It probably is a reference to “v for vendetta”, but Alan Moore. I couldn’t find any statement by Moore about the riots, but he is rather left wing, so I don’t expect that he is happy with this.
Alan Moore's original work was about abortion, but was changed to gays in the movie. It was a attempt to twist Big Brother into a right wing totalitarian regime.
No matter, take left wing ideas and use them against them. The Brits have let their elites quickly transform their country by not standing up and resisting.
Also, go watch V for Vendetta for a historical look at the London demographics prior to importing millions. Watching it again recently, that stood out more than anything, just how white the cast was and the absence of people from African and the Sub-continent.
The point is to reject political violence no matter what the cause. John Brown was a terrorist too and his deeds were reprehensible however just his cause.
Depends on a state that can be embarrassed by the conflict between excessive street violence and it's nominal "values". Doubt if that applies to the U.K. anymore.
I sympathize with the anger and frustration of the British (and Irish) working class who've been not only abandoned in and betrayed by their national Elites but disinherited and demonized (often for past sins that they are not responsible for). They (the national Elites) closed the factories, coal mines and shipyards and destroyed entire communities across the UK. Watch Bald and Bankrupt's YouTube videos in the UK and you'll see large parts of that nation have been impoverished and demoralized. Crime, alcoholism and drug abuse are rampant (just like in the Rust Belt and Appalachia or Gary, Indiana or East Saint Louis). Then the Elites added insult to injury and flooded the UK with immigrants who will never assimilate and often see themselves as superior to the natives. All of that is a recipe for social unrest and violence. This has been simmering just under the surface for decades now. It finally boiled over. The brutal murders of three little Native British children finally set it off. This was bound to happen. I know I'm in for a chastising by Paul Kingsworth but somewhere deep down Paul knows too that it was just a matter of time before something like this happened. As someone who always sympathized with Irish Catholics I never thought I'd be saying this but here it goes, "God Save England!"
It's Kingsnorth. And I'm not going to chastise you for pointing out that mass immigration leads to ethnic division and therefore conflict, because I've been saying the same thing myself for years. It's one reason my erstwhile friends and colleagues on the left have taken to calling me 'far right', though I'm not and never have been. I mainly come to this comment section because it makes a change to be called far left instead. ;-)
What I have objected to in your previous comments is your apparent desire for the 'whites' to rise up and 'cleanse' the non-whites from their country. I object to that not only because you're not in or from that country, but also because it's an obviously stupid and dangerous opinion. The great majority of non 'whites' in Britain are nothing to do with machete-wielding Muslim men, just as the great majority of 'whites' are nothing to do with machete-wielding Union Jack waving rioters.
Consider this: everyone is being manipulated here. Manipulated by politicians, the media, social media, and the algorithm. All of that manipulation, on all sides, is pushing us faster and faster towards ethnic and racial conflict. But you are a Christian. And so am I. Therefore you cannot and should not support that. You are obliged - and so am I - to find a Christian way through. If you let yourself be manipulated into 'whites' versus 'immigrants', then I think that the Devil will have got you by the balls. And you are better than that.
Please don't forget that the Lord is both merciful and just. The injustice being enforced upon the UK citizens is untenable. Another factor is that the government is tasked by the Lord to protect and defend the citizens of the nation, not to be a welfare state welcoming invasions by migrants. The government is failing in the God-assigned tasks given to it. The state is not the church nor is it given the same tasks. I am plumb tired of people who excuse the situation with the justification of saying we need to love our neighbor and fail to see the great harm being done to their closest neighbors (fellow citizens). It's as foolish as the man with children who welcomes pedophiles into his home to live with them - all under a distorted understanding of love to justify himself and make himself feel good about himself. Love is both merciful and just. DEI is neither. Love is also not foolish, but wise.
Are you British? Do you live in Britain? I strongly suspect not. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Personally, I am plumb tired of people comparing the ethnic minorities of my country with paedophiles. I am plumb tired of people who claim to be Christians spreading racialised narratives which sweep everybody brown-skinned into the same box because they saw a video on the Internet. I am plumb tired of people using British social divisions as an excuse to introduce us to their opinions about 'DEI.'
As for people who have persuaded themselves that God objects to both welfare states and migrants ... well, words fail me. But perhaps you can point me to the gospel passage in which the Lord expresses his opinion about the importance of market-based healthcare solutions. Perhaps God is a right wing American and I missed the memo.
Please don't respond to a caricature of whatever you imagine my politics or faith to be. I think you are far from the mark, and it doesn't matter anyway. I'm not talking politics here, but the orientation of the mind and the heart. I would have liked many things to have turned out differently in my country, but here we are now. How are we going to react to it, as Christian people? Love is wise, indeed.
Last I checked, it's not a requirement to be British to have opinions about a government allowing uncontrolled mass immigration that is creating havoc for their citizens. The US and the EU nations are suffering under similar unjust and foolish governance. There's a lot more at stake than just the UK. It has become a growing problem for many nations and the growing violent crime is untenable. You and I both know that the Lord is not a right wing American anymore than he is a left-wing Brit. If you don't want feedback to your comments, you may want to choose to not comment. Please do continue to study the good book as will I.
Of course, we can all have any opinions we like. My point was that yours are made in ignorance. You can't judge what life is like on the ground anywhere by looking at videos or reading partisan blog posts, be they left or right. So when you react in a certain way, from a position of ignorance you are, as I suggested, probably being manipulated. I have plenty of opinions myself about American politics, but I don't trust them.
There is a lot of unjust and foolish governance around. The West is coming towards the end of a period of collapse and beginning a period of something else, and it will not be pleasant. Which is why I think we all need to behave in our hearts as we are instructed to, which is to say with love, endless forgiveness and wisdom. Gentle as doves, wise as serpents: that always seemed like a gold standard to me.
I find it interesting that first you judge me to be right wing, and now ignorant plus manipulated. There are a lot of assumptions at play here and the superior view you appear to hold of yourself is a bit breathtaking. Are your opinions of me trustworthy or are you being manipulated by your own biases? Lastly, whose standards of love, endless forgiveness, gentleness, and wisdom have been applied to me here? God's or yours? Perhaps, as a newer convert to Christianity, it might be good for you to realize how little you yet know and that even after a lifetime of living and studying, we will all still know but a drop in the bucket concerning our eternal glorious Lord. That is true of all of us. It never ends.
Susan, please continue to post. It is obvious even to an American like me who has roots in England that Muslim immigration has been a disaster for Britain. Let's be honest, Muslims tend to be violent and they are lazy and they are not tolerant of other people. Would any white person from Europe or America or Canada or Australia or New Zealand want to live in Afghanistan or Iraq or Turkey or Egypt or Pakistan or Bangla-Desh? The immigration of Muslims into Britain is the greatest disaster in British history.
Derek, I need to take exception to your generalization about Muslims. I've known several quite well. Not a large number, but enough to have a generally good impression. The one gentleman, from Palestine, was very devout and serious about his faith, and yet kind to others outside Islam (including me, a Christian).
'Muslims tend to be violent and they are lazy and they are not tolerant of other people.'
There is some irony inherent in this statement. A bit of exaggeration too. 'The greatest disaster in British history'? I'd be putting the Norman Conquest, the Reformation, the Enclosures or the Two World Wars quite some way in front of it myself.
It is deceitful to edit your reply comments instead of answering my replies directly. It is misleading and manipulative and cowardly to do that.. Good grief man. You may fool man but not God. Please don't forget to go to confession tomorrow.
Kingsnorth edited and added this later after my replies:
"Please don't respond to a caricature of whatever you imagine my politics or faith to be. I think you are far from the mark, and it doesn't matter anyway. I'm not talking politics here, but the orientation of the mind and the heart. I would have liked many things to have turned out differently in my country, but here we are now. How are we going to react to it, as Christian people? Love is wise, indeed."
I wasn't being dishonest at all, I was trying to clarify things as I went along. I hadn't seen your reply before I edited mine. You are jumping to unkind and hasty conclusions. Feel free to respond to anything you think I have missed. I've nothing extra to add myself.
If true, I apologize. The editing time on your comment doesn't match your reply here. I also made comments with one reply from you prior to the edit. As for unkind, hasty conclusions, I would point you to your comments to me. I have nothing more to add here.
As an American who has worked for the British, yeah I can relate. it sure is exhausting hearing people who know very little about the reality of your country opine loudly and length about it.
Can you assure yourself that you would write the same things if you and your family weren't living comfortably in rural Ireland but scraping by around a migrant-filled ghetto in Blanchardstown or Coolock?
Sorry I wasn't being specific. Generally the tone of passivity and quietism in your comments. If you're living on a daily basis with the degeneration all around you and don't have the financial means to escape to the country (this is certainly more acute in England than Ireland, though Irish leaders are trying hard up catch up), it can make one feel a bit more militant about these things (whether this attitude is useful or beneficial is certainly an arguable question).
I'll back her up and say it without mincing words. There is little more Christian than facing down a Muslim horde that means to do what they have always done, forever, in every nation where they took power - kill all the men, enslave all the women, and flatten all the churches and build mosques over the ruins.
Now, I am not British. It is up to the British people to decide what to do, not for me to tell them. I am not qualified to opine on British politics in any but the most superficial of ways. So I won't opine on Britain in specific. But if we're going to touch on ancestry and culture, I can trace mine all the way back to 8th century Spain, and I can say this much with confidence - Islam is a plague. It is a creation of the Devil, and to compromise with it in the name of 'Christian mercy' is to suck the black spit right off the Devil's tongue. Crack open any history and it becomes self-evident that there was no mercy to be found in any place where that damned cult reached critical mass. Not (in order) in Persia, Anatolia, Greece, Egypt, Carthage, Gibraltar, Guadalete, Seville, Mérida, Toledo, all the way up to Tours when for the first time they were spoken to in a language they could understand. To compromise with it is to compromise with rape, with theft, with murder, with the mass martyrdom of Christian believers.
And no, it has nothing to do with race - I can guarantee you I'm probably several shades swarthier than you are. It is about opposing a religious and political ideology explicitly created to counter the Gospels, by a creature that in its own books calls itself 'the greatest of Deceivers'.
Lots of conversations to be had about Islam in the West, for sure. But what is happening in the UK at the moment is not about Islam. Muslims are involved in the rioting (and in some cases are victims of it) but they didn't precipitate it. It's a much wider issue than that.
As for Christian mercy - well, you can decide what that means to you. I'm not arguing about Holy Spirit with strangers on the Internet. God will judge us all.
I don't condone violence (except in clear cases of self defense or defense of your family or neighbor who are being threatened with violence) but I do try to understand violence. I used to be very intrigued by The Troubles and tried to understand the history, origins and catalyst/s of the conflict in Northern Ireland. Same with the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Do I have my biases in both conflicts? Yes I do I will admit that, but I can honestly say that I've earnestly tried to understand both sides of these conflicts. I don't blame the immigrants in England for arming themselves. They probably come from nations that understand this kind of violence because sectarianism and tribal tensions and conflict are very much still a thing in South Asia. So I don't blame them for arming themselves but I do understand the anger of "White" working class Britons who very much have legitimate grievances that have been ignored by their own government and mocked and spat upon by their Elites who favor the immigrants over them.
I have watched this situation unfold over the last several decades. Nobody wanted it, plenty of people warned about it, but the political and cultural establishment forged ahead nonetheless. The future, as a result, is like to be bad in many ways. Humans are very good at ethnic conflict, and the British government has introduced it into Britain. Now the consequences are making themselves known.
However, as I said above, it is not 'the immigrants' who are 'arming themselves' but small minorities of mainly male people from certain 'communities'. The same is true amongst the people you call 'Native Britons.' My wife's family come from South Asia, as it happens. She is Sikh, but despite that she demonstrates more Christian love on a daily basis than many Christian commentators I could mention.
The majority of people on all sides do not engage in violence, machete attacks or anything else. All of us, everywhere, can choose how to react. People need to be careful not to draw conclusions from videos. The Internet is not your friend.
In the meantime, as I said, precisely because of the seriousness of what is unfolding, I think that Christians should concentrate on being Christian in their reactions to it. Think about what we say, how we say it and what it might stoke in the real world. This is a test for us. Christians are always tested by hard times. Are we going to pass those tests, or fail?
