London Bridges Falling Down, My Fair Lady

You don’t make the poor richer by making the rich poorer.” — Winston Churchill

There is an old children’s nursery rhyme that goes “London bridges falling down, falling down, falling down my fair lady.” It seems that after four nights of rioting, looting and vandalism by thousands of thugs the bridges of London are still standing, but for how long?

News reports claim that London was quiet last night with triple the normal police on the streets, but the violence had shifted to the northern cities of Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool.

”Thousands of extra police officers on the streets kept a nervous London quiet Tuesday night after three nights of rioting, but looting flared in Manchester and Birmingham, where a murder probe was opened when three men were killed after being hit by a car.

Eerie calm prevailed in the capital, where hundreds of shops were shuttered or boarded up as a precaution, but unrest spread across England on a fourth night of violence by brazen crowds of young people.

Scenes of ransacked stores, torched cars and blackened buildings have frightened and outraged Britons just a year before their country is to host next summer's Olympic Games, bringing demands for a tougher response from law enforcement. Police across the country have made almost 1,200 arrests since the violence broke out over the weekend.

In London, where armored vehicles and convoys of police vans patrolled the streets, authorities said there were 16,000 officers on duty — almost triple the number present Monday night.

The show of force seems to have worked. There were no reports of major trouble in London, although there were scores of arrests — almost 800 people in the capital since violence began Saturday.

"What happened in London last night was, when community leaders and the police came together, there were significant arrests," said police deputy assistant chief constable Stephen Kavanagh. "Some looters were taken away before they got into doing anything, but it was that joint action that made the difference."

The rioting may be coming to a temporary end, but the debate over the causes has yet to begin. Conservatives will claim a victory by the stronger police presence and claim it was only small groups malcontents who were the culprits. Liberals will claim the riots were the results of budget cuts in the welfare programs and that the rioters were expressing their displeasure with the lack of social and economic justice in what they call the British class system. Neither is correct.

Take as an example a report of what happened at a London restaurant:

“The looters, wearing masks and hoodies, stormed the well known restaurant at 10:52pm and immediately began threatening those inside with machetes, knives and bats.

Louise Yang, who was dining with her husband, used her blog to describe how her meal was suddenly interrupted.

"The restaurant staff was yelling at us to get away from the windows. Before I knew it, the front door, a solid piece of glass shattered and people came crashing in with hoodies, masks, and random weapons," she wrote.

"The looters were yelling at us to get down and throwing stuff all over the place. I got down and started taking off my wedding and engagement ring to hide somewhere, but unfortunately wasn't fast enough. One looter came up and demanded my phone. I didn't have it with me since it was in my purse and it was out of arm's reach. I also didn't want to lead him to my passport, so I said I didn't have one.

"He told me to take off my rings and grabbed my hand, trying to yank them off. His friend tried to help too, but the rings wouldn't come off and I just yelled at him that I'd take them off myself. In hindsight, now that I know that gun control is so fierce in England and he only had bat, I should have held on to my rings better and maybe slugged him in the face."

Maggie and Clive Wilkinson, in their 50s, were celebrating their 29th wedding anniversary when they heard an enormous crash as the youths broke through the windows.

"Thirty people burst in, it was like something out of a movie," Maggie Wilkinson told The (London) Times. "They had baseball bats, things like that. They were shouting at people, 'We want your money, your wallets, your watches, your phones.' Everyone was screaming."

Does this sound like people looking for social justice? Yet the apologists on the progressive left will turn it into a referendum on the lack of social spending in the once great United Kingdom. Already reporters, journalists and pundits are using words like; “poor”, “diverse”, “class system”, “austerity program” and “budget cuts on the back of minorities and the poor.” Just read the reports and op-ed pieces and you will see a plethora of these words.

I doubt that many, if any, reports will delve into the real cause of the riots — the failure of over 100 years of a growing welfare state began by England’s Fabian Socialists. Or will they explore the teachings of Cloward and Piven, Saul Alinsky, Van Jones and other progressive left-wing preachers.

What is happening in England is indicative of that failing all over Europe and growing in the United States as exemplified in Wisconsin, Philadelphia and the latest East Coast Verizon strike. Britain‘s riots began Saturday when an initially peaceful protest over a police shooting in London’s Tottenham neighborhood turned violent. That clash has morphed into a general lawlessness in London and several other cities that police have struggled to halt with ordinary tactics.

While the rioters have run off with sneakers, bikes, electronics and leather goods, they also have torched stores apparently just for the fun of seeing something burn. They were left virtually unchallenged in several neighborhoods, and when police did arrive they often were able to flee quickly and regroup.

Some saw Britain’s economic crisis and deep cuts planned for social benefits as a deeper underlying cause for the outburst of violence.

CNBC published an article yesterday showing where the unrest is spreading. So where is that, exactly? How about Israel, Spain, Greece, Portugal, the Philippines, China, and Syria.

Great Britain and other parts of the world are experiencing unrest at a time of global economic uncertainty and stock market volatility,” the article notes. “Here‘s a look at what’s happening around the world and how economic downturns are bringing protestors into the streets.”

We’ve well documented what’s going on in Great Britain, so here are some excerpts from CNBC’s analysis of the rest of the world. Here are some of the demands from protestors, according to Reuters:

• Increase personal tax brackets for top earners
• Enshrine the right to housing in the law; introduce rent controls; boost mortgage relief
• Stop further privatization of things such as health facilities
• Provide free education for all from the age of three months
• Raise the minimum wage to 50 percent of the average wage

This stuff is exactly what the progressive left is demanding in the United States. They believe the most effective means to obtain these demands is to follow the Cloward and Piven strategy of crashing the system and creating chaos.

Bob Livingston wrote in his article about Benevolent Totalitarianism:

“The human population is composed of two personality types. The masses are the worker bees, and a small minority are human parasites who live off the masses through deception and manipulation.

The political and social order is the creation of evil men from which and through which greater humanity is ruled. Most, but not all, politicians work behind masks. They speak in a seductive language and manipulate the minds of the people who vote for them. The ruling elite highly favor deceptive politicians who think nothing of selling their souls for money.

Since only a very small number is comprised of the ruling elite and their obedient lackeys, they must rule with deceit and from sanctuaries of privilege, out of sight, like the city of London. (See Empire of the City by E.C. Knuth.)

When the elite rulers walk among us, they do so under disguises and complicated cloaks. However, students of the World Order have detected over the years that the esoteric is revealed to the discerning in signs and symbols.

These signs and symbols portray innocence and even benevolence to the public, but they operate on a dual or hidden agenda, i.e., deception.”

The conventional wisdom has it that cuts in government services and poverty are driving these hooligans into Britain's streets. Certainly, the left has a vested interest in promoting that viewpoint. But British writer, Philip Womack, offers a far less conventional — indeed, intriguing — perspective on the looters and rioters:

“But these riots are not Ballardian. His concern the middle classes – journalists, politicians, children's writers – who, unable to cope with the psychological pressures of modern life, revert to primeval tendencies. They have some layer of civilization which is removed. This is also what I discussed in my novel The Liberators , where the villainous Luther-Ross brothers offered a version of freedom – the removal of conscience – which resulted in murders, violence and rioting in Oxford Circus.”

