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Britain Archive

Thursday

25

August 2011

0

COMMENTS

Those Guns Have Cooties, Kids

Written by , Posted in Gun Rights

Britain continues its well documented spiral into a collective, moonbattery-fueled madness (Hat-tip: Michelle Malkin):

Children will be banned from watching shooting events under Boris Johnson’s Olympic ticket giveaway.

London schoolchildren are eligible for 125,000 Olympic tickets but these will not include any featuring guns, as Games organisers and City Hall fear a backlash from the anti-gun lobby.

Giving children tickets to the events, at the Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich, could have appeared at odds with Mayor Boris Johnson’s bid to quell teenage gun and knife crime.

It is a weird thing to observe the downfall of a culture that has lost all grip on reality.

Saturday

13

August 2011

1

COMMENTS

False Blame in London

Written by , Posted in Big Government, The Nanny State & A Regulated Society

A growing chorus of clacking commentators has determined the cause of the London riots to be something called “austerity.” This menace is apparently to blame for the whole sordid affair. As an incarnation of pure evil, “austerity” has crept into the homes of hapless Londoners, snatching their rightful belongings – and sometimes even their futures – right out from under them. Quite understandably this has agitated the poor chaps, sending them into a mindless, criminal rage.

Poppycock!

There are two significant problems with this lazy, statist narrative. The first is  simple: there has been no austerity. Here’s government spending in the UK in recent years (the last few years are projections):
So 2011 will see ever so slightly less spending as a percentage of GDP than 2010, not even dropping a full percentage point. Are we really to believe that such a minuscule shift could spark such an eruption of righteous anger?

But these aren’t even actually cuts. Spending increased from 2010 to 2011, and in this chart it does so each year thereafter. Simply holding spending growth to less than the growth of the economy allows the total burden of government to fall without actually making cuts. The statists nevertheless label such increase as “cuts” because they operate in a fantasy land where expected increases are the norm, and any increase less than they desire is therefore a cut. We see the same dishonesty right here in America, as evidenced by the recent debt ceiling debate.

Getting back to the issue. By 2015 spending as a percentage of the British economy is expected to be no lower than it was as recently as 2008. It will be higher, in fact. Is that really a rioting offense? How can anyone honestly claim massive social unrest based on such figures? It defies reason.

But the second problem with the blame austerity crowd’s logic is that even if there were significant budget cuts, they would still not be to blame. Austerity is no more to blame for the aftermath of runaway government spending and rampant dependency than is sobriety responsible for the addict suffering withdrawal. Dependent British citizens desperately lashing out for their next government fix would have only themselves and their enablers to blame, not the loved ones who finally stepped in and called an intervention.

No matter how you slice it, the statist argument falls flat. So why is it even being made in the first place? Well, that’s easy. It’s pre-emptive. The welfare state is falling out of favor as it slowly collapses under the weight of its own contradictions. Enamored with the power of big government, statists are nevertheless in denial to this fact, but still they feel the public pressure mounting against them and are unwilling to let go of their grip on authority. So now they’re conjuring a boogey-man to scare the peasants back into line. You can’t cut our budgets and our power, they’ll say, just look at what it’s done in London!

“Poppycock!” we’ll reply.

Wednesday

10

August 2011

2

COMMENTS

Cultural Rot in (Once) Great Britain

Written by , Posted in Culture & Society

The rioting continues in London, where petulant children born of a culture of dependency lash out in nihilistic rage.

And then, when the adults attempt to respond and try to literally clean up the mess…well, read for yourself (Hat-tip: Open Market):

Local people arrived in Peckham High Street armed with cleaning equipment to help restore order in the aftermath of the riots.

But people waiting to clean up Clapham Junction have been told they cannot help because of health and safety issues.

…[O]fficers told the volunteers that the decision had been made for the clean-up to be done by the council.

Asked why, an officer said: “Health and safety mainly. There’s lots of broken glass around.”

Runaway moonbattery produces cultural rot.

