If a country made it legal for men to rape in the month of June, do you think rape would be ten times as common in the month of June, than any in other month? This may seem like an odd question, but in this essay I argue that the British institutions- social workers, teachers, police and elected officials- all turned a blind eye to the Asian/Muslim gang grooming of teenage White and Sikh girls, and as a consequences made these types of group-based coercive child rapes ten times as common as they might otherwise have been within specific ethnicities. That’s what happens when the institutions are paralysed by the fear of the accusation of institutional racism/Islamophobia and fears of ‘stirring racial tensions’ between communities. The deterrence of criminal justice for offenders loses all value when it not applied ‘without fear or favour’ and the UK is currently paying the price in riots and disorder for the decades of criminally negligent behaviour on the part of British institutions- they’ve stoked a legacy of inter-community resentment, animosity and fear.
I’ve tried writing this essay several times and failed. It probably doesn’t help that I’m furious- that nobody seems to be addressing the main root causes of UK riots, or aiming to shed light on single biggest driver of the riots (with the possible exception of Konstantine Kisin and a few others). And this is one of those topics where my usual discursive form of writing, wandering from one aspect of a broad topic to another, really doesn’t serve me well. So I’ll just jump in.
We now know that the Southport stabber who murdered three girls and injured many others was a 17 year old son of Rwandan immigrants who had been raised in Cardiff, but this wasn’t the perception at the beginning of the UK riots. Misinformation posted on social media claimed he was an asylum seeker with a Middle Eastern sounding name. That being said, I don’t think misinformation about a single incident, however horrific, is sufficient to explain the violence seen at the UK riots. Why do I say this? Because after the Manchester Arena Bombing- by any definition a more serious attack directly linked to Islamic Terrorism- a small number of genuine far right agitators tried to stir up anti-Muslim resentments in crowds, in one instance when TV cameras were present, and were quickly silenced by the majority, which doubtless included many members of the much benighted and besmirched white working classes. Similarly, I don’t think one can lay the blame for the UK riots at frustration over political failures to reduce mass migration, the successive failures of every single politician successful at the ballot box in the past 20 years to deliver the drastic reductions in mass migration which the majority of the British people have wanted for a generation.
I don’t even think the feeling of being supplanted, of having one’s culture slowly displaced and eroded by the deliberate actions of those trying to force the British people to embrace multiculturalism is sufficient, nor is the perception that ordinary Brits are being placed at the back of the queue for public services, healthcare and housing in their own country, their taxes paid over to the largesse of helping foreigners, while British people lie forlorn and homeless on the streets, and elderly people who have paid their taxes and national insurance for forty years, wait 5 years for hip replacements, whilst foreigners are seen and treated in weeks.
No, the feeling of being displaced and treated like a second-class citizens in one’s own country might explain mass protests, but it doesn’t explain the violence which erupted roughly two weeks ago, especially when one considers that much of the violence was directly and specifically targeted against Muslims, or Mosques. But there is one issue which is so visceral, so existential that it could easily trigger the type of violence seen two weeks ago on Britain’s streets- that of Asian/Muslim/ Pakistani Male grooming gangs. At this point, the Left will groan. They will believe, incorrectly, that this issue has been dealt with by the 2020 Home Office report, which quite correctly claimed that group-based child sexual exploitation was significantly rarer than single offender child sexual abuse (individual offender child sexual abuse is more common than group-based child sexual exploitation by close to an order of magnitude), but was considerably more disingenuous in some of its other claims. Asian gang grooming, the phenomenon of younger White and Sikh teenage girls being groomed to towards a life exchanging sex with multiple offenders, both serially and through gang-rape, in return for drugs, alcohol and other gifts, was a huge problem in the UK which was found to have happened repeatedly in the UK, in small towns and cities across England. One recent investigation claimed to have found evidence of grooming gangs operating or having operated in 50 different towns and cities in the UK, particularly in the North of England.
The problem is that that the British government and institutions have vastly underestimated the scale of the problem they are facing, in terms of both tackling the problem and from an information management perspective, understanding the nature of the complaint. They’ve assumed that they can quell resentment and anger over the issue. They’ve assumed that the reaction to gang grooming is largely a problem stirred up by tabloid journalism, Nigel Farage and the Reform party, the likes of GB News and ‘Far Right’ activists prominent in independent media, on social media and YouTube.
They are making a huge mistake in failing to understand the nature of the problem they are facing, because I’ve run the numbers and have the receipts. It’s impossible to assess the number of young teenage White and Sikh girls groomed and raped by Asian/Muslim grooming gangs and their customers. Some estimates are absurd. The best estimate I’ve seen (from a victim group which seemed quite empirical at face value), places the figure at somewhere between a bare minimum of 75,000 with an upper estimate of 380,000. It’s also difficult to assess the true size of the White Working Class. Some of the better methods of breaking down modern Britain into socioeconomic groups like ‘traditional working class’, ‘technical middle class’ and ‘precariat’ tend to have fuzzy edges containing people of different social classes and don’t do very well at encapsulating a class system which is somewhat less relevant in socioeconomic terms, but still largely governs the social world of Brits, by affiliation, social grouping and self-segregating influence, interests/hobbies in which individuals partake, and voluntary association. Lower estimates for the size of the White Working Class are probably around 30% of the White British cohort of the UK population, with 50% as an upper estimate.