“The Luther-Ross brothers [characters from his novel] would have no trouble recruiting the rioters to their band of Liberators. They have no consciences to be removed in the first place. What we need to do is systemic, and it needs to be done from the roots up, and it needs to be done now. It has nothing to do with cuts, or even poverty. It is to do with generational psychological flaws: and the only way to solve this is to get in there and talk, and show that every action, mindless or not, has its equal and opposite reaction. We need to show unity, and show these children that their actions are not a form of freedom. Freedom comes from self-regulation, not self-abandonment. Their actions will only lead them into slavery: psychological, and real.”

As Professor Victor Davis Hanson writes in his blog about the inexplicables, comments that, except for the time reference mirror my thoughts to a tee.

“I came into this world in 1953 replete with electricity, and modern medicine at the dawn of the age of antibiotics and polio vaccines, and relative peace — no Japanese imperialism, or German Nazism, no death from tetanus. Who gave us all that and at what price? California had then a wonderful university system, impressive freeways, a lean and hardworking public sector, and vibrant industry. We were given so much and yet appreciate so little of that inheritance, citing the sins of past generations, less commonly the gifts they bestowed. I said “gifts” because if they were not benefactions, we would have blown up Hetch-Hetchy dam, turned off the juice from the Morro Bay or Moss Landing power plants, or passed on driving on the 99. Has our generation improved test scores, or created safer streets? Is air travel so much better than forty years ago? When one walks into the DMV, or the county assessor’s office, are the employees so much more polite and competent than in the past?

So I am baffled by the paradox that our present generation is the most critical in our history of its predecessors, and yet in so many areas so clearly wanting. When I meet a contractor, go to a car dealer’s shop, or scan a government bureau, I instinctively look for the “old person,” that is, some man or woman over 60 (and preferably over 70) of any race or class or gender, whose quite different assumptions about life might permeate the work force, or whose greater expertise might rub off on others. When he is absent, chaos seems to reign. The tragedy of the entire university, postmodern race/class/gender writ against past Americans is the fact that our generation has little to show for its moral posturing. When Obama lists our sins from Hiroshima to supposed genocide, I wonder how he would have managed a wagon train, or what he would have done when facing the horrific choices of either sending the napalm-carrying B-29s over Japan or invading the island to trump an Okinawa ten times over. Would he have voted present?

How much dialoguing with people — kids or otherwise — conducting themselves as savages is of any real value is dubious. Jail time might be a better cure. But Womack's other insights point strongly to the tragic results of anything goes, value- and moral-free progressive culture.

And, one might add, it points to the British welfare state as a culprit and expression of the emptiness of progressive society. Young people who are all too accustomed to government handouts have been denied the opportunities and incentives to develop initiative to build independence and self-worth through their own efforts. The state is a layer atop a degraded culture that has made British streets mean and brutish. And as the movie trailers proclaim; “coming to your neighborhood soon.”

Are We Fighting The Wong War?

"When all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another." — Thomas Jefferson

Last week the Taliban in Afghanistan downed a US Chinook helicopter carrying 25 navy SEALs and 7 other Afghan security forces with a two or three hundred dollar rocket propelled grenade launcher (RPG). This was the same type of weapon used by the Somalian war lords in Mogadishu to bring down two Black Hawk helicopters. This was the largest loss of American lives in the past two years in this unending war against 11^th century tribal Muslims. A war that seems unwinnable — a war with no real defined mission for success except the killing of suspected terrorists.

U.S. military authorities are referring to the downing of the helicopter used by U.S. Special Forces as a one-off incident. While that may be the case, the downing of a U.S. military helicopter, with as many as 25 members of the Navy SEALs aboard it, will be a source of emboldenment for the Taliban. Should the Taliban be able to reproduce this incident in the future, it will enhance its position on the battlefield as well as the negotiating table.

A Pentagon spokesperson described the incident as a one-off incident and cautioned against reading too much into it and said that this did not constitute “a watershed or a new trend.” Indeed, the available evidence does suggest that the Taliban militiamen got lucky in this particular incident in the province of Wardak in central Afghanistan, when a team of Navy SEALs tried to rescue rangers who were pinned down in a firefight with the jihadist militiamen.

Even though the Taliban may have gotten lucky this time around, they will definitely want to try and reproduce this incident in the future, just as U.S. military officials are investigating the incident in terms of trying to understand how this happened and how it can be prevented in the future. The Taliban can be expected to do their own probe in which they would want to be able to glean from “lessons learned.”

The point to note here is that while the tactical military skills and circumstances may be reproducible, but in the long run the frequency of such events essentially depends upon the Taliban having advanced intelligence on helicopter missions. And that’s where they will run into some problems, because ultimately it depends upon how good the Taliban penetration is of the Afghan security forces and how much U.S. military authorities are sharing with their Afghan counterparts.

Should the Taliban be able to bring down additional helicopters in the near future, then that allows them to extract concessions from the United States on the negotiating table in terms of the circumstances of withdrawal and the share of power that the Taliban will be demanding in a post-NATO Afghanistan [Source: Stratfor]

While Stratfor, a highly respected intelligence source, is looking at the implications of this incident in Afghanistan and the so called “War on Terror” I think we need to step back a bit and look at where the real threat to pur national security is coming from. It’s Mexico.

Just this week the entire 26 man police force of Mexican town resigned due to threats from the drug cartels. AFP news reported:

“An entire police force of 26 officers quit their posts in a northern Mexican town after two of their colleagues were killed in an armed attack, local authorities said Thursday.

"The officers were afraid and resigned," said Jaime Dominguez Loya, the mayor of Ascension, a town of 5,000 people in Chihuahua state home to Mexico's most violent city of Ciudad Juarez.

The mass resignation follows several attacks in recent weeks on police in the town, which lies on major drug-trafficking routes to the United States.

The mayor has now called for help from regional and federal authorities.

An entire police force resigned in 2009 from Villa Ahumada, another town in Chihuahua, following attacks allegedly led by drug gangs. Regional and federal security forces now police that town.

More than 41,000 people have died in violence blamed on Mexico's drug cartels since the end of 2006, when President Felipe Calderon deployed some 50,000 troops to tackle organized crime.”

Another report in the London Telegraph states:

“The mass resignation follows several attacks in recent weeks on police in the town, which lies on major drug-trafficking routes to the United States.

"The officers were afraid and resigned," said Jaime Dominguez Loya, the mayor of Ascension, a town of 5,000 people in Chihuahua state home to Mexico's most violent city of Ciudad Juarez.

The mayor has now called for help from regional and federal authorities.

An entire police force resigned in 2009 from Villa Ahumada, another town in Chihuahua, following attacks allegedly led by drug gangs. Regional and federal security forces now police that town.

More than 41,000 people have died in violence blamed on Mexico's drug cartels since the end of 2006, when President Felipe Calderón deployed some 50,000 troops to tackle organized crime.”

While these two reports are similar I show them for the purpose of emphasis on the global interest in this ongoing war waging just south of our border.

In another incident the police chief of Ciudad Juarez resigned due to death threats from the drug cartels. AP reported that:

“Public Safety Secretary Roberto Orduna announced he was leaving his post only hours after gunmen killed a police officer and a jail guard and left signs on their bodies saying they had fulfilled a promise made Wednesday to slay at least one officer every 48 hours until Orduna quits.

