Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Tony Blair is Right Again





What’s the world coming to?
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First Tony Blair (“The Bill Clinton of England”) supported the invasion of Iraq, and now he blames political correctness for downplaying the disproportionate black crime rate in England.
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Tony Blair yesterday claimed the spate of knife and gun murders in London was not being caused by poverty, but a distinctive black culture. Those remarks angered community leaders, who accused him of ignorance and failing to provide support for black-led efforts to tackle the problem.
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But what’s led to those comments?
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Well, according to the Sun, “Police numbers disclosed that violent crime leapt 22 per cent last year, with female rape increasing by 27 per cent — from 8,990 to 11,441.
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“Overall, police recorded 5,899,450 crimes compared with 5,525,316 the previous year.
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“That represented a RISE of 7 per cent.
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“The disturbing statistics showed:
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 “Murder, manslaughter and killing of infants JUMPED by 18 per cent, from 891 to 1,048. Violence against individuals ROSE 28 per cent from 650,474 cases to 835,101.
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 “Wounding and violence involving weapons was up 11 per cent from 28,796 cases to 32,104. Offences under the Firearms Act LEAPED from 3,247 to 3,572. Assaults on police officers were UP 12 per cent to 33,742.
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“Last night’s statistics followed the revelation in January that the use of firearms was rampant.
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“A report showed a 35 per cent rise in gun crime, to 9,974 offences.
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“And officials admitted yesterday that possession of firearms, including sub-machine guns, was “out of control” in Birmingham, Manchester and three London boroughs.”
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Black community leaders reacted after PM Blair said the recent violence should not be treated as part of a general crime wave, but as specific to black youth. He said people had to drop their political correctness and recognize that the violence would not be stopped "by pretending it is not young black kids doing it".
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Mr Blair's remarks are at odds with those of the Home Office minister Lady Scotland, who told the home affairs select committee last month that the disproportionate number of black youths in the criminal justice system was a function of their disproportionate poverty, and not to do with a distinctive black culture.
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Remember the days when Americans used to look to places to like England, France (which also has a surging violent crime rate) and Germany (ditto) as examples of low crime nations that America should model itself after?
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Well, the truth is Blair is largely right and the British Home Office minister, Lady Scotland is completely wrong.
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Blair is right that violence is NOT a natural outgrowth of poverty.
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It's also NOT exclusively the purview of "black culture," but Underclass culture and as Charles Murray noted a decade ago in The Coming White Underclass, that culture cuts across ethnic lines.
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One of Europe's major problems is a growing and frankly vilely anti-European Muslim population. Islamic culture remains Medieval. Moreover, it is fiercely anti-modern, which, of course, makes it decidedly anti-Western.
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Aside from the large influx of unassimilable Muslims, there is also a large influx of Africans and Carribeans (especially in England and France, former Colonial powers). the problem with those groups is that the vast majority of those folks do not come to the West with First World skill sets.
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There's a huge difference between someone like Ayann Hirsi Ali (born in Somalia) and now a noted author and member of Parliment in the Netherlands and the legons of trogladites who set fires to hundreds of cars during weeks of rioting in France last summer.
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It's skill sets not culture. Those with high skill sets tend to deal well with First World economies, while those with low skill sets do not. The problem that much of Western Europe is now facing is a problem all too familiar to America - the underclass. A group of overwhelmingly reckless and irresponsible people, many of whom have been bred in dependancy, and feel entitled to public support.
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This pits the underclass against those who produce and often against society at large, which they often blame for their own problems.
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One of the vital questions facing the West today is "How do we deal with the underclass?"
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It's a question that should have been dealt with more seriously decades ago, but it is certainly becoming more pressing with each passing year. It is positively dysgenic for societies to allow those dependent on public assistance to breed at will.
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Poverty is caused by behaviors - reckless and irresponsible behaviors. It stands to reason that people who are so reckless and irresponsible as not to be able to meet their own most basic needs, are also, at that point (while wards of the state), unfit parents.
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Sadly, that may be a long time coming.
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Let's hope it doesn't come too late.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

> Those with high skill sets tend to deal well with First World economies, while those with low skill sets do not. The problem that much of Western Europe is now facing is a problem all too familiar to America - the underclass. A group of overwhelmingly reckless and irresponsible people, many of whom have been bred in dependancy, and feel entitled to public support.


This is entirely true but Europe has another problem which is a sectarian ideological clash. Many of the Islamists have the skill sets to compete in the modern world but their culture - of repression of women specifically - does not survive contact with the 'equal rights' west. While globally Muslims exist at all strata, the probably subconscious fear that 51 percent of their population might start demanding some human rights can drive even edjucated young men to acts of violence.

We don't currently have this issue in the US. The Muslims I know and work with hate the 'terrorists' more than we do. They know these guys and like it here.

Sort of off topic but my two cents.

JMK said...

An excellent point.

One of the saddest and most frightening things about the terrorism of 9/11/01 was that it wasn't carried out by "the downtrodden."

Mohammed Atta was the son of an Egyptian physician, a trained engineer, who could've had a very good life here in the U.S.

Still, even this outwardly Westernized man, carried out one of the most insane acts of religious terrorism in history.

In Europe, Ayaa Hirsi Ali (from Somalia) is certainly an assett to the Netherlands where she was elected to Parliment, but many of the Muslim immigrants in Europe remain mired in poverty and hold a seething rage against "the decadent West," often fueled by radical Imans.

I would love to see a Reformation take place within Islam, rendering it more able to reconcile itself with the Modern world.

I just don't know how much hope there is for that.

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