My wife is Central Asian and Muslim but also she has some very Christian aspects to her character. I know we will be tested. I always thought that test would be persecution but maybe that test could also be the temptation to become persecutors. God willing may we pass the test and still be worthy before the Lord of the title of Christian afterwards.
I think that's very perceptive, and I think this may be what is happening. Or possibly both. Christians are going to be (already increasingly are) regarded with contempt by the rising progressive society. At the same time, the migrations are not going to stop - in fact, I think they are going to accelerate everywhere. So we will be sorely tempted to be defensive, angry, abusive or violent. Me as much as anyone else. My question - and I don't know the answer - is how we can hold to truth and stand up for what is right whilst remaining Christian in our hearts. Standing firm with love. This is the work. If I didn't have the Church to help me I wouldn't stand a chance of getting near it.
P:aul Kingsnorth et al should read St, Bernard of Clairvaux's sermon on Crusades for an alternate perspective to prostrating oneself before every opposing social or political force.
I'm an Orthodox Christian. I take my inspiration from St Moses and St Porphyrios. And from Christ. Not from Western crusaders. The crusades were a catastrophe - not least for the Orthodox Christians who ended up on the end of crusader swords.
DL are any cities competently run? Remember New York’s last white Mayor- Bill DiBlassio. You can’t get worse!Eric Adams is no prize but he’s brilliant in comparison. And we have our new breed Asian mayors in Oakland and Boston who are complete duds.Finally consider the buffoon who’s mayor of Portland Oregon. In general urban America is a political s show.
I am more than glad to admit the incompetence of white mayors like that nitwit in Portland. The emptying out of urban America of all the ethnics has been a disaster for cities. Richard Daley's Chicago was competently run even if he was not much more than a ward-heeler on a gigantic scale. Mayor Impelliterri of 1950s New York City is a giant in comparison to the last two New York mayors.
I do not at all support the white rioting, but I gotta wonder: what did the UK ruling class expect to happen? The British have been steadily, with accelerating speed, having their country taken from them. They've been told by their rulers, in government, media, academia, and so forth, that THEY are the problem if they notice it and object. And now they see their once-peaceful streets overrun with migrant crime and political extremism. Those who feel they have nothing left to lose are not going to respond constructively or politely. This is entirely on the Tories, Labour, and the Establishment, who have sold out the country and its people ... who, it must be said, voted for these bastards, over and over.
Moving to a new society with a new culture is very challenging. People are not fungible. If assimilation is pushed, the newcomers get integrated. However, with multiculturalism, the division does not go away. Instead discomfort increases for all.
Divide and conquer has been successful for a very long time. Elites can rule of the people are divided. It is easier to weaken the middle and lower classes. It is class warfare, with the oligarchs instagating it against everyone else, just like most current economic policy empowers the powerful against the people.
Please review articles on the Rotherham grooming. It is relevant. Diversity is strength is a a hallow cliche.Diversity is fine, up to a point but the West is wholesalely importing and subsidizing a mass migration of people who assert norms antithetical to centuries of western culture. If you think that’s strength, well you do.
The problem to a great extent is assimilation is actually discouraged . Even crazier is you have a mass of people immigrating to countries whose cultures they despise and which they wish to remake along the lines of the countries they left.On top of that , much of this immigration is de facto subsidized by the host countries who extend a wide range of benefits to people who don’t work.So this is not your grandparents immigration.
Could it be that they face little or no consequences for the violence? And maybe their culture doesn’t have a tradition of non-violent protest? Is there a Muslim Ghandi? A Muslim MLK?
There wasn't a Hindu Gandhi or a Christian MLK until Gandhi and MLK either. No-one has a tradition of non-violent protest, until they do.
I also hope that they figure it out and I agree that it's the only way. But it'll also take a much deeper understanding of non-violent protest and everything it involves than a lot of people seem to have. We're seeing some of it, though, with the moves to boycott companies doing business with Israel. That's the crucial second piece, after protest marches.
The third and fourth pieces are the most difficult of all. The third is civil disobedience combined with filling up prisons till their capacity is overwhelmed. This means protesters have to completely stop cooperating with the evil regime: stop paying taxes, stop obeying unjust laws. And be willing to get arrested, stay in jail, and not get bailed out. If you make bail and get released it defeats the purpose.
The fourth is hunger strikes, and a willingness to stand there and be shot at and attacked. Very few can muster this.
Multi culti doesn’t work except in rare cases where not a lot of nonsense is tolerated like Singapore. It doesn’t work here either but we have a lot of land so critical mass has not been reached yet. There’s a reason why support for the 1st amendment is shrinking.
Well, I would say it was multi-racial, but not really multi-cultural. There was an over-arching "American" culture, a civil religion made up of "Protestant, Catholic, Jewish" moral values, or what used to be called "Judeo-Christian" culture. This provided a very loose, but very real unity, based again, very loosely, on the Old and New Testaments of the Bible and the various churches and temples that instantiated these teachings.
Without this, without a shared moral culture, there can be no national unity and no "liberalism." This is how liberalism has failed, the moral and cultural priors that it was based on have been destroyed, mainly by the sexual revolution and the LBGT+ revolution that followed, aided by a heedless, corporate and state oligarchy.
Blood and soil fascism is terrible, but at least it is based in something real, even though the real things--tribe, race, country, place--have been made into dreadful idols.
However, fascism is better than communism, which is based in nothing at all but the will to power and control, and chimerical utopias. Fascist Spain was better than communist Spain would have been. And of course, no there moral
difference between fascist Germany, and the communism of the Soviet Union or Mao's China.
It's a good point about Singapore. There are actually moves in the UK on the political right towards a more Singaporean approach. By that I mean one in which there is zero tolerance for racism, ethnic division, or ethnic pride, patriotism is mandatory, and religion is discouraged. Katharine Birbalsingh, often described as "Britain's strictest headteacher", tends to be held up as the epitome of that approach.
I wrote "discouraged" not "suppressed". I think the idea is that it's seen as at best a foolish hobby. Mind you, I don't know enough about Singapore to comment in detail.
I see this as a people and nation who are fighting to survive. Maybe that's fascist or aspects of it are fascist, but it's also undeniably human. The same thing happened in Palestine when immigrant Jews (mostly from Europe) became the dominant group under the British Mandate. In this case the British Elites are doing the same thing to their own country that their Imperial Forefathers did to Palestine and the Palestinians except the Palestinians in this case are the British people (especially the working class). When one group pushes out another or becomes the dominant force to the expense of another group's power and influence there will be tension and often violence. This was especially true in urban America of the 1960's and 70's. New York City was a prime example of this. Humans don't change. We're the same as we ever were. Some think we've "progressed" or "evolved", but we're still primitive and tribal when you break down this bullshit consumer capitalist veneer. Things become real clear on a prison yard or even in a tough urban school yard. We're not all the same. Divisions are real. People naturally gravitate to other people that are part of their group (or groups they identify with) whether that be racial, ethnic, religious, cultural, political or all of the above. We're the same as we ever were.
You are correct about NYC in the 60s-70s (I was there) but the Palestine situation in the 1918-48 period is entirely different, so drop the comparison. ( I have extended family - Yemenite Jews - who lived there in that period.)
Is it fascist or fascist-adjacent, or did Hitler just suck all the oxygen out of the room? I didn’t come up with that idea on my own. I got it from a quote I stumbled upon by accident on the Internet by Imre Kertész, a Hungarian-Jew and Nobel Prize winner who survived Auschwitz and later Buchenwald, as a teen:
“Europe has produced Hitler, and after Hitler the continent stands there with no arguments: the doors are wide open for Islam.”
Love of one’s homeland transcends abstract ideas. It’s more visceral than that. The importation of foreigners so alien to the native culture and people and at such a rate that it transforms a country at future shock pace violates something deep in the human soul.
If it is mass democracy that compels a society to lie prostrate before demographic displacement, (at a certain point, the details of why this is happening don't really matter, that it is happening is what concentrates) with no effective challenge to the end of one's nation, then even a minority, a minority that is motivated to preserve the nation, has a right - before the eyes of history - to throw off the yoke of such a sick system and do what is necessary. Why should democracy be valorized above all else?
I have immense respect for Victor Orban, Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko. These three men, quite different in personality and the reality of their societies, are entirely focused on doing what is right for their nation. I cannot say this about a single other western political leader. Some national leaders like Starmer, Trudeau and Biden seem obsessed with doing away with their nation as quickly and thoroughly as is possible.
What does facism mean in this context? This is a serious question. We are so used to having opinions slightly to the right of the far left characterized as fascist and “literally Hitler” that the term is meaningless. Democracy seems to have atrophied to a one party system where progressives use all the levers of power to stay in forever through opaque bureaucracies.
Is there an alternative or are all nationalistic movements de facto fascist, low status, and subject to scorn?
One component of fascism is that unholy alliance of big business and big government. (Sound familiar?) For the moment, we still have civil liberties, albeit increasingly eroded, but more of us are figuring out that we are being manipulated by those behind the curtain. Add in big tech and media censorship, and the type of "elections" such as Venezuela just experienced no longer seem such a stretch.
A good question -- I was replying to someone who said "maybe that's fascist" about a reaction to some recent events.
I agree with historians who distinguish between fascism and National Socialism. Hitler and Mussolini did reach a pact with each other, but were never entirely comfortable with it. Hitler considered Mussolini a romantic incompetent, which in many ways he was. Mussolini, initially trying to revive the Glories of Rome, moved his military at one point to opposed Hitler's threat to annex Austria. Fascism is a term Mussolini invented when he broke with the Italian socialist party. (Nobody ever accused Hitler of having previously been a socialist, despite the name of his party, which predated his taking the reins.) The idea was a balance of the working class, the capitalist class, and representatives of The Nation as a whole forming the basis of government. Some Italian immigrant American IWW organizers went back to Italy because it sounded like the syndicalism they had been advocating.
Palestine was almost entirely empty until the end of the 19th Century. There are a plethora of sources for this, but the most fun is Mark Twain's "The Innocents Abroad." The reason the Ottoman Empire was happy to let the Jews settle in Palestine was because there was no one there -- no one. Look at pictures of the area in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. The place was empty. When the returning Jews started building it up, the Arabs poured in too.
Have you been reading Joan Peters' From Time Immemorial? Its thesis, that the Palestinians were but recent arrivals in the Holy Land, has been proven false by scholars in and outside Israel. The book remains popular, however.
"Time Immemorial" is just one book, and as I recall, it overestimated the Jewish population. As you see, I named two other sources, Twain's "The Innocents Abroad," about a trip in the late 1860's, and photographs from the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, which are all over the web. There are numerous other sources.
The book I recommend is "Enemies and Neighbors" by Ian Black. I grew up as a devoted fan of Israel, per presentation in the movie Exodus. I had developed a sense that this was not the complete story, and I still oppose any efforts to dismantle Israel. But Black documents quite thoroughly (check his sources, don't take his prose as the final word in itself) that there were both settled cities and agricultural villages, that a good deal of land was indeed occupied. One cause of friction even before the massive post-Nazi migration is that Zionists bought property on which they intended to settle, from minor quasi-feudal landowners who had tenants. The tenants had an ancient traditional understanding that if someone bought the land, that merely changed who they paid rent to. So when the Zionists wanted them to move, it was a breach of tradition, custom, not to mention a grave difficulty to people who couldn't just rent somewhere else -- it wasn't a free and open market. Also, while its true that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem was whipping up a genocidal storm with the aid of fugitive Nazis, the Palmach didn't limit itself to brave defensive operations -- they cleared the population out of Arabic-speaking villages, the better to open more land for Jewish settlement when an armistice was signed.
I've been talking about the late-19th to early-20th Century, and the book you mentioned picks up right after that. As far as the period since, I would never deny that things grew increasingly complex and there was conflict, misunderstanding and violence from both sides. You know, though, that starting in 1914, there was horrible violence, genocide, warfare, oppression and the destruction of major parts of several continents. Palestine was no exception, and compared to what was going on all around it, got off better than most. There were huge movements of peoples and nations; old countries disappeared and regions underwent massive demographic changes. What happened in Palestine, then in Israel, cannot be separated into some isolated bubble from the rest of what was happening in the world. You, and pretty much everyone else aside from the Jews themselves, are unaware that the Jews in the Arab lands lost everything and were forced to go to Israel to start a new life, abandoning places they had lived in for centuries. They mourn, but they do what the other millions and millions did after the First and Second War (and every other war in human history): get on with their lives and make the best of it, not go around slaughtering innocent people in a war they can never win, while letting their own people rot.
