Muddling Toward Maturity Blog

FOUR IN TEN BRITISH MUSLIMS WANT SOME FORM OF SHARIA LAW ENFORCED IN UK

Macer Hall reports:

Forty-three per cent of followers of the religion living in the country believed that parts of the Islamic legal system should replace British law while only 22 per cent opposed the idea.

Researchers also found "deeply worrying" levels of belief among British Muslims in conspiracy theories such as blaming the US government or “Jews" for the 9/11 terror attacks on America. . .

More than 3,000 Muslims living in Britain were quizzed for the research. 

When it came to 9/11, 31 per cent of Muslims quizzed in the survey thought the US Government was to blame while 7 per cent blamed "the Jews".

In contrast, only 4 per cent thought the terror group Al Qaeda was behind the attacks on New York Twin Towers and other targets. . .

The research found a deeply worrying belief in conspiracy theories such as 9/11.  "Unlike the general population, nearly a third of British Muslims believe the American government was responsible for the attacks on the Twin Towers, while a surprisingly tiny number attributed blame to al-Qaeda."

Me:  What a horrifying report!  I wonder what the results of a survey of Muslims in America would reveal. 

AMERICA SHOULD PUT BRITAIN TO THE FRONT OF THE LINE, NOT TO THE BACK AS OBAMA THREATENED

** National Review Editorial: Why Britons should vote to leave the EU   [Perceptive arguments!]

** Andrew Roberts, the great English historian, recounted the ways Britain and America have come to each other's aid in sharp contrast to Obama's threat to cast Britain to the back of the line if she voted to withdraw from the EU.  Now that Britain has asserted her independence and voted for Brexit, it would be ghastly for Obama to treat her as an enemy (in keeping with the shameful way he habitually treats America's friends and allies).  On June 17th, before the successful Brexit vote, Roberts wrote the following (and it is particularly pertinent post-Brexit):

On June 23 the British people will be going to the polls to choose whether they want to continue with the present system whereby 60% of British laws are made in Brussels and foreign judges decide whether those laws are legitimate or not, or whether we want to strike out for independence and the right to make all of our own laws and have our own British judges decide upon them.

It’s about whether we can recapture the right to deport foreign Islamist hate preachers and terrorist suspects, or whether under European human-rights legislation they must continue to reside in the U.K., often at taxpayers’ expense. The European Union is currently experiencing migration on a scale not seen since the late 17th century—with hordes of young, mostly male Muslims sweeping from the southeast into the heart of Europe. Angela Merkel invited them in and that might be fine for Germany, but why should they have the right to settle in Britain as soon as they get a European passport?

Surely—surely—this is an issue on which the British people, and they alone, have the right to decide, without the intervention of President Obama, who adopted his haughtiest professorial manner when lecturing us to stay in the EU, before making the naked threat that we would be sent “to the back of the queue” (i.e., the back of the line) in any future trade deals if we had the temerity to vote to leave. . . . 

SORTING OUT THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN "THE "UNITED KINGDOM," "GREAT BRITAIN," AND "ENGLAND"

I found this VIDEO helpful.

 

WHAT ARE WE TO MAKE OF LONDON'S NEW MUSLIM MAYOR, SADIQ KHAN?

The redoubtable Andrew C. McCarthy provides an answer:

I am afraid that grim reality requires choosing the second of David Pryce-Jones’s two ways of looking at London’s election of Sadiq Khan as mayor: By choosing an enabler of Muslim extremism, the British are losing control of their destiny. In the run-up to the mayoral election, the invaluable Daniel Johnson, editor of Standpoint, provided the essential backdrop:

Indeed, what has emerged before our eyes in Britain is a kind of Islamist state within a state…. A new survey by ICM with the former head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Trevor Phillips, for Channel Four and the Sunday Times confirms that Salafists are fast becoming the dominant influence on British Islam. Nearly a quarter (23 per cent) of a sample of 1,081 adult Muslims want to see “areas of Britain in which sharia law is introduced instead of British law”. Nearly a third (31 per cent) of them think “it is acceptable for a British Muslim to keep more than one wife”, even though polygamy is in theory punishable by up to five years imprisonment. . . 

The Islamist voting pattern clearly vaulted Sadiq Khan. Johnson notes that the Muslim vote is crucial to Labour because, for example, “[a]t least ten London boroughs have large, mainly conservative Muslim communities, where children grow up in an Islamic monoculture and women are covered or veiled.”

Khan is an admirer of Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the highly influential Muslim Brotherhood sharia jurist who backs Hamas’s jihad against Israel, supported violent jihad against American troops in Iraq, and has promised that Islamists ”will conquer Europe, we will conquer America! Not through the sword but through dawa!” (Dawa is fundamentalist Islam’s aggressive form of proselytism.)  (Qaradawi figures prominently in two of my books, The Grand Jihad and Spring Fever, my Broadside pamphlet Islam and Free Speech, and I’ve profiled him a number of columns, see, e.g., here. The Investigative Project outlines a number of his more memorable quotes, here.)

As I’ve previously detailed, Qaradawi is a leading force behind the “voluntary apartheid” scheme that exhorts Muslims to “integrate but don’t assimilate” in the West. The objective is to set up enclaves in which Muslims, once achieving a critical mass, pressure the home government to allow them to govern their affairs i in accordance with sharia. That brings us back to Daniel Johnson:

BBC - WHAT LIFE WAS LIKE ON AN ENGLISH VICTORIAN FARM

I recently drew attention  to the BBC six-part production of tenant farmers living on a monastery farm in Tudor England, circa 1500.  Since then I have discovered that the BBC has also produced a 6-part series on Victorian Farm Life circa 1880, plus a 12-part series on Edwardian Farm life around 1901-1914. 

The Victorian Farm series "recreates everyday life on a small farm in Shropshire, using authentic replica equipment and clothing, original recipes and reconstructed building techniques."  The first of six episodes may be enjoyed below.  Wikipedia offers verbal synopses of all six episodes.  

 

Below you can enjoy the first of the 12-part Edwardian farm series as well.  Wikipedia helpfully offers synopses of these programs also.  The series was filmed at Morwellham Quay, an historic quay in Devon.

  

QUICK TAKES

  -  David Pryce-Jones - It Would Be Foolish for Britain to Remain in the EU 

  -  David French - It is Only Going to Get Worse -- Jonathan Haidt on the Crisis on Campus.  -  On Leftist domination in the university and plus the effects of raising "fragile kids".  Valuable also for introducing me to Heterodox Academy website.  

  -  Luca Volontè  - European Resistance to Cultural Suicide

                                - Europe, Multiculturalism, and Nihilism

BBC - WHAT LIFE WAS LIKE ON AN ENGLISH TUDOR FARM IN 1500

How many of us know what farm life was like for ordinary folk in 1500?   The BBC has produced an amazing six-part series, each an hour long, which takes us right back to see what life was like.  What a wonderful way to absorb history!  I have listened to the first two programs and recommend them highly.   Here is the first. For more click here.  For background to the series, click here.    (See Update below the video)

  

 Update 2/5/16 - R0d Dreher writes: 

Last night we watched on YouTube the second episode of Tudor Monastery Farm, the BBC reality/documentary series in which two archeologists and a historian live out the daily lives of tenant farmers on a monastery farm in Tudor England, circa 1500. The kids love the show as much as we do, and it’s fun to watch as a family.

Last night’s episode focused on the sheep as the center of Tudor-era farm life, and the English economy. What stood out about the era was how incredibly hard life was, but also how ingenious people were in inventing techniques and technology to make their lives easier.

The show is helping me in my research for the Benedict Option book, believe it or not. One of the presenters of the program, a self-described atheist named Ruth Goodman, marvels in the second episode, as she did in the first one, over how religion suffused the lives of medieval people. She says that the calendar people lived by was not like our calendar, but rather was ordered around the feast days of saints, and other religious holidays. I mean, they had the same calendar we did, but they related to it in a very different way than we do. These people lived in a cosmos; we live in a universe. Very big difference. I’ll explain below.

Charles Taylor begins his magisterial book A Secular Age by asking why it was almost impossible not to believe in God in 1500, but in 2000, believing in God is seen as something you do with difficulty, if at all. Taylor says that it’s because the late medievals were heirs to a belief system that regarded the world as enchanted. God was everywhere, and ordered all things to Himself. All of Creation — and it was “Creation,” not yet “Nature” — was a sign pointing to its Creator. You really feel this in Tudor Monastery Farm, and the feeling is important, because, says Taylor, what really matters are the things that everybody takes for granted. It is an anachronistic mistake to think that our late medieval ancestors regarded the world as we do, except with a belief in God added to it. They did not. God and things divine were far more present in the imaginations of the people, who looked around them and saw Him. They lived in a cosmos — a universe ordered by God, pregnant with meaning and divine purpose.   

THEODORE DALRYMPLE - The Worldview that Makes the Underclass

This essay could have been written of the American underclass as well.  It is well worth reading.  “Reprinted by permission from Imprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College.”