We are on firmer ground with social circles. The average person knows 611 people by name (the median figure is 487). The average person knows 20 people on an intimate basis- family and very close friends, with a broader circle of 150 acquaintances, people with whom they’ve had social interactions, conversations and have an overview of a personal life story. Given the degree of tight overlap in people’s circles of acquaintances, the people they know in common, it’s not at all implausible to state that for most Brits, the people you can know a little indirectly, through personal descriptions and circumstances described by your circle of acquaintances, probably rises to somewhere between 4,000 and 10,000.
This is a real problem for the British establishment, because it means the problem they are facing is not one of media ecosystems, political rabble-rousing, social media misinformation, disinformation, or malinformation (the latter of which encapsulates the category of legal, accurate, harmful, and, most important of all, politically harmful information). Instead, the problem they are facing is in the realm and provenance of one of the Left’s favourite hobby horses, it falls into the category of ‘lived experience’. With a worst case scenario, using upper end estimates for the scale of victims of gang grooming, they are looking at a problem where a statistically significant portion of the White Working Class knows at least two women who as girls were sexually abused by Asian/Muslim grooming gangs. In a somewhat less dire scenario, they are dealing with a problem where a significantly larger section of the White Working Class know of several women through the descriptions of their personal horror stories through the intermediary of direct circles of acquaintances. One of the primary mechanism for the social dissemination of this latter source of social narratives and harrowing personal stories is likely to be kids who happened to attend school in a near or same year group as girls who were victims. At the time, the kids themselves may have dismissed such girls as ‘slags’ or ‘sluts’, but it’s highly likely that- in the wake of tabloid revelations, documentaries, social media and the independent media exposure of a range of activists on the issue- they’ve come to reappraise their original opinion, likely with a degree of guilt.
In the light of this understanding of the profundity of the depth of the problem, it’s high time the British government changed their strategy. All it would take would be for some enterprising media entity or the Reform party to commission a fairly reputable polling company to survey just how many White Working Class people living in cities or towns in the UK know women directly who experienced gang grooming as girls, or know their personal stories through their acquaintances, to create a sea change in British politics. It also might be useful to ask respondents to estimate the percentage of men in the Muslim population who have engaged in paedophilia. I’m fairly sure the results would shock those who inhabit the British Government and Institutions. If the broader British public realised that millions of their fellow Brits either knew victims, or through acquaintances knew the personal stories of several victims, it might completely change the complexion of the political discussion in the UK.
The British government has to stop gaslighting the British public. They don’t understand that sweeping a problem under the carpet won’t work in the new independent media ecosystem. And, sure, it’s true to say that most people aren’t anywhere near aware enough of the existence of ‘Type 2 offenders’, the far more covert, mostly white, networks of paedophiles, who operate through either online grooming or human trafficking. Most parents don’t realise that there is almost no risk from conventional ‘stranger danger’, that they should feel free to let their children out in public, unsupervised, provided they are in a group of other children, whilst giving their children and teenagers unsupervised access to the internet poses a huge risk, both in terms of giving paedophiles access to their children, but also in terms of the potential for contact with deranged antisocial psychopaths, who might just knife their sons. This excellent Independent article on the subject makes clear that the more covert White paedophile ring activity is a huge problem.
But the establishment still has two problems. First, the White population of the UK is 48 million. The Muslim population of the UK is 4 million, and was considerably lower in the period when most historical Asian/Muslim gang grooming activity occurred. Stating a survey of group or gang sexual abuse victims in 2012 showed 36 per cent of victims of group or gang child abuse identified their attackers as white, 27 per cent as Asian, 16 per cent as black, with 16 per cent unspecified isn’t going to cut it, because people know basic maths, or know people who know basic maths, who can point out the glaring problem, in terms of statistical overrepresentation. Second, it was fundamentally a type of crime committed by one group in British society against another. For nearly a decade our cultural institutions have been pushing the message that we should look at society through the prism of race, in terms of oppressors and the oppressed. What exactly did they think would happen when the tables were turned, and in one specific instances the Whites turned out to the oppressed, and non-whites the oppressors? I suspect a strong element of the ‘Islamophobic’ violence we’ve seen in the recent UK riots has an underlying motive of vigilantism. I’ve even seen one clip circulating social media, where White protestors/rioters can be heard muttering something about ‘paedophiles’.
Instead, I know exactly what type of message that the British Government should adopt, and it comes in the form of an extended mea culpa, by explaining how institutional failures, motivated by class bigotry, unwittingly unleashed a social contagion of sexual violence upon large segments of the White Working Class. It’s a little known fact that although roughly 0.8% of the UK population are what one article I found termed ‘true paedophiles’, sexually attracted to prepubescent children, a significantly larger percentage of the population, an additional 1% to 3%, have what the article terms ‘paedophile tendencies’- sexual attraction and a predilection towards pubescent girls aged 12 to 15 (the legal age of consent in the UK is 16). I hate the distinction by the way, the framing somehow infers that ‘paedophile tendencies’ are somehow less egregious.
Here’s the problem, as well as the defining feature of a better narrative the British Government and Institutions could and should put forward. Virtually every institution failed these girls. Police took reports from angry parents and dismissed the problem as a matter of underage prostitution. Social workers turned the other way. Elected officials knew about it and did nothing. Even teachers in state schools ignored the problem, burying their heads in the sand. Why? First of all, they were afraid of being accused of racism themselves. Second, they were afraid of stoking racial tensions between communities. In the latter regard, they made the matter a thousand times worse, by failing to address what might have otherwise been a small and isolated problem by nipping it in the bud as soon as it started.