If you missed that the book I mentioned encompasses people who had been settled for centuries in what became the British Mandate of Palestine, then your tunnel vision blinds you to inconvenient facts. Of course what happened in the region cannot be separated from what was happening in the world -- but nothing happening in the world left a vacant and unsettled land for people to move into. It is not accurate to state that anything happened to "the Jews." There were a handful of European Ashkenazi Jews who formed the Zionist Congress and sent small numbers of people to develop agricultural settlements by permission of the Ottoman Empire. There were a somewhat larger but still small number who arrived after the British took control of the League of Nations Mandate labeled Palestine. None of them had "lost everything." They confidently expected a better life free of European assimilation, and had resources to make the move and settle down. After WW II, of course, European Jews were survivors of Nazi genocide, and had basically decided to have done with assimilation on Europe, for obvious reasons. Then there were north African and middle eastern Sephardic Jews who had no interest in Zionism, but were labeled an enemy fifth column after Israel was founded, and had to flee there. Making up self serving myths is no substitute for facts.
It's not that you're wrong, it's that you're dealing in partial truths, sometimes very partial, until the end, when you glibly say the Arab Jews "were labeled an enemy fifth column after Israel was founded, and had to flee there." Sure, okay...let's then say the Palestinian Arabs "were labeled an enemy fifth column after Israel was founded, and had to flee there." Hmm...Will you accept that and then we'll just let the whole matter drop? I think not.
Omgsh you never stop with this. British whites are unlikely to start lopping off heads and gouging eyes and setting fire to newborns. There’s a reason their neighbors won’t take them in because they are troublemakers. It’s not equivalent
RE: "People naturally gravitate to other people that are part of their group (or groups they identify with) whether that be racial, ethnic, religious, cultural, political or all of the above. We're the same as we ever were."
This, 100%. People like people who LIKE them and people who ARE LIKE them. That's human nature—or tribalism. Take your pick. Either way it's reflexive and really not changeable at the level of instinct. A society's leaders can change behaviors by brute force or less violent means of control, but behavior is downstream of instinct, which cannot be rooted out of human nature.
"Whatever became of the Gilets Jaunes in France? Of the Truckers in Canada? The system suppressed them. It’s going to happen in Britain too."
But movements like this will keep popping up specifically because you can't make people outsiders in their own country and not expect reaction. So Britain grasps for "equity" with two-tiered policing and two-tiered policing makes all this infinitely worse - it's the root of the problem.
And the elites don't get it, think they can suppress it all by stifling the media (whose only mode of reporting on issues like this is "RACISM!!!" anyway) and by forcefully going after one side and one side only of the protests.
Do we not see that approach is not going to work? With those immigration numbers, Britain lit the fuse. The bomb's gonna blow.
Some anti-social activity should be suppressed. "If men were angels, government would not be necessary." -- James Madison. The hard part is figuring out which activity is anti-social, who can be trusted to wield what state powers, when a train of what usurpations have become too much to bear, and when is it an uprising rather than a riot? Also, and most crucially, under what banner do we rise, and how do we know the leadership will deliver as promised?
Whether it's an uprising or a riot depends on which side you're on. And as of now there is no banner - it's all uncoordinated, organic. But as that implies the seeds of discontent are the same, and have been sown everywhere. It's the global elite vs the plebs, the governing class vs. the governed, the "enlightened" vs. the deplorables. Really, same as it ever was.
No, whether its an uprising or a riot does not depend on which side you're on. Whether its an uprising or a riot depends on whether the hold on power of the current government is threatened by a viable alternative, or whether a worrisome level of violence is perpetrated and a modest fraction of the population in certain localities temporarily loses the protection of legal norms. Riots are not always perpetrated by the plebs either. F'rinstance, the original Ku Klux Klan wore masks (sheets and hoods were not uniform) because they were the pillars of the community, and if recognized could have been easily located and arrested.
The state does though get away with through its monopoly use of power. There may be sporadic riots but they are the losers, throwing their tantrums in the hope of being heard.
Not one word that this violent mob attacked a house of worship that had nothing to do with anything? Many words for Muslim men carrying machetes, instead -- arguably not the best way to respond to the attack on the mosque, but what would you recommend?
What was the crime of the Southport mosque and its congregants, just existing?
More people praise God every day in British mosques than in all their churches put together. Did the Muslim immigrants empty the churches? Have they ever attacked one?
Well, they really didn't vote for the bastards. Only the uni-party was on offer. There was not a damns worth of difference between Blair and Cameron, for example. Only Labour and Labour Lite. Only clubbable London elites. No genuine, "Britain First," national conservatism.
Same is true here, until Trump came along and upset the uni-party apple cart, and drove out the Bushes, Cheneys, Romneys, etc. who were rightly seen as "let's just go a little bit slower" Democrats. I hate Trump, but his destruction of the old GOP was needed and salutary. Maybe because of that, our nation, unlike Britain, can be saved. Or at least our perhaps inevitable destruction delayed somewhat.
The pace of change has been accelerating. I spent some time in North East England last summer, and I was shocked to see how much demographic change had taken place (in the working class areas of course) since my previous visit several years before.
The ruling class has decided to flood Britain with the third world---net migration from 2010 to the present has been more than from 1066 to 2010---and the working classes, who struggle to find adequate and affordable homes, doctors, dentists, transport and schools as the price for the "benefit" of losing the cultural cohesion and security of their towns (oh but look! more kebab shops!), are told to submit or face the consequences.
Interesting. I was just reading reports on The Economist of “far-right violence” due to “misinformation” about the original attacker’s place of birth and nationality. But no word about the rest of the story.
Because "Hitler" is always the trump card. Candidate even a smidgen on the right seems to be gaining ground? Hitler. Native population objects to massive levels if immigration? Hitler.
"Yes things suck but the only alternative is HITLER so we must keep pushing left."
But maybe in all this we see how Hitler came to power in the first place.
Kinda sorta. I learned some historical analysis about forty years ago which has stuck with me, that the "United Front Against Fascism" was an error, due to the inconvenient fact that the German Social-Democratic Party (SPD) was the Establishment, the architects of the Weimar Republic. Inchoate public dissatisfaction is not particularly ideological, people just want relief, and want to reject those in power to protest that life is not as it should be. Communists can take up that banner, so can Nazis, fascists (not exactly the same thing), even liberal nationalists, and a lot of other options. It would not be inaccurate to say that people who were looking for "Hope and Change" rejected Weimar, and the old line Catholic Center, as well as the Junker alliance of industrial monopolists, feudal nobility and the military caste, and turned to Hitler not out of strong ideological commitment, but as an Anti-Establishment Voice.
Of course another lesson of history is that Hitler knew how fragile his coalition was and how powerful the military and Junkers remained, so he purged his (relatively) left wing (Ernst Rohm, the SA, the Strasser Brothers), cut his deal with the entrenched establishment. The lesson for them was, once Hitler was firmly in power, he could have the SS arrest a few military officers and overwhelm the others, and, since he re-armed and delivered victories, they found it sensible to go along.
"turned to Hitler not out of strong ideological commitment, but as an Anti-Establishment Voice"
Bingo. So what we see now is yet another flavor of this, establishment - the elite, the highly educated and woke, the neoconservative "learn to code" and "diversity is our strength" crowd vs. those who have to live with the practical effects of that attitude and those policies.
I mostly agree. I think the best possible resolution would come from a meat and potatoes socialist alternative, not from a hard right turn, or even the opportunistic populism of Donald Trump. I figure those who just barely continue to vote Democrat because Trump, or even McConnell, plus those who voted for Obama and then Sanders and then Trump, would be the kernel of what could become a 55-60 percent majority, IF we can shut down the culture wars. Not declare victory for any faction, just shut it down.
I agree on the socialism, if it meant the defenestration of the monopolies in media, tech, pharma, ag, finance and banks, education, and the federal government. But the the whole life of the "left," who have completely abandoned social class analysis for "cultural marxism" is based on prosecuting the culture war forever. So this is a vain dream.
I lived in the UK for four years, so all this news makes me really sad, but it was also so predictable. Brexit was already a reaction against uncontrolled mass immigration, coupled with authorities completely ignoring the need for investment in additional public services and infrastructure to cater for the additional millions that have made the UK their home.
Just in the time I lived there, London's population went from 7 million to 9 million, with zero investment in additional housing, schools, transportation, hospitals, etc... Of course every time locals complained about this, they were painted as racist, but that was much more difficult to do, when most of the migrants were white Europeans. So, Brexit became inevitable, due to mostly the above situation and Brits thought they would finally get some relief from mass immigration and would get the chance to integrate the ten million or so migrants that came to the UK in the preceding decades. Alas, the Tories just opened the gates to non-European immigration instead, such as by giving Hong Kong citizens an automatic right of residence in Britain and continuing the various visa scams (such as student visas) that allowed Indians especially to enter the UK through the back door.
Now we are seeing the results of this and the British people are finally revolting. It is unfortunate that the trigger was a mass murder rampage by a Christian Rwandan who was born in Wales and is therefore not even an immigrant, but it was the spark that lit the fuse and we are now seeing real community tensions flare up, mostly between non-Muslims and Muslims.
To me, this is clearly not even that much about immigration but the Islamic takeover, which the Left, for some unknown reason supports, despite being diametrically opposed to everything Islam stands for. I'm guessing it is the authoritarian, anti-free speech, collectivist streak in Islam that appeals to them, but who knows.
What we've been witnessing is not a direct Islamic takeover, true enough. However, given the West's embrace of Islamic migration alongside Islamic nations' lack of reciprocity, it certainly feels like Islamic expansion by another name. That name is the D-word.
Islamists demand "diversity" across the West but not in any nations controlled by Islam. Do any of the latter even have diversity as an ideal to aspire to, much less an aim to actively pursue? Who are they, then, to demand it of others?
They recognise that they and Islam have a common enemy---what remains of Western civilization. When that enemy is no more, then they will turn on each other.
They might turn on each other, but the Islamists will destroy them quickly and without mercy if they do not submit to Sharia and dhimmitude, willingly or not. See "Submission."
Could it also be an effort to undermine national and Western traditions? From there, the elite can establish their new order. Of course, using Islam as a tool, they truly have the wolf by the ears.
I think for a lot of the left it's that they've been told they must not discriminate against Muslims repeatedly, that they need to respect them in the name of diversity, and the Hijab wearing girl they had class with seemed nice.
I'm not surprised, but it's taken years. I've been paying some attention to what's been happening over there since Tommy Robinson hit the scene some 15 years ago. Back in 2010 I travelled back to NYC to attend the huge protest against the proposed Ground Zero mosque. Allan West and Geert Wilders were among the speakers. I met a few guys from the EDL (Tommy's English Defense League )who were there as well.
You shove enough sh&t down the throats of your citizens and go with two tier policing and justice and it's just a matter of time. What I don't agree with is the vandalization of stores, likely owned by innocent blokes with the same concerns as the rioters. Bad targets. Try the politicians' neighborhoods and the elite 's institutions.
The Guardian is full of articles calling on the Starmer government to bring the hammer down on free speech and "rein in" Elon Musk's X in particular.
People in Britain are already arrested regularly for things they post online. Expect this surveillance and thoughtcrime regime to grow in scope and severity.
The Guardian is not that influential and is certainly not credible. Read it for the entertainment value and then let it go. And don't send them you money...
Meanwhile a group of Pakistani immigrants in Rotherham were allowed to groom and rape young white working class British girls and little (if anything) was done for fear of offending the "Moslem community". Started in the 1990's. Tell me again how Tony Blair was a great PM? I'll wait.
In my most wicked moments I fantasize about a hypersonic Khinzal missile detonating over NATO or EU headquarters in Brussels -- in the wee hours of the morning, of course. But that would surely mean the deaths of innocent working class and immigrant cleaning ladies, and not the technocrats in their smart suits.
I despise the European political class and I despise NATO. Unfortunately, if Trump is elected, he'll do nothing because NATO and G-7 conferences get him on television. That's vital to Trump.