May/June 2014 - "The Worldview That Makes the Underclass"

Anthony Daniels, Writer and Doctor

ANTHONY DANIELS, who often writes under the penname Theodore Dalrymple, is the Dietrich Weismann Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. Born in London in 1949, he qualified as a doctor in 1974 and has worked in various countries in Africa and elsewhere. From 1990 to 2005, he worked as a doctor and psychiatrist in a prison in Birmingham, England. He has written a column for the London Spectator for 14 years, and writes regularly forNational Review and the Wall Street Journal. He has published more than 20 books, including Not With a Bang But a Whimper: The Politics & Culture of Decline, The New Vichy Syndrome: Why European Intellectuals Surrender to Barbarism, and Life at the Bottom: The Worldview that Makes the Underclass.

The following is adapted from a speech delivered on May 20, 2014, at a Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar in Dearborn, Michigan.

I worked for 15 years as a doctor and psychiatrist in a general hospital in a poor area of a British city and in the prison next door, where I was on duty one night in three. The really dangerous people were in the hospital, perhaps because of the presence in the prison next door of very large uniformed men who exerted a strangely calming effect on the prisoners. In the hospital, I personally examined many thousands of patients who had attempted suicide or at least made a suicidal gesture (not quite the same thing of course). They were overwhelmingly from poor homes, and each patient told me of the lives of the three, four, or five people closest to them—and I spoke to many of those people as well. I could not, of course, have spoken to so many people, and heard about so many others, without some general impressions forming themselves in my mind. One abiding impression was of the violence of their lives, particularly that between the sexes—largely the consequence of the fluidity of relations between the sexes—and also of the devastating effect of prevalent criminality upon the quality of daily existence.  

Before I did this work, I had spent a number of years working as a doctor in Africa and in other places in the Third World. I also crossed Africa by public transport, such as it was, and consequently saw much of that continent from the bottom up. These experiences also helped me in my understanding of what I was later to see in England. As Dr. Johnson put it, all judgment is comparative; or as Kipling said, “What should they know of England who only England know?” Indeed, what should anyone know of anywhere, who only that place knows?  

On my return to England, I used to visit the homes of poor people as part of my medical duties. Bear in mind that I had returned from some of the poorest countries in the world, where—in one case—a single hen’s egg represented luxury and the people wore the cast-off clothes of Europe that had been donated by charity. When I returned to England, I was naturally inclined to think of poverty in absolute rather than in relative terms—as people not having enough to eat, having to fetch water from three miles away, and so forth. But I soon ceased to think of it in that fashion.

In the course of my duties, I would often go to patients’ homes. Everyone lived in households with a shifting cast of members, rather than in families. If there was an adult male resident, he was generally a bird of passage with a residence of his own somewhere else. He came and went as his fancy took him. To ask a child who his father was had become an almost indelicate question. Sometimes the child would reply, “Do you mean my father at the moment?” Others would simply shake their heads, being unwilling to talk about the monster who had begot them and whom they wished at all costs to forget. 

I should mention a rather startling fact: By the time they are 15 or 16, twice as many children in Britain have a television as have a biological father living at home. The child may be father to the man, but the television is father to the child. Few homes were without televisions with screens as large as a cinema—sometimes more than one—and they were never turned off, so that I often felt I was examining someone in a cinema rather than in a house. But what was curious was that these homes often had no means of cooking a meal, or any evidence of a meal ever having been cooked beyond the use of a microwave, and no place at which a meal could have been eaten in a family fashion. The pattern of eating in such households was a kind of foraging in the refrigerator, as and when the mood took, with the food to be consumed sitting in front of one of the giant television screens. Not surprisingly, the members of such households were often enormously fat. 

BRITAIN'S LOST FREEDOMS

Dale Hurd reports for CBN News:

 

LONDON - America owes much of its freedom to its British heritage. But today, Britain is losing its freedom.

Many Americans were stunned when British authorities arrested Liberty Great Britain party leader Paul Weston in April for publicly reciting Winston Churchill's criticism of Islam.

The calendar might say it's 2014, but in Britain it's starting to feel like George Orwell's "1984" because "Big Brother" has decided that certain things can no longer be said. 

Arrested over Churchill

Weston quoted from Winston Churchill's book, The River War, in which he wrote:

"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia (rabies) in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property - either as a child, a wife, or a concubine - must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the faith: all know how to die but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith."

As a young officer, Churchill fought Muslim jihadists in Sudan and believed Islam was a dangerous religion.

Weston chose to publicly quote Churchill because he thought that in today's politically correct Britain, comparing Islam to rabies--as Churchill did--would likely get him reported to police and arrested.

It did.

"I wanted to make the point that, if it's really become so bad in this country that you can no longer quote the words of the greatest living Englishman, then we really need to look seriously at what we can still say in this country," Weston said.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH DENIED IN THE WEST

 

Dale Hurd reports for CBN News:

COPENHAGEN, Denmark -- America is facing a new fascism that does not tolerate any views it doesn't like -- where "wrong" speech is being hounded, demonized and shouted down.

The head of Mozilla, maker of Firefox web browser, was forced to step down because he gave money to a campaign several years ago that was against gay marriage.

Brandeis University recently withdrew an honorary degree to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, an internationally acclaimed champion of women's rights and a victim of female genital mutilation and forced marriage, because her opposition to Islam was deemed offensive.

Across the Water

If you want a glimpse into how bad it could become in the future, Americans need not look any further than across the Atlantic to Western Europe.

Transplant American conservative values of 'God, country and traditional family' in Western Europe and, more likely than not, you'd be branded "extreme right," "anti-woman," "homophobic," and even "Nazi." 

If you're against radical Islam or immigration, you can be labelled a racist. Wave your nation's flag too much and you're a fascist.

And should you be brave enough to demonstrate publicly for a conservative cause or run for office on conservative principles, you could be physically attacked or, in Sweden, your home might be wrecked.

BRITAIN'S NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE A DISASTER!

Read about it here.  And the U.S. is determined to follow the same path?  Insanity.

GOOGLE REFUSES TO PROVIDE INTERNET PORNOGRAPHY CONTROLS

Melanie Phillips, one of my favorite commentators (see my previous post on her) , has written a very cogent piece on Google and pornography which makes eminent sense to me.  Phillips writes:

Internet providers ought to be setting up a default block on porn sites, which would require those trying to access them to register. As John Carr, the Government’s adviser on child internet protection, has said, Google needs to show moral leadership on this matter — not least because, if it were to block such material, other net providers would follow.

But Google is refusing to do so — almost certainly because of the loss of lucrative trade that would follow.

For as the technology website ExtremeTech reported last year, no less than 30 per cent of all web traffic involves pornography.

Me:  I think Melanie Phillips' suggestion would go a long way towards reducing the worldwide addictive and destructive force that pornography has become.   Right now, it's just too easy to access.  If one had to register, it would have a chilling effect on pornography browsing.   Phllips's article has a lot more to say about pornography and child abuse and rape and so I advise reading the whole piece.

BRITISH JOURNALIST, MELANIE PHILLIPS, ONE OF MY FAVORITE CONTEMPORARY SOCIAL COMMENTATORS

Although I missed last weekend's  live 3 hour Book TV interview with British author and social commentator Melanie Phillips, I am glad to say that it can be accessed in its entirety and I have been able to listen to most of it.   She has written some eight books. The one I first became acquainted with was Londonistan.   A book I would love to read is her 2011 publication,  The World Turned Upside Down: The Global Battle Over God, Truth and Power (2011)   The table of contents looks terrific.   She currently writes columns for the London Daily Mail.  

Riding the digital wave, she has now become a publisher of e-books [EM: Melanie Phillips Electric Media].  She introduces her new venture here (video).

Why do I like her?  She sees the world situation with particular clarity and writes with arresting vigor.   It's interesting to me that some of the people who see the world most clearly, and whose judgments I particularly respect, are "diverse"  (Jews, Blacks, and Roman Catholics, as well as Protestants), and yet we are united in our understanding of timeless truths, and consequently reject multiculturalism, relativism, leftist coercive utopianism, radical secularism, political correctness, etc)   I think, for example, not only of Melanie Phillips (a Jew), Dennis Prager (a Jew), Jay Richards (a Roman Catholic), Thomas Sowell (Black) but many others as well.

I commend to you Melanie Phillips.  Latest column:  "Welcome to Obamastan"

Another column, "An Elegy for England", I plan to run by some of my British friends for their opinion.  I think it spot on.

Previous columns of hers can be accessed here  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/columnist-256/Melanie-Phillips.html

My previous blog posts of her work include:

HOW MARGARET THATCHER SAVED BRITAIN

 

Wintery Knight offers great excerpts from articles reminding (or informing) us of the convictions Lady Thatcher held in the teeth of huge opposition.  This is valuable material and very pertinent to the economic debates of our own day.

WHAT IS IT LIKE TO LIVE IN A SOCIALIST STATE?

The following will be eye opening to many.  A British friend now living in America, Maureen Fuller, describes her experience living in England:

What is it like to live in a socialist state? As a British immigrant to the USA and having just recently lived and worked again in the UK for seven years, here are some views I would like you to ponder.