The slayings were a grim sign that criminal gangs are determined to control the police force of the biggest Mexican border city, with a population of 1.3 million people across from El Paso, Texas.

Mayor Jose Reyes insisted earlier Friday the city would not back down.”

A retired army major, Orduna took over as chief in May after former Public Safety Secretary Guillermo Prieto resigned and fled to El Paso following the slaying of his operations director.

For Orduna's protection, the city built his bedroom at the police station so he didn't have to go home. He also travels in different vehicles when he does go out.

The report continues by stating the violence is spreading like wildfire and crossing our borders on a daily basis:

“Homeland Security officials have said they will bring in the military if the violence continues to grow and threatens the U.S. border region.

"The violence is spreading like wildfire across the Rio Grande," said George Grayson, a Mexico expert at the College of William & Mary in Virginia. "It's a major national security problem for us that is much more important than Iraq and Afghanistan."

Robert Almonte, executive director of the Texas Narcotics Officers Association, said that, while El Paso has been spared most of the violence, the escalating killings across the border in Juarez are worrisome.

I think it's jarring ... we can't even fathom those kinds of things happening here in the United States," Almonte said.

Also Friday, the U.S. State Department renewed a travel advisory warning Americans about the increased violence along the U.S.-Mexico border.”

This has been going on for years now and the criminal gangs seem to be winning the war. In October 2010 the Financial Times reported:

An entire police force in a northern Mexico community resigned on Tuesday afternoon after its station came under heavy fire by suspected drug traffickers, local authorities confirmed.

Santos Salinas Garza, mayor of Los Ramones, a rural area about 60km to the east of the city of Monterrey, confirmed that about 15 officers had fled out of terror.

They resigned because of this situation,” he told local media.

On Monday night, gunmen drove up to the police station and peppered it with automatic fire and at least two grenade launchers. Preliminary investigations found more than 1,000 bullet casings by the building.

Nobody was injured in the attack, but six police vehicles were destroyed and the white and orange police station, which authorities had inaugurated just three days before, was pockmarked with bullet holes.”

Professor Grayson states in his book Mexico: Narco-Violence and a Failed State:

“The inability of the Mexican government to appreciatively curb the rashes of sensational murders, including castrations and beheadings, has elevated the specter among pundits that Mexico might become a failed state.

Mexico is not a failed state but increasingly municipalities are governed by "dual sovereignty." Mayors and councils operate in one sphere; plaza bosses, who have their own police forces in the form of thugs, operate in another. The latter want to conduct business, historically involving drug processing, storage and distribution but increasingly including elements such as human trafficking, kidnapping and control of contraband sales, with impunity.

In many cases, the worst violence occurs close to the 2,000-mile border with the United States. Cities such as Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez virtually have been closed to foreign travellers, yet the atrocities that have made them such dangerous destinations go largely unreported—Mexican newspapers fear that their presses will be bombed; U.S. newspapers have stopped sending correspondents. Although the violence has trickled into the United States, it has yet to pour over the border. The prospect looms but remains unlikely in part because leaders of the new cartels do not want to encourage the type of direct involvement that the United States has exercised relative to Columbia.”

Just today Fox News reported:

“Authorities say they have found the bodies of four police officers and a civilian dumped in the western Mexico state of Michoacan, along with the body of an unidentified man.

The dead include two policewomen and two male officers, all from the neighboring state of Colima.

The Michoacan state prosecutors' office says all the officers were off-duty when they vanished Saturday. They were still wearing their uniforms when their bullet-ridden bodies were found Monday.

Michoacan state is home to two feuding drug cartels, La Familia and The Knights Templar.”

Mexico's government is suspending about $102 million in federal law enforcement grants to 80 percent of the country's most violent municipalities because they haven't shown progress in using the money.

National Public Safety System secretary Juan Miguel Alcantara says 172 cities and towns have failed to "demonstrate advances" in improving police equipment, training and salaries.

He says that among the problems is a failure to raise police salaries, which are so low they encourage corruption.

Alcantara told Milenio TV on Monday that Ciudad Juarez, Reynosa and Nuevo Laredo, cities along the border with Texas, are among those being cut off.

The money is given three times a year to cities with the highest kidnapping and murder rates.

In a related story Fox News reported on August 8^th that U.S. intelligence agents may now be working in Mexico:

“The Mexican government is acknowledging that U.S. intelligence agents operate in Mexican territory to help combat drug cartels, but refused to discuss a report they have been posted to a base in northern Mexico and have helped in interrogations, wiretaps and running informant networks.

The participation of U.S. agents and the designation of a new U.S. ambassador, Anthony Wayne, whose last posting was Afghanistan, has raised concerns that America may view Mexico as an Afghan-style battleground.

Mexico has already acknowledged it allows U.S. drones to conduct non-piloted surveillance flights over Mexican territory, though it says it "controls" the flights; a Mexican official is present in the drones' control room.

"In recent months, Washington's growing military, political, intelligence and police interference has been documented in many ways, as has the Mexican government's acceptance of it," the newspaper La Jornada wrote in an editorial Monday.”

Mexico is our third largest supplier of oil with 1,108 barrels per day with Canada at 2,114 and Saudi Arabia at 1,122. This is more than Libya where we are spending over a billion dollars to remove a dictator that poses no threat to the security of the United States. In Afghanistan we have spent untold billions and to date we have lost 1,731 soldiers in this 10 year war. The majority of these deaths have been in Helmand and Kandahar provinces. To date Mexico has seen over 41,000 deaths (mainly to civilians and police) in the same period. In a speech to the Center for American Progress (a George Soros funded left-wing organization) Alan Bersin, the head of the Customs and Border Patrol stated it would take 500,000 agents to seal our southern border. Whether he is correct or not is debatable.

It is time to focus on our southern neighbor and do like we did in Colombia when we “assisted” the Colombian Special Forces get Pablo Escobar. Mexico is far more dangerous and we need to use our military’s prowess, technology and intelligence to eliminate these drug cartels before hey spill over into our cities.

Johnnie Get Your Gun

“A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks.” — Thomas Jefferson

In my last post I wrote about the African Americans running rampage at the Wisconsin State Fair. At the time I made the post the riots in England were just beginning and I did not realize how violent and out of hand they would become. After all isn’t the United Kingdom the land where guns are frowned upon and people are so wishy-washy towards strong law enforcement against their growing minority communities of blacks and Muslims. What is happening in London and other cities in the England makes the riots in Greece and the rampage in Milwaukee look like an afternoon tea.

What is going on in England is right out of the Cloward and Piven play book strategy for crashing the system and bringing down government so a totalitarian socialist society dedicated to social and economic justice can be instituted — a transformation of our capitalistic system.

You can view more of Glenn Beck explaining the roots and aims of the Cloward and Piven strategy by clicking here for Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5. You can also hear Francis Scott Piven in her own words by clicking here. Many call Beck a nut and a fear monger for his expose the Cloward and Piven strategy for transforming America, but recent events in Wisconsin, Greece and England are beginning to prove him more a prophet than a nut.