One of Blair's political slave boys said he wanted to forced diversity on Britain and rub diversity into the faces of all Tories. Sad to say, half the elected Tories heartily approve including the morons who have inhabited 10 Downing. What a stupid party the Tories are!!!!!!!!!!!!1
Derek, We don't agree on everything but I do agree with you on that. The Tories have squandered their time in office and failed, in every way from what I can see, to deliver on their promises. BoJo is at best a clown, and a corrupt one at that, whose head was turned by his second wife.
Perhaps Richard. I know lots of women that make decisions more even-handedly. We posit that those of us that have had to either run businesses or manage teams with bottom line responsibility can think through these issues without being unduly influenced by emotion and propaganda.
Quote: "The anger of the British people should be turned primarily against the politicians and the media who created this crisis..."
Rod, I know what you mean here, but please be careful. I fully expect anger to be turned primarily against the ruling class, but it won't be pretty when it happens. People can only be suppressed and pushed around so much until they really erupt.
Rod is beginning to learn what it felt like to be Robespierre. That may sound harsh, but, while Rod adores the ancien regime and the resistance in the Vendee, Rod is now up against a corrupt self-serving ruling class he despises. His tone is not much different than the tone of the Jacobins against the ruling class they despised.
"Rod is beginning to learn what it felt like to be Robespierre." Hmmm...that may just a tad too far gone. Rod writes what he thinks, but I don't think he operates a guillotine...maybe for stale bread slicing?
Fair point. I'm not accusing Rod of advocating use of a guillotine. Robespierre's first obsession was Virtue. Eventually he moved to, 'Virtue, without which terror has no purpose, and Terror, without which Virtue has no force.' Single quotes -- not sure I have all the words quite right. Nobody who convened the National Assembly anticipate vicious factional quarrels in which thousands would be slaughtered. The analogy is developing antipathy to the ruling elite, and even being willing to express limited sympathy for rioters. I think Rod's son may have been on to something when he suggested that Robespierre was likely an aspie.
“Shameless far-right yobs wreak havoc on shops, burn library.”
Changes lens in camera, then …
“Mostly peaceful protests were seen across the UK yesterday as citizens demanded an end to two-tiered policing and systemically biased government media.”
More coffee more thought: My colonial ancestors came to the same conclusion: the only way to deal with the British government was violence. We romanticize the Revolution, but it was terrible and it tore families apart. My family has a Canadian branch because we didn’t all agree on taking up arms. I imagine the fits and starts of the first half of the 1770s were just as horrific as these photos…save for there being modern Turks, not Redcoats.
The Revolution (with a few scattered atrocities as exceptions) was fought by the rules of war as then understood. I don't think there was any urban rioting associated with it (the Boston Tea Party maybe?)
Banastre Tarleton was most definitely not a revolutionary, nor was he leading a riotous mob. He was a loyal soldier of the king, doing what many advocate should be done to lawless mobs, which is what he considered even the most well-disciplined force of armed men disloyal to the king. He did it in what he considered a disciplined manner. His departure from the laws of war was not extending the usual courtesies to what was generally a disciplined military force under a chain of command.
Battle of Waxhaw Creek...it is not obvious that he was guilty of having led the massacre; in fact historical accounts suggest he has lost control of his troops. Either way, it was a horrifying event. The revolutionary war was a brutal and horrid affair. The French probably were the difference makers for us.
Tarleton was quite consistent throughout his deployment in America. Waxhaw Creek was the best known and most vicious example, probably the largest scale confrontation. Then he went home to sit in Parliament as an advocate of the slave trade and an opponent of William Wilberforce. (I enjoy their confrontations in the movie "Amazing Grace," although I take the historical background to the script with a grain of salt -- Charles Fox is portrayed accusing Wilberforce of near-treason with regard to our Revolution, when in fact Fox was thrown out of a party in London early in the war after offering a toast to George Washington.)
They were. Loyalists (or Tories) were not treated kindly, and many fled, losing all their property. Others were able to emigrate to Canada and take their slaves with them. The difference between a revolution and a riot is whether forces coalesce that can fill the vacuum as a functional government, and supply a revolutionary army.
To be sure. The Bahamas were a Spanish possession until the southern Tories got themselves over to seize it. Since Spain was an ally of France against Britain, while refusing to actually ally with any power's rebellious American colonies, they were fair game.
The Bible says that one must obey Caesar. Obviously, that is not absolute; it clearly did not apply to the command to worship idols, and one can also find other extreme cases in which it did not apply, but a mildly unjust tax regime is not one of those.
US independence delayed the abolition of slavery, and worsened the treatment of Native Americans. It also enshrined the nonsense about "rights" in world discourse, and had a negative impact, as a model, on political developments in Europe.
Kings aren't really all that kosher. God granted Israel a king only reluctantly-- and beginning with Saul the kings of Israel and Judea were more a problem than a boon.
I don't support absolute monarchy, because I believe in Original Sin, and therefore oppose all absolute power, and think there have to be interlocking, cross-cutting systems of checks and balances. However, I do support the existence of a king who is not elected, and has the ability to wield actual power, judiciously, in extreme circumstances, by virtue of holy chrismation.
However, in relation to the American Rebels, that is not really my point, which would have applied even had Britain been a republic in 1777.
In principle I could support a constitutional monarchy where the monarch would have actual political power only in extraordinary circumstances but otherwise would exercise ceremonial functions. I say "in principle" because that's something our culture in the US is decidedly out of sync with (and has been been for centuries) and it would not work here.
Father I think we're about the same age (I'm 70). I grew up in the sixties and have spent much of my life detesting street violence. But your question is a good one.
I’m actually mid 40s, but get called a boomer all the time. I’m still grumpy about the so called Renaissance. It’s hard to a traditional leaning Catholic and be happy with anything post WW1.
EXACTLY. You said it much more succinctly than I would have. No sane person would be in favor of riots, rebellions or war, but sometimes it's the only option.
From the BBC this morning: A few hundred anti-fascist demonstrators gathered near Liverpool’s Lime Street station at lunchtime, calling for unity and tolerance, chanting “refugees are welcome here” and “Nazi scum, off our streets”.
Any summary reduced to a single sentence like that is going to be grossly distorted. Unfortunately, people don't have the patience for a full paragraph.
Indeed as Matt Goodwin said- what did they expect to happen? What do the rest of the western leadership expect to happen? Tommy Robinson’s documentary about the two tested justice system in Britain is true. As it is elsewhere in the west. What did they expect?
I've said this before. Before retirement I was often in the U.K. on business, and my routine was to take a walk the first day so I'd be good and tired that night. The last time I was there, February 2019, I walked quite a ways down the Edgware Road, starting right at Marble Arch. I suppose I walked a mile and a half up before changing the route to get to my hotel. It was completely Islamic. I mean, except for the climate you could have been in Quetta.
Indeed. It happened to us when we stayed in a Midland City. Immigrants and homeless people everywhere. On the continent Africans and Arabs shoving tat in your face.
There is a turning point here that I never saw in previous ‘right-wing’ protests in the West - police officers being beaten, being called traitors, being in short recognized as the agents of the repressive regime by the same people most inclined to ‘back the blue’. Jan 6, the Truckers - those were people who supported and treated with respect the same police officers who would go on to knock down their doors in the middle of the night. Not this time. That’s huge.
Yeah, its quite the hypocritical contradiction. I almost justified the most extreme "Defund the Police" line. What becomes evident here is people who "Back the Badge" as long as they leave me along and are brutal to people I don't appreciate, but they are "blue fascists" if they ever, ever, ever get in MY way.
I will "Back the Blue" up until they become a tool of a coercive police-state. It's already happening in the UK and the EU and we see the beginnings of it here in the US with:
Mass surveillance
Facial-recognition
Digital currency
Censorship in various forms
Left-wing media propaganda
Willful destruction of long-standing cultural norms
a creeping Two-tiered justice system
Lawfare
Show-trials
Early-morning raids by the FBI
Political assassination attempts
Open-Borders in defiance of existing immigration laws
Governance by un-elected and over-educated elites, aided by NGO, Non-profits, Woke Academia, Left-wing media, all in the service of a Globalist Billionaire Oligarchy.
I used to consider the FBI a tool of an oppressive state. But I've learned that while it did indulge in ill-considered measured like COINTELPRO, most of its agents spend most of their time protecting us from oppressive criminal gangs who would be only too happy to dominate any territory they could. Also, even the eminence grise, J. Edgar Hoover, refused to be the political tool of either Johnson or Nixon.
Hoover had a ton of dirt on JFK, LBJ, Nixon, etc., but then again they knew a few things about what was hidden in his closet. In the end, it all balanced out.
There’s nothing hypocritical or contradictory about it. The police should be brutal to child killers, drug addicts and thieves, and it should leave regular working people alone. And if it fails to do so, if indeed it does the exact opposite it should face the wrath of the public. Only somebody with a deeply inverted set of values -or who simply takes pleasure in seeing ‘oppressed’ criminals terrorizing the ‘bourgeoisie’- would suggest otherwise.
To claim there is nothing hypocritical about it requires agreement on fundamental rules that apply to everyone. That is not in evidence here. People claiming the Jan 6 invasion was just a few tourists looking around exceed the Black Liberation Army for blatant rationalizations.
Police should not be brutal to child killers, drug addicts and thieves. Police should use any force necessary to apprehend people when there is probable cause that they have killed anyone (child or older), or stolen from other people. The reason we have a presumption of innocence is, the police may, or may not, have a guilty party, and its up to the courts to determine that. What condition should be maintained in prisons is a whole other conversation.
Criminals seldom terrorize the bourgeoisie. Criminals look for soft targets, not people able to afford extensive security apparatus and keep their money in difficult to extract holding patterns.
He'll have to show some dispassionate equal opportunity prosecution. Look for a few Muslim men to be in the dock too.
Time for the British majority to buy a lot of Guy Fawkes masks and make their will known before the UK goes full Big Brother.
Guy Fawkes was a would-be terrorist, not a freedom-fighter.
It probably is a reference to “v for vendetta”, but Alan Moore. I couldn’t find any statement by Moore about the riots, but he is rather left wing, so I don’t expect that he is happy with this.
At least in the movie the victims of the regime are homosexuals and Muslims, so yes I don't know where he'd land on this.
Alan Moore's original work was about abortion, but was changed to gays in the movie. It was a attempt to twist Big Brother into a right wing totalitarian regime.
No matter, take left wing ideas and use them against them. The Brits have let their elites quickly transform their country by not standing up and resisting.
Also, go watch V for Vendetta for a historical look at the London demographics prior to importing millions. Watching it again recently, that stood out more than anything, just how white the cast was and the absence of people from African and the Sub-continent.
Yaaawwwwwnnn........
And the masks are to celebrate his execution.
missing the point.
The point is to reject political violence no matter what the cause. John Brown was a terrorist too and his deeds were reprehensible however just his cause.
True. And he failed. Why not emulate MLK or Ghandi?
Depends on a state that can be embarrassed by the conflict between excessive street violence and it's nominal "values". Doubt if that applies to the U.K. anymore.
They already do that -- every Fifth of November.
https://news.sky.com/watch-live
Features live coverage of the riots. No paywall.
I sympathize with the anger and frustration of the British (and Irish) working class who've been not only abandoned in and betrayed by their national Elites but disinherited and demonized (often for past sins that they are not responsible for). They (the national Elites) closed the factories, coal mines and shipyards and destroyed entire communities across the UK. Watch Bald and Bankrupt's YouTube videos in the UK and you'll see large parts of that nation have been impoverished and demoralized. Crime, alcoholism and drug abuse are rampant (just like in the Rust Belt and Appalachia or Gary, Indiana or East Saint Louis). Then the Elites added insult to injury and flooded the UK with immigrants who will never assimilate and often see themselves as superior to the natives. All of that is a recipe for social unrest and violence. This has been simmering just under the surface for decades now. It finally boiled over. The brutal murders of three little Native British children finally set it off. This was bound to happen. I know I'm in for a chastising by Paul Kingsworth but somewhere deep down Paul knows too that it was just a matter of time before something like this happened. As someone who always sympathized with Irish Catholics I never thought I'd be saying this but here it goes, "God Save England!"
It's Kingsnorth. And I'm not going to chastise you for pointing out that mass immigration leads to ethnic division and therefore conflict, because I've been saying the same thing myself for years. It's one reason my erstwhile friends and colleagues on the left have taken to calling me 'far right', though I'm not and never have been. I mainly come to this comment section because it makes a change to be called far left instead. ;-)
What I have objected to in your previous comments is your apparent desire for the 'whites' to rise up and 'cleanse' the non-whites from their country. I object to that not only because you're not in or from that country, but also because it's an obviously stupid and dangerous opinion. The great majority of non 'whites' in Britain are nothing to do with machete-wielding Muslim men, just as the great majority of 'whites' are nothing to do with machete-wielding Union Jack waving rioters.