Health care

The national health care system is 'free'. You can always see a primary care doctor,  but if you need a specialist you may be referred and wait many months.  If over 65, you may not see a specialist, or even be able to have some operations. End of life care is without proper caring and dignity in a hospital, unlike the caring we expect here. If you are admitted to a hospital, you will be  in a ward together with 6 or more patients who may be mixed gender. If you need an X-ray you will have to wait, as doctors do not have X-ray machines or scanners in their offices, so you are sent to a hospital.  Hospitals are not clean and have a high infection rate. Because of the lack of specialists you will not likely be referred to one easily. If you do get an appointment, you may see his assistant instead. Doctors will not talk to you in hospitals. Amazing as this may seem, I found you can be standing next to a specialist and his nurse but you have to talk to the nurse, who in turn relays it to the doctor, as if translating for you, but you are all speaking English. You are not expected to ask the doctor about your condition;  you are just the patient.  It is all very impersonal. Doctors were very surprised when I asked questions. Many doctors are from other countries and lack good training. Very high taxes pay for this inadequate system. There are few malpractice law suits, as you are taking on the government, which would be a huge expense. Remember, all medical personnel are employed by the government. 

If you buy expensive private health insurance, you will see a specialist fairly quickly.  These are the same specialists you would have seen on the National Health Service (NHS)  however, now if needed, they can order tests and medicines not available on the NHS.  Diagnostic testing is a low priority on the NHS. Ordering tests is very limited and people are not offered preventative care, such as a yearly check up.  Mammograms are offered up to age 65. I would like everyone in this country to have health care but please, not under an invasive system such as Obama care, which is based on the UK system.

Running a business

It is hard to run a small business, as Health and Safety can shut it down anytime. They are a government force that have absolute authority.  Our family business closed because of a new ruling that required  construction of scaffolding, for anything  previously done with a ladder, therefore, costing too much to do business.  Why would the government do this and who would take over? Large Government contractors.

Housing

A new home developer has to provide over 25 to 80 percent of their homes as government (social) housing. The percentage is decided by each town housing authority, so differs by area. Housing is therefore very expensive.  Social housing is ultimately paid for by the home buyer. I was in new home sales and can attest to the fact, that much anger is directed to this sad state of affairs. Google;  'percentage of social housing on new developments' to read more. I am sure most of us would be happy with the aged, infirm and disabled being helped in this way.  I am talking about the healthy people who want a government hand out.  Local housing authorities can also take over older houses and apartments. Suppose you are living in a nice house and the Housing Authority takes over an apartment next door. A young girl with a baby and her boy friend move in and create noise and mess. Your house is then burglarized twice by her unsavory boy friend.  You have no recourse. This true story is my own experience and goes on all the time. Teenaged girls who have a baby, have to be given free housing and support.  They are not required to work. If they deny knowledge of who the father is, they can claim  more benefits. Their boy friends are not supposed to live with them, but naturally they do.

There is a tax on buying a new or resale home. It is a percentage of the purchase price. Taking a sale price of 300,000 GBP  ( approximately 460,000 USD) the tax would be 13,800 USD (3 per cent). This tax is on a sliding scale starting at 1 percent for a home over 180,000 USD to 7 percent for over 3,000,000 USD. Paying 300,000 GBP  (460,000 USD) is not much for a small 3 bed house in the UK.  Google;  'Stamp duty Land Tax Rates' for more information and to see what is likely to happen here in due course, especially to pay for our massive debt.

Secularism - salvation through government

God is rarely mentioned in the media or socially. The state has taken over, so why do you need Him? I believe one of the reasons that a socialist government works at minimizing God, is to make the people look to them as benefactor instead. As things begin to crumble under such an unsustainable system, there is again an interest in God in the UK .

Privacy

Video cameras are everywhere in public.  It is estimated that you are photographed 300 times every day, while going about your business. The police don't need to pull you over on the roads, as the cameras pick up your bad driving. Cameras are on most main roads, bridges, traffic lights and many buildings.  You get used to it, but I always felt I was being watched, and noticed I had a feeling of freedom when I returned to the USA. The only upside is that it can help, if a crime has been committed.

Concluding comments

Prices of goods and gas are high, due to the taxes needed to support this system. When our  president talks about spreading the wealth this is what will happen. Government takes the wealth and distributes it how they see fit.  Our freedoms will be compromised and business will be stuck with what is unimaginable to American business and public. Am I for programs  to help all people to lead a better life? Of course, but surely we Americans can find a better way, than to let the government micro organize our lives. This is not freedom.  A socialist government wants people to think it is a good benefactor, so they give a few gifts here and there. Every winter you receive a small check to help you pay for heating. Ever get that warm  fuzzy feeling? At Christmas you get something like 15 USD from the government.  Merry Christmas!  When you reach 60 years of age you can apply for a free bus pass.  People think this is really great.  It is like a rite of passage into old age.  I wonder how much that free pass really cost the taxpayer?

America

From a foreign perspective, America  is looked upon as a nation with Christian principles, despite our President declaring otherwise. People look to Americans for help in troubled times and to help them to be free. America is there for all disasters and gives billions in support, even to our enemies.  I am thankful that America helped to save Europe in World War II. Yes, mistakes are made, but we must remain strong for ourselves and others.  Consider the alternative. I know which country and system of government I prefer to live in.

Please vote.  Many have given their lives to give us this precious freedom.

CELEBRATING THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE QUEEN'S 60 YEAR REIGN

 

 

Additional coverage here.

FREE SPEECH FOR EX-GAYS IN LONDON DENIED

Juliann Mann writes:

The Conservative Mayor Boris Johnson has just banned this statement from London buses: "Not gay. Post-gay, ex-gay and proud. Get over it."

Such censorship of these advertisements, responding to the earlier "Some people are gay. Get over it." campaign by the highly politically influential homosexualist lobby group Stonewall, is disturbing enough. But the reasons Mr Johnson has given for the ban in the UK capital city are even more alarming.

His latest rationale frighteningly exposes the dry-rot in the edifice of democratic freedom.

DANIEL HANNAN - "A EUROPEAN'S WARNING TO AMERICA"

I have begun going through a pile of clippings that badly need sorting through.  Some clippings date back months,  and some even a couple of years.  That doesn't mean they are out of date.  Hannan's warning was printed in the Wall Street Journal a year ago.  He's a Brit who understands Obama's goals, and sees them as a program of comprehensive Europeanization.  If asked, Hannan says

He (Obama) would say he wants a fairer America, a more tolerant America, a less arrogant America, a more engaged America. When you prize away the cliché, what these phrases amount to are higher taxes, less patriotism, a bigger role for state bureaucracies, and a transfer of sovereignty to global institutions.

He is not pursuing a set of random initiatives but a program of comprehensive Europeanization: European health care, European welfare, European carbon taxes, European day care, European college education, even a European foreign policy, based on engagement with supranational technocracies, nuclear disarmament and a reluctance to deploy forces overseas.

Hannan's article spells out how disastrous such a program has proven in Europe and how it will prove the same in America.  Read the whole article.  It should be noted that his essay is adapted from his short, 48 page booklet, "Why America Must Not Follow Europe."

ISLAM IN THE WEST

What kind of reaction do you feel after watching this video?  (HT: Atlas Shrugs)

Depressed?  or?

VIDEO: THE REAL LEGACY OF MARGARET THATCHER, BRITAIN'S "IRON LADY"

I agree with Tina Korbe's sentiments:

“The Iron Lady” — the new movie about Margaret Thatcher starring Meryl Streep that comes out today — might not look half bad, but it can’t hurt to counter whatever Hollywood spin worked its way into the final product with a fitting tribute to the real Lady Thatcher. Thankfully, my friend Brandon Stewart has produced this three-minute reminder of Thatcher’s real legacy. As a Heritage Foundation tweet puts it, “Margaret Thatcher was greater in person than Meryl Streep could EVER portray.” 

 

Tina Korbe said she felt more goosebumps during this short video than over the movie trailers.  Again: agreed.

RIOTS IN BRITAIN NO SURPRISE TO CONSERVATIVES

UK Riots: Before-and-after images of the devastation

The British writer Melanie Phillips saw it all coming.  She wrote one of the best- formulated, comprehensive indictments I have yet read: 

I have written for more than two decades on the various elements that have contributed to this collapse of order: family breakdown and mass fatherlessness; the toleration and even encouragement of grossly inadequate parenting; educational collapse which damages most those at the bottom of the social heap; welfare dependency; political correctness and the vicious injustices and moral inversion of victim culture; the grossly irresponsible toleration of soft drug-taking; the shuddering distaste at the notion of punishment and the consequent collapse of authority in the entire criminal justice system; the implosion of the policing ethic and the police retreat from the streets; the increasing organisation and boldness of anarchist and left-wing subversive activity; and the growth of irrationality, narcissistic self-centredness and mob rule and the near-certainty of a fundamental breakdown of morality and order.

To every one of these arguments that I have made over the years, the left has responded with jeers and smears. . . .

In a separate post, Phillips blames fatherlessness and the political left that encourages it:  (my bolding)

The single most crucial factor behind all this mayhem, behind the total breakdown of any control or self-control amongst the rampaging gangs of children and teenagers who are rioting, burning, robbing, stealing, attacking and murdering, is the willed removal of the most important thing that socialises children and turns them from feral savages into civilised citizens: a fully committed, hands-on, there-every-day father.

