Vandal With a Handle

As expected, the last straw(see previous post) in the comedy of errors that is the British social experiment has drawn comment from others. Here is one. Another. The Volokh Conspiracy recalls Dave Kopel's 1999 article on the slippery slope. The original article from the British Medical Journal is here. Note that responses are listed at the bottom of the page and can be read here. Several of the responses indicate that the social policies of the knife banners are not supported by all in the Scepter'd Isles. A few American readers spoke well also. I actually wondered at first whether the article were a spoof on the lines of The Onion or some other parodist and some of the commenters did as well. Truth is indeed far stranger.

You will probably see this again but here is the evidence that when the foundation of personal responsibility is destroyed there is no logical stopping place before utter folly. Tell me again how the slippery slope argument is alarmist and paranoid. I am listening.
For further information, go here and see how much help the officers of the law are in a system where sociopathy is considered the fault of those who do not have it. They will take their little report and file it in the file and when it happens again they can go to the file and see that it has happened before and put in the new report that this is the second time and if it happens again all prior occurrences will be properly footnoted and the reporting task will be attended to with profound attention to detail and if excessive occurrence is noted, a special piece of paper may be issued. "What about addressing the perpetrators and the social and legal causes of the outrage?", you ask in plaintive tone. That appears to be beyond their concern. Like all bureaucrats who make a living from writing reports and shuffling paper, they are concerned only with the continued flow of events to report and paper to shuffle. We would continue but an excellent job has been done here, with links to further news items with related incidents of the same problem.
Of course, our preference for nonviolent resolution of conflict is well known. All of us know that violent solutions are last resorts marked by danger, pain and expense. We enter upon them reluctantly, as Rob says in his inimitable way. However, there is no way to justify prostrate acceptance of outrage like these examples. We can only quote again the words of Jeff Cooper,

One bleeding-heart type asked me in a recent interview if I did not agree that "violence begets violence." I told him that it is my earnest endeavor to see that it does. I would like very much to ensure—and in some cases I have‚—that any man who offers violence to his fellow citizen begets a whole lot more in return than he can enjoy.

Cooper's remark is all the more telling for having been written in 1975. Good sense lasts a long time.

A couple of good articles on poverty and common misconceptions about it are here and here. Walter Williams' rules for avoiding poverty are the simplest and most effective I know. I have no taste for poverty myself but as Fred points out much of the discusstion about poverty is in fact about income redistribution and using the power of government to take what some people want but do not have the ambition or talent to earn. I have known quite a few people who gave liberally to help people in need, often at some personal sacrifice. There really are a lot of charitable people. It demeans real charity to make it a tool of political manipulation.

I’ve come into an apartment in mid-afternoon and found a half dozen men sitting torpidly in front of the television, into homes where the daughter of thirteen was pregnant and on drugs. The problem wasn’t poverty. The poor can keep their legs crossed as well as anyone else. If the daughter could afford drugs, she could afford food.

Most of these homes would have been regarded as fine by the graduate students of my day. They would have put in board-and-cinderblock bookshelves and a booze cache and been perfectly content.