England's dreaming. No, actually, England's fucked. And France is even worse. Dipnut has much to say. Here's what I say: I'm staying. Right. Here. In Violent, Fascist, Amerikkka, where it is still kind of possible in parts of it to defend yourself from a burglar without having to worry about the judge feeling sorry for the criminal scum and releasing said creep out into the public while throwing your sorry ass in prison for being mean to the downtrodden, where it is quite the rarity for a cop to say to your face that they don't want to report the crime you have just called them for because "it's too much paperwork" and will "retard our careers."
Europe. Home of high culture. Hah.
Posted by Andrea Harris at January 16, 2003 12:02 PMEternal optimist that I am, I really think there's still hope for the UK. Public opinion is really finally starting to turn around on some of these things. As for France, holding out hope there would stretch even my optimism well past the breaking point. But then, they're France, so who cares? ;-)
Posted by: David Jaroslav at January 16, 2003 at 12:21 PMSadly, England is backing the ineptitude of it's insipid "law enforcement" (Will they have to change that phrase now that they aren't actually enforcing the laws?) with Draconian gun laws that prevent too many people from protecting themslves and their property. I'm no fan of the gun, but if I lived on that cheery isle, I'd own two.
Posted by: Chip Haynes at January 16, 2003 at 12:40 PMGod Bless America. God Bless Texas. And God Bless handguns and rifles.
That is all.
Posted by: amy at January 16, 2003 at 12:44 PMMandatory beatings for all. Especially the French.
No, I'm not joking.
As I read those two articles though, I can see the beginnings of this happening here...and it makes me want to buy more guns.
Posted by: Sekimori at January 16, 2003 at 01:03 PMSekimori,
It ain't happening here. US gun laws have actually gotten considerably less restrictive over the past ten years.
Posted by: David Jaroslav at January 16, 2003 at 02:20 PMMy brother always said, "An armed society was a polite society." I'm not sure that's entirely true (see Palkistan, Afghanistan and any of the You-Name-It-Stans), but coupled with effective law enforcement, it really does seem to help. Maybe you have to have both.
Posted by: Chip Haynes at January 16, 2003 at 02:54 PMI gues you have not had your house or car broken in to lately. I kind of like the fact that the U.K. police are at least up front about the fact that they arn't going to do anything in regards to burglary and such.
Here it's just "here-is-my-card-we'll-call-you-if-we-find-anything-and-go-call-your-insurance-company".
Posted by: Boulder Dude at January 16, 2003 at 04:24 PMBoulder Dude,
I have no hard statistics offhand (anyone?), but I'd be exceptionally surprised if average US clearance rates for burglaries were not light-years ahead of the UK.
Posted by: David Jaroslav at January 16, 2003 at 04:55 PMActually, David, I was referring to the general thuggery of youth in general.
Posted by: Sekimori at January 16, 2003 at 07:32 PMEngland can be put in a casket and buried. They sent unarmed police in to arrest terrorist suspect. UNARMED (ooops, sorry for screaming...) police.
One dead... four wounded (cops).
R.I.P. England.
Posted by: Kathy K at January 16, 2003 at 07:40 PMI can only say: I feel sorry for you people.
Your world-view is obviously as narrow as your smug "God Bless America" answer to everything which might make you question your assumptions, if only you had the intelligence to try and see another, less adversarial, way of looking at the world.
England is not fucked: it is far closer to an ideal society than is the severely mind-fucked US of A.
The policemen don't carry guns? Of course they don't. Why should they? We believe in the rule of law here, not the rule of superior firepower.
Too bad that's the only thing that Americans seem to have faith in anymore.
Posted by: Chris Brody at January 16, 2003 at 07:59 PMGod you're an idiot. Or else you're a goddamn liar. I didn't just pull those articles out of my ass, home slice. The first one is from the Daily Telegraph, a publication of the United Kingdom. The second one was written by Theodore Dalrymple, who is not American, but British. Do you think I got any of this from American newspapers or news sources?
Keep you delusions (or lies) on your own lame, non-updated-for-weeks blog. Don't even start it here.