As I have been writing for more than twenty years, a society that embraces mass fatherlessness is a society that is going off the edge of a cliff. There are whole areas of Britain (white as well as black) where committed fathers are a wholly unknown phenomenon; where serial generations are being brought up only by mothers, through whose houses pass transitory males by whom these girls and women have yet more children, and whose own daughters inevitably repeat the pattern of lone and utterly dysfunctional parenting.

The result is fatherless boys who are suffused by an existential rage and desperate psychic need, who take out the damage done to them by lashing out from infancy at the world around them. And all this is effectively condoned, rewarded and encouraged by the welfare state which conceives of need solely in terms of absence of money, and which accordingly subsidises lone parenthood and the destructive behaviour that welfare fatherlessness brings in its train.

And the unutterably wicked thing is that this catastrophe has been deliberately willed upon Britain by left-wing politicians, well-heeled media feminists and other middle-class ideologues who wrap their utter contempt for the poor in the mantle of ‘progressive’ non-judgmentalism, witlessly prattling about poverty and social justice and hurling execrations at anyone who suggests that lone parenthood is in general a catastrophe for children (and a disaster for women) and that the state should stop subsidising family and social breakdown and start encouraging married parenthood instead. 

She says much more and concludes: 

. . . 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.

Me: I have often used the same term, "social-suicide," when I gaze on the situation in America as well.  Is there a way out?  Not without an historic religious revival that affects human motivation and behavior at the deepest level, and which produces a revolution in the theory and thinking taking place within university classrooms.  Right now, universities play a major role in the destruction of America because of pernicious social, economic and relativistic theory permeating the courses taught therein. 

 Other British writers opine:

Theodore Dalrymple -"The Barbarians Inside Britain's Gates"

Peter Hitchens:  "The British riots: We all knew they were coming"

         Max Hastings - "Years of liberal dogma have spawned a generation of amoral, uneducated, welfare dependent, brutalised youngsters."   (HT:  "Breakpoint")

American writer, Cal Thomas, weighs in - "Like U.S., Britain's problem is spiritual bankruptcy"  He writes:

The problem in Britain, and increasingly in America, is moral and spiritual, not economic and political. British history and values are no longer being adequately taught in the UK for fear a sense of super-nationalism might be conveyed. This at a time when no nation is to be considered superior to any other, a view expressed by President Obama. . . .

If civility, right and wrong, personal responsibility and accountability and the right to life, liberty and personal property are not values worthy of being passed on to the next generation, then their opposites will be taught by default. Children don't “catch” goodness and right behavior as they do a cold. Their natural tendency is to do wrong. The goal of discipline is to teach them to do right. The London riots are the extreme outcome when “right” is no longer defined.  [more...]