The law exists for a number of reasons. To protect public safety, to punish, to reform behaviour and rehabilitate. But the most important aspect of Law is the power of the deterrence, and in this respect it has the power to massively reduce crime, both through penal sentences but also through the social stigma and ostracism which occurs through being convicted of a crime, especially when the crime itself is particularly odious and awful. Many of us will have seen the videos of what happens in American progressive cities, when the penalties for shoplifting under a specific amount are done away with. It’s so ridiculous that shops routinely keep goods behind locked plastic or glass cabinets only accessible to store staff ready to unlock them for specific customers, to prevent shoplifters from making off with trolley loads of stolen goods.
With paedophilia, the pathology of the urge is far, far stronger than stealing property to feed a drug habit. Paedophile priests were treated repeatedly by the best therapy had to offer, yet still routinely reoffended in their new parishes. The pathology is so strong that paedophile criminals who have been chemically castrated still have a propensity to harm children in other ways. What we are really talking about is a situation where the British institutions perversely created a climate of ‘freedom from consequence’ for mostly Muslim/Asian men, out of fear of the accusation of racism. It turns out the surveys which show that 30% of men would rape if ‘free from consequence’ is highly disingenuous and designed to elicit a particular response, but the fact that a complete lack of deterrence increases crime by a huge degree, is an axiomatic fact repeated throughout the history of criminology.
There needs to be an answer when Tommy Robinson appears on a Jordan Peterson podcast and highlights the fact that 200 paedophile clientele/customers were found to have slept with at least three underage teenage girls each in Telford and that this represented nearly 20% of the Muslim male population of Telford at the time. The answer of course is that paedophiles have a covert means of detecting and signalling to each other- otherwise they would not be able to arrange themselves into covert white paedophile rings, for fear of social sanction and criminal detection. It’s also true, given the fact that the organised abuse occurred for decades, that the existence of the grooming gang would have drawn in Muslim men with ‘paedophile tendencies’ in droves, potentially from a couple of hundred miles away. We’ve long known that paedophiles often pursue careers which place them in positions of power over children- by comparison changing employer within the same occupation in order to relocate to be close to ready source of prey seems like a relatively minor adjustment. I would use a metaphor or an analogy at this point, but most fail either by casting vile offenders in a positive light, or implying negative connotations to the poor victims. It is also worth noting that there is a significant difference in the pathology of paedophiles who have given into their urge and those who have not. Feeding this particular demon seems to amplify the compulsion. When there is strict deterrence and a zero tolerance attitude towards paedophilia it seems that many remain non-offending, or at least confine themselves to the less direct harm of consuming child pornography.
Basically, the British establishment provided a green light for the 1% to 3% of Muslim men with paedophile tendencies to engage their predilections with impunity. The towns and cities where grooming gangs were present acted like a beacon to those with this sick fixation, drawing them in from far afield. The detection and protection of crime can have profound consequences. Proactive policing, with its data-driven approach managed to halve violent crime in ten years wherever it was tried. Ignoring crime produces the opposite effect, by a far worse degree. If a gave a similar ‘permission slip’ to the small percentage of men in the White population with this deviant attraction, then there would scarcely be a woman alive today, who hadn’t been raped as a teenage girl.
Of course, there were other factors at play. I’m not saying that there isn’t a degree of light skin fetishism involved, light skin fetishism is a feature of the majority of cultures around the world. It’s a feature of the advent of the agricultural age- when populations separated into ruling classes and peasants worked the field, it was inevitable that the higher status light skin tones would come to be seen as more attractive. Similarly, religion did play a role. Sure, you can find instances from highly reputable legacy media broadsheet publications which detailed the anecdotal cases of a few of the UK’s more extremist Mosques, which created an extreme brand of religious persecution associated with the rapes, but these are the exceptions not the rule.
More generally, when you have socially conservative Imans trying to prevent their congregation (Jummah) from falling into what they see as Western decadence and moral self-degradation, then its going to have the effect of dichotomising women into ‘good girls’ and ‘sluts’- and it’s tragically likely that in these circumstances as well as making the ‘sluts’ more attractive to teenage boys, it will also raise their attractiveness to the small percentage of completely unsavoury men with paedophile tendencies in the audience. It is also a factor that Muslim communities heavily police their girls to prevent sexual contact. Amongst paedophiles who were already active, this meant that they would have looked elsewhere for other prey, for ‘easy meat’, and given that we’ve already established that men with this pathology seem to be able to ‘signal’ to and identify each other, then it’s not difficult to see how the news of an attitude of permissiveness, turning a blind eye, institutional ‘freedom of consequence’ would have led to social contagion, spreading like wildfire, through the small percentage of the Muslim community with this aberrant pathology.
We made this happen as a society! It’s a feature of institutions that they tend to overcorrect, and in the climate following the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, following the rampant racism which was prevalent in the Institutions as late as the eighties, it is easy to see how the desperate need to reform, to purge actual and real racism from the ranks of the institutions turned into a climate of fear where even the mere suggestion of racism could be career ending. This is a feature, and not a bug, of top-down systems- generally a battle axe is applied, when a scalpel is required.
The Establishment has to intervene to correct this misperception caused by these institutional system-wide failures which occurred for decades. We can’t have a significant portion of the White Working Class population stewing under the misapprehension, the mistaken belief, that perhaps as many as 10% of Muslim men are paedophiles. It’s simply not true for a start. The numbers don’t add up. An UnHerd article from 2022, which unfortunately seems to have been either blocked or withdrawn, highlighted a study which showed that paedophile sexual offenders convicted in the Muslim male population were roughly 1 in 2,100, with the figure for Pakistani males at just over 1 in 1,700. Even when one accounts for the failure to prosecute clientele/customers versus facilitators/enablers (the latter of which were charged and convicted), then this still puts the figure below 1%. The disparity between Pakistani males and other Muslim men is likely to due to the presence of Salafism/Wahhabism in Pakistani communities in the UK. A more ultraorthodox and fundamentalist interpretation of Islam would be more condemnatory towards Western ways, and, ironically, make Western girls seem even more enticing for those with deviant sexual appetites.
