No one tells it better than Peter Hitchens

In this post I am reversing my usual layout rules by putting my own words into italics and leaving the quotation below in normal typeface so that it can be more easily read. I have long admired Peter Hitchens and this bitter but eloquent summary of the follies past, present and, no doubt, the future should be read by as many people as possible, uncut and without paraphrase and so I have reprinted it in full, courtesy of The Daily Mail where you may go to see all the photos which accompany it.

 

Bitter laughter is my main response to the events of the past week. You are surprised by what has happened? Why? I have been saying for years that it was coming, and why it was coming, and what could be done to stop it.

I have said it in books, in articles, over lunch and dinner tables with politicians whose lips curled with lofty contempt.

So yes, I am deeply sorry for the innocent and gentle people who have lost lives, homes, businesses and security. Heaven knows I have argued for years for the measures that might have saved them.

But I am not really very sorry for the elite liberal Londoners who have suddenly discovered what millions of others have lived with for decades.

The mass criminality in the big cities is merely a speeded-up and concentrated version of life on most large estates – fear, intimidation, cruelty, injustice, savagery towards the vulnerable and the  different, a cold sneer turned towards any plea for pity, the awful realisation that when you call for help from the authorities, none  will come.

Just look and see how many shops are protected with steel shutters, how many homes have bars on their windows. This is not new.

As the polluted flood (it is not a tide; it will not go back down again) of spite, greed and violence washes on to their very doorsteps, well-off and influential Left-wingers at last meet the filthy thing they have created, and which they ignored when it did not affect them personally.

No doubt they will find ways to save themselves. But they will not save the country. Because even now they will not admit that all their ideas are wrong, and that the policies of the past 50 years – the policies they love – have been a terrible mistake. I have heard them in the past few days clinging to their old excuses of non-existent ‘poverty’ and ‘exclusion’.

Take our Prime Minister, who is once again defrauding far too many people. He uses his expensive voice, his expensive clothes, his well-learned tone of public-school command, to give the impression of being an effective and decisive  person. But it is all false. He has  no real idea of what to do. He  thinks the actual solutions to the problem are ‘fascist’. Deep down,  he still wants to ‘understand’ the hoodies.

Say to him that naughty children should be smacked at home and caned in school, that the police (and responsible adults) should be free to wallop louts and vandals caught in the act, that the police should return to preventive foot patrols, that prisons should be austere places of hard work, plain food and discipline without TV sets or semi-licit drugs, and that wrongdoers should be sent to them when they first take to crime, not when they are already habitual crooks, and he will throw up his well-tailored arms in horror at your barbarity.

Say to him that divorce should be made very difficult and that the state should be energetically in favour of stable, married families with fathers (and cease forthwith to subsidise families without fathers) and he will smirk patronisingly and regard you as a pitiable lunatic.

Say to him that mass immigration should be stopped and reversed, and that those who refuse any of the huge number of jobs which are then available should be denied benefits of any kind, and he will gibber in shock.

Yet he is ready to authorise the use of water cannon and plastic bullets on our streets (quite useless,  as it happens, against this sort of outbreak) as if we were a Third World despotism.

Water cannon and plastic bullets indeed. What an utter admission of failure, that after 50 years of the most lavish welfare state in the solar system, you cannot govern your country without soaking the citizenry in cold water and bombarding them with missiles from a safe distance. Except, of course, that it is because of the welfare system that this is so.

Here is an example of how little he knows about Britain. He says that the criminals of August will face the ‘full force of the law’. What ‘force’?

The great majority of the looters, smashers, burners and muggers have not been arrested and never will be. Our long-enfeebled police were so useless at the start that thousands of crimes were committed with total impunity.

Now we know why they don’t call themselves ‘police forces’ any more. But they aren’t ‘services’ either, for they certainly don’t serve us or do what we want them to do, preferring to arrest us for defending ourselves. The criminals, who are cunning without being intelligent, all know this. They will wait for the next chance.

The loping, smirking, shuffling creeps who eventually appeared before the courts were the ultimate losers – the ones who came late to the looting and  who were too slow or too stupid to run before they were put in the bag.

Ransacked: Looters targeted many shops

And what courts they are. In the one I sat in last week, self-confessed thieves are courteously addressed by magistrates and clerks as ‘mister’ and asked politely to stand up or ‘accompany the officers’ back to the cells or – more often – out into the street on bail. In the part of the dock reserved for those already free on bail, nobody has bothered to clean up the scribbled and disrespectful graffiti.

