So, in the wake of the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby the British security services find themselves answering to the House of Commons as to why they didn't prevent it.
Prevent it? How, numbnuts? How exactly do you propose they prevent it?
I hate to break this to you, but Minority Report was not a documentary; there is no roomful of "precogs" someplace who can determine when some violent smack-talker is going to suddenly up and switch over from words to deeds.
You can't follow everybody who talks violent revolution around every moment of every day. You can't issue everybody their own bodyguard. (And let's not forget that the victim in this case was a soldier, so who bodyguards the bodyguards?) People get shanked in maximum security prisons, for heaven's sake; if you can't stop it there, then you certainly aren't going to stop it out in the wider world.
A good start would be allowing everybody to serve as their own bodyguard because, when it comes right down to brass tacks, government can't protect, only punish. Whether your assailant comes at you with ballistic missiles or butcher knives, all the .gov can do is retaliate after the fact.
Be Prepared: You will be your own first responder.
Excellent points Tam, and it's once again 'proven' that hindsight is 20-20... sigh
ReplyDelete"What? Allow the commoners freedom to act AS THEY SEE FIT in self-defense?
ReplyDeleteWhy, next thing we know you'll be saying they should be allowed to own guns again!"[/English gun bigot]
>>"...but I've seen experts on security explaining how difficult it is in a free society to be able to control everyone."
ReplyDeleteAnd that's a feature, not a bug, Mr Pickles.
Reminds of - "If 24/7 complete government control is so good, why are prisons so dangerous?"
ReplyDeleteHaving seen how GB reacts to crime, they are probably thinking of confiscating knives & cars and issuing sporks & unicycles.
It occurred to me that if this murder of an off duty soldier had happened in one of the US CCW states, the perp would have been drilled from a dozen directions within a minute, and there is a very good possibility that the soldier would be alive today.
ReplyDeleteBut the Brits keep arguing how prohibiting guns keeps British citizens "safer". The mental gymnastics to arrive at this conclusion are truly astonishing.
"But Communities Secretary Eric Pickles said it was impossible to control everyone all the time."
ReplyDeleteBut he and the rest of the political class would really like to try
It would be a whole lot easier to stop if they:
ReplyDelete1. Allowed self defense and the weapons to do so.
2. Deport all immigrants.
Two alone would be extremely effective. But that would be racissss.
It is always fun to have a vibrant 3rd world community.
"2. Deport all immigrants."
ReplyDeleteGood idea, Running Wolf!
"smack-talker is going to suddenly up and switch over from deeds to words. ????
ReplyDeletemeant "from words to deeds", I'd bet.
Mike
Mike,
ReplyDeleteIndeed. Thanks for catching that.
Tam:
ReplyDeleteGood idea, Running Wolf!
The EDL are maximizing the situation.
They seem to be gathering support with each of these vibrant immigrant incidents.
Perhaps the Dearborn Mich. will be willing to accept some of immigrants to help out.
"The EDL are maximizing the situation."
ReplyDeleteOh, definitely. Jackboots are never very far back in a good European's closet.
Lackwits like Adebolajo and Adebowale are going to get a lot of innocents killed if this keeps going.
What I don't understand is why the guy wasn't rushed by ten or twenty young lads who then proceeded to stomp a mud-hole in him. It's what would happen around here if no one in the immediate area had a gun.
ReplyDeleteYou hope Heroditus. You hope.
ReplyDeleteI also hope, but my hope is fading in general. Keeping good people that would charge with me around me helps. But we all have to go into the wilderness alone sometimes.
When the Crown holds a monopoly on force, stomping folks gets you arrested as well with a stiff jail sentence.
ReplyDeleteThe normal folks live in a Clockwork Orange state of violence avoidance that even impacts the LEO's. Go read the old Inspector Gadget blog for background.
Gerry
What you fail to take into account Heroditus, is that those few "young lads" in the UK who still have the intestinal fortitude to do such a thing are in the barracks with Drummer Rigby.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing the rest of the "young lads" in the UK seem to be capable of is drunken battery of more vulnerable targets at 20:1 odds.