Consider this: everyone is being manipulated here. Manipulated by politicians, the media, social media, and the algorithm. All of that manipulation, on all sides, is pushing us faster and faster towards ethnic and racial conflict. But you are a Christian. And so am I. Therefore you cannot and should not support that. You are obliged - and so am I - to find a Christian way through. If you let yourself be manipulated into 'whites' versus 'immigrants', then I think that the Devil will have got you by the balls. And you are better than that.
Thank you!!!
Cheers!
Hear, hear!
Thank you for not emulating the rest of the online world and writing "Here, here!"
LOL -- did not know that was a thing.
Please don't forget that the Lord is both merciful and just. The injustice being enforced upon the UK citizens is untenable. Another factor is that the government is tasked by the Lord to protect and defend the citizens of the nation, not to be a welfare state welcoming invasions by migrants. The government is failing in the God-assigned tasks given to it. The state is not the church nor is it given the same tasks. I am plumb tired of people who excuse the situation with the justification of saying we need to love our neighbor and fail to see the great harm being done to their closest neighbors (fellow citizens). It's as foolish as the man with children who welcomes pedophiles into his home to live with them - all under a distorted understanding of love to justify himself and make himself feel good about himself. Love is both merciful and just. DEI is neither. Love is also not foolish, but wise.
Are you British? Do you live in Britain? I strongly suspect not. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Personally, I am plumb tired of people comparing the ethnic minorities of my country with paedophiles. I am plumb tired of people who claim to be Christians spreading racialised narratives which sweep everybody brown-skinned into the same box because they saw a video on the Internet. I am plumb tired of people using British social divisions as an excuse to introduce us to their opinions about 'DEI.'
As for people who have persuaded themselves that God objects to both welfare states and migrants ... well, words fail me. But perhaps you can point me to the gospel passage in which the Lord expresses his opinion about the importance of market-based healthcare solutions. Perhaps God is a right wing American and I missed the memo.
Please don't respond to a caricature of whatever you imagine my politics or faith to be. I think you are far from the mark, and it doesn't matter anyway. I'm not talking politics here, but the orientation of the mind and the heart. I would have liked many things to have turned out differently in my country, but here we are now. How are we going to react to it, as Christian people? Love is wise, indeed.
Last I checked, it's not a requirement to be British to have opinions about a government allowing uncontrolled mass immigration that is creating havoc for their citizens. The US and the EU nations are suffering under similar unjust and foolish governance. There's a lot more at stake than just the UK. It has become a growing problem for many nations and the growing violent crime is untenable. You and I both know that the Lord is not a right wing American anymore than he is a left-wing Brit. If you don't want feedback to your comments, you may want to choose to not comment. Please do continue to study the good book as will I.
Of course, we can all have any opinions we like. My point was that yours are made in ignorance. You can't judge what life is like on the ground anywhere by looking at videos or reading partisan blog posts, be they left or right. So when you react in a certain way, from a position of ignorance you are, as I suggested, probably being manipulated. I have plenty of opinions myself about American politics, but I don't trust them.
There is a lot of unjust and foolish governance around. The West is coming towards the end of a period of collapse and beginning a period of something else, and it will not be pleasant. Which is why I think we all need to behave in our hearts as we are instructed to, which is to say with love, endless forgiveness and wisdom. Gentle as doves, wise as serpents: that always seemed like a gold standard to me.
I find it interesting that first you judge me to be right wing, and now ignorant plus manipulated. There are a lot of assumptions at play here and the superior view you appear to hold of yourself is a bit breathtaking. Are your opinions of me trustworthy or are you being manipulated by your own biases? Lastly, whose standards of love, endless forgiveness, gentleness, and wisdom have been applied to me here? God's or yours? Perhaps, as a newer convert to Christianity, it might be good for you to realize how little you yet know and that even after a lifetime of living and studying, we will all still know but a drop in the bucket concerning our eternal glorious Lord. That is true of all of us. It never ends.
Susan, please continue to post. It is obvious even to an American like me who has roots in England that Muslim immigration has been a disaster for Britain. Let's be honest, Muslims tend to be violent and they are lazy and they are not tolerant of other people. Would any white person from Europe or America or Canada or Australia or New Zealand want to live in Afghanistan or Iraq or Turkey or Egypt or Pakistan or Bangla-Desh? The immigration of Muslims into Britain is the greatest disaster in British history.
Derek, I need to take exception to your generalization about Muslims. I've known several quite well. Not a large number, but enough to have a generally good impression. The one gentleman, from Palestine, was very devout and serious about his faith, and yet kind to others outside Islam (including me, a Christian).
'Muslims tend to be violent and they are lazy and they are not tolerant of other people.'
There is some irony inherent in this statement. A bit of exaggeration too. 'The greatest disaster in British history'? I'd be putting the Norman Conquest, the Reformation, the Enclosures or the Two World Wars quite some way in front of it myself.
It is deceitful to edit your reply comments instead of answering my replies directly. It is misleading and manipulative and cowardly to do that.. Good grief man. You may fool man but not God. Please don't forget to go to confession tomorrow.
Kingsnorth edited and added this later after my replies:
"Please don't respond to a caricature of whatever you imagine my politics or faith to be. I think you are far from the mark, and it doesn't matter anyway. I'm not talking politics here, but the orientation of the mind and the heart. I would have liked many things to have turned out differently in my country, but here we are now. How are we going to react to it, as Christian people? Love is wise, indeed."
I wasn't being dishonest at all, I was trying to clarify things as I went along. I hadn't seen your reply before I edited mine. You are jumping to unkind and hasty conclusions. Feel free to respond to anything you think I have missed. I've nothing extra to add myself.
If true, I apologize. The editing time on your comment doesn't match your reply here. I also made comments with one reply from you prior to the edit. As for unkind, hasty conclusions, I would point you to your comments to me. I have nothing more to add here.
As an American who has worked for the British, yeah I can relate. it sure is exhausting hearing people who know very little about the reality of your country opine loudly and length about it.
If people all stopped doing that the Internet would probably collapse.
Can you assure yourself that you would write the same things if you and your family weren't living comfortably in rural Ireland but scraping by around a migrant-filled ghetto in Blanchardstown or Coolock?
What things in particular?
Sorry I wasn't being specific. Generally the tone of passivity and quietism in your comments. If you're living on a daily basis with the degeneration all around you and don't have the financial means to escape to the country (this is certainly more acute in England than Ireland, though Irish leaders are trying hard up catch up), it can make one feel a bit more militant about these things (whether this attitude is useful or beneficial is certainly an arguable question).
I'll back her up and say it without mincing words. There is little more Christian than facing down a Muslim horde that means to do what they have always done, forever, in every nation where they took power - kill all the men, enslave all the women, and flatten all the churches and build mosques over the ruins.
Now, I am not British. It is up to the British people to decide what to do, not for me to tell them. I am not qualified to opine on British politics in any but the most superficial of ways. So I won't opine on Britain in specific. But if we're going to touch on ancestry and culture, I can trace mine all the way back to 8th century Spain, and I can say this much with confidence - Islam is a plague. It is a creation of the Devil, and to compromise with it in the name of 'Christian mercy' is to suck the black spit right off the Devil's tongue. Crack open any history and it becomes self-evident that there was no mercy to be found in any place where that damned cult reached critical mass. Not (in order) in Persia, Anatolia, Greece, Egypt, Carthage, Gibraltar, Guadalete, Seville, Mérida, Toledo, all the way up to Tours when for the first time they were spoken to in a language they could understand. To compromise with it is to compromise with rape, with theft, with murder, with the mass martyrdom of Christian believers.
And no, it has nothing to do with race - I can guarantee you I'm probably several shades swarthier than you are. It is about opposing a religious and political ideology explicitly created to counter the Gospels, by a creature that in its own books calls itself 'the greatest of Deceivers'.
Lots of conversations to be had about Islam in the West, for sure. But what is happening in the UK at the moment is not about Islam. Muslims are involved in the rioting (and in some cases are victims of it) but they didn't precipitate it. It's a much wider issue than that.
As for Christian mercy - well, you can decide what that means to you. I'm not arguing about Holy Spirit with strangers on the Internet. God will judge us all.
I don't condone violence (except in clear cases of self defense or defense of your family or neighbor who are being threatened with violence) but I do try to understand violence. I used to be very intrigued by The Troubles and tried to understand the history, origins and catalyst/s of the conflict in Northern Ireland. Same with the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Do I have my biases in both conflicts? Yes I do I will admit that, but I can honestly say that I've earnestly tried to understand both sides of these conflicts. I don't blame the immigrants in England for arming themselves. They probably come from nations that understand this kind of violence because sectarianism and tribal tensions and conflict are very much still a thing in South Asia. So I don't blame them for arming themselves but I do understand the anger of "White" working class Britons who very much have legitimate grievances that have been ignored by their own government and mocked and spat upon by their Elites who favor the immigrants over them.
I have watched this situation unfold over the last several decades. Nobody wanted it, plenty of people warned about it, but the political and cultural establishment forged ahead nonetheless. The future, as a result, is like to be bad in many ways. Humans are very good at ethnic conflict, and the British government has introduced it into Britain. Now the consequences are making themselves known.
However, as I said above, it is not 'the immigrants' who are 'arming themselves' but small minorities of mainly male people from certain 'communities'. The same is true amongst the people you call 'Native Britons.' My wife's family come from South Asia, as it happens. She is Sikh, but despite that she demonstrates more Christian love on a daily basis than many Christian commentators I could mention.
The majority of people on all sides do not engage in violence, machete attacks or anything else. All of us, everywhere, can choose how to react. People need to be careful not to draw conclusions from videos. The Internet is not your friend.
In the meantime, as I said, precisely because of the seriousness of what is unfolding, I think that Christians should concentrate on being Christian in their reactions to it. Think about what we say, how we say it and what it might stoke in the real world. This is a test for us. Christians are always tested by hard times. Are we going to pass those tests, or fail?
My wife is Central Asian and Muslim but also she has some very Christian aspects to her character. I know we will be tested. I always thought that test would be persecution but maybe that test could also be the temptation to become persecutors. God willing may we pass the test and still be worthy before the Lord of the title of Christian afterwards.
I think that's very perceptive, and I think this may be what is happening. Or possibly both. Christians are going to be (already increasingly are) regarded with contempt by the rising progressive society. At the same time, the migrations are not going to stop - in fact, I think they are going to accelerate everywhere. So we will be sorely tempted to be defensive, angry, abusive or violent. Me as much as anyone else. My question - and I don't know the answer - is how we can hold to truth and stand up for what is right whilst remaining Christian in our hearts. Standing firm with love. This is the work. If I didn't have the Church to help me I wouldn't stand a chance of getting near it.
P:aul Kingsnorth et al should read St, Bernard of Clairvaux's sermon on Crusades for an alternate perspective to prostrating oneself before every opposing social or political force.
https://www.traditioninaction.org/History/C_015_Bernard_1.html
Chevalier, mult estes guariz,
Quant Deu a vus fait sa clamur
Des Turs e des Amoraviz,
Ki li unt fait tels deshenors.
Cher a tort unt ses fîeuz saiziz;
Bien en devums aveir dolur,
Cher la fud Deu primes servi
E reconnu pur segnuur.
Ki ore irat od Loovis
Ja mar d’enfern avrat pouur,
Char s’aime en iert en Pareïs
Od les angles nostre Segnor.
I'm an Orthodox Christian. I take my inspiration from St Moses and St Porphyrios. And from Christ. Not from Western crusaders. The crusades were a catastrophe - not least for the Orthodox Christians who ended up on the end of crusader swords.
Amen!
Mr. Alexander, it is racist to notice that black-majority cities are incompetently run.
DL are any cities competently run? Remember New York’s last white Mayor- Bill DiBlassio. You can’t get worse!Eric Adams is no prize but he’s brilliant in comparison. And we have our new breed Asian mayors in Oakland and Boston who are complete duds.Finally consider the buffoon who’s mayor of Portland Oregon. In general urban America is a political s show.