What is happening in England is just a continuation of the riots they had had last year over the increase in college tuitions. This current round of violence, rioting, vandalism and looting began over the shooting of a suspected gang member by the police. Just as the Watts riots in Los Angeles began over a traffic stop of a black motorist by the highway patrol and the second round of riots in Los Angeles began over the decision in the Rodney King case these rioters in London are using the excuse of the shooting to run rampage through neighborhoods to vandalize and loot. Here are a few reports from the papers in the UK.

The Mail Online reports:

• Prime Minister David Cameron recalls Parliament on Thursday as Government tries to quell uprising
• Plastic bullets could be used for the first time in Britain if there are riots tonight
• 'Unprecedented' 16,000 police on duty in London - compared with just 6,000 last night
• Man, 26, shot in Croydon last night dies in hospital
• Man, aged in his 60s, critically ill after clashing with rioters in Ealing
• England game against Netherlands at Wembley tomorrow called OFF
• 400% surge in 999 calls on night of violence with 20,800 dialing the emergency services in London
• Birmingham Children's Hospital staff forced to barricade themselves in last night as yobs try and break in
• Cost of clean-up expected to run into 'tens of millions'
• Metropolitan Police use armored vehicles to push back 150 rioters in Lavender Hill, Clapham
• 'There are no plans for the Army to get involved,' says police chief
• Three arrested on suspicion of attempted murder of police officer
• 525 people arrested in total and more than 100 people have been charged
• 16-year-old arrested on suspicion of trying to incite riots via Facebook
• All police cells in London are now FULL
• Copycat riots in Birmingham, Bristol, Nottingham, Liverpool and Leeds”

“Police today admitted they were prepared to use plastic bullets against rioters if a fourth night of lawlessness sees gangs of youths marauding across London and looting businesses.

With an 'unprecedented' 16,000 police officers due on the streets of London tonight, answers were today being demanded over the failure of police to bring last night's riots under control.

Just hours after David Cameron warned rioters they would face the 'full force of the law' shops were boarding up their windows across the capital amid fears of more violence across the capital. Businesses, pubs, schools and even medical centers were sending staff home early.

Disorder has already been reported tonight in Wolverhampton, West Bromwich and Salford.”

The BBC reported:

“Two girls who took part in Monday night's riots in Croydon have boasted that they were showing police and "the rich" that "we can do what we want".

The pair who were drinking wine looted from a local shop at 09:30 BST on Tuesday morning, spoke to the BBC's Leana Hosea.

Croydon was one of several areas plagued by unrest on Monday night, on a third night of riots in the capital.

There were also violent scenes in several other English cities.”

Another BBC Report on how the night unfolded:

“Rioting spread across London on Monday in a third night of violence, with unrest also flaring in other English cities.

An extra 1,700 police officers were deployed in London, where shops were looted and buildings were set alight.

Birmingham, Liverpool, Nottingham and Bristol also saw violence.”

Katharine Birbalsingh writes in The Telegraph:

“What colour is Mark Duggan? Mark Duggan is the man who was shot dead by the police on Thursday in Tottenham. The Tottenham riots last night were sparked when people protested his death. This morning, I first heard of the riots on the radio, then on the television. I read articles on the internet. But oddly, no one would say what colour Mark Duggan was. No one would say the unsayable, that the rioters were, I suspect on the whole, black. Then, finally, Toby Young’s Telegraph blog post on the riots was published. Is Toby Young the only journalist out there who will dare say that these riots are about race?

Still, one paper did carry a photo of Mr. Duggan. When I saw the photo, it confirmed what I knew instinctively: black youths once again have set London alight.

Some of the black kids I used to teach will tell you that the riots are absolutely justified. A number of adults would agree with them. Everywhere I read that the protest was understandable because “people are very angry”.

I’d like to know what they’re angry about. Mark Duggan is dead. He was shot by the police in a shootout. Duggan was in a minicab and shots were fired from both the cab and the police elsewhere. A police officer was hurt in the incident and a bullet was found lodged in a police radio. Either Duggan was shooting at the police or the driver of the minicab was. Either Duggan was in the wrong place at the wrong time and his death is a terrible tragedy – he was caught in the crossfire – or he shot at the police and the police defended themselves. Whatever the explanation, the police did not kill this man in cold blood.”

Ms. Birbalsingh continues:

“Yet, a friend of Duggan who gave her name as Niki, 53, said marchers had wanted “justice for the family” and “something had to be done”. She said some of them lay in the road to make their point. “They’re making their presence known because people are not happy. This guy was not violent. Yes, he was involved in things but he was not an aggressive person. He had never hurt anyone.”

I wonder what “involved in things” means? I also wonder whether the police officer who was hurt at the scene believes Mark Duggan never hurt anyone. “Something had to be done”? She makes it sound as if the police are killing black people every other weekend and finally someone decided to take a stand.”

I believe Ms. Birbalsingh is partially correct in her assessment of the riots in London and other UIK cities. I think, however, she misses the larger point. Yes, race is no doubt a factor because, like blacks in the United States, the blacks in the UK are undereducated and underemployed due to their lack of education and their adherence to a gangster culture. The Washington Times has the guts to report on comments made by Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter concerning the disgraceful actions of black youths in his city, and across the United States. The Washington Times article states:

“Mayor Michael A. Nutter, telling marauding black youths “you have damaged your own race,” imposed a tougher curfew Monday in response to the latest “flash mob” — spontaneous groups of teens who attack people at random on the streets of the city’s tourist and fashionable shopping districts.

“Take those God-darn hoodies down, especially in the summer,” Mr. Nutter, the city’s third black mayor, said in an angry lecture aimed at black teens. “Pull your pants up and buy a belt ‘cause no one wants to see your underwear or the crack of your butt.”

“If you walk into somebody’s office with your hair uncombed and a pick in the back, and your shoes untied, and your pants half down, tattoos up and down your arms and on your neck, and you wonder why somebody won’t hire you? They don’t hire you ‘cause you look like you’re crazy,” the mayor said. “You have damaged your own race.”

Mr. Nutter announced that he was beefing up police patrols in certain neighborhoods, enlisting volunteers to monitor the streets and moving up the weekend curfew for minors to 9 p.m.

Parents will face increased fines for each time their child is caught violating the curfew.

The head of Philadelphia’s chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, J. Whyatt Mondesire, said it “took courage” for Mr. Nutter to deliver the message.

“These are majority African-American youths and they need to be called on it,” Mr. Mondesire said.”

Of course the left-wing, progressive ACLU had a different take on the mayors comments”:

“Mary Catherine Roper, a spokeswoman for the Philadelphia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said her group sees the curfew move as legal with its sole caveat being that it not evolve “into an excuse to hassle” any youths on the street.

The state ACLU filed a federal lawsuit last year challenging Philadelphia police’s use of “stop and frisk” searches. A settlement announced in June allowed the program to continue, along with safeguards to prevent the use of racial profiling.

In the past two years, the City of Brotherly Love has been the scene of several flash mobs in which youths meet at planned locations by texting one another and then commit assorted mayhem.”

U.S. media coverage of all this has been remarkably muted. They haven’t ignored the story, but the coverage has been superficial, and noticeably out of proportion to the scale of these horrible events. Watching an American news report about London on TV, and then taking a look at the coverage by the BBC, presents a jarring contrast. Of course, our weekend coverage was dominated by the U.S. government’s credit rating downgrade, and later we had the awful chopper attack in Afghanistan to deal with, but these events shouldn’t have crowded out the amazing story of a major Western capital – the storied city that gave birth to our own political system, and much of our culture – torn to shreds by gigantic hordes of rioters.