Posting some soldier out front the barracks with an SA-80 AFTER the fact is mere symbolism. Letting the boys and girls take their SA-80's home with them is anathema in the UK - as it is here. Remember Ft Hood? Our own boys n' girls are unarmed at point of Federal Felony whilst on Imperial Federal Property.
To be fair, these characters WERE being "watched".
ReplyDeleteYeah there were being "watched" - by a whole mob of people.
ReplyDeleteHell, EVERYBODY in London is being "watched". Do you have ANY idea of how many cameras there are covering the streets of English cities in the name of "security"?
Boat Guy,
ReplyDeleteI suspect that nothing was learned from Ft. Hood and US Soldiers are still disarmed while on station. When I was in the Marines (a little more than 10 years ago), we were allowed a 2 1/2" or 3" pocket knife (according to who you asked) and that was IT. We were also warned from time to time that we should not defend ourselves physically against a civilian attack except at the gravest extreme since a Marine beating up a civilian would be bad publicity, and the Marine Corps was VERY averse to bad publicity. I don't expect that much has changed in that regard.
s
I know for a fact that, as of the mid-90's, many senior NCOs habitually went armed--illegally--on post, it having been common knowledge by that time that gang bangers were enlisting "for the combat training."
ReplyDeleteI found that out when two other First Sergeants ("real" First Sergeants, that is, E8s, not "acting" SFC/E7s like me) acted surprised when I said I was unhappy about stopping in Tacoma on my way home, because I couldn't carry on duty, or in uniform, and even keeping my .45 in the car while on post was frowned upon.
WV: ordsKn always. But I was at Ft Lewis at the time, Ord was being closed...
I want to believe the average Joe would help "Stomp a mudhole" in them, But I really don't think so.
ReplyDeleteJust the other day a 72 year old homeowner heard his neighbors burgler alarm and saw bright lights moving in his yard. He grabbed his gun and went to investigate. The Fort Worth cops were in his yard, not the neighbors, saw the homeowner with a gun, and put six rounds into the homeowner, killing him.
There are the usual moronic comments such as the homeowner shouldn't have involved himself, should have let the police handle it, brought it on himself by having a gun, the cops did the right thing because he could have hurt someone, etc.
Fortunately they were in the minority, but there are a fairly large number of sheep out there.
No precogs, maybe, but some prescient ER physicians did issue a plea for Knife Control in the generally well-regarded British Medical Journal back in 2005.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bmj.com/content/330/7502/1221
Because there is no legitimate need for anything more than a paring knife. (Read the damn thing: No pointy knives longer than 5 cm.)
Tamara YOU CANNOT FIX STOOPID
ReplyDeleteIf Dunblane can be the event that took away all the guns, why can't this be the event that brings 'em back?
ReplyDeleteOh. Forgot. Because Britain.
Actually, one of the papers over there (Daily Mail?) runs a poll on what the public would like to see in future private members bills in the house (legislation brought my a member of parliament without being reference to their party).
ReplyDeleteBy a huge majority, the most popular was for a repeal of the handgun ban.
Small steps...
Heroditus: Because it didn't happen in Liverpool or Glasgow. If it had been Scousie, the "Football Hooligans" would have vaporized the two dirtbags before they had a chance to finish the poor bugger off, much less decapitate him.
ReplyDeleteThen, of course, the would have been sent to Borstal for a year or two.
Remember, these were proper "Middle" Class Brits, who stood there completely awed (but polite). Give the pathetic, emasculated borgs a gun and they would hand it over to the thugs.
And really, since my own rude awakening a few years ago, I question whether there is a place for any Moslems in Europe at all.
ReplyDeleteI don't think of myself as naive, but I was really taken for a ride. I'm certain most of them are lovely people, but I've discovered that you can't tell the good ones from the bad ones, even with a scorecard.
And the good ones will cover for the bad ones, out of either familial or cultural solidarity.
A long story and a sad one. If pushed, I'll repeat it, but I'm on a short time rope right now. Suffice it to say that I lean toward biological analogies when discussing cultures, and some of them are innately cancerous.
It's all fun 'n games until the immigrants start carving up the MPs too.
ReplyDeleteThen it's Zimbabwe.
"But Communities Secretary Eric Pickles said it was impossible to control everyone all the time."
ReplyDeleteHis choice of words is rather telling.
