“London's burning! London's burning!
London's burning with boredom now
London's burning dial 999”
The Clash
Is it the fact that the rioters are children or the fact that they are English that appalls people the most about the situation in London? Let’s face it; if they were Islamic jihadists the police would be happily bombarding them with teargas and live ammunition. But they aren’t, they are little boys and girls.
When I lived in London back in 2002 it was the children I was scared of. The pizza delivery guys wouldn’t even deliver to our flat in Islington they were so scared of being mugged by 9 year olds. My husband cracked one day as we pulled up to our office to find the bus shelter being vandalised again by a bunch of kids. He grabbed one as the others ran like hell and forced him to clean up the mess.
Yob: “Why me? I wasn’t the only one.”
Husband: “No, but you ran the slowest.”
Instead of relying on the police, it could be time to clean up your own neighbourhood. Take some responsibility for your own children. Unless you've just sent them out to loot because they run faster and you need a new telly?
News reports make full use on the ambiguity of the English language. They are not children when they are rioting and looting, they are youths. Until one is killed and then it reverts to being a child again with all the innocence the word conveys.
Our society’s treatment of under 21s as children is fairly recent. Boys as young as 15 were fighting in the trenches during World War 1. A family member was shooting Nazi soldiers in occupied Holland at the age of 5. This coddling of the young is a new and problematic construct. We bemoan underage sex and forget that Juliet was all of 14.
Perhaps it is time to start empowering our children not disempowering them. Maybe we should bring back apprenticeships? My great-great grandfather was apprenticed at the age of 9 and stood before the mast by the age of 13. If the great social malaise is boredom, cure it. Give the little blighters something to do! Allow teachers to actually teach. They wonder why most university graduates come from their public school system. It’s because they learn something there. You cannot learn from a person who does not hold your respect. English teachers are terrified to go to work. They can’t give a detention without wondering if their car is going to be petrol bombed.
Above all what we need to impart to our children is the importance of responsibility, duty and the old mainstay, the Ten Commandments. I mention these, not because I am a religious zealot, but because these basic tenants appear in all major religions. Cutting them out of education without replacing them with a secular version has left the youth bereft of a moral compass.
The problem is not one of inadequate policing, but of inadequate parenting. We cannot rely on schools and the governments to raise our children. We have to do it. We need to set an example our children can respect. Some of these kids had their moms pick them up to take them home with their ill-gotten gains. Really?
When I found out I was pregnant I did some research in the UK. My well-paying job would just cover full-time child care, while my social services pay-out would cover almost three quarters of my salary and leave me with free time on my hands. Here is a society that rewards underage, unwed pregnancy. At 24 I was considered too old to be pregnant in London. The average age was 16. The more kids you produce the higher your social security payout. Why bother with a high-school education or a job? There are enough immigrants who can’t claim the dole slaving away to add to the coffers of a blatantly lazy population of Brits with a bad case of entitlement.
I've always laughed about British mentality and queues. Try this out. Get two or three friends and stop on the sidewalk in a line. Wait a few minutes and then look behind. Guaranteed there’ll be a bunch of Brits standing in a queue waiting. They like to queue. Hence the looting. One person starts it and everyone queues to get on the action. It helps that there’s no real consequence.
The best quote I have found so far was from a woman who said, “If I have learnt anything from this experience, its that my next phone will be a Blackberry.” Social networking cannot continue to be ignored as a platform for mobilisation be it good or bad. Its time is here and we cannot keep holding on to outdated media as a means of controlling the masses. The crowd mentality loses the individual and becomes a hive mind. In this case the hive mind is taking over.
Soldiers know that you cannot hesitate in a war zone for a child. In Africa, Iraq, Afghanistan, those children are highly trained soldiers who will not hesitate to kill you first and ask questions later. It is time the UK police stopped playing nice and worrying about bad PR, and disciplined these kids the old fashioned way. With luck, you might actually earn their respect.
What we are living through may not herald the hoofbeats of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, but may well be the end of days of Western Civilisation. It won’t be the hoardes who destroy our way of life, but ourselves, through our own capriciousness and greed. It is not democracy that will save us, but leadership. Weak governments, weak teachers and weak parents make for weak children.
"Man has much more to fear from the passions of his fellow-creatures than from the convulsions of the elements.” Gibbons, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
In other news a British woman claims aliens have infiltrated Facebook and MySpace. She was lured to a spot in the woods nearby by an anonymous Facebook email warning her that her boyfriend was cheating on her.
When she arrived she was abducted for 13 days and subjected to anal probes and other intrusive experiments of a sexual nature. What disturbed her the most was their predictions for the end of the world in 2012, mainly, however, she was relived that her boyfriend was not doing the nasty with someone else.
Question: If abducted by aliens and used as a willing sex toy, is that cheating?
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