Perhaps the identity of these rioters made the U.S. media uncomfortable. The riots began after police officers from a unit that “investigates gun crime in the black community” stopped a taxicab and shot Mark Duggan, a 29-year-old father of four. The circumstances of the shooting were murky, and rumors quickly filled the void of official information.

Soon after the riots began, the mobs acquired a significant Muslim population, and eventually white anarchists joined in the fun. It may have started with a racial component, but it ended up being an impeccably multicultural disaster.

British politicians have been rushing to indict the loss of government programs through austerity measures as the true, underlying cause of the violence. Before you groan at their opportunism, consider that they have a point… and it doesn’t reflect well on British socialism at all.

The American media might have found itself a bit squeamish about those London riots, not just because of the black and Muslim participants, but because it became a broad collapse of British society, driven by the angry dependents of a collapsing welfare state. The dole leaves people with time on their hands, fills them with resentment over their meager circumstances, fosters despair over the lack of opportunity, and leaves them with various forms of “community organizing” as the only way to improve their lot in life.

Search the rubble left by every “austerity” program in the developed world, from Greece to London to Wisconsin, and you’ll find burning cars and riot police. The dependency class is enraged by what it views as broken promises, and it’s not about to turn that anger against itself, for being naïve enough to accept them. The Tea Party movement in the United States is the only thing standing between us and a near future of powder-keg cities waiting for spark to set them off. It’s not as if we haven’t dealt with riots here in the past but take a long look at London today, and understand that you ain’t seen anything yet.

As run out of money for the myriad of social welfare programs and promises are not kept these flash mob rioters will become bolder and bolder in their attacks on society as they are urged on by politicians and academics preaching their garbage of economic and social justice. It will not be long before a flash mob visits your neighborhood demanding economic justice. As John Adams said:

"Democracy, while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide."

As the anarchy spreads Thomas Jefferson’s admonition will become more relevant than ever; Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks.”

The Story The National Media Won’t Cover

"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act”. — George Orwell

Over this past weekend an incident took place at the Wisconsin State Fair in Milwaukee. Hundreds of African American youths ran rampage like ancient barbarians through the fair at closing time assaulting white fair goers, smashing car windows and vandalizing homes. Not a word of this event was shown on CBS, NBC, ABC and other national main stream media.

Fox News reported on Saturday:

“Milwaukee police officers are investigating a string of mob-like actions involving a very large and unruly crowd near the Wisconsin State Fair Thursday night, where several people were badly injured and cars and homes were rampaged, Fox6 News reported.

Twenty-four people were arrested inside the fairgrounds after fights broke out, State Fair officials said. The violence continued after closing time outside the park.

State Fair Park CEO Rick Frenette said seven park police officers were injured, including two who were taken to the hospital.

Milwaukee Police said just after 11 p.m. they responded to complaints of an unruly mob attacking cars, people and leaving damage in its path.

Hundreds of young people left the fairgrounds and made their way down to the surrounding neighborhoods, smashing car windows, throwing rocks and beating people who were leaving the fair.

Several people were punched in the face, a child was pushed to the ground, one woman required stitches and another will need surgery for her injuries.

Police are continuing to search for suspects involved in the incident.

One witness said he saw a group of 20-30 young men attack someone walking by.

"A group came through and the guy was kind of not really looking and was making his way through the crowd like anybody else would, and just wound up on his knees and they wound up punching him," the witness said.

"I had one kid you know asking me to sit on my porch until it cleared up because he was afraid to walk by himself."

Witnesses described the mobs as young African American teens. Milwaukee Aldermen Bob Donovan and Joe Dudzik released a bold statement on Friday about what they called a "deteriorating African American culture in our city," Fox 6 News reported.”

A bold statement indeed! What did Messrs Donovan and Dudzik expect? This stuff has been escalating across the United States for the past ten years as the African American community has become more and more wards of the state and held to less and less accountability. They claim to be victims of a racist society and are supported in this belief by left wing politicians and race-baiters. They are not held into account for their lack of education even though we spend billions on the failed public school system. Unemployment in the African American community, especially among the youth, is approaching 20%. Children have babies out of wedlock and their children do the same. The African American culture has debased itself into gangster rap with sociopathic lyrics advocating a victim society with oppression from the white society.

Now, this wasn't the worst ever in America. The race riots of the Red Summer of 1919, for example, sometimes involved thousands of people at a time. But it is certainly something new and terrifying for the Wisconsin State Fair, which, like all state fairs, is normally a peaceful and traditional celebration of the state's agricultural heritage. It's pure Americana with an extra helping of capitalism, as the ten-day celebration at State Fair Park injects the small suburb of West Allis with its most significant jolt of commercial activity every year. Homeowners and businesses in all directions rent out parking spaces on their lots, driveways, and yards to the overflow crowds of families who travel hundreds of miles to attend and eat bratwurst and apple pie.

In the public debate the next day, the fair management reported that they would have an increased police presence for the rest of the fair, and they would institute a curfew for the first time; no one under 18 would be admitted without parent or guardian after 5:00pm. This would likely prevent repeat occurrences in this venue, but of course that is only a partial response (and an unfair insult to the tens of thousands of non-troublemaking teens who attend without incident). Preventing it from happening again isn't enough; society needs to explore why such barbarism could occur in the first place.

In his very thorough coverage of the event on his WISN talk show, radio host Mark Belling made special note of the demeanor of the mob. Contrary to the traditional liberal assumption that mobs turn violent out of anger and poverty, numerous reports indicated the maniacal grins, the ferocious smiles, the sheer happiness of the attackers. They were joyful, not angry; this was fun for them. These thugs engaged in horrific unprovoked violence against innocent, unarmed, unsuspecting bystanders, just because they got a kick out of doing so.

There is much that our society must do to deal with this problem, and police presence is only a very small part of it. If we treat this as merely a security issue, we will miss the forest for the trees. For it's larger than just the Wisconsin State Fair; it's just a symptom of a number of significant social cancers.

Americans have always been solidly against mob action, ever since our founding era, when revolutionary student Alexander Hamilton stood down a crowd to protect Loyalist Myles Cooper from the rebel horde. Our revolution was the opposite of the French Revolution, for example — a campaign for prosperous tranquility, rather than a campaign for vengeance and anarchy (see Ann Coulter's marvelous treatment of this issue in her new book, Demonic).

But the left has spent some fifty years advocating the use of mob action — the protest marches of the 60s, the sit-ins of the 70s, even the virtual takeovers of public buildings such as college halls a generation ago, and state capitols this very year — which brings us back to Wisconsin.

Who participated in the State Fair riots? This was no single organized gang of trade unionists or a political party, like many mob actions have been in our past. These were young blacks, mostly male, some of whom obviously knew each other, but many of whom were previously unacquainted with their fellow marauders. Why did they join in? What could possess a person to commit vicious attacks on perfect strangers, in public, no less joining other lawbreakers and becoming — depending on whether you held the victims for the beating or threw the punches and kicks — either accomplices to the crime or a criminal yourself?