The British Institutions basically raised a white flag and told the paedophiles to come out of the woodwork and do whatever they wanted. This visa for morally unconscionable behaviour and completely illegal behaviour was only granted to certain segments of British society, thus twisting the availability heuristics of ordinary decent citizens to the point that they formed conclusions completely at odds with what the data on criminality and pathology should tell us. If the British Government doesn’t own up to it and confess their collective sins, then they will be guilty of causing more racism than they are correcting, but it wouldn’t surprise me at all if they decided to ignore the problem for purely political purposes. Perhaps they really do want to divide society and make us hate each other.
Excellent analysis of the most glaringly obvious part of the "islamophobic" problem. Well written, well argued.
Add in "We'll rub their noses in diversity" (quoting Jack Straw) globalist migration policy, and the causes of the riots become equally obvious.
(Unfortunately I'm unable to share this as a note, so I'll restack separately... Providing my restack button works, which is far from guaranteed these days.)
Thanks for elaborating the grooming angle in detail. However I believe a sufficient explanation is being a second class people under two tier policing, two tier justice, constantly gaslighted by a two tier media and ruled by a Uniparty that pretends to have two sides but only has one, that is resolutely opposed to the people it's supposed to represent.
It’s actually the fear of the accusation of racism which explains everything. It appears to have been happening long before woke came onto the scene and cowed virtually every organisation, public or private, into creeping submission to the Dictatorship of the Small Minority.
And it’s a class problem, more than anything else. The highly educated are particularly susceptible.
Justice cannot work if it fails the test of ‘without fear or favour’.
On the Uniparty thing George Carlin explained it all:
"You don't need a formal conspiracy when interests converge."
They are believe the same things, so it’s not surprising that they come to the same conclusions. It doesn’t help that they don’t realise just how harmful and destructive supranational organisations have been and have the potential to be.
You should check out the Lucis Trust website. It’s heavily associated with the UN and the theosophical movement embedded within the UN. It actually has a Lucifer disclaimer, which makes one realise just how mad these cretins are!
A really good article and I don't know why you don't write more often. I remember you from the good old days before Quillette changed its superb commenting engine for the pathetic one in use now.
As an American I've been following this story for a couple weeks after seeing the superb interview Jordan Peterson did of Tommy Robinson. The rioters have years-deep legitimate grievances and (as little as I follow Brit politics) the government has made zero effort to acknowledge them and instead is opting for Orwellian persecution.
I'm glad you are making the effort to assign victim numbers to the rape gang phenomenon because I don't see much on this. I saw one person saying over 100,000 and I thought that must be much too high. Because the crimes are so horrific, I think people assume it just must be tabloid fodder because there could not be such a great number of evil people about.
As an aside I'd be curious to see your theory as to why Islam seems to foment so much bad behavior. As a Christian I think a serious hypothesis is that it is designed by Satan to do so (IIRC Mohammed at first thought the being he met in the cave was a "djinn"). But I'd be interested in an attempt at a purely natural explanation. I would for that matter be interested in any thoughts from anyone on how to compel reform in Islam or if that is even possible.
It is amazing as usual how many people are willing to buy into the government line that these riots are just caused by "racism" and the irrelevant part about the identity of the Southport stabber being mistaken at first, as if the grievances causing the riots had not already been present for years.
On the writing front, it's partly being a family carer and partially difficulty motivating myself. My aunt came over to visit yesterday. She is 16 years younger than my mother. When we walked the dogs together, she confided she didn't understand how I coped (my mother has Alzheimer's/Dementia). I don't notice it that much, apart from the occasional flash of irritation when she distracts me when I'm in the middle of doing something for her, but I am perfectly willing to concede that the day-to-day is mentally draining. I have thought about writing a series about some of the knowledge I've accumulated in my search for understanding as to why the West seems to have gone so wrong, culturally- like many writers, I often presume knowledge on the part of my readers, and should probably detail some of the basic important concepts to my worldview, like ingroup.
The JP Tommy Robinson interview was a revelation. Like many Brits I had formed my opinion on him based upon his EDL days, which was hopelessly tied up with associations with football hooliganism. He himself admits his early mistakes, and he's changed somewhat. However, it's a process which still needs to evolve. He needs to understand that the grooming gang problem wouldn't have been anywhere near the scale of the problem if it wasn't for British institutions turning a blind eye. It's plausible that paedophilia might have been twice as common in the Muslim population- that's about the natural limit in variations between populations for any form of rape. It not like the wild variations we see in murder rates, which has a lot to do with the presence of fathers in communities. But the institutional impairment of deterrence is huge by comparison- probably making group child grooming and rape somewhere between 7 and 10 times as common!
Yes, the figures on child rape are truly shocking. A while back I did some research on rape more generally, but decided against writing the essay because it was so bleak and depressing. Surveys of women who admit being historically raped show that 50% of all female rapes occur before the age of consent. The Home Office report made a point of this- single offender child sex abuse is about 8 times as common as group-based child sexual exploitation. Overall, 80,000 cases in a single quarter, and those are just the ones which are reported. We have pretty good safeguarding systems in the UK, especially through the schools and the NHS, which makes it all the more appalling that they were effectively 'switched off' in relation to certain ethnicities for what looks like decades.
