord.

The rioters now know that no one will stop them from being as anti-social in the centres of our major cities as they already are on their own housing estates. In effect, the rioters tested the authorities the same way that unruly school children test a new teacher, to find the boundaries, and discovered that there aren’t any. The authorities won’t enforce any standards of behaviour—because they’re hobbled by ideology, of course, but the street kids don’t care about that—and consequently, they can do whatever they want—even loot and burn our capital city for four days and nights!

Saturnalia! Carnival! Of course, the street kids themselves understand what just happened. They may be uneducated. They may be stupid. But they aren’t deluded. They know that they just achieved, on a national level, what they do on a personal level all the time: intimidate a scared population. Quite a feat for the Wretched of the UK.

And what’s to stop them from doing it again? Well, nothing. Anyone could tell you that—except for our leadership, but especially the street kids.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 11, 2011 08:00 PM | Send