I am more than glad to admit the incompetence of white mayors like that nitwit in Portland. The emptying out of urban America of all the ethnics has been a disaster for cities. Richard Daley's Chicago was competently run even if he was not much more than a ward-heeler on a gigantic scale. Mayor Impelliterri of 1950s New York City is a giant in comparison to the last two New York mayors.
Well they certainly weren’t visionaries and that was for the best!
I do not at all support the white rioting, but I gotta wonder: what did the UK ruling class expect to happen? The British have been steadily, with accelerating speed, having their country taken from them. They've been told by their rulers, in government, media, academia, and so forth, that THEY are the problem if they notice it and object. And now they see their once-peaceful streets overrun with migrant crime and political extremism. Those who feel they have nothing left to lose are not going to respond constructively or politely. This is entirely on the Tories, Labour, and the Establishment, who have sold out the country and its people ... who, it must be said, voted for these bastards, over and over.
Moving to a new society with a new culture is very challenging. People are not fungible. If assimilation is pushed, the newcomers get integrated. However, with multiculturalism, the division does not go away. Instead discomfort increases for all.
Divide and conquer has been successful for a very long time. Elites can rule of the people are divided. It is easier to weaken the middle and lower classes. It is class warfare, with the oligarchs instagating it against everyone else, just like most current economic policy empowers the powerful against the people.
I believe Teddy Roosevelt said it best
Please review articles on the Rotherham grooming. It is relevant. Diversity is strength is a a hallow cliche.Diversity is fine, up to a point but the West is wholesalely importing and subsidizing a mass migration of people who assert norms antithetical to centuries of western culture. If you think that’s strength, well you do.
The problem to a great extent is assimilation is actually discouraged . Even crazier is you have a mass of people immigrating to countries whose cultures they despise and which they wish to remake along the lines of the countries they left.On top of that , much of this immigration is de facto subsidized by the host countries who extend a wide range of benefits to people who don’t work.So this is not your grandparents immigration.
Could it be that they face little or no consequences for the violence? And maybe their culture doesn’t have a tradition of non-violent protest? Is there a Muslim Ghandi? A Muslim MLK?
There wasn't a Hindu Gandhi or a Christian MLK until Gandhi and MLK either. No-one has a tradition of non-violent protest, until they do.
I also hope that they figure it out and I agree that it's the only way. But it'll also take a much deeper understanding of non-violent protest and everything it involves than a lot of people seem to have. We're seeing some of it, though, with the moves to boycott companies doing business with Israel. That's the crucial second piece, after protest marches.
The third and fourth pieces are the most difficult of all. The third is civil disobedience combined with filling up prisons till their capacity is overwhelmed. This means protesters have to completely stop cooperating with the evil regime: stop paying taxes, stop obeying unjust laws. And be willing to get arrested, stay in jail, and not get bailed out. If you make bail and get released it defeats the purpose.
The fourth is hunger strikes, and a willingness to stand there and be shot at and attacked. Very few can muster this.
Multi culti doesn’t work except in rare cases where not a lot of nonsense is tolerated like Singapore. It doesn’t work here either but we have a lot of land so critical mass has not been reached yet. There’s a reason why support for the 1st amendment is shrinking.
Well, I would say it was multi-racial, but not really multi-cultural. There was an over-arching "American" culture, a civil religion made up of "Protestant, Catholic, Jewish" moral values, or what used to be called "Judeo-Christian" culture. This provided a very loose, but very real unity, based again, very loosely, on the Old and New Testaments of the Bible and the various churches and temples that instantiated these teachings.
Without this, without a shared moral culture, there can be no national unity and no "liberalism." This is how liberalism has failed, the moral and cultural priors that it was based on have been destroyed, mainly by the sexual revolution and the LBGT+ revolution that followed, aided by a heedless, corporate and state oligarchy.
Blood and soil fascism is terrible, but at least it is based in something real, even though the real things--tribe, race, country, place--have been made into dreadful idols.
However, fascism is better than communism, which is based in nothing at all but the will to power and control, and chimerical utopias. Fascist Spain was better than communist Spain would have been. And of course, no there moral
difference between fascist Germany, and the communism of the Soviet Union or Mao's China.
It's a good point about Singapore. There are actually moves in the UK on the political right towards a more Singaporean approach. By that I mean one in which there is zero tolerance for racism, ethnic division, or ethnic pride, patriotism is mandatory, and religion is discouraged. Katharine Birbalsingh, often described as "Britain's strictest headteacher", tends to be held up as the epitome of that approach.
Does Singapore suppress religion? Or just require it remain in the private sphere?
I wrote "discouraged" not "suppressed". I think the idea is that it's seen as at best a foolish hobby. Mind you, I don't know enough about Singapore to comment in detail.
I see this as a people and nation who are fighting to survive. Maybe that's fascist or aspects of it are fascist, but it's also undeniably human. The same thing happened in Palestine when immigrant Jews (mostly from Europe) became the dominant group under the British Mandate. In this case the British Elites are doing the same thing to their own country that their Imperial Forefathers did to Palestine and the Palestinians except the Palestinians in this case are the British people (especially the working class). When one group pushes out another or becomes the dominant force to the expense of another group's power and influence there will be tension and often violence. This was especially true in urban America of the 1960's and 70's. New York City was a prime example of this. Humans don't change. We're the same as we ever were. Some think we've "progressed" or "evolved", but we're still primitive and tribal when you break down this bullshit consumer capitalist veneer. Things become real clear on a prison yard or even in a tough urban school yard. We're not all the same. Divisions are real. People naturally gravitate to other people that are part of their group (or groups they identify with) whether that be racial, ethnic, religious, cultural, political or all of the above. We're the same as we ever were.
You are correct about NYC in the 60s-70s (I was there) but the Palestine situation in the 1918-48 period is entirely different, so drop the comparison. ( I have extended family - Yemenite Jews - who lived there in that period.)
Is it fascist or fascist-adjacent, or did Hitler just suck all the oxygen out of the room? I didn’t come up with that idea on my own. I got it from a quote I stumbled upon by accident on the Internet by Imre Kertész, a Hungarian-Jew and Nobel Prize winner who survived Auschwitz and later Buchenwald, as a teen:
“Europe has produced Hitler, and after Hitler the continent stands there with no arguments: the doors are wide open for Islam.”
Love of one’s homeland transcends abstract ideas. It’s more visceral than that. The importation of foreigners so alien to the native culture and people and at such a rate that it transforms a country at future shock pace violates something deep in the human soul.
If it is mass democracy that compels a society to lie prostrate before demographic displacement, (at a certain point, the details of why this is happening don't really matter, that it is happening is what concentrates) with no effective challenge to the end of one's nation, then even a minority, a minority that is motivated to preserve the nation, has a right - before the eyes of history - to throw off the yoke of such a sick system and do what is necessary. Why should democracy be valorized above all else?
I have immense respect for Victor Orban, Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko. These three men, quite different in personality and the reality of their societies, are entirely focused on doing what is right for their nation. I cannot say this about a single other western political leader. Some national leaders like Starmer, Trudeau and Biden seem obsessed with doing away with their nation as quickly and thoroughly as is possible.
The schools would be empty and closed by the 1000's in California without uncontrolled immigration. The future belongs to those who show up.
Yes, and that would be a good thing. The educational establishment in California is the most wasteful and intellectually corrupt in the entire world.
Fascists do play on legitimate grievances. That doesn't mean that people will be happy ever after when they win.
What does facism mean in this context? This is a serious question. We are so used to having opinions slightly to the right of the far left characterized as fascist and “literally Hitler” that the term is meaningless. Democracy seems to have atrophied to a one party system where progressives use all the levers of power to stay in forever through opaque bureaucracies.
Is there an alternative or are all nationalistic movements de facto fascist, low status, and subject to scorn?
One component of fascism is that unholy alliance of big business and big government. (Sound familiar?) For the moment, we still have civil liberties, albeit increasingly eroded, but more of us are figuring out that we are being manipulated by those behind the curtain. Add in big tech and media censorship, and the type of "elections" such as Venezuela just experienced no longer seem such a stretch.
A good question -- I was replying to someone who said "maybe that's fascist" about a reaction to some recent events.
I agree with historians who distinguish between fascism and National Socialism. Hitler and Mussolini did reach a pact with each other, but were never entirely comfortable with it. Hitler considered Mussolini a romantic incompetent, which in many ways he was. Mussolini, initially trying to revive the Glories of Rome, moved his military at one point to opposed Hitler's threat to annex Austria. Fascism is a term Mussolini invented when he broke with the Italian socialist party. (Nobody ever accused Hitler of having previously been a socialist, despite the name of his party, which predated his taking the reins.) The idea was a balance of the working class, the capitalist class, and representatives of The Nation as a whole forming the basis of government. Some Italian immigrant American IWW organizers went back to Italy because it sounded like the syndicalism they had been advocating.
Yes babbling about fascism takes us nowhere.
"fascism" like "experts agree" and "internet outrage" are now words without meaning.
Who’s “they”? The “fascists”? My whole point is that that word is being thrown around.
I believe my response was to J. Alexander. I took note of your response as well, and saw nothing to argue with.
Sorry! My eyes must have played a trick on me.
Palestine was almost entirely empty until the end of the 19th Century. There are a plethora of sources for this, but the most fun is Mark Twain's "The Innocents Abroad." The reason the Ottoman Empire was happy to let the Jews settle in Palestine was because there was no one there -- no one. Look at pictures of the area in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. The place was empty. When the returning Jews started building it up, the Arabs poured in too.
Have you been reading Joan Peters' From Time Immemorial? Its thesis, that the Palestinians were but recent arrivals in the Holy Land, has been proven false by scholars in and outside Israel. The book remains popular, however.
"Time Immemorial" is just one book, and as I recall, it overestimated the Jewish population. As you see, I named two other sources, Twain's "The Innocents Abroad," about a trip in the late 1860's, and photographs from the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, which are all over the web. There are numerous other sources.
Today's Palestinians are by and large the descendants of ancient peoples, Jews, included, who lived there. This has been shown by genetic research
The book I recommend is "Enemies and Neighbors" by Ian Black. I grew up as a devoted fan of Israel, per presentation in the movie Exodus. I had developed a sense that this was not the complete story, and I still oppose any efforts to dismantle Israel. But Black documents quite thoroughly (check his sources, don't take his prose as the final word in itself) that there were both settled cities and agricultural villages, that a good deal of land was indeed occupied. One cause of friction even before the massive post-Nazi migration is that Zionists bought property on which they intended to settle, from minor quasi-feudal landowners who had tenants. The tenants had an ancient traditional understanding that if someone bought the land, that merely changed who they paid rent to. So when the Zionists wanted them to move, it was a breach of tradition, custom, not to mention a grave difficulty to people who couldn't just rent somewhere else -- it wasn't a free and open market. Also, while its true that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem was whipping up a genocidal storm with the aid of fugitive Nazis, the Palmach didn't limit itself to brave defensive operations -- they cleared the population out of Arabic-speaking villages, the better to open more land for Jewish settlement when an armistice was signed.
I've been talking about the late-19th to early-20th Century, and the book you mentioned picks up right after that. As far as the period since, I would never deny that things grew increasingly complex and there was conflict, misunderstanding and violence from both sides. You know, though, that starting in 1914, there was horrible violence, genocide, warfare, oppression and the destruction of major parts of several continents. Palestine was no exception, and compared to what was going on all around it, got off better than most. There were huge movements of peoples and nations; old countries disappeared and regions underwent massive demographic changes. What happened in Palestine, then in Israel, cannot be separated into some isolated bubble from the rest of what was happening in the world. You, and pretty much everyone else aside from the Jews themselves, are unaware that the Jews in the Arab lands lost everything and were forced to go to Israel to start a new life, abandoning places they had lived in for centuries. They mourn, but they do what the other millions and millions did after the First and Second War (and every other war in human history): get on with their lives and make the best of it, not go around slaughtering innocent people in a war they can never win, while letting their own people rot.