Friday

29

April 2011

0

COMMENTS

Another British PC Outrage

Written by , Posted in Identity Politics

Run away liberalism continues to drive the decline of Great Britain. The latest absurdity (Hat-tip: Blue Collar Philosophy):

Simon Ledger says he fears he will end up with a criminal record for performing the 1974 disco classic at a seafront bar on the Isle of Wight on Sunday after two people walking past apparently took offence.

…[A]fter striking up the melody in front of customers at the weekend he noticed a man of Chinese origin walking past with his mother, making gestures at him and taking a picture on his mobile phone.

He said that he later received a telephone call from police – while he was dining in a Chinese restaurant – asking him to meet officers about the incident.

He was then arrested and questioned before being bailed.

Hampshire Police said that it had been following up a complaint of racially aggravated harassment.

…“We were performing Kung Fu Fighting, as we do during all our sets,” Mr Ledger, 34, told The Sun.

Will America heed the British warning against allowing runaway liberalism, identity politics and political correctness to take hold?

Saturday

13

March 2010

0

COMMENTS

Overreacting

Written by , Posted in The Nanny State & A Regulated Society

This is a great column at Times Online about the tendency of nannies to overreact to any unfortunate incident.  It’s about Britain, but a very similar piece could be written using examples from the United States:

…We now think it’s normal behaviour to take off our clothes at an airport. But it isn’t. Nor is it normal to stand outside in the rain to have a cigarette or to do 30mph on a dual carriageway when it’s the middle of the night and everyone else is in bed. It’s stupid.

And last week the stupidity made yet another lunge into the fabric of society with the news that government ministers were considering new laws that would force everyone to take a test before they were allowed to keep a dog.

No, really. Because one dog once ate one child, some hopeless little twerp from the department of dogs had to think of something sincere to say on the steps of the coroner’s court. Inevitably, they will have argued that the current law is “not fit for purpose”, whatever that means, and that “steps must be taken to ensure this never happens again”.

The steps being considered mean that every dog owner in the land will have to fit their pet with a microchip so that its whereabouts can be determined from dog-spotting spy-in-the-sky drones, and that before being allowed to take delivery of a puppy, people will have to sit an exam similar to the driving theory test. The cost could reach £60, and on top of this you will need compulsory third-party insurance in case your spaniel eats the milkman.

Read the whole thing.

Wednesday

10

March 2010

0

COMMENTS

Even For Britain This Is Shocking

Written by , Posted in Health Care, Welfare & Entitlements

Britain’s nationalized health care system is so wonderful we’re trying to emulate it.  Only it’s not wonderful.  It’s atrocious.  Even by Britain’s standards, though, this story is amazing:

The 22-year-old was not given vital medication after an operation at St George’s Hospital in Tooting, south London, according to his mother.

A coroner has such grave concerns about the case that it has been referred to police who are investigating Mr Gorny’s care.

…His mother, Rita Cronin, says he needed drugs three times a day to regulate his hormones, but he was not given them by hospital staff.

She said he became very dehydrated but his requests for water were refused and nurses called in security guards to restrain him when he became angry.

He became so frustrated that he rang the police from his bed to demand their help but officers were assured Mr Gorny was fine.

She said nurses assumed he was just badly behaved.

Mr Gorny’s cause of death was determined to be dehydration.

But don’t you Britons worry, because “new procedures [have been] introduced to ensure that such a case cannot happen in future.”

The only procedure capable of ensuring government competence is…woops, sorry, there is no such procedure.

The manner in which that patient was treated is only possible in a system where the patient is not the customer. Keep that in mind as the left argues that we need even more regulators and insurance agents in between you and your  doctor, rather than fewer.

Wednesday

13

January 2010

0

COMMENTS

More English Lunacy

Written by , Posted in General/Misc.

We have two more stories, via Dan Mitchell, in my ongoing coverage of the British slide into an abyss of moonbattery.

In the first story, a man is arrested for an email (which it turns out he didn’t even write) that was supposedly insensitive to gypsies:

A wealthy businessman was arrested at home in front of his wife and young son over an email which council officials deemed ‘offensive’ to gipsies – but which he had not even written.

The email, concerning a planning appeal by a gipsy, included the phrase: ‘It’s the ‘do as you likey’ attitude that I am against.’

Council staff believed the email was offensive because ‘likey’ rhymes with the derogatory term ‘pikey’.