There are many reasons, and all must be considered to get the full picture.

The warping of our criminal justice system:

For fifty years, the nation's legislatures, and especially the nation's judiciaries, have changed the legal framework's approach to crime. Until the modern liberal era of the 50s and 60s, the legal structure was designed to protect the innocent from the guilty criminal class, even as individual trials were designed to protect a wrongly accused innocent from being incorrectly lumped in with the guilty. In the past two generations, however, this framework was overturned, and now protects the criminal at the expense of the law-abiding citizen. Criminals are caught and released without trial, or tried but released on a technicality, or tried and convicted but released into the community early. The system has forgotten that it's there to protect the rest of us, not to process the criminals.

The culmination of this tragic migration in jurisprudence is occurring in California even now, as the state contends with a pending judicial order to give early release to some 40,000 convicted prisoners because the jails aren't comfortable enough to satisfy some distant black robed bone head. How many of the instigators and other participants in the State Fair wilding already had a rap sheet a mile long? How many had already been caught and released too soon, free to terrorize their society again, or free to jump into the fray and join others, once it was begun?

Our jails are overcrowded with Hispanic and Black gang members who our liberal society views victims of a cruel capitalistic system that has kept them down for some unknown reasons. Liberals just can’t seem to get their heads around the fact that these people are criminals who will continue in their lives of crime as long as they are nor held totally accountable for their criminal acts. It is the life they have chosen due to the culture they are nurtured in.

I can’t count the times I have watched the 11:00 pm local news to see story after story of murder, rape, abductions and other heinous crimes committed by Hispanic or African American perpetrators. Oh yes, there are the big, publically covered trials of whites like Scott Petersen and Casey Anthony, but in numbers they are small potatoes to the everyday suffering and mayhem that goes on every day in our local communities by Hispanics and Blacks. And, they most tragic part is that these crimes are against members of their own communities.

The toxic political climate

It is unfortunate that there had never been a non-white president before now, but one unexpected minor benefit can now be seen from that history. When every president was a white male, one could hardly blame political disagreements with one or another on matters of race. The president was always a white male; so too were his predecessor and successor. One could claim that opposition was based on party, or ideology, or perhaps even region, but one could hardly say that opposition was simply because of the guy's race.

That was yesterday, but today things have changed. Many in the mainstream media have been pushing the narrative that all opposition to Barack Obama was driven by anti-black bigotry, ever since he began contending for the Democratic presidential nomination. Never mind the fact that Obama is a half white American and half Kenyan national, having virtually nothing in common with the life experiences or family history of an American black. The media have christened him an American black, and have done everything in their power to convince America that public opinion toward Obama is a bellwether for how Americans feel about American blacks in general — a moronic position, but nonetheless, it is sticking. My neighbor is Black and a general contractor who works his butt off to maintain his property and business. He does not think much of Obama. Does gthis make him a racist or an Uncle Tom?

The media has successfully ginned up an utterly unjustifiable assumption in the black community that anti-Obama political positions and activity are entirely racially based. Outrageous as it is, this toxic claim is out there, polluting the minds of a gullible electorate and an impressionable community. Real anti-white bigotry is arising, a response to non-existent anti-black bigotry imagined and decried by our malicious left-wing chattering class.

The collapse of the urban black community

Half a century ago, census and poll results agreed: the black community was more responsible, from a social perspective, than the white community. Generally speaking, in the first half of the 20th century, unwed motherhood, cohabitation, unemployment, divorce, church attendance, and criminal convictions all showed proportionately worse statistics among America's whites than among America's blacks. African Americans were members of churches, mainly Baptist, and obeyed the laws of man and God. Blacks like Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, Larry Elder, David Webb, Deroy Murdock and Deneen Borelli have written and spoken volumes on this issue.

This all changed with LBJ's Great Society. Since the government began to reward cohabitation, sloth, and irresponsible childbearing with a warped welfare system, and since the public schools began their simultaneous attack on morality and religion in the curriculum and discipline in the halls, the community most under the thumb of city governments have suffered the most. As Chip Wood writes, a true lollipop mentality:

“But of course, the Harry Reids, Nancy Pelosis and Barack Obamas of the world will never agree. More to the point, they will never voluntarily relinquish the power, perks and prestige that pandering to greedy constituents has given them. They know that if they have to start taking away lollipops, their popularity will plunge faster than Congress’s credibility.”

Note that this is not true in rural areas or suburbs, or even in the good neighborhoods of larger cities, where blacks and whites alike own farms, blacks and whites alike own businesses, go to church, obey the law, and serve as honorable and productive members of society. And of course, like any generality, it doesn't go for everyone in the bad neighborhoods either; there are mixed neighborhoods. But it is undeniable that this cultural destruction has become most severe for the generations of blacks locked into this dependence. They have grown up on government lollipops handed out by power hungry politicians. When the lollipops run out or are not enough these “victims” demand more and if more is not provided they become angry and turn to crimes like robbery, carjacking and flash mobs where hey race into mall stores and strip the racks and shelves clean.

The warping of the black church

America was settled by immigrants of every race, color and creed. While we owe our roots to the English settlers who designed our culture and our government, today's Americans are as diverse as the colors of a rainbow. All these groups arrived with the cultural prejudices of "the old country" and have depended upon the civilizing force of our instruments of assimilation — the schools, the churches, the employment community — to soften, or hopefully even eradicate, those prejudices.

An Irish parent might badmouth the English at the dinner table; a Neapolitan parent, the Sicilians a Lutheran, the Catholics a Protestant, the Jews a white, the blacks. Such once-pervasive bigotry has been largely diminished over the last century, by the media, and by attendance at diverse schools and churches, where the authority figures actively work to minimize that inherited bigotry in support of racial, ethnic and religious tolerance. It has also been diminished by interdenominational and nationality marriage.

It has therefore been with little short of terror that religion-watchers have noted the appearance of "black liberation theology" in recent decades, spreading like a cancer through the black urban churches of the United States. While still a minority view, this perverse twisting of religion uses the structure of the church to intentionally spread anti-white bigotry, especially through such outrageous lies as the claims that the government invented AIDS to kill blacks, that the Jews run all the businesses so that blacks can't get jobs, and any number of other outrageous conspiracy theories — all to poison the malleable young congregations' minds until they hate whites as much as they have been told that whites hate them.

After a century of progress, it's only in recent decades that we have seen this "black liberation theology," as practiced by such pastors as President Obama's old minister, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and Louis Farrakhan grow in popularity and bear such poisonous fruit as the Wisconsin State Fair mob. Instead of religion civilizing the next generation, we now have more and more churches and Madrassas that consciously set out to barbarize them.

So where do we stand, as a society?

We have armies of children, raised more by gangs than by parents, without a proper moral compass. The society releases criminals into their midst to be role models, discouraging employment by refusing to prepare children for jobs. discouraging marriage by rewarding single parenting, discouraging morality by granting tax-exempt church status to buildings that are little more than breeding grounds for hatred.

As Milwaukee's Sheriff David Clarke, Fox News commentator Juan Wiliams and entertainer Bill Cosby have been saying for years, much of the problem is for the black community to correct on its own. Decent, honorable blacks, like my neighbor, have been fleeing the slums for decades, to raise their children right in the suburbs and small towns, and who can blame them? But by doing so, they abandon their cousins to the clutches of the rappers, the gangbangers, and the Jeremiah Wrights.