Why should anyone respect or fear this chamber of indifference? The wall-hangings behind the magistrates are scruffy and scratched.

There is no sense of awe or determination or of much purpose. There is only a strong sense of going through the motions for the sake of appearances.

Nobody is directly punished for what he has done. Excuses must first be sought, and indulgence arranged where there should be cold rage. There will be ‘social inquiry reports’ and ‘youth offender teams’ who bustle smilingly in and out ready to start work on yet another ‘client’.

All this piffle enshrines the official (and hopelessly wrong) view that crime is caused by circumstances and background, not by unleashed human evil. It is precisely because of this windy falsehood that the cells are crammed with young men who broke the law because they felt like it.

Hulking louts – black and white, for this was an equal-opportunity crimewave – are accompanied before the bench by alleged ‘parents’ who are obviously afraid of their broods. Nothing is said or done to express official disapproval of crime. The accused are treated more like patients than like wrongdoers.

Many in this rogues’ parade are still trying to qualify for prison, but are only, as it were, at the GCSE stage. They have sheaves of previous convictions, no doubt a tiny sample of their many acts of spite, selfishness and cruelty.

You can bet their neighbours hate and fear them. Some are on bail for other offences, a state of affairs so common that it is almost funny. At least one is subject to a ‘suspended’ prison sentence, one of the many fake penalties handed down by the courts to fool the public into thinking that something significant happens to criminals.

They have all learned what most British politicians somehow cannot grasp – that the more encounters you have with our justice system, the less you fear it. A few ‘exemplary’ sentences – none of which will be served in full, or anything near it – will only help to spread the word that arson, robbery, violence, spite and selfishness are not punished here any more. Indeed these are the things we are now famous for around a world that once respected us.

And that is why we have many more nasty surprises waiting for  us, here in The Country Formerly Known as Great Britain.

Peter Hitchens  14th August 2011

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2025695/UK-riots-Police-water-cannon-plastic-bullets-After-50-years-lavish-welfare-state-earth-What-abject-failure-says-Peter-Hitchens.html

Comments

[A K Haart]

"All this piffle enshrines the official (and hopelessly wrong) view that crime is caused by circumstances and background, not by unleashed human evil."

Hitchens writes persuasively and this piece is a valiant attempt to diagnose, which is more than the politicians can manage. However, in spite of what he claims, crime is caused by circumstances, background and conceivably genes. There is no such thing as “unleashed human evil”. It is neither an entity nor a process nor a state of affairs. It fails as an explanation.

[David Duff]

AK, instinctively I disagree with you and agree with Hitchens but you pose a profound and difficult philosophical question which I would like to brood upon and then I will post my thoughts on the subject - such as they may be!

[JK]

"...I would like to brood upon and then I will post my thoughts on the subject..."

Here's just the least littlest help I might offer you David. Worthy of "brooding upon" for one of the characters in this Shakespearean drama is none other than the the winner of the 2008 Iowa Straw Poll.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2010385617_webmansought29.html

[Andra]

JK: That news story is very, very scary.

I think this man should be put out of his "misery", it would appear to be a boon to everybody, including his family.

What is to be done about all the violence in the world is another story entirely. I have been saying for years that the younger generations are becoming so angry that I just cannot imagine what the world will be like in 20 years.

I guess we don't have to wait that long.

What is the answer? Obviously we can't lock everybody up. There aren't enough jail cells to hold them all and just look at the cost of keeping these creeps in jail. In Australia I think it is something like $ 100,000 a year.

Our judges let criminals out with a slap on the wrist even more than the rest of the world, apparently. Certainly it seems that way to us, the normal, working, law-abiding citizens of Australia.
No government seems to have any answers and I certainly don't.

If I wasn't an atheist I'd probably start praying.

As it is I think I'll open a bottle of chardonnay. In vino veritas, after all.

[Andra]

And another thing ..
I just found Wikipedia'd Cocklecarrot and can safely cry, Eureka!!
Beachcomber et al.
I vaguely remember Spike Milligan's TV show from many long eons ago and was either too busy running around and being a party girl or wasn't particularly impressed (and I have always been a great fan of Spike ... met him a couple of times and all).
However, I now see the error of my ways and shall endeavour to make restitution with haste.
I think a bit of Justice Cocklecarrot is just what I need. Maybe the rest of the world does too.
Couldn't hurt!