Jonah Goldberg About    |    Archive    |    Latest    |    Follow    |    E-mail    |    Log In August 12, 2011 12:00 A.M. Riot Rationalization Misses the Mark The people tearing apart English society are simply criminals. Riots are fascinating things. How lawless greed, cruelty, and violence suddenly set fire to the minds of men is one of the most mysterious, almost magical (though not in the positive sense) manifestations of human behavior.  And because they are a manifestation of human behavior, riots are as old as human nature. They were a common affair in cities before ancient Rome was new. This should invite humility in anyone purporting to know why riots happen. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ADVERTISEMENT - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Already, on both sides of the Atlantic, lots of people are sure they know why England is burning.  “The economic stagnation and cuts being imposed by the Tory government inevitably create social division,” explained former London mayor “Red” Ken Livingstone. Livingstone is joined by an intellectual mob of liberal members of Parliament — particularly members of the Labour party, which ran the country for more than a decade (the social incubation period of most of the rioters) — and left-wing pundits both there and here who insist that the new Tory government’s budget cuts have led to widespread violence, even though most of the relevant cuts haven’t even gone into effect. Of course, they always manage to say “there’s no excuse” for violence. But there’s always a “but” that leads a long parade of excuses. Invariably, these rationalizations amount to a license to spend ever more on the social programs that have, at the least, helped to produce the sort of “youths” who will burn homes and cars and beat people to death should the programs be even moderately curtailed. Indeed, according to liberal logic, the mere threat of reforming such programs is enough to cause wholesale violence. In other words, the cuts don’t justify the violence, but the threat of violence justifies avoiding cuts. It’s a clever rhetorical trick, but policy-wise it’s both appeasement of and appealing to thuggery, pure and simple. This helps to clarify how economic inequality has come to replace poverty as the most cited “root cause” of social unrest. Poverty, while a more slippery concept than you might think, is still a definable thing. If you lack adequate housing, food, and clothing, you’re very poor. Western democracies don’t have much of a problem, comparatively speaking, with that kind of poverty. But we do have income inequality. Inequality is a statistical artifact, an aesthetic offense. Its chief advantage as a bogeyman is that it will always exist and thus always justify programs to reduce it. On the right, there are a host of explanations that hinge on theories of cultural decay, lapsed or nonexistent parenting, and the corrosive effects of a government that saps the vitality from civil society. I’m much more sympathetic to this suite of theories. The last time I was in London, the tabloids were making a huge fuss over some lower-class parents’ staging quasi-gladiatorial fights with their toddlers so they could put the videos on YouTube. That’s not a good sign, I thought at the time.  The problem, of course, is that even if conservatives are right, there’s precious little government can do to fill the holes in such souls. Moreover, I think we put way too much effort into intellectualizing or romanticizing mob violence. Whatever the root causes of such behavior, the simple and unavoidable truth is that looters loot because they can. As one looter explained on a British radio show: “The government aren’t in control — because if they was, we wouldn’t be able to do it, could we?” This is the shame of Britain right now. Four days of murder and mayhem demonstrated that the police have become an incompetent social-worker program. As goons of all ethnicities destroyed the livelihoods of hardworking storeowners of all ethnicities (sorely in need of gun rights), as they targeted shops not for their political symbolism but for their inventory of the latest sneakers and video games, police held a delicate seminar on the propriety of water cannons. Meanwhile, as the mobs’ useful idiots organized conferences trying to imbue the wanton bloodshed and avarice with political nobility, the savages were announcing on their BlackBerrys which shopping district to swarm for “pure terror and havoc & free stuff.”    Mustn’t forget the free stuff. There’s an adage that the “plural of anecdote is data.” Maybe so. But what we know for sure is that the plural of criminal is criminals. And the people tearing apart English society are simply criminals, whose villainy is not diluted by their numbers, but magnified by them. If Britain lacks prisons to hold them, build more prisons. Call it a jobs program if it helps. —Jonah Goldberg is editor-at-large of National Review Online and a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. You can write to him by e-mail at [email protected], or via Twitter @JonahNRO. © 2011 Tribune Media Services, Inc. Log In to Post a Comment COMMENTS   24 EXPAND    SORT   Newest FirstOldest First   mjfin 08/12/11 18:26 Link Report Abuse bobalouie: Whatever else they are, my comments are certainly not a "sociological apologia" for mob violence. Rather they are a fair description of the biological origins of mob violence, and a reason why the behavior persists and is difficult to eradicate. To put it another way, "man was born with the mark of Cain". Put it into the class of comments of "know your enemy". Behaviors which in the long prehistoric obviously conferred some useful survival benefit on local, isolated, and threatened aboriginals can, and often do misfire when these biological impulses are loosed upon us by rootless street thugs in London. Knowing the origins makes it is easier to understand the cure. The exact wrong thing to do to eliminate mob violence, is for the state to generate an empty sense of entitlement by encouraging the rootless detachment from the community that comes from simply handing people money and welfare benefits. Reply to this comment bobbalouie 08/12/11 17:58 Link Report Abuse Point of clarification -- my comment, posted a little while ago, was in response to an earlier comment by Mjfin. But it popped up as a comment on Jonah's piece, which ii is not. Jonah, I love the piece and agree with you. I don't agree with reducing the London riots to some sort of "sociological event." Anyway. Reply to this comment bobbalouie 08/12/11 17:03 Link Report Abuse I didn't follow all that, but I understood enough to identify it as a sociological apologia for mob violence. All you've really shown me is that when any social group descends to the level of mere animalism, bad things happen. Tell me something I don't know. This is why the decline of Judeo-Christian morality matters. We all know man is an animal and thus capable of animalistic violence. But to the Judeo-Christian, man is not merely that. As obvious as is the similarity between man and mere animal, it's the dissimilarities between man and animal that truly astound. Your bloodless "analysis" misses all that. The cleverest ape that ever lived never authored the simplest radio jingle. We are NOT mere animals. There IS a thing called "morality." And rioting is wrong. Reply to this comment Chris Behrens 08/12/11 17:01 Link Report Abuse I've always heard the expression "the plural of anecdote is NOT data", meaning data if you want to draw an inference, you need to be more careful in gathering your information than merely chatting at a party. Reply to this comment ctruppi 08/12/11 16:26 Link Report Abuse Jonah, usually love your stuff but I have to disagree with one of your points. A criminal is most certainly not always a criminal. In certain countries today it is a crime for a woman to drive. In colonial times it was a crime to work on the sabbath. Today in the West, these seem ridiculous. Why? Because our societal norms allow that women can drive and that working on Sundays is perfectly legit. There are laws on the books that can be broken with inpunity and no one gives a hoot. In the late 70's-early 80's smoking pot was illegal in Manhattan, yet you could light up a joint at any concert in MSG right in front of New York's finest and he wouldn't give you a second look. Everyone knew this and didn't care. This is kind of what we're seeing in the UK - a sort of, "we know we can do this and you won't stop us mentality". When that happens, the line between a "real crime" and "something we'll look the other way" becomes blurred, when going 65 in a 55 area is acceptable. The Daily Mail this morning published profiles of many looters. Among them, a law student, an aspiring ballerina, a social worker and the suburban millionaire's daughter who is a college student. These people, who probably would never think about breaking a "real" law are like their 70's counterparts in NYC, toking up at the Pink Floyd concert because the local society had decided that while they officially made pot illegal, they unofficially didn't care. In the UK, these kids made the same value judgement - the authorities (ie, liberal folks who will give us anything we like) don't think it's legal to break into stores, steal stuff and burn down communities, but they'll forgive us and look the other way. The UK needs to really criminalize the rioting if they expect it to stop. Reply to this comment Randy M 08/12/11 15:32 Link Report Abuse Living a life with on welfare does little to breed long term thinking, and much the stifle the need for it. What will these youths do when the neighborhoods aren't repaired, when the shops close, when the companies that can move? Consequences that will surely happen, if not after this riot than the next. It doesn't get asked. They've never had to think of cause and effect before. Reply to this comment kartiste 08/12/11 15:17 Link Report Abuse Passed on to me, via a liberal friend, the view of a no-doubt-Labourite friend of his in Edinburgh: "In my view the seeds of the current trouble were sown during the years of the Thatcher/Reagan administration which extolled the virtues of greed and selfishness which were further propagated by the Blair/Bush combo which continued to encouraged their live now pay later policies." Oh, where to begin.... Reply to this comment  Lawrence 08/12/11 15:04 Link Report Abuse Very good article, and a peripheral observation leads me back to the saying about spreading around misery, and to my own conclusion: Push comes to shove, the Left opposes inequality more than poverty. Reply to this comment E.K. Fox 08/12/11 14:43 Link Report Abuse I think that Mob "group think" is just plain Demonic and evil. This "Group think" deceives people into thinking that its OK to assault, beat, steal from, rob, or murder one's neighbor; and ensues a feeding frenzy of such evil acts. What compels people to be so deceived by such "group think"? It is a spiritual and moral deception. IF God does not judge us, but only our peers, then if ones peers are looting and killing, who is to Judge any one of us from doing the same?? I think possilbly England has replaced the Church of England, with the Maxist/materialist church of the welfare state. The Ten Commandments (10 Truths) hold no sway with people so deceived. My variation of what I heard Coultour say about her new book Demonic. Reply to this comment mjfin 08/12/11 14:39 Link Report Abuse In evolutionary terms, mob violence is an adaptive response of members of a tribe. The term "adaptive" in prehistorical biological terms means that those who are capable of engaging in this behavior have statically improved chances of having offspring, i.e., of passing their genes into the next generation, so their descendents will also display the behavior. Thus it is a survival trait. Mob behavior (in the evolutionary past) has resulted in: 1) protecting the tribe and its members from external threats (from other tribes and from packs of dangerous animals), by exposing these external threats to concerted, frenzied attack by large numbers of tribal members unconcerned with their personal safety 2) provides tribes with resources (food) by encouraging tribal members to neglect their personal safety to herd large, dangerous animals into a trap or off a cliff. 3) resolving political disputes within the tribe, where groups of friends (invariably extended family members) impose their will on other tribal members through physical mob (i.e., gang)threats. In each case mob violence works by allowing individual tribal members to momentarily experience energized euphoria, accompanied by much reduced concern for personal safety. These adaptive psychological benefits are ONLY triggered by the presence of nearby tribal members acting similarly; i.e., the behavior is self reinforcing. The behavior is also instinctive. We all have it as part of the physical (i.e., structural neurological) expression of our genetic makeup. It rests within our genetic makeup, ready to be triggered by the correct circumstances. Knowledge of the nature of tribal violence allows government authorities (or communities) to create methods to raise the threshold for triggering this innate reaction in ordinary crowds, or to stop the behavior quickly when it begins. In very general terms the proper response requires recognition that: A) Crowds are not tribes. Members of a crowd have much weaker bonds of friendship than members of tribes. Obviously the bonds of a mob can vary depending on how homogeneous it is and how related its member are. B) Members of a mob will be more likely to destroy and seize local community property if they do not have a stake in in the community; if they do not know the people there, and if they have do not have jobs and earn their livelihood working there: i.e., if they have no tribal ties to it. C) Once mob violence begins, it is critical that police response be seen as overwhelming, and that action be taken to isolate and split apart individuals from the crowd. Reply to this comment Dan Volkman 08/12/11 14:13 Link Report Abuse The riots in England were nothing more than young people with little or no regard for anything but themselves doing a smash and grab on the 'rich' business owners. People can try to spin it any way they want but it was, as David Cameron said, 'pure criminality'. The kids that went around looting don't care if they get arrested because they know there will be no consequences for their actions. What are they going to do - lock up the hundreds of people they have arrested? No, because the prisons are already full and there's no money left, thanks to 13 years of Labour rule. Perhaps they'll give them a fine? Great! They'll simply flight the spoils from their looting and pay it. If not, they'll simply rob someone else - problem solved. This is a difficult issue to address, but trying to rationalise it won't work - there is no other explanation other than pure opportunism. And as that great Liberal thinker Rahm Emmanuel once said 'Never let a crisis go to waste'. Reply to this comment Page89 08/12/11 13:24 Link Report Abuse Sounds like the spirit of Neville Chamberlain is alive and well in the UK. In the short run appeasement is the easy way out. But oh the cost of appeasement in the long term. Reply to this comment Miles 08/12/11 13:09 Link Report Abuse I'd like to see these punks try the same sh@# here in the USA, like in rural Nevada or Wyoming.... Reply to this comment  Jeff Perren 08/12/11 12:46 Link Report Abuse Forget the prisons. Shoot them. The problem will be solved two ways; those specific rioters will not do it again, and it will discourage others. Reply to this comment ral001 08/12/11 12:00 Link Report Abuse "In other words, the cuts don’t justify the violence, but the threat of violence justifies avoiding cuts." There is a term for this: 'Protection Money' Reply to this comment panic 08/12/11 11:43 Link Report Abuse The photo coverage of the riots is so funny!! How many hours of tape were thrown away when they revealed naught but a sea of sulky dark faces assaulting whites and asians. "Quick - get back out there and find some white yobbos!!!". Just like the "cops" TV shows - one has to wonder why they would go to the trouble of filming in Washington State. Answer: so that less than 90% of the criminals are black. So difficult to film prisons - almost every convict is "of color", and the dress code is obviously "be proud of your gang membership". In the metro areas, you also see why prisons have a contraband problem: the entire staff is black - recruited from the same cultural environment as the inmates (with 500 lb. women sporting door-knocker earrings and Sheila Jackson-Lee style 3 foot tall wigs heavily represented). England is already toast. This entire generation of entitlement rioters cannot be imprisoned or deported, and now that they know the police will do nothing the fences are down. Next up: shari'ia law officially adopted for "certain neighborhoods". Reply to this comment SocraticMeathead 08/12/11 10:26 Link Report Abuse Great contribution Mr. Goldberg! I find it telling that the "social justice" crowd is so supportive of mobs running amok over the rule of law. Reply to this comment edd91 08/12/11 10:09 Link Report Abuse 1. These acts of violence are unacceptable: I agree 2. It is wrong to blame one side of the politcal spectrum for this mayhem: I agree 3. There has been a consistent breakdown of "society" in poor and working-class Britain: I agree 4. This breakdown can possibly, but not completely be assigned to poor parenting, lack of education, unemployment, poor cultural values, and a collective sense of being disenfranchised: I agree 5. More harsh, draconian police tactics will NOT stop this from happening again: I agree 6. There is no easy solution: I agree Reply to this comment  Joseph Yeager 08/12/11 10:08 Link Report Abuse Well Jonah, Derb would disagree with your bland, obfuscatory statement that people of all ethnicities are responsible for the riots. While technically true, that statement papers over some very uncomfortable, and perforce telling, sociocultural truths. External Link  Reply to this comment  RobL 08/12/11 10:01 Link Report Abuse Excellent Mr. Goldberg, here’s some more proof that to call British Socialism insane is an insult to crazy people. I was fortunate to hear Mark Steyn on WIND Chicago this morning driving in to work. He told the story of how Britain has cooked the books. To reduce the number of people on Welfare, a few years back many welfare recipients were simply reclassified as disabled. It gets better (actually worse). Seems that Se*ual Intercourse is an entitlement in Britain. So the British government pays for disabled men to travel to Holland to fulfill their needs with prostitutes, the doxy’s fee is on the government dime too. Here are two (unabashedly cynical) ideas to help save Britain and ourselves. 1. Britain should employ its own lady’s (i.e. the unemployed ones running rampant in Tottingham to fulfill the needs of the disabled). This way they don’t have to spend $’s on travel to Holland, and they keep the money within the British economy. Now that’s stimulation...uhh economic stimulus I mean. 2. If the US goes bonkers like Britain and collapses to that level of liberal folly (entirely feasible). We can do the same for our disabled but throw in the caveat that all services must be provided on the Northwestern Campus (or other liberal institution of your choice) so that the ever popular campus s*x ed courses/peep shows will not have to pay for the services of the performers. This will help reduce our ever rising college tuition costs. Reply to this comment Mike C. 08/12/11 09:47 Link Report Abuse Why should it be any surprise that the Left would romanticize thuggery when it has romanticized thugs for decades? Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che, Chavez: all thugs wrapping themselves in the cloak of revolutionaries striving to free the masses from the oppression of a corrupt government. And all past or present heroes to the Left and its insipid followers. Reply to this comment  Allesnarf 08/12/11 09:34 Link Report Abuse "The problem, of course, is that even if conservatives are right, there’s precious little government can do to fill the holes in such souls." Perhaps not in the immediate term. But in the longer term, eliminating the welfare system that allows people to live comfortable lives without working or marrying, showing zero tolerance for infringement, and allowing the law-abiding majority to defend themselves would force families back together, and force "yoofs" into the workforce, for survival. And if people are forced to accept responsibility and self-reliance if they want to have a tolerable life, they'll develop the character traits that prevent this type of amoral outburst. Reply to this comment Singularity 08/12/11 09:13 Link Report Abuse Superb, Mr. Goldberg. A criminal is a criminal..and placing a political spin on it to justify expanding Leftist policies will only provide more criminals. At what point do those being bludgeoned and robbed (both legally and illegally), stop reaching into their pockets to fortify the idle hooligans who bludgeon and rob them. As Mr. Goldberg points out economic inequality is not synonymous with poverty. The Left would have you believe otherwise. The calls for 'social justice' have become the new mantra for many Leftist organizations. And by 'social justice' they mean 'economic equality'. Wealth redistribution based on nothing more than envy, lies and a complete indifference to the facts of human nature. Just as there will always be some workers who work harder and longer and smarter than others, there will always be those who earn more. Those who risk more and in turn gain more. There is no such thing as a level playing field, not when it comes to human attributes or attitudes. It's all a lie, created by those who want something without working for it. Just like the criminals rioting and stealing from the very people whose labors feed, clothe and house them. Reply to this comment Ron Carnine 08/12/11 08:00 Link Report Abuse I was a LEO for a lot of years and I am amazed how many times I heard this little excuse, "well everybody else was doing it and I wanted to get some stuff before it was over." One of the things I have seen work is when something like this starts you hit them fast and you hit them hard. You arrest and handcuff each and every one and publish the names (public record except for juveniles) of those who are arrested. Then you hold them for the allotted time. You make the experience as unpleasant as you can. It does get harder though in a society in which parents and peers think its "cool". The sentences handed down should be as severe as possible including restitution for those who were the victims of this kind of nonsense. Reply to this comment Add a Comment Already Registered? Log In Here. Your Name * Your E-mail * The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly. Your Answer  Your Comment * * Designates a required field.