I've seen and read a good deal of content on the Satan thing. There is a great YouTuber called Sam Shamoun whose knowledge of all the Abrahamic religions is truly astounding. This link is particularly salient: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QevWr9rXbHE .
The thing to remember about Islam is that the Quran has two distinct layers. The first layer is incredibly poetic, filled with the types of layered meanings which are common to the Bible and the Torah. It comprises about 80% of the Quran. The second layer is far more coarsely written, it contains no poetry for the soul. It also stands in direct contradiction to the earlier other parts of Quran, which emphasise that Israel is for the Jews and that Christians should be respected as being in receipt of divine wisdom.
The Quran wasn't written down until after the life of Mohammed, but it was compiled within his living memory. I think there is a strong case to be made that Mohammed's Abba (or friends/followers) added bits, because they were frustrated by the fact that many Christians and Jews at the time wouldn't accept their master as a prophet. This even works its way into how many Muslims view historical events. Mohammed didn't order the massacre at Khaybar because the Jews refused to accept him as a prophet, but rather because they reneged on the terms of their surrender- they refused to pay the tithe from their crops which they had agreed.
One of the most important aspects of Jesus was that he was absolutely emphatic that people come to an acceptance of him and of God's love voluntarily. I think the early Muslims made a huge mistake when they consolidated the first Quran during Uthman. They probably thought that they were doing honor or glory to God by denigrating the reluctance of Christians and Jews, mocking their faiths as 'corrupted'. Nothing could be further from the truth.
We all know the truth of this. We see it in our daily lives. If we do a kindness for another, accomplish something on their behalf, it fills us with warmth and a sense of humble pride. But if we forced or coerced to do it, or do it because we've been nagged to do it, it can feel like a chore- stealing the joy of helping others and making it a burden imposed.
So to with faith. It shouldn't feel like a burden. It should feel like a positive life choice, something which fills the faithful with a lightness of being and an acceptance of life's occasional tragedies. Where even Christianity gets into trouble is when there is an assumption of moral superiority over others- love the sinner, hate the sin. Islam went wrong pretty earlier on, because they embedded force and coercion into their model of faith. That's spiritual poison, regardless of other ways in which Islam might be somewhat laudable- host law, concerns about usury, etc.
I've been thinking about culture and race in terms of immortality. There are several forms of immortality. The promise of eternal life through faith. Having children. Accomplishing a great work which is of benefit to others, beyond our time on Earth. But there is also the immortality through continuation of culture. It's why the triumph of the West is that it can handle multiracial societies in ways that most cultures didn't- without the need for a centralising tyrannical authority, as seen under the historical Caliphate or in other cultures. We could manage multiracial societies because we could see the humanity in others, and imagine that when they are culturally integrated into the whole, their descendants will be very much like us, despite a few differences in food culture and music tastes.
The problem is that culture is less reconcilable. If there is fear of displacement it jeopardises the immortality of the continuation of culture. People take a great deal of comfort from the fact that their society will continue on after they are gone, changing and flowing like a river, but still with the quintessential decency which they experience during their lifetimes. It lends a sense of permanence, and is one of the reasons why people are so obsessed with history. In adult education for leisure, history evening classes, for example, are by far the most common pastime for pursuing interests.
The Left wants to do away with our past and our current culture, because they believe it's the only way they can build their Utopia. There is nothing wrong about wanting to improve things for the better, but it has to be done in way that largely resists the temptation towards force and coercion and it shouldn't mess with people's sense of immortality of continuation through culture, their river.
Yeah it's heavily blocked. TR released it illegally as the UK courts have barred him from making the allegations in it. He showed it in public in Trafalgar Square and then left the country. I am not exactly sure where you will find it but wherever UK censorship does not reach I guess. Some of the main points were made in the interview you mentioned.
The age of consent in the UK is 16? That seems low to me. It’s 18 in my state in the US and although I knew there were a few states where it was 17 or even 16, a 16-year-old seems like a child to me, and I’m only 28 myself.
In Italy the age of consent is 14! Decades ago there was a big scandal, where 14 year old British models were being flown out to Italy and invited to parties with wealthy and powerful men. I can't find it on Google.
Yes. A couple can marry at the age of 16 with the permission of their parents, where it was withheld the Gretna Green beckoned. However a male over 18 could be prosecuted for rape if the girl is under 18, even if she is over 16 (see the caveat above). Paid for sex with a girl under 18 is always a criminal offence.
> ... the Muslim population of the UK is 4 million
About 10% and already they have the country in turmoil. In the US they say Blacks are about 13% of the population and that's enough to have that country on its knees. So what does the UK look like when the Muslim population is, say, 25%? I think White Supremacy might be a good idea and maybe a few more countries should try it. For example what, really -- no, really, if you stop and think about it -- what really is so terrible about, say, Hungary choosing to remain Hungarian? Yes, it's Hungarian Supremacy and I for one congratulate them. I don't think they're hurting anybody or that Hate is the motivation, merely the desire to remain masters in their own home. Why is that so terrible?
It's closer to 6%. The UK population has risen to 69 million! We can't even build enough houses for 60 million, and with the bark beetle decimating spruce in Europe, we don't even have the supply chain. It's because just after WWII they planted loads of spruce at lower altitudes than their usual habitat, but I'm sure I will soon see an article from the BBC blaming it on climate change...
