Posted on 08/11/2011 8:16:39 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
With London succumbing to looters and muggers, it’s time to ask what happened to the once-manly English people. The August 9 issue of the Daily Mail, for example, includes a photo of a young man taking off his pants on the street as an impatient looter waits with the emasculated Briton’s sneakers and shirt already in his hands. Luckily the feeble Englishman chooses boxers over briefs, but I can’t help wondering if men such as T. E. Lawrence, Winston Churchill, or Lord Acton could have stomached the state of manliness in this generation of Englishmen.
Consider that this latest explosion of looting, robbing, and burning began in Tottenham, a dicey corner of north London, after police shot and killed a 29-year-old Tottenham resident named Mark Duggan. As typically happens, two competing personality profiles of Duggan are being told, depending on the politics of the teller; some say Duggan was a hardened drug dealer, others say he was a beloved family man. What we do know is that police pulled over a taxi in which Duggan was a passenger. Police say they heard a gun fired, which prompted them to shoot and kill Duggan.
The facts of this incident may be in dispute, but the unmanly actions of Tottenham’s gangster youth are not. In retaliation for Duggan’s death (or using it as an excuse for mayhem), they’ve burned autos, looted stores, and mugged people along Tottenham’s High Road and around parts of London. This reaction says something horrific about the culture in these neighborhoods, just as much as the 1992 Los Angeles Riots displayed that all wasn’t right with the culture in the poorer neighborhoods of Los Angeles.
For context, consider the “Tottenham Outrage” of 1909. Two men in Tottenham, armed with semi-automatic handguns, attempted to rob a payroll truck, but the guards resisted. After one robber fired his gun, police came running. The robbers fled on foot. The chase lasted two hours and covered about six miles as other officers and armed civilians pursued and engaged the robbers. One of the thieves committed suicide and the other later died in surgery. One officer and one civilian also were killed. The bravery of the officers and civilians prompted the creation of the Kings Police Medal and the funeral processions for the slain officer the civilian passed through streets lined with mournful Londoners. Those weren’t the kind of people who demonize police officers or take off their pants for thieves.
Well, okay, sure, the English people did for too long accept the unmanly ditherings of Neville Chamberlain before World War II. Nevertheless, something has changed in the English character. These aren’t the proud men who once made the whole world look them in the eyes. I submit that one of the chief causes of their now emasculated spirit is the loss of so much of their individual liberty — like a child used to a parent fighting his or her battles, a people dependent on their government for everything cannot take care of themselves and are prone to childish outbursts.
By giving up their natural right to self-defense, for example, England’s law-abiding citizens have become defenseless both physically and psychologically. The loss of their right to self-preservation has created a culture of dependency on government (for protection and so much more) that has helped neuter the English male. This has also prompted some English citizens to blame the police for the crime rates that law enforcement is legally constrained from doing anything practical to fight.
Britain’s licensing of gun owners and the registration of their firearms made it easy for the government to take guns from law-abiding citizens after a mass-murderer in Hungerford killed 16 people in 1987. Within the next decade, British politicians criminalized possession of most handguns — the final deadline for turning them in was Feb. 27, 1998. (This is something liberals would like to do in the U.S., too.) Yet, few have subsequently pointed to the victims of this anti-freedom gun confiscation. The English papers haven’t interviewed victims of rape and other crimes and asked what they might have done if they had the ability to defend themselves from criminals.
Curbing violence, naturally, was the goal English politicians said they’d attain in return for law-abiding citizens’ handing over this basic human liberty; however, after the U.K. disarmed its population, England attained the highest burglary rate and one of the highest rates for violent crimes of the industrialized nations, according to the International Crime Victims Survey carried out by the Dutch Ministry of Justice in 2000. As the Guardian put it on Feb. 23, 2001, the study “shows England and Wales as the top of the world league with Australia as the countries where you are most likely to become a victim of crime.” More recently, on July 3, 2009, England’s newspaper the Daily Mail reported that “Britain’s violent crime record is worse than any other country in the European Union, it has been revealed. Official crime figures show the U.K. also has a worse rate for all types of violence than the U.S. and even South Africa.”
Meanwhile, British politicians have reacted to the irrefutable failure of their gun-control schemes by calling for more of the same. They’ve even recently banned starter pistols. Given that they’ve disarmed the law-abiding public and obviously can’t disarm the criminals, what else can they do in this time of violence? What some in the government would like to do can be chillingly found in a July 2002 English government “white paper” titled “Justice for All.” This paper argued that the government needs to: allow the use of hearsay evidence in trials; remove the double-jeopardy rule for serious cases, including cases that have already been resolved under the current system; and eliminate the right to trial by jury in many cases.
As the English hand their government more of their individual liberty — and thereby their self-reliant manliness — their government becomes more authoritarian. Individuals have diminished means for protecting themselves and their property, which should have made London’s looting, vandalism, and other crimes very predictable.
