Posted on 08/12/2011 2:22:37 PM PDT by passionfruit
The trick in this business is not to be right too early. A week ago I released my new book – the usual doom 'n' gloom stuff – and, just as the sensible prudent moderate chaps were about to dismiss it as hysterical and alarmist, Standard & Poor's went and downgraded the United States from its AAA rating for the first time in history. Obligingly enough they downgraded it to AA+, which happens to be the initials of my book: After America. Okay, there's not a lot of "+" in that, but you can't have everything.
But the news cycle moves on, and a day or two later, the news shows were filled with scenes of London ablaze, as gangs of feral youths trashed and looted their own neighborhoods. Several readers wrote to taunt me for not having anything to say on the London riots. As it happens, Chapter Five of my book is called "The New Britannia: The Depraved City." You have to get up pretty early in the morning to beat me to Western Civilization's descent into barbarism. Anyone who's read it will fully understand what's happening on the streets of London. The downgrade and the riots are part of the same story: Big Government debauches not only a nation's finances but its human capital, too.
(Excerpt) Read more at ocregister.com ...
bump
Mark Steyn ping.
Freepmail me, if you want on or off the Mark Steyn ping list.
Thanks for the ping passionfruit.
This may be the best column Mr. Steyn has written in a long time.
“This may be the best column Mr. Steyn has written in a long time.”
That is saying a lot. He has written some exceptional columns in recent weeks and months, and his book is also exceptional.
Steyn nails it once again!
Unlike the obvious dichotomy in the US, perhaps in the UK there isn’t one?
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The “underclass” in the UK, who have been coddled by nanny government since the welfare state began after WWII, predated the influx of British subjects with darker skin. They have lots of pasty-white amoral soul-dead youts in their riot mobs.
[Steyn] From page 204: “For Americans, the quickest way to understand modern Britain is to look at what LBJ’s Great Society did to the black family and imagine it applied to the general population.”
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I witnessed this firsthand as a public health nurse in Baltimore’s inner city. I couldn’t believe that more intelligent heads wouldn’t see what was being created, and change course. But people like Parren and Clarence Mitchell persuaded the ‘government’ that throwing money at people would solve all their problems. It not only hurt the people, it killed the city.
OMG!!!
He’s my new best friend on FB.
“Like”!
This is wincingly, painfully, epigrammatically brilliant.
What’s it doing in Chat/General? Shouldn’t it be in News?
... and imagine it applied to the general population."
If dems have their way - we're next...
Britain today - the US tomorrow....
The last paragraph is the keeper but I agree with you.
Actually, it’s been widely reported that Africans and Caribbeans are in the forefront of the rioting.
With all due respect please do pray for our nation but since we have Great Britain as an example where we are clearly headed we need to fight to take another path.
Politically speaking, of course. ;-)
Why we can’t see Britain’s problems being ours shortly is mystifying.
I myself am surprised that various “community organizers” haven’t arranged larger riots here in the US over the summer.
Right now its just flash mobs here and there but that could change quickly. I’m just laying this out so I can tell everybody later - “I told you so.” ;-)
We can’t be cutting budgets when the people need help. /Sarc
But when we do cut budgets as we must ... watch out America.
End mini-rant. Sorry. ;-)
The labor movement was gaining strength in Great Britain before the war, but it took a back seat to the war. As soon as the war was over, and soldiers came home, it went on the rise again.
The big incentives for British citizens to back Labor: "spread the wealth" socialism and a thumb in the eye to British aristocracy. Cradle to grave care by the nanny state. You don't have to earn a living, you deserve a living, just because you exist. So, why strive?
God isn't needed. The State is your new god. God's morality isn't needed. The State will tell you what to believe. The emptiness and meaninglessness of state morality, defined by clueless bureaucrats, busy-body activists, and special interest groups, leads to despair. Where there is no afterlife, no final judgment, no heaven or hell, there is no incentive to do right in this life.
Mark Steyn's story of Sam Brown is very telling. "Thou shalt not steal" is no longer as important as "Thou shalt not offend by your speech." They have become a nation of sheep without a shepherd.
bttt!
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