I'm actually for sensible migration- high skilled and high salary. But currently we're using low wage migration to prop up a wage slave economy and neoliberalism. One commentator recently called it the Deliveroo economy. Plus, we have far too many useless middle managers.
You see stats 'proving' that immigration is good, but they mix the boat people in with the doctors. Doctors good, boat people, not so good. But damn! 6% and that's enough to start a race war? Back in my sunny progressive days I'd have said that a healthy society would have a solid majority of native people but, perhaps 20% would/should be 'multicultural' -- a bit of variety is a good thing, it prevents stagnation. But it looks like 20% was naive.
BTW, in a world that everyone by now should realize is finite, why is this infinite growth mentality still current? Esp. when, along with infinite growth we're supposed to have a zero carbon economy? You're much too fat, but try to eat more.
It's not really a race war, but rather mindless thuggery. I don't agree with the far right labelling, because believing that mass migration has been too high over the past decade is a position held by 66% of the population. However, it is mindless and thuggery when people resort to street violence of any kind.
I also don't agree with complaining about all Muslims- the fact that the police failed, teachers failed, local politicians failed, social workers failed, etc has unfairly tarnished their reputation, because it's made a very small percentage of Muslims look more prevalent, simply because of the societal permission element.
That being said, there really is an extremist element within Salafism/Wahhabism. I have a strong suspicion that the current British Government policy is to leave them in place so they know where they are, surveil them and leave them to spew their hate in all but the most extreme cases. The problems with that are twofold. First, that sort of hatred can fester and spread, especially amongst angry young men. Second, it looks terrible from the outside- as though it's two tier policing and a two tier justice system.
Over 150 churches have been burned down by arson in the past five years.
> However, it is mindless and thuggery when people resort to street violence of any kind.
Sure it is. But I myself don't find it much use to just 'find the bad guys' in this kind of thing. It seems to me that it would be prudent not to throw fuel on a fire notwithstanding that Bad People lit the fire. Get my drift? Blame is fine, but solutions are better.
> a very small percentage of Muslims
That's what I'd expect a civilized person to say and I feel a bit queasy saying inflammatory things but I wonder how many of the non-very small percentage would embrace sharia if the wind blew in that direction. Which is to say that the number that matters isn't the number currently engaging in jihad, it's the number who will do nothing to resist jihad. Sorta like Germany in the 30's -- the number of true Nazi believers was small, yet the whole country ended up going along. Put it this way: if it does look like a religion/race war, who's side are you going to be on? How many Muslims are going to go apostate and side with the infidels when it comes to war?
The problem with a comment like that one is that it heaps suspicion on every Muslim -- guilty until proven innocent -- unquestionably wrong in the near view. Yet the rotten fact of it is that I don't think many Muslims are going to end up defending infidels *if* things get out of hand. One thinks of the internments during the War -- at one and the same time repugnant to our sense of justice and yet necessary. Insiders here reported that about half of Japanese would have been loyal to the Emperor had Japanese troops landed. Can't risk that. I have a parallel view of the situation with Muslims.
You're partially correct. About 75% of British Muslims consider themselves British first, whatever else first. Within the other 25% there is a real risk of violence if the UK ever acts contrary to the Umma.
The prurience created by puritanical Islamic ideology is very interesting, especially when understood against backdrop of late modern secular values which appear to actively sexualise children at ever younger ages. I also think there is a level of wider criminality amongst the Muslim community - out of proportion to the numbers - that is casually brushed under the carpet. So many of the grooming cases girls are plied with drugs.
I tend to think of culture in terms of mechanistic systems and organic systems. Government and large corporations? Mechanistic. Small businesses and communities developing common resources for themselves? Organic. Religion? I think it can be either. If religion works in harmony with the individual and social organisms to encourage healthy choices and lifelong stable partnerships, then it's organic. If the religion is overwhelming proscriptive rather than prescriptive, authoritarian and repressive, then it's mechanistic.
What is remarkable about the gang grooming phenomenon is how true to form it is, in terms of seeing the benefits of organic systems over mechanistic ones. There was a very strong correlation between Salafism/Wahhabism and gang grooming- the most extreme sect in the UK, comprising only 9% of the UK Muslim population. They were heavily overrepresented. This represents mainly young men and teenage boys rebelling against overly restrictive strictures, and doing it in every way imaginable- drugs, alcohol, Western teen girlfriends, and worst of all, eventual gang formation. This in turn metastasised what might otherwise have been ordinary 'Romeo & Juliet' relationships into nasty, dark and increasingly abusive pimping relationship, as they acted as enablers and facilitators for older Muslim men with paedophile tendencies. There is natural tendency amongst teenage boys and young men to think there must be something fundamentally or defective wrong with any girl who likes them- and a religion which classifies their behaviour as inherently morally inferior is naturally going to play into that feeling of younger inner male inadequacy. The gang tendency is not to be underestimated in this regard, especially in terms of social contagion- in many instances older taxi drivers and other occupations with regular customer contact, quickly began to copy the behaviour of younger men in gangs in other parts of the country, effectively setting up their own franchises.
Sexual repression (as opposed to healthy sexual self-restraint) for religious reasons is generally a bad idea. The main reason for the chastity requirement for Catholic Priests was political. A certain Pope didn't want priestly aristocracies forming. The 6% paedophile figure was predictable, given that paedophiles are drawn to positions of power over children. The 50% rate of breaking their vows to engage in affairs with women, on the other hand, is completely understandable.
It makes one mindful of the Buddha and the sitar player. If the string is tuned too tightly it will break. If the string is too loose, the sitar will not play.
