England Is Burning

Why are they rioting in England? Why is the home of propriety and decorum going up in flames?

Can it be austerity? Are all of those young people taking to the streets in order to defend the dole? Are they offended that they cannot live as well as they wish by using their decidedly limited talents? Do they believe that they should be rewarded for not having any character?

And, how is it possible that a country that provides universal health care is now being consumed by fires?

Theodore Dalrymple knows the cohort of rioters well. Having worked as a prison psychiatrist, he is more than familiar with young people who are brimming with self-esteem but lacking in self-respect.

In his words: “The riots in London and elsewhere in Britain are a backhanded tribute to the long-term intellectual torpor, moral cowardice, incompetence and careerist opportunism of the British political and intellectual class.

“They have somehow managed not to notice what has long been apparent to anyone who has taken a short walk with his eyes open down any frequented British street: that a considerable proportion of the country's young population (a proportion that is declining) is ugly, aggressive, vicious, badly educated, uncouth and criminally inclined.”

When you have a culture that is in the business of producing dysfunction, you have a sorry collection of youths who do not, when all is said and done, know how to do anything else but riot.

Far too many young Brits have been brought up in broken homes, have received an education that dared not demand anything of them, and have been coddled by the welfare state and the court system.

They suffer no ill effects for being undisciplined, and when they commit crimes they are not punished. The receive empathy and understanding.