HERE’S a great comment from John Dempsey at VFR on the British riots:

It seems to me that the British elite have lost their authority to rule. This means that Britain can now be considered a lawless society. Authority is a two part equation that legitimately grants rights to people, but also claims the moral right to direct their conduct through laws. This is the basis of all law; defining rights and fixing duties. When the only part of their authority they care to claim and exercise is that part which grants never-ending rights without any imposition of obligations, can they really claim any authority at all?

Aside from that, in the Max Hastings article, he writes [of the looters]:

They are an absolute deadweight upon society, because they contribute nothing yet cost the taxpayer billions. Liberal opinion holds they are victims, because society has failed to provide them with opportunities to develop their potential.

Most of us would say this is nonsense. Rather, they are victims of a perverted social ethos, which elevates personal freedom to an absolute, and denies the underclass the discipline–tough love–which alone might enable some of its members to escape from the swamp of dependency in which they live.

This is a window into the fabrication of the liberals’ “great love for mankind” (which in and of itself is a false conception). There is no real love, which must always consist partly of the “tough love” of which Hastings writes. And even that part of love which does not consist in tough love, but in the committing of one’s own bounty, the liberal is surely lacking. This part of their “great love for mankind” is almost entirely demonstrated by appropriating other peoples property and handing it over to the less fortunate.

Imposition of obligation is the only method of treating members of society fairly and equally. We must be obliged to each other, not one to the other without reciprocation. But liberal equality implies that only those with material means must contribute to society. So even the liberal appeal to equality is disingenuous.

I think it is correct that liberal society is ultimately inhuman, devoid of the true love which makes us truly human.

                                                   — Comments —

Fred Owens writes:

In response to the riots in England, I pondered the distinction between illegal, immoral, and insane.

The act of bank robbery is illegal and immoral, but it is not insane. In fact, outside of being wrong, it makes sense to rob the bank to get the money. Or an act of adultery — if a man dallied with the wrong woman, and I took a look at the woman in question, I would understand why he gave into the temptation.

But if you are a “youth” in England with a grievance against the police, and let’s say, for the benefit of argument, that this youth has a legitimate grievance, how should he respond? By burning buildings in his own neighborhood and destroying the property and livelihood of innocent bystanders? That’s not only illegal and immoral, it’s also insane.

James P. writes:

Fred Owens argues that the “youths” in England were insane. I disagree. The youths made a rational calculation of costs and benefits. They knew that the police would stand there and do nothing (they had seen this on TV!), that there were not enough police to stop them from rioting and looting if the criminals concentrated at specific times and places in overwhelming numbers, that the disarmed and cowardly population couldn’t oppose them, and that even if they were eventually caught, the chances of being convicted and actually imprisoned would be trivial. When the potential costs are so low, why not indulge in the barbaric pleasures of looting, burning, and destroying?

Laura writes:

I assume Mr. Owens was trying to show that the premise that they were looting out of a legitimate political grievance is itself insane.

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