I’ve had several recent conversations with Englishmen, who have led me to conclude that the English people will continue to hand over their liberty in the hopes that one day — despite all the lessons from history and human nature — their government will create the peaceful, socialist utopia they’ve long been promised.
For example, I recently broached this topic with an English salesman at my favorite shoe company, Johnston & Murphy. He commented that he’s frightened by America’s “gun culture” and added that Americans needs to drop “their Wild West attitude.” I listened patiently before pointing out that England currently looks a little more like the Wild West. He wasn’t swayed. I pointed out that gun rights are women’s rights, as they make the frailest woman the equal of the strongest male. He kept shaking his head.
So I used a largely forgotten piece of history that always makes Englishmen blush: After Dunkirk in May of 1940, only the British Navy, an outnumbered British air corps, and about 20 miles of water protected the English people from German invasion. In their retreat back to England, the British forces lost much of their firearms and weaponry; meanwhile, gun-control laws passed after World War I had mostly disarmed British civilians, leaving the English people helpless.
Aware of their plight, a group of Americans, headed by C. Suydam Cutting, established the “American Committee for Defense of British Homes,” a group that ran an ad in the National Rifle Association’s official journal American Rifleman that read in part: “Send a Gun to Defend a British Home.” The NRA subsequently sent more than 7,000 private arms to England. The U.S. military, of course, sent many more. Winston Churchill said, “We had become a hornet’s nest. Anyhow, if we had to go down fighting . . . a lot of our men and women had weapons in their hands.”
After relating this history, I told the English shoe salesman that “if your people ever need to protect their freedom again, Americans will be there for you.” He wasn’t so sure.
Now I wonder, after seeing that Englishmen strip for a looter, would it even matter? Meanwhile, the only way we’d be able to help them — and the world — is if we keep our manly liberties intact here in the U.S., a prospect far from certain.
— Frank Miniter is the author of The Ultimate Man’s Survival Guide, and, more recently, Saving the Bill of Rights.
In ancient warrior societies, the conquering warriors would return with loot and female slaves, and thus achieve a much higher number of children. Doesn't work that way any more.
They must have confiscated testicles along with the guns...
This reaction says something horrific about the culture in these neighborhoods, just as much as the 1992 Los Angeles Riots displayed that all wasn’t right with the culture in the poorer neighborhoods of Los Angeles.
Very true, but remember that Los Angeles is in the US, where people routinely own and use firearms. Didnt stop the riots starting though. Didnt have a huge affect in stopping them either.
By giving up their natural right to self-defense, for example, England’s law-abiding citizens have become defenseless both physically and psychologically. The loss of their right to self-preservation has created a culture of dependency on government (for protection and so much more) that has helped neuter the English male. This has also prompted some English citizens to blame the police for the crime rates that law enforcement is legally constrained from doing anything practical to fight.
True, but the subcontext of this carries the typical American trope about "giving up the right to self-preservation." One would think, to hear commentators on these boards say, that all this was a very recent phenomenae. The first gun control acts were passed in 1824, licencing of firearms came into effect in 1870 and restrictions on purchasing of handguns were in force well before World War I. Not that it matters too much. The facts are that gun ownership in Britain has traditionally always been low. Its a cultural thing. Most Britons didn't see the need to own firearms. Violent crime has been uncommon for centuries and hunting is seen as a rather elitist activity. Maybe that attitude will change in the 21st Century, although I don't personally see much evidence of that.
Britain’s licensing of gun owners and the registration of their firearms made it easy for the government to take guns from law-abiding citizens after a mass-murderer in Hungerford killed 16 people in 1987. Within the next decade, British politicians criminalized possession of most handguns — the final deadline for turning them in was Feb. 27, 1998.
This implies that this is all some nefarious scheme by HMG, whereas in fact the people themselves clamoured for the government to tighten things up. I think personally there is something fundamentally illogical about that, but the UK is a democracy and ultimately the politicians are dependant on votes to keep in office.
Curbing violence, naturally, was the goal English politicians said they’d attain in return for law-abiding citizens’ handing over this basic human liberty; however, after the U.K. disarmed its population, England attained the highest burglary rate and one of the highest rates for violent crimes of the industrialized nations, according to the International Crime Victims Survey carried out by the Dutch Ministry of Justice in 2000.
Or it might mean the UK just keeps better records than everyone else. Even then, although crime has risen, the homicide rate is still extremely low.
In their retreat back to England, the British forces lost much of their firearms and weaponry; meanwhile, gun-control laws passed after World War I had mostly disarmed British civilians, leaving the English people helpless.
Not so. The army abandoned its HEAVY equipment at Dunkirk, but most soldiers retained and brought back their personal weapons. And it wasnt gun control that disarmed British civilians. British civilians "disarmed" themselves. They generally did not want to own firearms.