"Protect everyone? No, we just want to control everyone. We don't actually care if they're safe or not."
Aesop,
ReplyDelete"It's all fun 'n games until the immigrants start carving up the MPs too.
Then it's Zimbabwe."
Or the Massachusetts Bay Colony; the immigrants were pretty rough on the established power structure there, too, but they got to write the history books afterwards. ;)
Anytime a fellow USian gets all spun up about immigrants and isn't obviously Ojibwa, I can't help but get a case of the giggles; it's a personal failing of mine that I am striving to overcome. :o
As the immigration continues, approx. 2020 to 2030 "whites" (approx 1/2 which don't seem to care about liberty, founding documents, etc.) become a minority according to the expert estimates, and with the lack of a strong push for assimilation and the lack of instruction in English common law, Federalism/Constitutional law.... and ever continuing immigration...with freebies for all (Heritage Foundation cost analysis for this latest Amnesty)...
ReplyDeleteI don't see how we keep this constitutional rep. republic.
Is there some other outcome?
So, Hispanics are no longer Caucasian, and the gene for melanin production is linked to the one that controls a lust to be enslaved? Fascinating! You must tell me more about this modern science!
ReplyDeletewonka.gif
Before the Massachusetts Bay Colony took over power, the Plymouth Colony had their own issues. Some immigrants lived more peacefully with the local population than others, at least until Myles Standish was sent in to break up the party at Thomas Morton's settlement on land later owned by John Adams:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.patriotledger.com/news/x1641163277/Maypole-Dance-Quincys-original-rite-of-spring-to-be-held-May-11#axzz2UuoqXKk5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOYjzd8sfMo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrUH6J1kSwU
Thomas Morton's greatest offense? Living peacefully with the locals, including trading with them what they really wanted - firearms, to protect them from sea-going raiding parties of Tarrantines who had firearms from trading with the Basque and French:
http://www.madawaskahistorical.org/mhs_history_acadia.html
The problem is not immigrants, Conan and Ed.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is multiculturalism.
If you do not coddle an immigrant for being a barbarian, he will either learn to pretend to be civilized, or he will get deported or put in prison and be deported.
If you do not allow multiculturalism to interfere in socializing the immigrant's children into becoming Americans, you do not have cancerous barbarian communities to deal with.
Rome fell because Romans culturally segregated barbarian immigrants instead of making them to assimilate.
+1 Kristophr
ReplyDeleteAlso we seem to do an increasingly poor job in the immigrant selection process. For example we have people come here for college or higher education (I'm thinking especially in the hard sciences or engineering, frankly someone getting an MS in, say "Sociology of Contemporary Arabic Rap" -- this was on NPR today, no shit -- is not much of a loss if they were to leave, IMO) whom we then do our damndest to kick out once they've graduated. People who have demonstrated that they can and will work hard, have enough command of English (to write a graduate thesis for godssake) and have skills we need, we send back. Yet we admit many who have no skills to contribute and no desire to gain the ability to contribute or to learn to fit in.
Come to the US, fine. Learn to read, write and speak English. If you're a child, in public school. Immersion, not some second-class, eternal-"transition" bilingual educational ghetto. English as the legal official language. And I say this as a child of immigrants from China. (Incidentally, said immigrants: 1. got their graduate degrees in engineering and chemistry (and were holding down jobs while in school to pay for tuition and expenses), 2. went from conversant to fully fluent and accentless in American English, 3. entered the workforce and have paid taxes etc for over 50 years and have never taken any public assistance, 4. voted staunchly Republican for over 50 years and are big advocates of assimilation. Not that they think everything is perfect in the US, but being technical types, they understand the need for common, universal standards in a society. In language and law as much as in purely technical matters.) So don't tell me that immigrants per se are the problem. And I'm neither "Chinese-American" or that horrid bastard should-have-been aborted term "Asian-American." I am an American. Period.
Tam:
ReplyDeleteSo, Hispanics are no longer Caucasian, and the gene for melanin production is linked to the one that controls a lust to be enslaved? Fascinating! You must tell me more about this modern science!
Not sure I get this. Is this some sort of humour? If a serious response then a non sequitir or red herring.