Religion should encourage healthy life choices. It shouldn't repress, apart from the obvious harm-ridden inclinations. I've often thought that the Amish must have been incredibly wise to allow Rumspringa- it allows their kids to see the clear trade-offs between two entirely different lifestyles.
It's about two things: trust and ideology. They don't trust people who aren't university educated because this demographic is most often at odds with their pronouncements and agendas. They must be thick and prejudiced. It doesn't cross their mind that the 'lived experience' of others is completely different from theirs. Most of their multicultural friends are bicultural (and admittedly lovely people, for the most part).
But the ideology part is the really dangerous thing. Most of history's atrocities were committed by people convinced they were doing the right thing. Most people are cynics about politics- they think it's about power and that our dear leaders must be corrupt. But it's not that at all- it's the ideology. Far more salient is the desire to prove to others that their ideas work- that way we will all fall at their feet in astounded wonder at their wisdom and sagacity, listening with humble devotion to their insightful musings. Most people who are 'into' politics are the most awful policy wonks. I've been guilty of it myself on occasion. Not a thought is given to the possibility that their model of the world is fundamentally wrong is some awful respect. No humility- pure hubris.
Of course, it doesn't help that they occasionally get death threats or that on occasion vile idiots threaten their families over social media- it makes them feel their urge to censor must surely be justified. The irony is there probably should be some far more MODEST changes to the law with regard to joint enterprise. Telling a local elected official you hope their children burn to death in house fire should probably be illegal.
The problem is most people don't want to admit they are wrong about anything fundamental. It generally means one has to rearrange an entire worldview. What they don't realise is that there is something incredibly valuable emerging from our current societal change. We've basically been under the effects of a mass propaganda media since the 1930s/1940s, and, if left alone, there is fair chance that the human distributed network could come up with five or six key insights which could lead to an unparalleled era of human flourishing.
If we don't blow it (which we probably will). I've already got one of them. People are significantly more happy and fulfilled when they work for small organisations. We should do more of that!
" Far more salient is the desire to prove to others that their ideas work- that way we will all fall at their feet in astounded wonder at their wisdom and sagacity, listening with humble devotion to their insightful musings."
I've often thought something similar, but struggled to articulate it. But here you are, stating these ideas so clearly! Thanks for that, but just so you know, I will now be obliged to quote you everywhere. ;)
One of the very basic problems with their mindset is they don't realise there are some pretty profound differences between the roughly 20% to 30% of the population who are cosmopolitans (low ingroup, high in trait openness to new experience, etc) and the rest of the population. They think that if they can just educated people, or give them more experience with 'diversity', everyone will come to perceive the world like them. They couldn't be further from the truth.
The West has proven it can handle a multicultural society. People don't give a shit about skin colour. They can even handle quite significant cultural differences at an individual level. What they can't handle is the imposition of wildly different cultures into their human landscapes, en masse. Most people have an almost spiritual connection of homophily- a deep and abiding love of their own culture. It's not that they are particular against other cultures- they just have a right to want to preserve their own.
Oh, you're preaching to the choir, lol. I've noticed this one time and time again. I've always been in very "white collar" fields and I run into this a lot, along with the common sneer, "They're just so uneducated!" as if that's the central issue. No, bud, lol. "Lived experience" for some groups, but not for others, eh? For others it's that they're uneducated rubes who must be shown the light. Very much like preachers in a sense, which I am most certainly familiar with...
But let us not forget the other population--those who are would-be class straddlers--who adopt these values and impose them on others with the zeal of new converts for inchoate reasons of their own (well, not really--they mostly want to be acknowledged by that former group as equals in both brilliance and morality, but uh...often doesn't work out that way).
Amazon was running a limited deal on spirits recently- I've already started on my 10 year old Talisker! My best mate called off for tomorrow, because he's got to write a report over the weekend, and my brother isn't getting back from Sweden until Monday.
The thing is I could be just like them, but I had a car accident at Uni which derailed me somewhat. As a consequence I ended up a technical type in a factory environment. I would spend a fair amount of time out on the shop floor trying to get to the root of problems and doing my 'change' thing.
They were lovely people. Working men who barely saw the light of day in the winter (old bomb-proof WWII factory). Of course, there are also the 3%- wankers! But the mistake my cosmopolitan friends make is imagining the 3% are representative of the rest. Nothing could be further from the truth. If anything, we should feel sorry for them. They've been shafted by the PMC for 33 years.
Ah, sorry to hear about your car accident. Must have been awful for a time, so my sympathies to you there!
(I find that as I get older, I prefer the common sense views of the working class over the strange mental gymnastics of the PMC...I'm from a working class family, and this turn of events is rather ironic after all that work I put in to "escape" that life. Now I wish I'd gone into trades! Oh how the turns tables!)
Excellent analysis of the most glaringly obvious part of the "islamophobic" problem. Well written, well argued.
Add in "We'll rub their noses in diversity" (quoting Jack Straw) globalist migration policy, and the causes of the riots become equally obvious.
(Unfortunately I'm unable to share this as a note, so I'll restack separately... Providing my restack button works, which is far from guaranteed these days.)
Thanks for elaborating the grooming angle in detail. However I believe a sufficient explanation is being a second class people under two tier policing, two tier justice, constantly gaslighted by a two tier media and ruled by a Uniparty that pretends to have two sides but only has one, that is resolutely opposed to the people it's supposed to represent.
It’s actually the fear of the accusation of racism which explains everything. It appears to have been happening long before woke came onto the scene and cowed virtually every organisation, public or private, into creeping submission to the Dictatorship of the Small Minority.