If you missed that the book I mentioned encompasses people who had been settled for centuries in what became the British Mandate of Palestine, then your tunnel vision blinds you to inconvenient facts. Of course what happened in the region cannot be separated from what was happening in the world -- but nothing happening in the world left a vacant and unsettled land for people to move into. It is not accurate to state that anything happened to "the Jews." There were a handful of European Ashkenazi Jews who formed the Zionist Congress and sent small numbers of people to develop agricultural settlements by permission of the Ottoman Empire. There were a somewhat larger but still small number who arrived after the British took control of the League of Nations Mandate labeled Palestine. None of them had "lost everything." They confidently expected a better life free of European assimilation, and had resources to make the move and settle down. After WW II, of course, European Jews were survivors of Nazi genocide, and had basically decided to have done with assimilation on Europe, for obvious reasons. Then there were north African and middle eastern Sephardic Jews who had no interest in Zionism, but were labeled an enemy fifth column after Israel was founded, and had to flee there. Making up self serving myths is no substitute for facts.
It's not that you're wrong, it's that you're dealing in partial truths, sometimes very partial, until the end, when you glibly say the Arab Jews "were labeled an enemy fifth column after Israel was founded, and had to flee there." Sure, okay...let's then say the Palestinian Arabs "were labeled an enemy fifth column after Israel was founded, and had to flee there." Hmm...Will you accept that and then we'll just let the whole matter drop? I think not.
Omgsh you never stop with this. British whites are unlikely to start lopping off heads and gouging eyes and setting fire to newborns. There’s a reason their neighbors won’t take them in because they are troublemakers. It’s not equivalent
RE: "People naturally gravitate to other people that are part of their group (or groups they identify with) whether that be racial, ethnic, religious, cultural, political or all of the above. We're the same as we ever were."
This, 100%. People like people who LIKE them and people who ARE LIKE them. That's human nature—or tribalism. Take your pick. Either way it's reflexive and really not changeable at the level of instinct. A society's leaders can change behaviors by brute force or less violent means of control, but behavior is downstream of instinct, which cannot be rooted out of human nature.
"Whatever became of the Gilets Jaunes in France? Of the Truckers in Canada? The system suppressed them. It’s going to happen in Britain too."
But movements like this will keep popping up specifically because you can't make people outsiders in their own country and not expect reaction. So Britain grasps for "equity" with two-tiered policing and two-tiered policing makes all this infinitely worse - it's the root of the problem.
And the elites don't get it, think they can suppress it all by stifling the media (whose only mode of reporting on issues like this is "RACISM!!!" anyway) and by forcefully going after one side and one side only of the protests.
Do we not see that approach is not going to work? With those immigration numbers, Britain lit the fuse. The bomb's gonna blow.
Some anti-social activity should be suppressed. "If men were angels, government would not be necessary." -- James Madison. The hard part is figuring out which activity is anti-social, who can be trusted to wield what state powers, when a train of what usurpations have become too much to bear, and when is it an uprising rather than a riot? Also, and most crucially, under what banner do we rise, and how do we know the leadership will deliver as promised?
Whether it's an uprising or a riot depends on which side you're on. And as of now there is no banner - it's all uncoordinated, organic. But as that implies the seeds of discontent are the same, and have been sown everywhere. It's the global elite vs the plebs, the governing class vs. the governed, the "enlightened" vs. the deplorables. Really, same as it ever was.
No, whether its an uprising or a riot does not depend on which side you're on. Whether its an uprising or a riot depends on whether the hold on power of the current government is threatened by a viable alternative, or whether a worrisome level of violence is perpetrated and a modest fraction of the population in certain localities temporarily loses the protection of legal norms. Riots are not always perpetrated by the plebs either. F'rinstance, the original Ku Klux Klan wore masks (sheets and hoods were not uniform) because they were the pillars of the community, and if recognized could have been easily located and arrested.
The state does though get away with through its monopoly use of power. There may be sporadic riots but they are the losers, throwing their tantrums in the hope of being heard.
https://youtu.be/dMrImMedYRo?si=2DOGSWIP2QY47qTe
No one knows what it's like
To be the bad man
To be the sad man
Behind blue eyes
No one knows what it's like
To be hated
To be fated
To telling only lies
But my dreams, they aren't as empty
As my conscience seems to be
I have hours, only lonely
My love is vengeance that's never free
No one knows what it's like
To feel these feelings
Like I do
And I blame you
No one bites back as hard
On their anger
None of my pain and woe
Can show through
But my dreams, they aren't as empty
As my conscience seems to be
I have hours, only lonely
My love is vengeance that's never free
Mm, mm
When my fist clenches, crack it open
Before I use it and lose my cool
When I smile, tell me some bad news
Before I laugh and act like a fool
And if I swallow anything evil
Put your finger down my throat
And if I shiver, please give me a blanket
Keep me warm, let me wear your coat
No one knows what it's like
To be the bad man
To be the sad man
Behind blue eyes
Or...
"White riot, I wanna riot
White riot, I want a riot of my own..."
I was wondering if anyone remembered that Clash song. Not totally irrelevant.
Always liked that song.
Thanks again for a Sunday letter. Look at how much discussion you stimulated among us...
Not one word that this violent mob attacked a house of worship that had nothing to do with anything? Many words for Muslim men carrying machetes, instead -- arguably not the best way to respond to the attack on the mosque, but what would you recommend?
What was the crime of the Southport mosque and its congregants, just existing?
More people praise God every day in British mosques than in all their churches put together. Did the Muslim immigrants empty the churches? Have they ever attacked one?
Well, they really didn't vote for the bastards. Only the uni-party was on offer. There was not a damns worth of difference between Blair and Cameron, for example. Only Labour and Labour Lite. Only clubbable London elites. No genuine, "Britain First," national conservatism.
Same is true here, until Trump came along and upset the uni-party apple cart, and drove out the Bushes, Cheneys, Romneys, etc. who were rightly seen as "let's just go a little bit slower" Democrats. I hate Trump, but his destruction of the old GOP was needed and salutary. Maybe because of that, our nation, unlike Britain, can be saved. Or at least our perhaps inevitable destruction delayed somewhat.
The pace of change has been accelerating. I spent some time in North East England last summer, and I was shocked to see how much demographic change had taken place (in the working class areas of course) since my previous visit several years before.
The ruling class has decided to flood Britain with the third world---net migration from 2010 to the present has been more than from 1066 to 2010---and the working classes, who struggle to find adequate and affordable homes, doctors, dentists, transport and schools as the price for the "benefit" of losing the cultural cohesion and security of their towns (oh but look! more kebab shops!), are told to submit or face the consequences.
How will this end?
In war
Or submission on the road to extinction.
Interesting. I was just reading reports on The Economist of “far-right violence” due to “misinformation” about the original attacker’s place of birth and nationality. But no word about the rest of the story.
The same tone as in the hard to find coverage from NYT and WaPo. No hint that the rioters might have legitimate grievances.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/08/03/uk-protests-far-right-children-stabbed-police/97f7526e-5181-11ef-9728-3037305a6b0f_story.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/03/world/europe/southport-stabbing-uk-riots.html
Anyone who engages in political action that isnt approved of by the elite is automatically “far right.”
Because "Hitler" is always the trump card. Candidate even a smidgen on the right seems to be gaining ground? Hitler. Native population objects to massive levels if immigration? Hitler.
"Yes things suck but the only alternative is HITLER so we must keep pushing left."
But maybe in all this we see how Hitler came to power in the first place.
Kinda sorta. I learned some historical analysis about forty years ago which has stuck with me, that the "United Front Against Fascism" was an error, due to the inconvenient fact that the German Social-Democratic Party (SPD) was the Establishment, the architects of the Weimar Republic. Inchoate public dissatisfaction is not particularly ideological, people just want relief, and want to reject those in power to protest that life is not as it should be. Communists can take up that banner, so can Nazis, fascists (not exactly the same thing), even liberal nationalists, and a lot of other options. It would not be inaccurate to say that people who were looking for "Hope and Change" rejected Weimar, and the old line Catholic Center, as well as the Junker alliance of industrial monopolists, feudal nobility and the military caste, and turned to Hitler not out of strong ideological commitment, but as an Anti-Establishment Voice.
Of course another lesson of history is that Hitler knew how fragile his coalition was and how powerful the military and Junkers remained, so he purged his (relatively) left wing (Ernst Rohm, the SA, the Strasser Brothers), cut his deal with the entrenched establishment. The lesson for them was, once Hitler was firmly in power, he could have the SS arrest a few military officers and overwhelm the others, and, since he re-armed and delivered victories, they found it sensible to go along.
Something for everyone to be wary of.
"turned to Hitler not out of strong ideological commitment, but as an Anti-Establishment Voice"
Bingo. So what we see now is yet another flavor of this, establishment - the elite, the highly educated and woke, the neoconservative "learn to code" and "diversity is our strength" crowd vs. those who have to live with the practical effects of that attitude and those policies.
I mostly agree. I think the best possible resolution would come from a meat and potatoes socialist alternative, not from a hard right turn, or even the opportunistic populism of Donald Trump. I figure those who just barely continue to vote Democrat because Trump, or even McConnell, plus those who voted for Obama and then Sanders and then Trump, would be the kernel of what could become a 55-60 percent majority, IF we can shut down the culture wars. Not declare victory for any faction, just shut it down.
That's more or less what I would like, in terms of feasible options.
I agree on the socialism, if it meant the defenestration of the monopolies in media, tech, pharma, ag, finance and banks, education, and the federal government. But the the whole life of the "left," who have completely abandoned social class analysis for "cultural marxism" is based on prosecuting the culture war forever. So this is a vain dream.
Or left. Don't try running that line that the elites are left. If the corporate boardroom approves, its liberal at most.
Misinformation? 2nd-geners are by far the most violent and dangerous.
Let's put it this way. Would the killer have been allowed to live in the Britain of 1938?
I lived in the UK for four years, so all this news makes me really sad, but it was also so predictable. Brexit was already a reaction against uncontrolled mass immigration, coupled with authorities completely ignoring the need for investment in additional public services and infrastructure to cater for the additional millions that have made the UK their home.
Just in the time I lived there, London's population went from 7 million to 9 million, with zero investment in additional housing, schools, transportation, hospitals, etc... Of course every time locals complained about this, they were painted as racist, but that was much more difficult to do, when most of the migrants were white Europeans. So, Brexit became inevitable, due to mostly the above situation and Brits thought they would finally get some relief from mass immigration and would get the chance to integrate the ten million or so migrants that came to the UK in the preceding decades. Alas, the Tories just opened the gates to non-European immigration instead, such as by giving Hong Kong citizens an automatic right of residence in Britain and continuing the various visa scams (such as student visas) that allowed Indians especially to enter the UK through the back door.
Now we are seeing the results of this and the British people are finally revolting. It is unfortunate that the trigger was a mass murder rampage by a Christian Rwandan who was born in Wales and is therefore not even an immigrant, but it was the spark that lit the fuse and we are now seeing real community tensions flare up, mostly between non-Muslims and Muslims.
To me, this is clearly not even that much about immigration but the Islamic takeover, which the Left, for some unknown reason supports, despite being diametrically opposed to everything Islam stands for. I'm guessing it is the authoritarian, anti-free speech, collectivist streak in Islam that appeals to them, but who knows.
What we've been witnessing is not a direct Islamic takeover, true enough. However, given the West's embrace of Islamic migration alongside Islamic nations' lack of reciprocity, it certainly feels like Islamic expansion by another name. That name is the D-word.
Islamists demand "diversity" across the West but not in any nations controlled by Islam. Do any of the latter even have diversity as an ideal to aspire to, much less an aim to actively pursue? Who are they, then, to demand it of others?
I know. Alas, that was then and this is now.
They recognise that they and Islam have a common enemy---what remains of Western civilization. When that enemy is no more, then they will turn on each other.
They might turn on each other, but the Islamists will destroy them quickly and without mercy if they do not submit to Sharia and dhimmitude, willingly or not. See "Submission."
Could it also be an effort to undermine national and Western traditions? From there, the elite can establish their new order. Of course, using Islam as a tool, they truly have the wolf by the ears.
I think for a lot of the left it's that they've been told they must not discriminate against Muslims repeatedly, that they need to respect them in the name of diversity, and the Hijab wearing girl they had class with seemed nice.
I'm not surprised, but it's taken years. I've been paying some attention to what's been happening over there since Tommy Robinson hit the scene some 15 years ago. Back in 2010 I travelled back to NYC to attend the huge protest against the proposed Ground Zero mosque. Allan West and Geert Wilders were among the speakers. I met a few guys from the EDL (Tommy's English Defense League )who were there as well.
