Deadly Superstitions in London
City Journal,
by
Theodore Dalrymple
Original Article
Posted By: Pluperfect,
12/3/2019 4:53:48 AM
If the most recent terrorist attack in London had been an episode in a novel by a social satirist, it would have been dismissed as too crude or absurd to be plausible. Nothing like it could ever take place in reality.
Last week, Usman Khan attended a conference at Fishmongers’ Hall, a grand location in Central London, marking the fifth anniversary of a rehabilitative program for prisoners called Learning Together, run by Cambridge University’s Institute of Criminology. Suddenly, Khan, wielding a knife and wearing an imitation suicide-bomber’s vest, went on a rampage, killing a graduate of the Institute who helped run the conference and a volunteer worker at the event,
Reply 1 - Posted by:
DW626 12/3/2019 6:06:20 AM (No. 251305)
Been there, done that twice in the eighties. No need to return.
14 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
Calamity Kate 12/3/2019 6:30:53 AM (No. 251314)
Here's the difference between left and right....loosely. The left believes that everyone is born good, that we're ruined by our environment, and we only need the proper help to be better -- but at the root of it, someone else is to blame if we do a bad thing. The right believes we're born with a sinful nature, and great capacity to do evil if there are no proper constraints and boundaries provided -- first by the family, then the church and culture. Raise a child up in the way he should go...etc. And you're to blame if you do a bad thing.
Because of these fundamental differences, the left sees no problem dismantling the environments where we learn these constraints, actually encourages it, because if we're born good, then it's naturally these environments/institutions that ruin us/make us bad. The right -- the opposite. It's our institutions (family/church/culture) that are there to help us choose good.
Until the left gets their head straight about the truth of human nature at its origins, we're stuck on the hamster wheel with them.
82 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
Condor44 12/3/2019 6:39:08 AM (No. 251316)
Back in the mid 70's I was a Narcotics Probation Officer in Northern New Jersey. There was a group of college student interns who wanted to start a program helping offenders get jobs. I was named their moderator. After much work finding places of employment, running counseling sessions on work and responsibility, we sent out our first probationer for an interview with a companies president. Later that day we received a call from the president, the probationer had stole his desk set! Sometimes you can't change a tiger's stripes.
43 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
jasonB 12/3/2019 7:19:32 AM (No. 251353)
I'll be that guy. I feel no sympathy for these two. For ONCE the fools that foist this nonsense on us were the victims. I don't know about the others that were wounded. If they were just random passers-bye I feel bad for them. If they were part of this fools errand, oh well.
As for Mr's Fire Extinguisher ,Narwhal Tusk, knife grabber. Good Job! To the cops that ventilated and sent this terrorist to the pig farm. Great Job!
37 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
F15 Gork 12/3/2019 7:23:51 AM (No. 251358)
You can’t molly-coddle evil - you have to destroy it.
44 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
Judy W. 12/3/2019 7:49:20 AM (No. 251368)
A great ending to the piece:
Meanwhile, the father of the slain young criminologist said that he would not want his son’s death to be “used as a pretext for more draconian sentences.”
Decadence can go little further. I recall a passage from Chesterton’s essay, “The Suicide of Thought”:
The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues . . . The vices are indeed let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone.
17 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
Newtsche 12/3/2019 8:20:51 AM (No. 251382)
Back in the day when Westerns were common fare, about every third one had a similar scene. A wagon train or stagecoach was set upon by hell-bent Indians (sic). A man of the cloth or some other moral compass would step up, offering reason, conciliation or dialog. VVVVVT! VVVVVT! Pincushion.
18 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
planetgeo 12/3/2019 8:27:05 AM (No. 251384)
"The willful suspension of disbelief"...was a misapplied quote from Hillary that in fact perfectly captures the fatal flaw of all liberals. Unfortunately, their flaw is too often fatal to others as well.
14 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
JackBurton 12/3/2019 8:57:53 AM (No. 251417)
What #6 said.
5 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
LC Chihuahua 12/3/2019 9:13:28 AM (No. 251438)
The events in London reminded me of multiple SciFi movies where society has become decadent, out of touch, and unwilling to defend themselves. What happened should never have happened. When somebody choses to behave like a monster, they will not change. A monster is a monster. The Muslims like to call the west decadent. They can now point to this latest attack in London as proof.
6 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
Old Army Vet 12/3/2019 9:27:35 AM (No. 251450)
Sad that British citizens find themselves in this type of situation. We came out of their system, let's hope we don't go down the same roar, although, I feel that the leftoids would love to see that happen.
11 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
Strike3 12/3/2019 9:30:08 AM (No. 251452)
There is a reason why Savages are called Savages. Back when the first murder got one hanged, electrocuted or locked up for life there was never a second murder.
17 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
zephyrgirl 12/3/2019 10:10:05 AM (No. 251489)
#7 the original "War of the Worlds" also had a naive minister who wanted to reason with the Martians. He walked towards their flying machines, holding up his Bible, and was quickly vaporized.
6 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
Arby 12/3/2019 10:13:16 AM (No. 251493)
Turn the left loose and this is what they give you--greater care for the perpetrators of crime than for their victims. At bottom this is a vicious form of virtue-signaling. If you come at my American neighbors with a knife they'll answer with a Glock. In England there's no such recourse, thanks to the left. Increasingly we see how wretched Tony Blair actually was.
12 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
bpl40 12/3/2019 10:44:30 AM (No. 251524)
Aren't we forgetting another irrationality, unfit for the modern world, that is involved here - Islam.
18 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
bighambone 12/3/2019 11:02:14 AM (No. 251543)
It all started when the Blair led Labor Party opened the UK borders to mass immigration to the Islamic World. Most of London, including Central London where most of the tourist frequented places are located, is now an international city, loaded with all sorts of immigrants from the third world along with immigrant Islamists who in their dreams, and a percentage by their criminal and terror related actions, insist that the UK become an Islamist Caliphate.
Today most people of the tribes native to the British Isles only go to London to work or as a waypoint to some other location or region. Unfortunately London today is not a safe place for Americans to visit, and if you are an American who goes there, you never want to wear any apparel, sports or otherwise that marks you as being an American. That’s sure to put a big hit on the London tourist based economy.
7 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
NotaBene 12/3/2019 11:22:43 AM (No. 251554)
Kashmir-by-the-Thames. The problem is their religion, Mohammedans do not belong in Western Civilization. I enjoy thet Khan has the same name as the Islamic mayor of London.
10 people like this.
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