From outside, the non-black community cannot help with everything, but we can pitch in a little. We can set higher standards for our schools, making a taxpayer-supported school a safe environment in which to learn again. We can return to the 1990s era welfare reforms that were finally beginning to overturn the Great Society's destruction of the family unit. We can redirect our criminal justice system to again support the innocent victims and give the benefit of the doubt to longtime incarceration of criminals so that they can't as easily return to their communities and warp young souls.

All of these disparate causes — religion, education, economics, and criminal justice — have only one thing in common besides the destruction they have wrought: they are all the province of modern American liberalism and class warfare.

It is the American left that favors corruption of traditional religion, corruption of the safety net, corruption of the prison system. It is the left that has ruled the Democratic Party for decades and virtually every city government where these problems occur. It is virtually unanimous in their support of all the very different changes that have undermined a once vital, responsible, and honorable community to render it stagnant, regressive even, feared by outsiders for the very real threats they pose.

Just as affirmative action cheats the accomplished blacks like Clarence Thomas (read his memoir on this subject!), just as the perverse rap industry cheats talented black performers like Darius Rucker (who had to change genres to record good music), all these changes have poisoned the public debate — any commenter is accused of racism for addressing the issue — as well as endangering our communities and contributing to the decline of our entire society.

The bestselling author, Brad Thor wrote in his latest book, Full Black, in true Bastiat philosophical adherence:

“When people become reliant on the state, that reliance erodes their self-respect, their sense of self-worth, their work ethic, and their independence. Finally, socialism promotes class envy and class warfare. The makers resent the takers for draining their resources and the takers resent the makers because no matter how much the takers take, they always want more. They erroneously believe that the makers have an abundant supply from which they should be continuously compelled to give.”

The needed corrections cannot happen overnight; it will take decades to replace the wrongheaded judges and racism-teaching civic leaders, and it will take generations to get past the lost generations currently at issue.

But it all begins with acknowledging the truth, throwing out the Democrats in federal, state, and local government who have promulgated these toxic policies for so long.

The right has been warning that undermining civilized behavior in the cities will have a societal cost and in so many circumstances — the wildings and flash mobs all over the country, of which the State Fair mob was just another ghastly example — the right has been proven to be, sadly, absolutely correct.

The Animal Farm of Social Justice

"An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation." — John Marshall

After months of talk about the nation's runaway debt, lawmakers managed to agree on a plan that, at most, will cut spending by a mere 5%. Is it any wonder federal spending is out of control? According to IBD's analysis of available budget numbers, the deal's $2.4 trillion in 10-year cuts amounts to a mere 5% trim off total projected federal spending during that time. It's like a 400-pound man boasting that he plans to drop 20 pounds over a decade, while his doctors warn about the risks of losing weight so fast. Even calling these 'cuts' is a bit of a stretch, since spending will continue to increase, just at a slightly slower pace. By 2021, federal spending would still equal 22% of the nation's economy, above the post-World War II average of 20%. Not really a cut, is it? Plus, in the short term, these 'deep,' 'sharp,' 'slashing' cuts would still leave the federal government spending roughly 4% more in 2012 than it did in 2010, and 20% more than it did in 2008. Shorn of all the hyperbole, what this agreement really demonstrates is why it's so hard to get federal spending under control. Both sides routinely use budget gimmicks to exaggerate spending cuts, while armies of special interests swarm Washington to make sure their pet programs don't get touched. All the while, spending marches upward. And reporters too dumb, lazy or biased to understand how budgets work keep falling for this nonsense." — Investor's Business Daily.

A recent celebratory video showed a mildly content Obama applauding Congress for "compromising" by agreeing to raise the debt ceiling through the next election cycle in exchange for long-term spending cuts, but he went on to reiterate the need for the wealthy to chip in more than they have because "that's only fair."   Yes, the American people have twice rebuked his attempts to legislate tax hikes for the wealthy within the last year, and a multitude of economists have warned of the danger of any such legislation, and yet he still he clings to the notion with uncanny resolve.

Apparently, losing consecutive battles and his troops' morale will not deter him from fighting his war to increase taxes upon the rich.  But in preparation for the renewed offensives against the wealthy that Obama will undoubtedly launch in the coming months, perhaps we should just focus on simple facts to prove that raising taxes will yield utterly destructive economic results.

The left very rarely deviates from their standard talking points about the moral imperative of taxing the wealthy; like how the rich make "enough money" or that they "need to pay their fair share." But when they do, the argument usually goes something like this: taxing the rich more will yield more revenue for the federal coffers, and more money in the coffers means economic growth.  But this, their best argument of any substance, is little more than a dreadfully flawed assumption that does not take current global contexts into account.

In his monthly market forecast, Markus Schomer, Chief Economist for Pinebridge Investments, lets us in on some grim facts, assuring us that "spending cuts and tax increases will both hamper growth."  And he suggests that employing both of these tactics at once, which is the "balanced" approach Obama suggested two weeks ago in the White House, would likely result in the toxic economic scenario we've seen play out in the UK, "where drastic spending cuts and tax increases have pushed domestic demand back into recession."  A more proper solution, he describes, might be to achieve "credible long-term deficit reduction through spending caps and entitlement reform, but refrain from damaging domestic demand any further."

In 1948 George Orwell wrote his famous novel 1984 about a about a society ruled by an oligarchical dictatorship. For years I heard that this novel predicted a dictatorship of the right, when in fact it has turned out to be more descriptive of the left’s socialism and communism.

Orwell was a Fabian Socialist when he went to Spain to cover the Spanish Civil War in 1936. He became so disillusioned with Republican Left that he eschewed his Fabian beliefs for social democracy and in 1943 wrote his famous allegorical book, Animal Farm. The novel was not published for two years because the liberal Bloomsbury establishment did not want to offend the new Labor Party majority in London or Stalinist allies in Moscow.  After WWII, Orwell defended his fable, saying that his intention was to illustrate how easily otherwise intelligent people could be "misled by propaganda in a democracy” — in other words turned into useful idiots.

Political ideology in America has devolved to forms that would make Orwell cringe today: socialists (née Marxists) and democratic socialists (née Keynesians).  The former views government as an all-purpose solution and the latter views government as a "stimulator," a kind of economic and social Wizard of Oz.  The two are more alike than they are different.  The fatal flaw of both is the chronic inability of voters and their elected representatives to distinguish between wants and needs.  Elections are now confused with democracy, and the majority seldom votes for the common good — or their own best interests. 

Neither debt nor deficits are national security crises.  Both are just two symptoms of civic decline, a bloodless coup in slow motion.  The end may come slowly or catastrophically, but collapse seems inevitable.  And the solution isn't Democrats or Republicans; both parties are now "democratic" in name only.  Neither major party represents the will nor the best interests of the people.

Before the turn of the 21^st century, Francis Fukuyama wrote a provocative essay for National Interest where he argued that the fall of the Soviet Union represented the "end of (authoritarian) history" as we knew it and a triumph of "liberal democracy."  Fukuyama didn't have much to say about the advent of totalitarian Islamism or the spread of virulent socialism in the West.  Indeed, Frank might have been more candid had he called the 20^th century a triumph of "social," not liberal, democracy.  Fascists and old-school Communists may be gone, but socialism has metastasized in every Western democracy under the tutelage of "progressives."