[JK]

"In vino veritas" indeed Andra, no matter you and The High Lord Duff (thanks be to whatever, he finally posted something like that so I need not keep sharpening my stick) are confirmed atheists and me, a simple but extremely challenged agnostic, can all more or less agree on.

But Andra, since you're a relative newcomer to Dubious Duff (did David tell you, he doesn't deny his "probable" Oirish ancestry?) Anyway, the one orthodoxy we'll each be able to remain confident in is the High Lord Duff's insistence only the US' Democrats are enfeebled to the degree necessary to make what Arkies refer to as pure de 'ol dumbass reasonings. David you'll notice is a "Disciple - 'Dispipple?' (no time for the OED) - of FOX News" where, should you watch, is where former Gub'ner Huckabee of Arkansas now holds court.

"FOX News? Now where've I hear that?" I hear you implore Andra - well that'd be one of Australia's exports (which I can understand, but I wish you'd sent him to Antarctica) anyway, we Arkies first had to rid ourselves of Clinton. [Even Arkies underestimate the general ineptitude of Americans, thinking we'd rid ourselves of both, Bill became US President - through no fault of our's - then Bill's wife Hill became Obama's Secretary of State. Again no fault of our's.]

In the interval, High Lord Duff went not only to Rupe's FOX but also to the US' Republicans as a general rule. I can understand MDS she at least was "Miss Alaska" in the "Miss America Contest" during which she competed in the swimwear competition. But Mike Huckabee? Anyway, both Mike and Sarah now get a paystub from Rupe.

Can't see US Presidential aspirations in either - well maybe the first syllable as concerns Sarah but that goes away quick as Mike is mentioned. Actually - though at the time you sent David the sarong I didn't know such existed - but now I'm pretty certain Lord Duff is a foxisexual - if you wish to know what I mean Andra, type Glen Beck into D&N's search function and click.

[Andra]

Foxisexual. Far out! I'm still working of Cockiecackle or whatever it is.
I take umbrage about young Rupert. He doesn't belong to us any more and is absolutely your responsibility.
His mother remains Australian and, at the age of 105, or thereabouts, is really and truly a national treasure. We even damed her back in the days when we did such things. She donates away millions of dollars to charity, mostly, I imagine, to help atone for her husband and son, who had and have many sins to atone for. Dame Elisabeth Murdoch is much beloved, sort of like the old Queen Mum was in the UK, only with better dental care.
We do, I believe, get Fox News on cable t.v. here but I'm not that silly.
There is quite enough crap on free to air t.v. I ain't paying for the privilege. I know about books and how to read them!
Now, to the delightful Sarah Palin... I understand she graduated from university/college with a journalist degree. She also owns many guns and I have heard her speak. Nuff said?

[JK]

Yes Andra, Sarah fratuated University - it took several as I understand but she eventually got her papers from the Univerity of Idaho.

I'm uncertain how to pronounce that by syllable but here's a clip - Memsahib! Shield David's Eyes! else he'll be no good at the next traffic stop-light:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSdFIDygFwM

Actually though Andra - it wasn't a proper "journalism degree" rather a "commnications degree" perfect I'm certain for joint discussions with the America's version of England's current crop of politicians. I'm "fairly reliably" informed, to pass a communications final exam, one must be able to convey something coherently with half a kidney pie not smudging one's lipstick.

My Alaskan friends inform me Sarah owns an impressive assortment of moose-guns and hobbies about with snowbowling, sword-swallowing and keeping an eye out for the Russians who're 1900 miles west of her bedroom window. If she's not expert herself at any of those things, she at least has a good Spec-Savers Shop nearby.

Candidly I've never heard of a Dame Elisabeth Murdoch but I've this instinctual thing whispering in my ear if she ever visits Arkansas I'd best dress in my best pair of Levis, wear and button my shirt then go and thank her profusely for giving birth to someone who addles David to my sheerest delight.

If I've pissed you off concerning the "Young Rupert" - I sincerely apologize - I didn't realize there was one. Yet I suppose there must've been... pity Dame Elizabeth didn't do a more thorough job of hiring nannies to shelter him from exposure to the future High Lord Duff!

I had no idea island to island contact could be so contagious.