London and Stockholm: The Decline of the West

Why would an army that is outmanned and outnumbered continue to fight? One reason: it senses weakness in its opponents.

If an army believes that its enemy does not have the stomach to see the fight through, it will continue to fight, secure in the knowledge that it will eventually emerge victorious.

Having created a cult to hypermasculinity in the midst of an increasingly feminized and decadent West, Islamist terrorists  are convinced, not unreasonably that they will ultimately prevail.

Cultures of entitlement, as exist in Great Britain, Sweden, and increasingly, America hand out benefits willy nilly, without asking for very much in return. Like aristocrats of old, today’s recipients of entitlements do not need to do anything to collect their monthly stipends. They need not work.

Some see them as parasites. They see themselves as culturally superior, the wave of the future, destined to take power over their weak hosts.

Islamic terrorists have discovered that random acts of terrorism undermine morale. Even when Western nations feel obliged to fight back against terrorism, they soon tire of the effort and retreat back into their creature comforts.

Terrorism provokes guilt-ridden hand wringing. After 9/11 American intellectuals could do no better than to whine: Why do they hate us?

John Hinderaker saw the murder of Lee Rigby as symptomatic of a nation that has disarmed itself. Apparently, the British believe that they need but occupy the moral high ground:

The brutal murder of an off-duty soldier by two Muslim activists continues to dominate the news in Great Britain. The scene was utterly bizarre: in broad daylight, in a busy section of London, the two Muslims apparently ran the soldier down with a car, within a block or two of his barracks, and then attacked him with knives and a meat cleaver. They attempted to behead him, apparently not quite successfully, as hundreds of passers-by looked on. No one stopped them–private ownership of firearms being illegal in the U.K.–but three random women, who have been extravagantly praised for their bravery, tended to the soldier’s body and engaged the murderers in conversation, in hopes of diverting them from killing anyone else. This went on for quite a while.

It took twenty minutes for armed police officers to arrive. Yet, police officers were already on the scene. Since they were British and were, as the old saying goes, “too proud to fight,” they were unarmed.

Hinderaker set the scene:

The idea of policemen in one of the world’s major cities “wait[ing] helplessly for armed officers to arrive,” while murderers parade up and down the street soaked in blood and the body of a half-beheaded soldier lies in the street, is almost unbelievable. And yet that is the state of law enforcement in Great Britain.

British authorities are afraid. They are afraid to carry guns. They are deathly afraid of Muslims. They stand by while a British soldier is being hacked to death by a Muslim fanatic but crack down on anyone who says anything that might offend the delicate sensibilities of the Muslim population.

People in Britain who said something untoward about Islam on Facebook or Twitter are now facing prosecution.

The Daily Mail reported the story:

A 22-year-old man has been charged on suspicion of making malicious comments on Facebook following the murder of British soldier Lee Rigby.

Benjamin Flatters, from Lincoln, was arrested last night after complaints were made to Lincolnshire Police about comments made on Facebook, which were allegedly of a racist or anti-religious nature.

He was charged with an offence of malicious communications this afternoon in relation to the comments, a Lincolnshire Police spokesman said.

The remarks were so offensive that the Daily Mail could not even repeat them. They were apparently anti-religious or racist.

No one should be shocked or surprised. Liberal elites throughout the West are convinced that changing the way people speak will change reality. They have no problems suppressing free speech in favor of their larger ideological agenda.

Islamist terrorists watch the spectacle and conclude that Britain is afraid of them. If someone is afraid of you, that means that you are strong.

In another post Hinderaker described the scene in Stockholm. There the police have taken a laissez-faire attitude toward Muslim rioters. They are too afraid to do anything, so they stand by and let it happen.

One wonders whether Swedes are quite as tolerant of laissez-faire capitalism.

Be that as it may, Hinderaker quotes the account offered by the Swedish publication, Fria Tider:

Since last Sunday, May 19, rioters have taken to the streets of Stockholm’s suburbs every night, torching cars, schools, stores, office buildings and residential complexes. Yesterday, a police station in Rågsved, a suburb four kilometers south of Stockholm, was attacked and set on fire.

But while the Stockholm riots keep spreading and intensifying, Swedish police have adopted a tactic of non-interference. ”Our ambition is really to do as little as possible,” Stockholm Chief of Police Mats Löfving explained to the Swedish newspaper Expressen on Tuesday.

”We go to the crime scenes, but when we get there we stand and wait,” elaborated Lars Byström, the media relations officer of the Stockholm Police Department. ”If we see a burning car, we let it burn if there is no risk of the fire spreading to other cars or buildings nearby. By doing so we minimize the risk of having rocks thrown at us.”

Why would they not riot? If no one has the courage to stop them, then their actions must be righteous.

But, don’t think that the Swedish police are not doing anything. When a meter maid comes across an illegally parked incinerated vehicle, she gives it a parking ticket.

Fria Tider described the scene:

Swedish parking laws, however, continue to be rigidly enforced despite the increasingly chaotic situation. Early Wednesday, while documenting the destruction after a night of rioting in the Stockholm suburb of Alby, a reporter from Fria Tider observed a parking enforcement officer writing a ticket for a burnt-out Ford.

When questioned, the officer explained that the ticket was issued because the vehicle lacked a tag showing its time of arrival. The fact that the vehicle had been effectively destroyed – its windshield smashed and the interior heavily damaged by fire – was irrelevant according to the meter maid, who asked Fria Tider’s photographer to destroy the photos he had taken. Her employer, the parking company P-service, refused to comment when Fria Tider contacted them on Wednesday afternoon.

At least the meter maids are doing their jobs.

Hinderaker makes a salient point. Sweden has the world’s best looking meter maids:

 

Now, in the absence of a serious response by the police, other Swedes are taking to the streets to defend their nation. The same has been happening in England.

Instapundit remarks:

If the authorities fail to act responsibly, other forms of authority will assert themselves. They may not be as responsible, but they will act.

Seeing the threat posed by vigilantes the Swedish police are springing into action. Fria Tider has the story:

In the Stockholm suburb of Tumba the police decided to abandon their earlier non-intervention policy as a large group of police officers rounded up and dispersed a group of vigilantes trying to fend off rioters.

The decision to round up vigilantes while, according to Stockholm Chief of Police Mats Löfving, ”doing as little as possible” to stop rioters, met with a wave of protests in various social media and on the Internet. 

Swedish police fighting Swedish citizens for doing what the police refuse to do. Surely, the Muslim population is watching and laughing.