But a chilling article nonetheless. The world has worsened, and there is little evidence it is going to get better.
excellent
it is the new religion...just look how folks act so serene and worshipful over the environment?
and RACISM is the new Original Sin
i really like that
I’ve watched this unfold since the early 80s...I saw seeds planted as a boy growing up at heights of freedom rider days in my hometown and then LBJ’s junk..junk my folks fought against...take that Glenn Beck....but I never saw it all come together as political correctness and this new Liberalism until living in Manhattan in the early 80s in Columbia Housing and being around some of the vanguard of it all
the holy melding of multiculturalism, hatred of anything white or Christian, and worship of the Earth as a diety and also thrown in for good measure by Christians who swerved left...the rise of the doctrine of good works.
It all came together like a perfect storm to seriously wound the culture I enjoyed.
But we ain’t given up just yet. There’s always politics by other means.
What really sets us apart is we have guns...that is the major difference between us and England...and we still have a lot of folks here who actually truly believe in God in a traditional sense.
We might prevail but I am starting to figure politics might not do it.
Rush says it well in this regard. These folks see America and Western Civilization as one big crime against humanity perpetrated more or less by White Christians ...paraphrased
that is what motivates George Soros or Skip Gates or Debbie Wassermann or any feminist and so forth...
A few blocks from my apartment at that time was a gun store. When the riots started, the owner called all the employees in. They put people on the roof and in the parking lot with shotguns and bandeliers of ammo. The police stopped by, nodded their approval and left. At one point some gangbangers came by and told them to all just walk away. They refused and the store went untouched.
From my selfish point of view, the best part of this was that the next day the liquor store next door was the only place you could buy beer.
I remember reading Oscar Wilde in high school and just loving everything he wrote and the disappointment that followed upon learning that he was such a flaming queer. I'm still able to admire his wit but that admiration is tainted by the knowledge of his personal perversions.
T.E. Lawrence or Quentin Crisp....hohum. Truman Capote - Just another imitator, without the talent, hyped by the same sort of perverts as the aforementioned and for the same reason.
“I kinda disagree. We have seen vids of men in towns and neighborhoods band together to fight back.”
Yes, we have. And who are many of these men? Immigrants.
“They must have confiscated testicles along with the guns...”
Oh, so that’s where Hillary is...
1) A strong belief in the rightness of the predominant social order.
2) A cold-blooded willingness to hang by the neck until dead any man who threatens it.
We don't have these things in the USA any more, either - regardless of how many guns are in NRA members' hands.
Simple. Give every police officer a shotgun and boxes of shells filled with stainless steel birdshot, and blast away until the mobs evaporate.
The next day, cruise the ER’s and arrest everyone with birdshot in their ass, and issue search warrants for stolen property.
If a mobster gets birdshot in the eye or dies of infection hiding from the police, well, that’s the risk ya take when ya wannabee a gangsta...
I’m always amused by this mythical point in time when Britain went from everyone having a gun, to trudging, shoulders slumped, to the police station to hand your weapon in to the government.
Doesn’t matter how many times we explain, it’s still circulated. “Brits were disarmed” “Y’all submitted to gun control” “you pussies shouldn’t have let the government take your guns” etc. etc. etc.
I’m wasting my time typing this, obviously, but once more, for clarification, TO DISARM A PEOPLE THEY HAVE TO BE ARMED IN THE FIRST PLACE.
Strewth.
Exactly, as well as most of the rest of Europe.
"Same could be said for Germany. Germany went from having the typical German man being portrayed as the hard soldier, to becoming Dieter from Sprockets."Germany got what they deserved for their part in WWII.
94% of the UK is still white Anglo Saxon/Celtic.
For the millionth time, self defence is not banned in Britain!. I know, I have had to do it myself.
And the case you refer to was Tony Martin, whose actions were not deemed self defence. Cases like Martin are a tiny tiny minority that have been blown out of proportion. Please stop peddling the myth that there is no law of self defence
Sorry, but thats a new one on me, and I am following the riots on various UK media: print, online, TV and radio.
‘So I used a largely forgotten piece of history that always makes Englishmen blush: After Dunkirk in May of 1940, only the British Navy, an outnumbered British air corps, and about 20 miles of water protected the English people from German invasion. In their retreat back to England, the British forces lost much of their firearms and weaponry; meanwhile, gun-control laws passed after World War I had mostly disarmed British civilians, leaving the English people helpless.’
Then, Mr Miniver, you should have paid more attention because the Dunkirk ‘complete losses’ and Britain being unarmed in summer 1940 are a myth.
‘After relating this history, I told the English shoe salesman that “if your people ever need to protect their freedom again, Americans will be there for you.”’
Patronising w*nk. I’d have punched him.
Not so very different from other countries. When riots happen civilians usually stay indoors and out of the cities if they can. The Koreans who took up arms to defend their property in the 1992 LA riots are memorable because they’re the exception to usual human behavior.
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