Rhyming with bad words is a crime against humanity.

In the second story, a woman is chastised for holding a knife in her own home to scare off possible intruders:

The TV presenter and Marks & Spencer model Myleene Klass has been warned by police for waving a knife at teenagers who were peering into a window of her house late at night.

Klass was in the kitchen with her daughter upstairs when she spotted the youths in her garden just after midnight on Friday. She grabbed a knife and banged the windows before they ran away.

Hertfordshire police warned her she should not have used a knife to scare off the youths because carrying an “offensive weapon”, even in her own home, was illegal.

Klass’s spokesman, Jonathan Shalit, said the former Hear’Say singer was “utterly terrified” by the intruders and “aghast” at the police warning. “All she did was scream loudly and wave the knife to try and frighten them off,” he told the Sunday Telegraph. “She is not looking to be a vigilante, and has the utmost respect for the law, but when the police explained to her that even if you’re at home alone and you have an intruder, you are not allowed to protect yourself, she was bemused.”

When moonbattery is allowed to reign supreme, even self-defense is outlawed.

Sunday

13

December 2009

0

COMMENTS

Thou Shall Have Rubbish!

Written by , Posted in The Nanny State & A Regulated Society

The never ending parade of ridiculous stories out of the UK featuring heartless bureaucracy and runaway moonbattery continues:

A SHOPKEEPER has been fined £180 by Southend Council for NOT producing commercial rubbish.

Mark Howard, 50, owner of Sutton Cycles in Sutton Road, Southend, has recycled all the cardboard boxes his new bikes arrive in by using them when he sells second-hand bikes.

…Mr Howard was astonished when a council official visited to check his waste disposal credentials. The officer refused to believe he did not produce any waste and he was issued with a £180 fixed penalty notice, which if he doesn’t pay within ten days, will be increased to £300. If he fails to pay that he will face court proceedings.

…Steven Crowther, group manager for waste at Southend Council, said Mr Howard was required to produce evidence of how he disposes of commercial waste.

Sunday

27

September 2009

0

COMMENTS

Tales Of Stupidity Come In Twos

Written by , Posted in The Nanny State & A Regulated Society

This story from Britain is almost identical to the one I highlighted yesterday:

The Thames Valley Police detectives – who gave birth within a few months of each other – share a job at Aylesbury Police Station in Buckinghamshire.

But the mothers, both 32, have now been told by Ofsted that surveillance teams will spy on their homes to make sure they are not continuing to care for each other’s daughter.

For the past two-and-a-half years, one looked after both of the girls while the other worked a ten-hour shift. Both worked two days a week.

But in July, after a complaint believed to be from a neighbour, DC Shepherd received a surprise visit from an Ofsted inspector, who accused her of running an ‘illegal childminding business’.

Rules state that friends cannot gain a ‘reward’ by looking after a child for more than two hours outside the child’s home unless they register with Ofsted and follow the same regulations as normal childminders.

That America is mimicking Britain in moonbattery is truly frightening given the frequency of outrageous stories I see from across the pond.  Britain is literally collapsing under the weight of its own bureaucracy and excessive, multicultural induced masochism.

America seems determined to follow Britain down the path of big government self-destruction.

Tuesday

8

September 2009

0

COMMENTS

The Inhumanity Of Bureaucracy

Written by , Posted in Health Care, Welfare & Entitlements

If you think encumbering health care with a massive bureaucracy is a good idea, the British experience warns you to think again.

Doctors left a premature baby to die because he was born two days too early, his devastated mother claimed yesterday.

Sarah Capewell begged them to save her tiny son, who was born just 21 weeks and five days into her pregnancy  –  almost four months early.

They ignored her pleas and allegedly told her they were following national guidelines that babies born before 22 weeks should not be given medical treatment.

There are few things more inhumane than collectivization, in any form.  The reason left-wing totalitarian states in the 20th century were able to slaughter so many of their own people, while counting on the rest to turn a blind eye or even help, is because they had successfully collectivized morality.  When the primary moral unit is the collective, all manner of immoral action can be permitted and justified against the individual.

Remember this when you hear arguments for government health care based on collectivist morality.