Very sad today.
Reading about - and listening to - the small business owners, and those who live above them, scraping along nobly in our Big Society only to have the already threadbare rug of life and livelihood whipped so cruelly, so thoughtlessly, from beneath them by unthinking youths brought up to be resentful of enterprise and of business and of authority (any authority) by parents and community leaders too willing to provide them with an excuse, an alibi, for why they are spectators of, and not participants in, our society - big or otherwise.
The reaction?
On the one hand, we have the baying mob - those who shout for water cannon, for plastic bullets, for the army. The eye-for-an-eye mob, those whose only response to a counter-argument, is to say "yes, but if you were affected, you would feel differently" - than you? Who are also not affected, yet who have this opinion? I resent that people think I would be so weak-minded and weak of character and unconfident in my opinions, that they think I would waver, much less change my opinion, if I were "on the other side".
If you know me, you know that I am always confident in my opinion! Right or right!
On the other hand, we have the "community leaders" (usually ex-cons themselves) who see this as the opportunity to further their own ambitions - on the back of the youth they claim to represent, yet do so with such miserable failure and with such tragic consequences - by talking about family breakdown, deprivation etc. I bet many of the people I see on my screen have more than one parent and who have seen the inside of a chapel.
As a sidebar, there is a disturbing thread of comments from parents who say "well, the government have deprived us of our ability to smack our children". A parent told me this today. Let me say this. If your default position - the first thing that comes to your mind about parental discipline - is to use a stick or an open hand or a fist on your child - then your parenting style (and perhaps your own parenting discipline) needs serious scrutiny. Parents and corporal discipline, I would like to make the subject of a future post (around 2015 with my schedule of posting!).
What I fear - and do you share this? - is not the gap between the youths who carried out these attacks ad the politicians, and those in authority. What we should fear is the gap between those who committed crimes - and those who did not. Those who showed such disregard for life and livelihood and those - like the broom and brush owners in Clapham this morning and the proud Sikhs guarding their temple this evening - who show such respect for society, the law and the spirit of community so unique to Britain and the British - the true citizens of the future.
That contrast - that gap - is stark enough.
Now that's what I think - but what do you think?
Footnote: Thank you to our police for all that you did in the most horrible of circumstances.
Reading about - and listening to - the small business owners, and those who live above them, scraping along nobly in our Big Society only to have the already threadbare rug of life and livelihood whipped so cruelly, so thoughtlessly, from beneath them by unthinking youths brought up to be resentful of enterprise and of business and of authority (any authority) by parents and community leaders too willing to provide them with an excuse, an alibi, for why they are spectators of, and not participants in, our society - big or otherwise.
The reaction?
On the one hand, we have the baying mob - those who shout for water cannon, for plastic bullets, for the army. The eye-for-an-eye mob, those whose only response to a counter-argument, is to say "yes, but if you were affected, you would feel differently" - than you? Who are also not affected, yet who have this opinion? I resent that people think I would be so weak-minded and weak of character and unconfident in my opinions, that they think I would waver, much less change my opinion, if I were "on the other side".
If you know me, you know that I am always confident in my opinion! Right or right!
On the other hand, we have the "community leaders" (usually ex-cons themselves) who see this as the opportunity to further their own ambitions - on the back of the youth they claim to represent, yet do so with such miserable failure and with such tragic consequences - by talking about family breakdown, deprivation etc. I bet many of the people I see on my screen have more than one parent and who have seen the inside of a chapel.
As a sidebar, there is a disturbing thread of comments from parents who say "well, the government have deprived us of our ability to smack our children". A parent told me this today. Let me say this. If your default position - the first thing that comes to your mind about parental discipline - is to use a stick or an open hand or a fist on your child - then your parenting style (and perhaps your own parenting discipline) needs serious scrutiny. Parents and corporal discipline, I would like to make the subject of a future post (around 2015 with my schedule of posting!).
What I fear - and do you share this? - is not the gap between the youths who carried out these attacks ad the politicians, and those in authority. What we should fear is the gap between those who committed crimes - and those who did not. Those who showed such disregard for life and livelihood and those - like the broom and brush owners in Clapham this morning and the proud Sikhs guarding their temple this evening - who show such respect for society, the law and the spirit of community so unique to Britain and the British - the true citizens of the future.
That contrast - that gap - is stark enough.
Now that's what I think - but what do you think?
Footnote: Thank you to our police for all that you did in the most horrible of circumstances.
No comments:
Post a Comment