Hispanics are generally what they define themselves as. That is not what the govt or media (e.g. George Zimmerman).
Melanin enslavement? Being part polish/lithuanian (northern slav mixed no doubt) my people are the basis of the word slave due to their enslavement through the centuries. They are the melamim challenged.
I could expand, but this should suffice.
Kristophr:
ReplyDeleteThe problem is multiculturalism.
If you do not coddle an immigrant for being a barbarian, he will either learn to pretend to be civilized, or he will get deported or put in prison and be deported.
If you do not allow multiculturalism to interfere in socializing the immigrant's children into becoming Americans, you do not have cancerous barbarian communities to deal with.
I do not disagree. The multicult destroys common culture. A nation must share culture to bind it or it will come undone. History seems to bear such things out.
Mike C,
In general full agreement with your post too.
Only thing I would add to your controlled immigration point is, that you can't add immigrants ad infinitum. Even under the better circumstances, there must be a finite number that can be absorbed. This number grows smaller with less and less assimilation.
Add in issues such as unemployment/joblessness of those already here and the ever growing (endless?) welfare state and you have a bad recipe.
I would add in that perhaps isolation from cultures that do not respect the foundations of governance here, would be wise.
One final illustration. A little hyperbole to perhaps show ridiculousness.
ReplyDeleteIf we were to import 100 million from the PRC Marxist hellhole, 100 million from the N.Korean hellhole, 100 million from the European Marxist democracies, 100 million from the various South American Marxist hellhole, and give them the right to vote.
How long until this country is completely unrecognizable (not demographics) as a constitutional republic (even though, yes it pretty much is already)?
Immigrants in sane amounts are not a problem, but it seems that in large scale immigration in combo with the multicult is not leading us to liberty (amongst many other factors, Gramscian/Fankfurt school long marh through the institutions, etc., etc.)
No edit feature, typos happen, apologies.
ReplyDeleteActually, the answer is quite straight forward.
ReplyDeleteStop disarming the victims. Stop enabling the murderous rabble.
If there is any value at all to the English/Great Britain government and nation, then visitors must respect that nation and government. Differences? Sure, the government should tolerate differences -- right up until actions and words become rude and aggressive.
You say some visitors want a different law? Fine. Let them become citizens, acquire a working knowledge of the nation and government today, let them vote alongside well established citizens, and wait for Parliament to act on their behalf. Anything else is, by definition, criminal. Treat criminals of any persuasion or length of stay as criminals -- or you teach your citizens to accept and expect disrespect for the government, for the nation, and for the common citizen.
Let each religious community decide for itself how to address ritual killing, maiming, disrespect for authority, etc. But hold each act up for consideration and punishment by secular authority. Treason against a constitution and government, or nation, is treason, whatever the faithful leader says.
Simple. Respect yourself, and your own values -- or invite the vandals in.
Tam, I was using "immigrants" from the perspective of those living in Londonistan currently, where the currently referenced morality play takes place, not hereabouts.
ReplyDeleteLast I looked, there's nothing in this hemisphere with less than 4 legs that's correctly described as "native".
The original Asian immigrants over the trans-Alaskan landbridge had a long and rich history of knocking each other off serially, long before anyone pigmentally challenged from a post-stone age society dropped in to show them all how it's properly done.
It's interesting how often people confuse race and culture.
ReplyDeleteGenetics is not culture.
I'll say it again.
Genetics is not Culture
People need to stop confusing the two.
The genotype of your progenitors is fairly meaningless in regards to who you wind up being.
The culture in which you are raised will define you 99% of the time.
Islam is a dangerous and toxic culture, incapable of tolerating other cultures, and, even when it's the sole culture, will attack itself.
Islam, as a culture, must be either contained, or changed. Or both.
And before you go fitting me for a set of jackboots...
CULTURE IS NOT RACE!
Thank you, and goodnight.
ReplyDelete2. Deport all immigrants.
A: Only a small fraction of those are Muslim.
B: a lot of trouble-shitting muslims are UK born..
@Aesop
ReplyDeleteLast I looked, there's nothing in this hemisphere with less than 4 legs that's correctly described as "native".
Never heard of the Greater Rhea? Large, flightless bipedal bird? Lives in pampas?