Socialism, with the able assistance of Islamism, is now poised to do to Europe, the British Commonwealth, and America what Nazis, Fascists, and Communists could not.  The threat from social democrats may be more subtle than the naked aggression of Islamists, but the endgame might be the same.  The illusions of socialism and the worst instincts of democracy are now joined in a death spiral.

The fatal flaws of social democracy include but are not limited to promises that cannot possibly be kept; outlays that might always exceed income; the necessity for Orwellian mendacity; the absence of all moral hazards; and ultimately, a terminal erosion of the electoral process and democracy itself.

Social democracy is a kind of piñata politics, a system where special interests seek like-minded politicians who will cater to a host of creative dependencies.  Few distinctions are made between real needs and simple greed, or as Bastiat stated; “everyone plunders everyone”. Once established, most federal programs quickly outlive their usefulness.  Results become immaterial.

Once funded, the legislature might be lobbied by bureaucrats from within and beneficiaries from without.  Social democracy is a perpetual motion machine where the prime function of government is spare parts — spare parts for itself.  Mission statements for most social agencies are adorned with adjectival admonitions like "better" or "improved," yet few if any measures of effectiveness are ever established or enforced.  The "wars" on poverty, illiteracy, drugs, and terrorism and their associated federal departments are all examples of dismal, yet expensive failures.  The only function that most federal agencies do well is write checks — checks against funds which must be borrowed from folks that may not have our best interests at heart — like China.

The liberal or progressive proposal for solving the deficit/debt dilemma is "more of the same": tax and spend.  The strategy is aptly defined as "leading from behind."  Four in ten spending dollars must be borrowed today to keep America afloat.  Paul Krugman tells us we must spend now, cut later.  Later, unfortunately, never comes and never has.

The proper Orwellian state requires a language of euphemisms. Discretionary and non-discretionary spending are two of the best. The latter term is designed to protect sacred cows — as if any spending is ever "mandatory." Taxes are never taxes; words like "investments," investments that never pay, mask the pain. Keynesian deficit spending masquerades as "stimulus." If a stimulus package doesn't work, clearly it wasn't big enough. A corruption of language is necessary for any successful fraud. Deceit is a standard kit for grifters and social democrats.

The most egregious deception turns rhetoric and logic on their heads. Those who argue that spending should not exceed income are libeled as immature, radical, insensitive, and dangerous. Those who would end the spending bender are labeled as right-wing "nuts." Somehow a balanced budget threatens the future, full faith, and credit of America. In the bizarre world of social democracy, all facts and logic are subverted by compulsive spending and fiscal deficit disorders. Blaming the thrifty for impending default is a little like blaming fire on the alarm.

There are no moral hazards in the world of social democrats.  Indeed, government is not required to produce goods, nor does it necessarily deliver services.  In spite of decades of Keynesian stimulus, government at all levels has become a net consumer, not a creator of wealth.  And most programs and departments are vampires, they cannot be killed.  Failure always looms, yet there are no penalties for poor performance.  No-fault politics is a value that crosses party lines.  Of 15 cabinet departments, six have been in default for decades.  All are immune to reform or the axe.

Consider just three: Defense, Welfare, and Education.  America has waged a host of wars since WWII.  Few have been unambiguous successes.  Indeed, among four ongoing wars in the Muslim world, the word "victory" is the most notable casualty.  At home, two cabinet departments now service the welfare state.  Even progressives argue that misguided federal largess has created a host of pathologies and dependencies that never existed before the advent of the "nanny" state.  And American education is a domestic and international joke.  The technology sector, that is supposed to be America's economic salvation, must go abroad to India and China to find qualified employees.

Walter Williams writes in Capitalism Magazine:

“Blacks and Hispanics, especially blacks, are the most politically loyal people in the nation. It's often preached and taken as gospel that the only way black people can progress is through racial politics and government programs, but how true is that? Let's look at it.

In 1940, poverty among black families was 87 percent and fell to 47 percent by 1960. Would someone tell me what anti-poverty program or civil-rights legislation accounted for this economic advance that exceeded any other 20-year interval? A significant chunk of that progress occurred through migration from rural areas in the South to big Northern cities. Between 1960 and 1980, black poverty fell roughly 17 percent and fell one percent during the '70s. Might this have been a continuation of a trend starting much earlier, or was it a miracle of the civil-rights movement or President Johnson's War on Poverty?

Dr. Thomas Sowell's research points out that in various skilled trades, the incomes of blacks relative to whites more than doubled between 1936 and 1959. What's more, the rise of blacks in professional and other high-level occupations was greater during the five years preceding the Civil Rights Act of 1964 than the five years afterward.

In 1940, 86 percent of black children were born inside marriage, and the illegitimacy rate among blacks was about 15 percent. Today, 31 percent of black children are born inside marriage, and the illegitimacy rate hovers around 70 percent.”

In the 18th century, the founding fathers restricted the voting franchise to the landed gentry — those who had a stake in the society. The idea was to restrict governance to the successful and accomplished citizens. If nothing else, successful and enterprising men were thought to serve as role models. No one anticipated a 20th-century oligarchy of venal lawyer/politicians without term limits.

It was John Adams who wrote in 1776 that no good could come from enfranchising more Americans:

“Depend upon it, Sir, it is dangerous to open so fruitful a source of controversy and altercation as would be opened by attempting to alter the qualifications of voters; there will be no end to it. New claims will arise; women will demand the vote; lads from 12 to 21 will think their rights not enough attended to; and every man who has not a farthing, will demand an equal voice with any other, in all acts of state. It tends to confound and destroy all distinctions, and prostrate all ranks to one common level.”

Like the wise men of 5th-century Athens, early American political philosophers were aware that even a representative republic could be hijacked -- where cupidity and self-interest could thrive at the expense of the common good. It's no accident that the word "democracy" does not appear in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution.

The original vision of an entrepreneurial, capitalist republic has devolved now to a social democratic nightmare where government programs actually suffocate initiative and enterprise. Literal, and figurative, industry is now vilified from the Oval Office. At the local level, especially in urban areas, social democrats thrive in dysfunctional, one-party towns. These urban blights cannot afford incompetence, even; it must be subsidized.

Fifty percent of the population pays no income taxes, but they do have the vote. This constituency has no skin in the game except, maybe, to collect a government check. There's no incentive for fiscal prudence when deadbeats can be bought with other people's money.

Today we have an oligarchy comprised of the political elite, the left wing media, the wealthy in the entertainment industry and the corporate internationalist like George Soros and Jeffrey Immelt. These are the people, like the pigs in Animal Farm have learned to walk on two legs and believe that all pigs are equal, but some pigs are more equal.

The American crisis was not created by reformers or conservatives. It was created by a bovine electorate and a porcine federal government — a horrible model that actually cultivates social pathologies for political purposes. More than four out of ten dollars spent by Washington must be borrowed to finance what now amounts to an American "Animal Farm." Indeed, George! The pigs have taken over again. Napoleon and Squealer are back!