WILLIAM AND KATE IN HOLLYWOOD

Piers Morgan said it well:  

‘They are the biggest stars in the world, there’s no question.

‘I’m very proud of them. I think they have re-energised the monarchy. They are incredible ambassadors for our country. They are flying the flag in brilliant style and I think it’s really exciting.

‘Kate has what Simon Cowell calls the X-factor. She’s like Jacquie Kennedy, she’s like Princess Diana. You can see it but you can’t really say what it is.'

Me:  No two ways about it.  Kate and William make a handsome couple.  May they be a force for good in the world. More photos here.  Update 7/11/11 and here.  They flew home to the UK on a commercial flight!

NILE GARDINER - PRESIDENT OBAMA'S TOP TEN INSULTS AGAINST BRITAIN - 2011 EDITION

Many media types have commented on Nile Gardiner's list.  I post it here for the historical record.

Gardiner also contends that Obama was clearly outclassed at the recent Downing Street Press conference.

ANDREW ROBERTS IS EMBARRASED BY BRITS' REACTION TO THE KILLING OF OSAMA BIN LADEN

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Andrew Roberts, author of The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War, says:

"I never thought I'd say this... but my countrymen's reactions to the death of Osama bin Laden have made me doubt my pride in being British.

The foul outpouring of sneering anti-Americanism, legalistic quibbling, and concern for the supposed human rights of our modern Hitler have left me squirming in embarrassment and apology before my American friends. Yet what I most despise my fellow Britons for is their absolute refusal, publicly or even privately, to celebrate the most longed for news in a decade. . . .

"From Britain's pathetic and ignoble reaction to the death of our greatest ally's No. 1 foe, I fear for our fortitude in the continuing war against terror.  The British government in London and the British Army in Afghanistan are magnificent, but if the people themselves are shot through with what Winston Churchill called 'the long, drawling, dismal tides of drift and surrender,' I wonder whether we can be counted upon for much longer." . . .  Today all I feel is shame at my country's pathetic reaction to your own great day of joy.  [more . . .]

MANY IN THE UK BANKING INDUSTRY MOVING TOWARDS CHRISTIAN FAITH

Alex Preston wrote an interesting article titled,  "UK:  God's bankers: How evangelical Christianity is taking a hold of the City of London's financial institutions"   (HT: VirtueOnline)

Many young workers in the UK banking industry are moving towards Christian faith and thereby a grounding in ethics.   They feel it necessary to keep their developing faith hidden from colleagues.  At the same time they are making new acquaintances among like-minded people.   Read the whole thing...

CHRISTIANS IN BRITAIN DEEMED UNFIT TO BE FOSTER PARENTS UNLESS THEY HOLD POLITICALLY CORRECT VIEWS ON HOMOSEXUALITY

Charles Colson:   "When do homosexual “rights” trump religious rights? Whenever a court says so."  Colson writes:

For 15 years, Owen and Eunice Johns served as foster parents to British children. Social workers praised them as “kind and hospitable people” who “respond sensitively to” children.

But London’s High Court has just ruled that the Johnses are unfit to foster.

The reason: The Johnses are devout Christians, and their views about homosexuality may harm the children in their care. This opinion echoes that Britain’s Equality and Human Rights Commission, which, according to the Daily Mail, claimed foster children risked becoming “infected” by the Johnses’ Christian beliefs.

The case came about when the Johnses re-applied to the Derby City Council to foster children after taking a break. But instead of welcoming them back with open arms, social workers expressed concern that the couple’s beliefs were in violation of the new Equality Act Regulations, which protect the rights of homosexuals.

MELANIE PHILLIPS - BRITISH ANTI-SEMITISM AT DEVILISHLY HIGH LEVELS

Phillips writes:

The tsunami of indoctrination in anti-Israel lies and bigotry by the British media and intelligentsia has reached such a pitch that, as blogger Edgar Davidson reports, it is now warping the minds of even pro-Israel Jews. He writes:

My daughter, who goes to an orthodox Jewish school, tells me that, when the subject of Israel is discussed in their Jewish studies GCSE class, students routinely state things like ‘the Jews have no right to Israel because they stole the land from the Palestinians’. 

In making statements like that, those regular 15-16 year old Jewish kids, are simply repeating what they are told relentlessly in every part of the media (as I have regularly reported on this web). In the midst of the big story of revolution across the entire Arab world (funny how the media is suddenly realising that these Arab countries were abusing their citizens for decades - they have been telling us all along that it is Israel that is the pariah state in the region) the BBC and Channel 4 has gone into overdrive ... to demonize Israel. Just a few examples of the anti-Israel tsunami engulfing British TV, in the last few days alone we have had:

• Scandalous BBC 'documentary' attacking Geert Wilders that also promoted the view that anybody supporting the State of Israel in any way was a criminal
• The Promise, on Channel 4, which Richard Millett sums up as ‘rich European Jews came to Palestine after the Holocaust, stole the Palestinians’ land and murdered British soldiers’.
• A film War Child,  on Channel 4, about ‘Jews killing innocent Palestinians'
• The Richard Dimbleby Lecture on BBC Tuesday 15th Feb 2011 about 'the rights of children' given by the author Richard [sic: actually Michael; MP] Morpurgo which included a very strong political anti-Israel message plus the completely unsubstantiated and ridiculous claim that Israeli soldiers were shooting at Arab children in Gaza like in a computer game (yeah, like Arabs never lie about these things - just like they claimed a demonstrator was recently killed by tear gas).

The relentless propaganda seems to be affecting just about everybody I know. It has got to the stage where even strongly pro-Israeli friends are unwittingly accepting anti-Israel bias as perfectly acceptable.

GETTING THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ENGLAND, BRITAIN, AND THE UK CLEAR IN OUR MINDS

For Americans (and others), this video offers helpful clarifications.  You have to listen fast!  I came upon the link while browsing Maggie's Farm, one of Jeff's favorite websites.