Or any other bird for that matter - wings are not legs.
No wonder really, western-Hemisphere public school systems being what they are..
From an article in the Times a few years back, no longer available(alas):
ReplyDeleteWe are so self-congratulatory about our officially disarmed society, and so dismissive of colonial rednecks, that we have forgotten that within living memory British citizens could buy any gun – rifle, pistol, or
machinegun – without any licence. When Dr Watson walked the streets of London with a revolver in his pocket, he was a perfectly ordinary
Victorian or Edwardian. Charlotte Brontë recalled that her curate father fastened his watch and pocketed his pistol every morning when he got dressed; Beatrix Potter remarked on a Yorkshire country hotel where only
one of the eight or nine guests was not carrying a revolver; in 1909, policemen in Tottenham borrowed at least four pistols from passers-by (and were joined by other armed citizens) when they set off in pursuit of two anarchists unwise enough to attempt an armed robbery. We now are shocked that so many ordinary people should have been carrying guns in the street; the Edwardians were shocked rather by the idea of an armed robbery.
The Brit government worked hard to stamp out the gun culture and self-defense ideal in that country, and succeeded; the 'Don't do anything, let the .gov do it' was a connected matter as well.
Throw in the Labour Party using immigration as a weapon to keep themselves in power, and you get this: murderers committing the act in the street, and everyone- including the effing police- stand around and wait for a specially-authorized officer to show up and do something. Because doing anything else has been trained into them to be unthinkable.
Be it noted that this 'We must decide how to prevent crime, and screw any freedom or liberty nonsense' is directly connected: 'The Government must be in control of all. No matter the consequences.'
Wow, thanks, G., for that brilliant correction.
ReplyDeleteI should have added "mammalian".
Thanks for demonstrating the ability to strain the plankton out of the soup.
Perhaps you can tell the class how native bird species illuminates a discussion about humanoid immigrants. Was it their extensive and well-documented sociopolitical organizational structures? Or is it with you that a fish is a bird is a rat is a boy? The internet access in the Western hemisphere being what it is.
(And BTW, "Western" is capitalized, "hemisphere" is never capitalized by itself, and there's no hyphen in the phrase, ever. But having a superior education, you knew all that, and were just testing we poor troglodytes, right?
Twerp.)
For an interesting read of some of the topics discussed in this thread, try Thomas Sowell's "Conquests and Cultures: An International History" (1998). Sometimes the conquered adopt the culture of the conquerors, but many times the conquerors adopt some of the culture of the conquered.
ReplyDeleteAnyone want some sushi?
I have no idea about the definition of native, but you could equally well claim no human is native to Europe because they only got there like 50,000 years ago. We have not evolved there, mostly.
ReplyDeleteYour injuns, they got to the Americas what.. 36 thousand years ago, and expanded south of Alaska only 16,000 years ago.
Which is about the same time-frame when hunter-gatherers in Europe were replaced by the more numerous and advanced agriculturalists from the mediterranean region..
Neanderthals were there half a million years before that, however, they are now mostly gone except for a tiny, but apparently crucial genetic legacy in everyone but blacks.
It would be a whole lot easier to stop if they:
ReplyDelete1. Allowed self defense and the weapons to do so.
2. Deport all immigrants.
I've observed before how conservatives are all about God-given rights when the topic is guns, but are quick to retire God from the rights-giving business when the topic is immigration.
I've never seen it done in such quick succession like that before.
It's interesting how often people confuse race and culture.
ReplyDeleteThe Left had to disassociate itself from racism/eugenics and other forms of racial determinism post-haste after WWII, with the lurid details of National Socialism's results all over the papers. Among other things, it simply redefined that segment of itself as "right wing".
As some point out, however, such things are not only Leftist, but *essential* to it. The Left could not actually reject determinism itself, as it's part and parcel of collectivism -- if they did that, they wouldn't be the Left anymore.
So, they "rejected" racism, but said rejection amounted to little more than seeking out a substitute source of determinism. They did it by redefining "culture" as deterministic, so it would fit right into the slot formerly occupied by genetics.
It shouldn't be surprising that the concepts are blended together in their minds as a result.
Mohammedan assholes killed a fellow bandsman. No quarter!
ReplyDelete