Lessons To Learn From the UK Riots
By Steven Osborne | Thursday, August 18th, 2011 | Catch-All, PolicyThe most convenient lessons to learn are the ones learned from someone else’s mistake.
That is why we should take the opportunity to learn from the recent riots in the United Kingdom. The erosion of society in the UK has caused a sense of lawlessness to become rampant among the youth in that country. The general attitude among England of late has been that there is no absolute truth. With truth being relative there can be no justice. If there is no truth, then no one can claim that these rioters are wrong to destroy and steal other people’s property. These rioters are approaching this with a deluded sense of entitlement.
These problems can be traced to the breakdown of British society. Over the years, society in the UK has steadily been eroding. This is not by accident, certain groups within the UK, including the Fabian Socialists, have been tirelessly laboring to tear it down. They know what many conservatives do not; that the more society is eroded, the more powerful a government can become.
Here in America, the focus is on the economy. What conservatives must understand is that the economy is directly tied to what happens in society. For years now, some libertarian Republicans have been deceitfully playing on words and suggesting that social conservatives are somehow related to socialists, the term “big government Republican” has in the minds of some become a synonymous term with social conservatism. However, this charge is not fair, although it is possible for a social conservative to also be a “big government” Republican, to be maligned as such for supporting policies that protect society from erosion is ridiculous. In fact, the social policies in the UK have been especially libertine, and government has increased while the youth have embraced lawlessness.
The UK is struggling from the consequences of bad social policy, those of us in the United States would do well to learn from their mistakes.
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About the author
Steven Osborne is a grassroots conservative activist from Central Virginia. He is currently furthering his education at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. In addition to writing for Bearing Drift he is also a columnist for the Christian Law Journal.
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6 Responses to "Lessons To Learn From the UK Riots"
Steven,
I suspect that it is a fair assumption that you have not spent any time in London, Paris, Hamburg, or other European cities that have suffered youthful riots and violence over the past few years. I have.
You have the cart before the horse. It is not the breakdown of British society and socialism that is flaming the violence. It is a liberal and socialistic political system that allows almost unlimited immigration and a paternalistic social net to facilitate new arrivals. Once they arrive, the parents attempt to establish a new life, one that is better than the third-world countries that they fled. But the children are the psychological casualties. As they grow up, they don’t remember the hardship that drove their parents from their native country. But they experience the rejection and strangeness of being foreigners in a foreign land. Their parents are less well off then the parents of natives, their education and employment opportunities are limited by a number of factors in comparison to their native peers, and the law enforcement authorities seem to be negatively predisposed against them.
Sooner or later, their anger and resentment boils over and the cities burn. How do we prevent this in America? It has little to do with social policies and everything to do with controlling our borders and limiting immigration to people who come here to assimilate and become productive members of the American society, not those who are economic refugees.
HisRoc,
Not all of the rioters are children of immigrants, as a matter of fact one of the recent rioters was identified as the daughter of a prominent family.
You actually seem to partially agree with me that the societal rot was already in place (i.e. socialistic system), I pointed to some of the assaults on society that made that socialism possible.
I do believe that a healthy society will provide opportunity and integration for the immigrant, again, much of Europe has societies that are eroded.
America can learn from this.
“What conservatives must understand is that the economy is directly tied to what happens in society.”
Absolutely the most ridiculous thing I’ve read today. You have it exactly backwards. Decades of easy money credit bubble, with the help of MSM advertising, have convinced people that the only way to live is instant gratification useless consumerism, AND THAT THEY CAN GET AWAY WITH IT. You are what you have. Add to that the dot gov’s endless desire to pay people to do nothing, and you can easily arrive at a populace that eschews work and responsibility, from where it is but a bay step to “It’s not my fault.”
“…it is possible for a social conservative to also be a big government Republican…”
Absolutely the scariest thing I’ve read today. This looks to me like code for “we view the proper role of government to be using force to mould society.” There is no room for “liberty” in that world.
HisRoc,
You make a very good point. However I am not clear if you were stating that both the new arrivals And their children are able to sit back and live better than they did Without Having To Work. As you say, the new arrivals can directly compare the two situations as the children cannot. But in the past new arrivals worked hard to lift themselves up economically so that their children would at least have some money or education. Once you have money and education you can chip away at invidious social slights. The socialists (or Democrats here) however make no demands for economic self sufficiency nor academic attainment. They will be even more solicitous of you if you do petty crime. These young people know they have no future. England will never grow enough to have plentiful private sector jobs. Even the better public sector jobs are beyond their reach. They are doomed as the country decays.
Totally agree, Steve. I think it hinges on two aspects, both of which are critically forgotten:
(1) Respect for property rights,
(2) Producers vs. consumers.
In the first, the right to property — one’s own property — is absolutely imperative. The more property is viewed as communal, the more willing others are in a society to steal or “take back” what they believe is misappropriated by those who work to earn it.
Secondly, a nation of consumers cannot possibly provide for itself. Cut of what is to be consumed, and the whole world goes to pieces. Those who produce something of benefit to others, whose hard work is theirs and belongs to them (and is worth defending).
How do we prevent riots like what we saw in the U.K.? Quit subsisting on other people’s labor, and be a producer rather than a consumer.
What we saw in the United Kingdom was a revolt of the bored. From the nation that gave us the idea of property rights in its modern sense, this is a wake up call that socialism (and its corporatist twin) does not work.
val,
You and Shaun have nailed my key point: immigration is sustainable only to the extent that new arrivals can achieve the median social experience of the older arrivals and natives. The first generation has low expectations for themselves other than to live better than they did in their country of origin. But when the next generations are held back (at least in their minds), then resentment grows and class warfare begins. And Shaun, you could not be more right about respect for property rights. That is the key to understanding the conundrum of “why are they burning their own neighborhoods?”
BTW, Steven, it is not uncommon for the spoiled off-spring of the rich to go slumming in search of “social justice.” I offer as prime examples Patty Hearst and anyone named Kennedy.
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