Posted by: Andrea Harris at January 16, 2003 at 08:51 PM"I still call Australia home".
No guns, but better beer and best women!
Posted by: Scott Wickstein at January 16, 2003 at 09:03 PMChris,
Please explain to this obviously unsophisticated and simple lawyer's mind when "the rule of law" started meaning "handing over the streets to terrorist cop-killers" and/or "not bothering to investigate burglary." I really would like to know.
Posted by: David Jaroslav at January 16, 2003 at 10:06 PM"The police don't carry guns? Of course not. Why should they?"
Er, because a suspect might try to, um, stab them or something? Far-fetched, I know, but... gee.
Posted by: markp at January 16, 2003 at 10:47 PMBecause sometimes you NEED force in order to enforce the rule of law. "Come along now, and don't give us any trouble" doesn't work as well as it did 150 years ago. Get your cranial-anal complex unstuck, pleeeeease. If they had L. A. cops on that raid, all the suspects would be in cuffs, and if one of them did get a knife to stab someone, he'd be on the floor with a lot little holes before he got three feet.
Posted by: Frank C at January 16, 2003 at 11:35 PMWhat are you guys talking about? You know there isn't any crime in the Soviet Union England.
I was on Yahoo Chat today. I was invited to sit in on a political-topic chatroom. Yahoo has voice enabled, by the way.
There was some dim-sounding Brit in there telling the room that since America funded Saddam in the 1980's, it had no moral case to undo Saddam in the 2000's. (No comment on European support of Saddam in the 1990's, natch.)
I was born a UK citizen in London. I am a US citizen now.
I tell people I'm American.
Posted by: David Ross at January 17, 2003 at 01:37 AMThere might be a whisper of the beginning of a change in British attitudes about law enforcement. I posted a pile of nonsense about it over at my place, if you can slog through to the end.
When I told my wife-the gentlest soul, really-about the botched police raid, she thought a moment, aghast, an said, "If we had done it . . ."Sending unarmed men into a profoundly dangerous situation isn't civilized. It's stupid and arrogant.
Posted by: Jack at January 17, 2003 at 04:49 AMDavid: I don't know about clearance rates, but Iain Murray (http://englandssword.blogspot.com/) has some recent serious crime statistics comparing London and New York (scroll down to 14 January, first item). London is worse in every category except murder, and there are FOUR times as many burglaries in London as there are in New York.
What do you say to that, Chris Brody?
Posted by: Steve Thompson at January 17, 2003 at 06:18 AMSshhh, don't wake him up -- he is having a happy dream.
Posted by: Andrea Harris at January 17, 2003 at 11:12 AMFrank,
I've worked with LAPD. If anything, what you said was an understatement. And yeah, those guys are seriously hard-core, so much so that they freak out all the other law-enforcement agencies in the county. But better a little excess than abject surrender.
Posted by: David Jaroslav at January 17, 2003 at 11:33 AMI've got to admit, I love the British attitude that if you make something illegal nobody will ever do it and it won't be a problem. I'm sure none of them ever exceed the speed limit...
Posted by: Ian S. at January 17, 2003 at 06:02 PMThis Chris Brody bonehead must live in a different England to me. England, Mars, perhaps? What scares me is that his sheeplike bleating is all too common amongst the bien pensants of the metropolitan elite of the UK today, these egotistical bubble-dwellers who think reality arranges itself nicely around their warm, fuzzy good intentions.
And how does he think the law is enforced without the use of, erm, force?
Posted by: Steven Chapman at January 17, 2003 at 09:34 PMIt occurred to me... what if he's actually a criminal? You know, a burglar or something. If that is so then I guess that England really is closer to an "ideal society," for criminals, anyway.
Posted by: Andrea Harris at January 17, 2003 at 11:05 PMI just looked at Mr. Brodys' weblog. Nothing since late November, and it has a link about blogging for peace, Sheeeeeeesh!
Posted by: Frank C at January 18, 2003 at 10:43 PMI think his Life of Crime keeps him too busy to blog.
Posted by: Andrea Harris at January 19, 2003 at 12:11 AM