You shove enough sh&t down the throats of your citizens and go with two tier policing and justice and it's just a matter of time. What I don't agree with is the vandalization of stores, likely owned by innocent blokes with the same concerns as the rioters. Bad targets. Try the politicians' neighborhoods and the elite 's institutions.
The Guardian is full of articles calling on the Starmer government to bring the hammer down on free speech and "rein in" Elon Musk's X in particular.
People in Britain are already arrested regularly for things they post online. Expect this surveillance and thoughtcrime regime to grow in scope and severity.
The Guardian is not that influential and is certainly not credible. Read it for the entertainment value and then let it go. And don't send them you money...
IIRC, also arrested for praying silently.
Meanwhile a group of Pakistani immigrants in Rotherham were allowed to groom and rape young white working class British girls and little (if anything) was done for fear of offending the "Moslem community". Started in the 1990's. Tell me again how Tony Blair was a great PM? I'll wait.
Blair is right up there with Merkel in terms of damage down to their societies.
Both are evil human beings. America can't get out of NATO soon enough for me. I despise the whole governing class of Europe.
In my most wicked moments I fantasize about a hypersonic Khinzal missile detonating over NATO or EU headquarters in Brussels -- in the wee hours of the morning, of course. But that would surely mean the deaths of innocent working class and immigrant cleaning ladies, and not the technocrats in their smart suits.
I despise the European political class and I despise NATO. Unfortunately, if Trump is elected, he'll do nothing because NATO and G-7 conferences get him on television. That's vital to Trump.
One of Blair's political slave boys said he wanted to forced diversity on Britain and rub diversity into the faces of all Tories. Sad to say, half the elected Tories heartily approve including the morons who have inhabited 10 Downing. What a stupid party the Tories are!!!!!!!!!!!!1
Derek, We don't agree on everything but I do agree with you on that. The Tories have squandered their time in office and failed, in every way from what I can see, to deliver on their promises. BoJo is at best a clown, and a corrupt one at that, whose head was turned by his second wife.
Wives and daughters . . . the Fifth Column.
Perhaps Richard. I know lots of women that make decisions more even-handedly. We posit that those of us that have had to either run businesses or manage teams with bottom line responsibility can think through these issues without being unduly influenced by emotion and propaganda.
Quote: "The anger of the British people should be turned primarily against the politicians and the media who created this crisis..."
Rod, I know what you mean here, but please be careful. I fully expect anger to be turned primarily against the ruling class, but it won't be pretty when it happens. People can only be suppressed and pushed around so much until they really erupt.
Rod is beginning to learn what it felt like to be Robespierre. That may sound harsh, but, while Rod adores the ancien regime and the resistance in the Vendee, Rod is now up against a corrupt self-serving ruling class he despises. His tone is not much different than the tone of the Jacobins against the ruling class they despised.
"Rod is beginning to learn what it felt like to be Robespierre." Hmmm...that may just a tad too far gone. Rod writes what he thinks, but I don't think he operates a guillotine...maybe for stale bread slicing?
Fair point. I'm not accusing Rod of advocating use of a guillotine. Robespierre's first obsession was Virtue. Eventually he moved to, 'Virtue, without which terror has no purpose, and Terror, without which Virtue has no force.' Single quotes -- not sure I have all the words quite right. Nobody who convened the National Assembly anticipate vicious factional quarrels in which thousands would be slaughtered. The analogy is developing antipathy to the ruling elite, and even being willing to express limited sympathy for rioters. I think Rod's son may have been on to something when he suggested that Robespierre was likely an aspie.
“Shameless far-right yobs wreak havoc on shops, burn library.”
Changes lens in camera, then …
“Mostly peaceful protests were seen across the UK yesterday as citizens demanded an end to two-tiered policing and systemically biased government media.”
At what point is rioting not wrong? What else can you do when your government imports people who kill your children?
More coffee more thought: My colonial ancestors came to the same conclusion: the only way to deal with the British government was violence. We romanticize the Revolution, but it was terrible and it tore families apart. My family has a Canadian branch because we didn’t all agree on taking up arms. I imagine the fits and starts of the first half of the 1770s were just as horrific as these photos…save for there being modern Turks, not Redcoats.
The Revolution (with a few scattered atrocities as exceptions) was fought by the rules of war as then understood. I don't think there was any urban rioting associated with it (the Boston Tea Party maybe?)
Ever hear of Banastre Tarleton?
Yes, I noted there were a few atrocities. But the Thirty Years War it was not.
Banastre Tarleton was most definitely not a revolutionary, nor was he leading a riotous mob. He was a loyal soldier of the king, doing what many advocate should be done to lawless mobs, which is what he considered even the most well-disciplined force of armed men disloyal to the king. He did it in what he considered a disciplined manner. His departure from the laws of war was not extending the usual courtesies to what was generally a disciplined military force under a chain of command.
Tarleton was just following the Duke of Cumberland's example in Scotland in the mid-1740s.
No doubt. I don't consider that to his credit, albeit I am not a fan of the Stuart cause.
Battle of Waxhaw Creek...it is not obvious that he was guilty of having led the massacre; in fact historical accounts suggest he has lost control of his troops. Either way, it was a horrifying event. The revolutionary war was a brutal and horrid affair. The French probably were the difference makers for us.
Tarleton was quite consistent throughout his deployment in America. Waxhaw Creek was the best known and most vicious example, probably the largest scale confrontation. Then he went home to sit in Parliament as an advocate of the slave trade and an opponent of William Wilberforce. (I enjoy their confrontations in the movie "Amazing Grace," although I take the historical background to the script with a grain of salt -- Charles Fox is portrayed accusing Wilberforce of near-treason with regard to our Revolution, when in fact Fox was thrown out of a party in London early in the war after offering a toast to George Washington.)
While perhaps not as extreme as the revolutionary mobs of Europe, urban riots were an aspect of the American revolution and the run up to it. https://allthingsliberty.com/2019/12/the-sons-of-liberty-and-mob-terror/
They were. Loyalists (or Tories) were not treated kindly, and many fled, losing all their property. Others were able to emigrate to Canada and take their slaves with them. The difference between a revolution and a riot is whether forces coalesce that can fill the vacuum as a functional government, and supply a revolutionary army.
Most of the remaining whites of The Bahamas are offshoots of Carolina Tories.
To be sure. The Bahamas were a Spanish possession until the southern Tories got themselves over to seize it. Since Spain was an ally of France against Britain, while refusing to actually ally with any power's rebellious American colonies, they were fair game.
I see no justification for the American Rebels.
The Bible says that one must obey Caesar. Obviously, that is not absolute; it clearly did not apply to the command to worship idols, and one can also find other extreme cases in which it did not apply, but a mildly unjust tax regime is not one of those.
US independence delayed the abolition of slavery, and worsened the treatment of Native Americans. It also enshrined the nonsense about "rights" in world discourse, and had a negative impact, as a model, on political developments in Europe.
I might start describing myself as a "throne-and-altar socialist"!
Kings aren't really all that kosher. God granted Israel a king only reluctantly-- and beginning with Saul the kings of Israel and Judea were more a problem than a boon.
I don't support absolute monarchy, because I believe in Original Sin, and therefore oppose all absolute power, and think there have to be interlocking, cross-cutting systems of checks and balances. However, I do support the existence of a king who is not elected, and has the ability to wield actual power, judiciously, in extreme circumstances, by virtue of holy chrismation.
However, in relation to the American Rebels, that is not really my point, which would have applied even had Britain been a republic in 1777.
In principle I could support a constitutional monarchy where the monarch would have actual political power only in extraordinary circumstances but otherwise would exercise ceremonial functions. I say "in principle" because that's something our culture in the US is decidedly out of sync with (and has been been for centuries) and it would not work here.
Father I think we're about the same age (I'm 70). I grew up in the sixties and have spent much of my life detesting street violence. But your question is a good one.
I’m actually mid 40s, but get called a boomer all the time. I’m still grumpy about the so called Renaissance. It’s hard to a traditional leaning Catholic and be happy with anything post WW1.
EXACTLY. You said it much more succinctly than I would have. No sane person would be in favor of riots, rebellions or war, but sometimes it's the only option.
From the BBC this morning: A few hundred anti-fascist demonstrators gathered near Liverpool’s Lime Street station at lunchtime, calling for unity and tolerance, chanting “refugees are welcome here” and “Nazi scum, off our streets”.
"Tolerance." They've had a lot of "tolerance" in the UK since Blair, and it led directly to what's happening now.
I hope he and I both live long enough to see him brought up on charges
Any summary reduced to a single sentence like that is going to be grossly distorted. Unfortunately, people don't have the patience for a full paragraph.
Indeed as Matt Goodwin said- what did they expect to happen? What do the rest of the western leadership expect to happen? Tommy Robinson’s documentary about the two tested justice system in Britain is true. As it is elsewhere in the west. What did they expect?
After living in the UK in the seventies going back in the last ten years has been a revelation!
I've said this before. Before retirement I was often in the U.K. on business, and my routine was to take a walk the first day so I'd be good and tired that night. The last time I was there, February 2019, I walked quite a ways down the Edgware Road, starting right at Marble Arch. I suppose I walked a mile and a half up before changing the route to get to my hotel. It was completely Islamic. I mean, except for the climate you could have been in Quetta.
Therr's a big difference between immigrants trying to be British, and those that don't want to be. These folks don't want to be.
Indeed. It happened to us when we stayed in a Midland City. Immigrants and homeless people everywhere. On the continent Africans and Arabs shoving tat in your face.
There is a turning point here that I never saw in previous ‘right-wing’ protests in the West - police officers being beaten, being called traitors, being in short recognized as the agents of the repressive regime by the same people most inclined to ‘back the blue’. Jan 6, the Truckers - those were people who supported and treated with respect the same police officers who would go on to knock down their doors in the middle of the night. Not this time. That’s huge.
Yeah, its quite the hypocritical contradiction. I almost justified the most extreme "Defund the Police" line. What becomes evident here is people who "Back the Badge" as long as they leave me along and are brutal to people I don't appreciate, but they are "blue fascists" if they ever, ever, ever get in MY way.
I will "Back the Blue" up until they become a tool of a coercive police-state. It's already happening in the UK and the EU and we see the beginnings of it here in the US with:
Mass surveillance
Facial-recognition
Digital currency
Censorship in various forms
Left-wing media propaganda
Willful destruction of long-standing cultural norms
a creeping Two-tiered justice system
Lawfare
Show-trials
Early-morning raids by the FBI
Political assassination attempts
Open-Borders in defiance of existing immigration laws
Governance by un-elected and over-educated elites, aided by NGO, Non-profits, Woke Academia, Left-wing media, all in the service of a Globalist Billionaire Oligarchy.
I completely support my local police and Sheriff. I don’t trust the FBI at all.
I used to consider the FBI a tool of an oppressive state. But I've learned that while it did indulge in ill-considered measured like COINTELPRO, most of its agents spend most of their time protecting us from oppressive criminal gangs who would be only too happy to dominate any territory they could. Also, even the eminence grise, J. Edgar Hoover, refused to be the political tool of either Johnson or Nixon.
Hoover had a ton of dirt on JFK, LBJ, Nixon, etc., but then again they knew a few things about what was hidden in his closet. In the end, it all balanced out.
There’s nothing hypocritical or contradictory about it. The police should be brutal to child killers, drug addicts and thieves, and it should leave regular working people alone. And if it fails to do so, if indeed it does the exact opposite it should face the wrath of the public. Only somebody with a deeply inverted set of values -or who simply takes pleasure in seeing ‘oppressed’ criminals terrorizing the ‘bourgeoisie’- would suggest otherwise.
To claim there is nothing hypocritical about it requires agreement on fundamental rules that apply to everyone. That is not in evidence here. People claiming the Jan 6 invasion was just a few tourists looking around exceed the Black Liberation Army for blatant rationalizations.
Police should not be brutal to child killers, drug addicts and thieves. Police should use any force necessary to apprehend people when there is probable cause that they have killed anyone (child or older), or stolen from other people. The reason we have a presumption of innocence is, the police may, or may not, have a guilty party, and its up to the courts to determine that. What condition should be maintained in prisons is a whole other conversation.
Criminals seldom terrorize the bourgeoisie. Criminals look for soft targets, not people able to afford extensive security apparatus and keep their money in difficult to extract holding patterns.
Sounds like incipient civil war.