The State of Great Britain

My friend Patrick Young wrote about the recent riots in London. I am not an expert on British history or civilization, but I think there are certain similarities between Great Britain and the US. Here are some snippets of Patrick’s note.

Despite Blairite assessments of giddy educational achievement, the truth is that British teaching is frequently rubbish. Those who doubt the decline in British education only need to address the alarming number of apparently educated folk who trill out “government cuts” as the root of all problems.

In 2010 the British government spent 694 billion Pounds, this financial year it is scheduled to spend 710 billion. With many ‘educated’ folk clearly incapable of doing basic maths to identify budget growth, it is hardly surprising that Pret a Manger likes it BLTs to be brokered by numerate Poles, Spaniards and other “New Europeans.”

The UK lies on the brink of being a failed state. Bureaucracy cripples initiative and growth. Taxation erodes the incentive to take risk. Work hard and the state has no demonstratable power to save your assets. Moreover the law punishes property owners who try to defend their property. Then the government seeks to switch off the very electronic media they lauded for during the Arab spring. The virulent riot culture that has frequently been allowed to disable the fringes of the Union are now eating at its very heart.

Lack of discipline in schools, and an absence of police power to crack down on rioters are somehow not the fault of a daft ‘looney left’ agenda which has weakened the power of family and created addicted ‘clients’ disincentivized from working by a hideous benefits ‘culture.’ This school of thought has led to fixed penalty fines for shop lifters. And chaos.

For those of us who opted for de facto political asylum having accurately predicted the coming madness of the “Nulab” machine, it is tragic to be proven right. To see the diligent persecuted at the expense of feckless thieves is unbecoming of even a third world nation. Yet a third world future looks increasingly like Britain’s destiny. True, some things are still working well in the UK… Despite much concern about racism, Britain’s youth appear very well integrated – as evidenced by white and black youths standing side by side as they looted and pillaged.

Once any nation fails to recognise, let alone police, the concept of right and wrong it has failed. A corrupt Parliament oversees a disastrous ‘system’ of bloated, mismanaged state resources with nobody responsible but everybody else to blame. Increasingly Britain looks like Argentina on its giddy descent to hyperinflationary post war melt down, right down to the design of the historic post boxes.

The comparison to what is happening in the US is eerily familiar. I have known Patrick for many years and would not categorize him as a “hard right winger”.

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