 

Quick Takes

In UK, Coldest December since records began    (Great photos of snow, too)

In Case You Were Wondering… Democrats Out-Pork Republicans 50-1

It Begins… Feds Force Small Town Bank to Remove Christian Symbols & Christmas Buttons

UK Red Cross Bans Christmas to Avoid Offending Muslims...

From the Daily Mail:  (HT: Drudge)

Christmas has been banned by the Red Cross from its 430 fund-raising shops.

Staff have been ordered to take down decorations and to remove any other signs of the Christian festival because they could offend Moslems.

The charity's politically-correct move triggered an avalanche of criticism and mockery last night - from Christians and Moslems.

Christine Banks, a volunteer at a Red Cross shop in New Romney, Kent, said: 'We put up a nativity scene in the window and were told to take it out. It seems we can't have anything that means Christmas. We're allowed to have some tinsel but that's it.

'When we send cards they have to say season's greetings or best wishes. They must not be linked directly to Christmas.

'When we asked we were told it is because we must not upset Moslems.'

Mrs Banks added: ' We have been instructed that we can't say anything about Christmas and we certainly can't have a Christmas tree.   [more...]

And from yesterday's blog post  -

-- UK stores stocking almost no Christmas cards that mention Jesus

QUICK TAKES

-- World's 5 biggest airlines now from Asia, Latin America...

      

       -- Chuck Colson - Digital World Rewires Kids' Brains

-- Incredible… Washington Post Fails to Publish Their Own Poll That Shows Obamacare Sinking in Popularity

-- UK stores stocking almost no Christmas cards that mention Jesus

 

QUICK TAKES

    --  Ouch!… Sarah Palin Hammers Nutty Hollywood Producer  (Palin is good at hitting back hard and making her attacker look like an idiot)

   -- George Will - "Why Mike Pence Catches Conservatives' Eyes"  (Will's article proves a good addition to my previous post, "Mike Pence for President?")

   -- Clifford May - "Cyber Wake-up Call"

Chinese military analyst Wang Huacheng has described America’s reliance on information technology and the Internet as the country’s “soft ribs and strategic weakness.” Chinese forces are known to have penetrated Sandia National Laboratories and several U.S. military sites. Air Force major general William Lord said the Chinese downloaded “ten terabytes of data, the same amount contained in the Library of Congress.”

[..] Enemy cybercombatants are developing cyberweapons that could shut down our electrical grid (causing blackouts of indefinite duration) or destroy the electronic records and processes on which our financial systems depend. 

               Me:  So what does this mean?  My money and your money lie in a bank as merely a data entry. Do we lose all trace of it in a cyber attack?  What about the stock market?  Do all investments go "poof"?  Is there any place one can put one's money where it cannot be wiped out in a cyber attack?

    - Students attack Prince Charles' car after fee hike.  (If he and Camilla look shocked and scared, they have every reason to be)

 

PRINCE CHARLES’ CAR ATTACKED By Violent London Youths (PHOTO & Video)… Christmas Tree in Trafalgar Square Torched

Posted by Jim Hoft on Thursday, December 9, 2010, 2:04 PM

VIOLENT YOUTHS protesting in London attacked that car that Prince Charles and Camille were riding in tonight.

The Rolls Royce they were riding in had its window smashed and it was covered in paint. (Telegraph)

Here’s video of the car:

The violent mob also attacked the treasury, the Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square has been set alight, shops ransacked in Oxford Street and police are preparing to deploy CS gas to break the crowds up.

Demonstrators protest in central London in this November 30, 2010. (REUTERS/Luke MacGregor)

Prince Charles and Camille were attacked in their car during the violent protests.
Chron.com reported:

Angry protesters in London have attacked a car containing Prince Charles, the heir to the British throne, and his wife Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall.

An Associated Press photographer saw demonstrators kick the car in Regent Street, in the heart of London’s shopping district. The car then drove off.

The prince’s office had no immediate comment.

Protesters angry at a huge tuition fee hike are fighting with police and smashing windows in London.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

British lawmakers on Thursday approved a controversial plan to triple university tuition fees by a narrow margin after some government legislators rebelled amid violent protests outside Parliament.

The plan to raise the cap on tuition fees to 9,000 pounds ($14,000) was approved, 323-302 in the House of Commons, a close vote given the government’s 84-seat majority.

The tuition vote posed a crucial test for governing Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, and for the government’s austerity plans to reduce Britain’s budget deficit.

Outside Parliament, police with riot shields and batons tussled with angry student protesters, keeping them away from the building.

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Ouch!… Palin Hammers Nutty Hollywood Producer: “I Didn’t Know Anyone Ate Dogs, Tanned the Hides & Made Boots Out of Them”

Shakespearean Insults

I found the following amusing.  From an e-mail:

 Next time that you are at a loss for a good insult, use this handy table to construct a Shakespearean insult. 

Combine one word from each of the three columns below, and preface it with the word "Thou":

EUROPEAN REPORTING ON AMERICAN TEA PARTY FARCICALLY INACCURATE

The leftist European press does a terrible job reporting on the American political scene.  Tea Party reporting is so bad as to be scandalous.   British writer Daniel Hannan says Tea Partiers

are generally portrayed either as a gaggle of stump-toothed Appalachian mountain men or as a KKK lynchmob.  A typical column in Britain's Guardian newspaper last month described them as 'a movement most of whose emergent stars would appear to be better suited to prison or lunatic asylums.'

Who of us doesn't find that disgusting?  Hannan says further,

At the annual Conservative Party conference last week, I discovered that several delegates had no idea that the tea party was campaigning for smaller government. Such is the media coverage that even many Tories believe that it is essentially a fringe of irreconcilables who cannot bring themselves to acknowledge a mixed-race president.

Germany's Der Spiegel is no better.  (HT: Drudge)  Journalist Klaus Brinkbaumer writes of

America's hate-mongers, gun freaks and Tea Party demagogues who first compare Obama to Hitler and then minutes later to Stalin. They are people so filled with vitriol they can no longer think straight -- people like television presenter Glenn Beck, who says that putting the common good first is "exactly the kind of talk that led to the death camps in Germany." Beck has millions of followers, and appears in public with former Alaskan governor Sarah Palin, the darling of the Tea Party movement, who gleefully pronounces Obama's middle name Hussein as if it were a naughty, menacing word.

Me: Don't expect Europeans to understand America or the Tea Party movement.  With reporting like this, it's no wonder they remain deceived and clueless.   

BRITAIN'S PRIME MINISTER DAVID CAMERON WANTS TURKEY ADMITTED INTO THE EUROPEAN UNION

Beyond dumb.  Foolish and catastrophic.  Read Pamela Geller's take.

Update 7/28/10:  Barry Rubin in Pajamas Media: In Speech to Turkey, PM David Cameron Goes full Idiot.  

British Prime Minister David Cameron’s July 27 speech in Turkey will not live on in history. But it should, as an example of the decline of Western diplomacy and of suicide by political correctness. It is a textbook example of how not to conduct international affairs. . .  (more . . .)

GREAT BRITAIN HAS 85 SHARIA COURTS IN OPERATION

See Mark De Young's article.  Excerpt:

. . . Imams and mosques are performing marriage ceremonies that are not registered under English law.

As a direct result, about two-thirds of Muslim marriages are not registered. Consequently, women in such marriages have no choice but to go to sharia tribunals.

A more disturbing result of affording marriage arbitration to sharia courts is forced marriage. 2008 (the year after the establishment of the Muslim tribunals) saw an 80 percent increase in forced marriages. A government unit reported 8,000 forced marriages that year, including girls as young as 13. . .   [more...]

WHO IS THE MOST UNPOPULAR MAN IN BRITAIN?

Obama.  Seems so.  So much for "The One's" brilliant foreign policy.  Nile Gardiner writes:

What a difference 18 months and an oil spill makes. In January 2009 Barack Obama was hugely popular on this side of the Atlantic, and could have walked on water in the eyes of the British media, the political elites, and the general public. In June 2010 however he probably qualifies as the most despised US president since Nixon among the British people. . .  [more . . .]

- Victor Davis Hanson writes about "The Great Anglo-American Spat".

- From NRO - Today marks the 70th anniversary of Sir Winston's "finest hour" speech — delivered in the House of Commons in the aftermath of the tenebrous "Miracle at Dunkirk," even as the Nazis marched on Paris.  You can read the whole thing here, and listen to audio here.

MARK STEYN - THE U.S. IS IN THE EXPRESS LANE TO DECLINISTAN

I consider Steyn's sustained meditation on America's future extraordinarily important and persuasive.  Steyn writes:

What happens when the policies that brought ruin to Detroit and sclerosis to California become the basis for the nation at large? Strictly on the numbers, the United States is in the express lane to Declinistan: unsustainable entitlements, the remorseless governmentalization of the economy and individual liberty, and a centralization of power that will cripple a nation of this size. Decline is the way to bet. . .

Steyn says Europeans were not always the Euro-weenies they have become:

Hayek’s greatest insight in The Road to Serfdom is psychological: “There is one aspect of the change in moral values brought about by the advance of collectivism which at the present time provides special food for thought,” he wrote with an immigrant’s eye on the Britain of 1944. “It is that the virtues which are held less and less in esteem and which consequently become rarer are precisely those on which the British people justly prided themselves and in which they were generally agreed to excel. The virtues possessed by Anglo-Saxons in a higher degree than most other people, 

OBAMA REFUSES TO SUPPORT BRITS' SOVEREIGNTY OVER THE FALKLANDS

Update: 3/3/10 - Ralph Peters throws a searchlight on what's happening, a must-read for anyone interested in the Argentina-Falklands story.  In Peters' eyes, The Obama administration comes off as "being either incompetent, malevolent -- or both."

(Original Post) - Niles Gardiner, writing for the U.K. Telegraph, says:

The Obama administration’s decision to remain neutral in the dispute between Great Britain and Argentina over the Falkland Islands is a shameful decision that will go down very badly across the Atlantic. . .

Even by the relentlessly poor standards of the Obama administration, whose doctrine unfailingly appears to be “kiss your enemies and kick your allies”, this is a new low. The White House’s neutrality in a major dispute between

PAUL GIGOT INTERVIEWS CHRISTOPHER CALDWELL - "REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION IN EUROPE"

Below is a video interview conducted by Paul Gigot of the Wall Street Journal with Christopher Caldwell, the author of Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West.  (HT: The Astute Bloggers)   I learned several things from this interview.  It's six minutes long and worth watching. As well, click through to read this comprehensive review of the book.

Melanie Phillips, author of Londonistan (whom I have blogged about previously here and here) discusses Islam in Britain - especially the role of universities and government in fostering immigration and political correctness. 

How Britain is Creating a Terror State Within - Part 1

Part 2 -

QUICK TAKES . . .

- - Evangelicals are on the rise in France.   A surprise to many.

From a postwar population of about 50,000, French evangelicals are now estimated to number 450,000 to 500,000. According to the Evangelical Federation of France, the number of churches has risen from 800 in 1970 to more than 2200 today. . .  [more . .]

- - Churck Colson: "Atheists who become believers: the confounding attraction of the Christian worldview."

A strong empirical case can be made to show that Christianity is the only rational explanation of life. . .   the four basic questions that most people ask about life: Where did I come from? What's my purpose? Why is there sin and suffering? Is redemption possible? Then, on the other side of the matrix, we list the various philosophies and prominent world religions. By examining how each view answers the four questions, we can determine which worldviews conform to the way things really are. This is the correspondence theory of truth—a thoroughly rational test. Students quickly see that only Christianity teaches that humans are created in the image of God, thus protecting their dignity.  [more .  .]

- Daily Mail: Britain is the abortion capital of Europe.

It has overtaken France - which has a larger population - to become the abortion capital of the continent. The rising rate has been pushed up by abortions among teenage girls, which increased by nearly a third over the past decade.  [more . .]

UK - CHRISTIANS RISK REJECTION AND DISCRIMINATION FOR THEIR FAITH, A STUDY CLAIMS.

The (UK) Telegraph reports Christians are facing discrimination at work, and ridicule and rejection at home, according to new research.  Story here.

THE MOTHER OF ALL SCANDALS IN BRITAIN

[Edited Post]
David Pryce-Jones wrote the following summary of the debacle shaking England.  Though he posted it a few days ago, he covers the ground so well I thought it worth reproducing.  An update follows his post: 

In the name of God, go’

The mood in Britain is unlike anything I have experienced. The electorate is enraged by the conduct of its representatives. Some members of parliament daren’t show their face, a former Labour foreign secretary has been booed by a television audience, and a Conservative member has had a brick heaved through her office window. It is all about expenses, fraudulent claims, tax evasion, making private fortunes by looting the public purse. Worse still, much of it

MY IMAM FATHER CAME AFTER ME WITH AN AXE

I'm actually amazed a British newspaper would publish this story.  Maybe things are changing in England, though publishing the story is a small step at best.  I strongly urge you to click through and read this story.  (HT: HotAir)

SHOULD ENGLAND HAVE A SPECIAL PLACE IN THE HEARTS OF AMERICANS?

You bet!  But an Obama official says "no."   Or, to quote the unnamed official more completely, "There’s nothing special about Britain. You’re just the same as the other 190 countries in the world. You shouldn’t expect special treatment."

Opposed to that sentiment stands Jonah Goldberg (with whom I emphatically agree), who wrote:

. . . If you think the country that gave us our system of laws, our democratic tradition, our dominant culture, much of our greatest literature and even our language is no more special than any backwater country which immiserates or brutalizes its people, then you must not think very much of America's culture, traditions etc either.

INSANITY, COWARDICE, AND CAPITULATION IN ENGLAND

- Update 2/17/09 - Daniel Schwammenthal offers excellent commentary in his Wall Street Journal opinion piece, "Britain's Surrender to Islamists."  Bret Stephens has produced an important column on the West's reaction to Mr. Serrano's crucifix in urine (the mocking of Christianity) with the West's refusal to protect free speech when it comes to critiquing Islam.

- Update 2/15/09 - UK ministers who banned Wilders admit: We haven't watched "Fitna"

- (Original Post)  Andy McCarthy notes the astonishing reality of contemporary England [my emphases]:

It has come to this: If you are an Islamic radical, trained to carry out terrorist atrocities in al-Qaeda’s jihad against the United Kingdom, the British will welcome you with open arms. Not content with that, Great Britain will lobby insistently for your release from custody so that you may freely roam British streets—and the halls of Westminster.

If, by contrast, you are a duly elected representative in the democratic government of a country to which England is bound in the European Union, and you speak about the undeniable—though mulishly denied—nexus between Islamic doctrine and jihadist terror, Great Britain will slam her door in your face.

That is the lesson in the appalling saga of Geert Wilders, a member of the Dutch parliament and Exhibit Umpty-Umpth illustrating the depths of capitulation to which the West has sunk in its half-hearted bid for cultural survival.

McCarthy continues:

A Jew Living in Britain No longer Feels Safe

Francesa Segal writes in the Guardian:  (HT: HotAir)

In August 2001, I turned 21 and my parents gave me a Star of David necklace. Then a month later, the world changed and my mother, with remarkable foresight, began her campaign to rescind the gift, begging me to take it off because she was frightened it would make me a target in the wake of mounting evidence that fanatical Islamism was tightening its grip on the country. My argument was always the same - when I am no longer safe being identifiably Jewish on the tube, I don't want to live in England.

Now it's happening and I am devastated. . .    (more . . .)

THE POST-CHRISTMAS, POST-CHRISTIAN WEST

Andrew Strattaford reports on "Winter Festival News":

Via the Daily Mail:

A school choir was forced to withdraw from a Christmas event because organisers branded its carols 'too religious'. Around 60 children aged between seven and 11 had spent six weeks practising favourites including Once In Royal David's City and Silent Night for the Corringham Winter Festival. But they were let down at the last minute when their headteacher was informed their programme did not 'dovetail' with the festival's theme.

Strattaford's response:  "Idiotic."   I concur.

BRITAIN'S SHARIA COURTS

- Updates: 9/18/08 - John O'Sullivan comments . . . 

- Be sure to read Diana West as well.  She chronicles the continuing capitulation of the West to Islam.  "Europe means Rome, Greece, Enlightenment and Judeo-Christian roots. Europe is a continent of castles and cathedrals, not of mosques and minarets."  - "How can anyone who values freedom of conscience, equality before the law and other such Western jewels not have a healthy fear of Islamic law, which values none of these things?"

- Kathy Shaidle writes:

Muslim Sharia courts have been operating throughout England for more than a year. This startling fact came as news to not a few UK residents when the Sunday Times broke the story last week. Officially called “arbitration tribunals,” these courts already have ruled on over 100 cases, including divorces, financial disputes and domestic violence cases – even though the latter is a criminal and not a civil matter. As such, they represent a worrying advance for Islamic law into the heart of Europe.

According to the Times, the rulings of these courts are now legally binding. Previously, their judgments could not be enforced unless all parties involved agreed to abide by them. As of August 2007, however, “[r]ulings issued by a network of five Sharia courts are enforceable with the full power of the judicial system, through the county courts or High Court.” To match their growing authority, the courts themselves are proliferating: Two more Sharia courts are planned for Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Click here for a whole lot more. . .

QUICK TAKES

1) Mark Krikorian - "The chief point of Dr. Bostom's The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism (reviewed here and here) is the same as his earlier Legacy of Jihad book — the problematic aspects of Islam, namely the sacralization of jihad war and of Jew-hatred, are not modern alien viruses but instead are integral to the faith."  See also Andy McCarthy's post (page 2)

2) Theodore Dalrymple -

And as is now well-known, a disturbing number of British Muslims have proved susceptible to the ideology of Islamism. A recent survey found that 40 percent of British Muslims under 24 wanted to live under sharia; 36 percent supported the death penalty for apostasy. Significantly, the figures for older Muslims were considerably lower. Another poll found that a fifth of all British Muslims had sympathy with the “feelings and motives” of the London suicide bombers. Only a third of British Muslims, a Guardian survey found, want more integration into British culture.

 … Pew Center research shows that six times as many Muslims in France as in Britain consider their national identity more important than their religious one: 42 percent versus 7 percent.

3) Thomas Sowell writes on the Left using Blacks as trophies or mascots.