And it’s a class problem, more than anything else. The highly educated are particularly susceptible.
Justice cannot work if it fails the test of ‘without fear or favour’.
On the Uniparty thing George Carlin explained it all:
"You don't need a formal conspiracy when interests converge."
They are believe the same things, so it’s not surprising that they come to the same conclusions. It doesn’t help that they don’t realise just how harmful and destructive supranational organisations have been and have the potential to be.
You should check out the Lucis Trust website. It’s heavily associated with the UN and the theosophical movement embedded within the UN. It actually has a Lucifer disclaimer, which makes one realise just how mad these cretins are!
A really good article and I don't know why you don't write more often. I remember you from the good old days before Quillette changed its superb commenting engine for the pathetic one in use now.
As an American I've been following this story for a couple weeks after seeing the superb interview Jordan Peterson did of Tommy Robinson. The rioters have years-deep legitimate grievances and (as little as I follow Brit politics) the government has made zero effort to acknowledge them and instead is opting for Orwellian persecution.
I'm glad you are making the effort to assign victim numbers to the rape gang phenomenon because I don't see much on this. I saw one person saying over 100,000 and I thought that must be much too high. Because the crimes are so horrific, I think people assume it just must be tabloid fodder because there could not be such a great number of evil people about.
As an aside I'd be curious to see your theory as to why Islam seems to foment so much bad behavior. As a Christian I think a serious hypothesis is that it is designed by Satan to do so (IIRC Mohammed at first thought the being he met in the cave was a "djinn"). But I'd be interested in an attempt at a purely natural explanation. I would for that matter be interested in any thoughts from anyone on how to compel reform in Islam or if that is even possible.
It is amazing as usual how many people are willing to buy into the government line that these riots are just caused by "racism" and the irrelevant part about the identity of the Southport stabber being mistaken at first, as if the grievances causing the riots had not already been present for years.
On the writing front, it's partly being a family carer and partially difficulty motivating myself. My aunt came over to visit yesterday. She is 16 years younger than my mother. When we walked the dogs together, she confided she didn't understand how I coped (my mother has Alzheimer's/Dementia). I don't notice it that much, apart from the occasional flash of irritation when she distracts me when I'm in the middle of doing something for her, but I am perfectly willing to concede that the day-to-day is mentally draining. I have thought about writing a series about some of the knowledge I've accumulated in my search for understanding as to why the West seems to have gone so wrong, culturally- like many writers, I often presume knowledge on the part of my readers, and should probably detail some of the basic important concepts to my worldview, like ingroup.
The JP Tommy Robinson interview was a revelation. Like many Brits I had formed my opinion on him based upon his EDL days, which was hopelessly tied up with associations with football hooliganism. He himself admits his early mistakes, and he's changed somewhat. However, it's a process which still needs to evolve. He needs to understand that the grooming gang problem wouldn't have been anywhere near the scale of the problem if it wasn't for British institutions turning a blind eye. It's plausible that paedophilia might have been twice as common in the Muslim population- that's about the natural limit in variations between populations for any form of rape. It not like the wild variations we see in murder rates, which has a lot to do with the presence of fathers in communities. But the institutional impairment of deterrence is huge by comparison- probably making group child grooming and rape somewhere between 7 and 10 times as common!
Yes, the figures on child rape are truly shocking. A while back I did some research on rape more generally, but decided against writing the essay because it was so bleak and depressing. Surveys of women who admit being historically raped show that 50% of all female rapes occur before the age of consent. The Home Office report made a point of this- single offender child sex abuse is about 8 times as common as group-based child sexual exploitation. Overall, 80,000 cases in a single quarter, and those are just the ones which are reported. We have pretty good safeguarding systems in the UK, especially through the schools and the NHS, which makes it all the more appalling that they were effectively 'switched off' in relation to certain ethnicities for what looks like decades.
I've seen and read a good deal of content on the Satan thing. There is a great YouTuber called Sam Shamoun whose knowledge of all the Abrahamic religions is truly astounding. This link is particularly salient: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QevWr9rXbHE .
The thing to remember about Islam is that the Quran has two distinct layers. The first layer is incredibly poetic, filled with the types of layered meanings which are common to the Bible and the Torah. It comprises about 80% of the Quran. The second layer is far more coarsely written, it contains no poetry for the soul. It also stands in direct contradiction to the earlier other parts of Quran, which emphasise that Israel is for the Jews and that Christians should be respected as being in receipt of divine wisdom.
The Quran wasn't written down until after the life of Mohammed, but it was compiled within his living memory. I think there is a strong case to be made that Mohammed's Abba (or friends/followers) added bits, because they were frustrated by the fact that many Christians and Jews at the time wouldn't accept their master as a prophet. This even works its way into how many Muslims view historical events. Mohammed didn't order the massacre at Khaybar because the Jews refused to accept him as a prophet, but rather because they reneged on the terms of their surrender- they refused to pay the tithe from their crops which they had agreed.
One of the most important aspects of Jesus was that he was absolutely emphatic that people come to an acceptance of him and of God's love voluntarily. I think the early Muslims made a huge mistake when they consolidated the first Quran during Uthman. They probably thought that they were doing honor or glory to God by denigrating the reluctance of Christians and Jews, mocking their faiths as 'corrupted'. Nothing could be further from the truth.
We all know the truth of this. We see it in our daily lives. If we do a kindness for another, accomplish something on their behalf, it fills us with warmth and a sense of humble pride. But if we forced or coerced to do it, or do it because we've been nagged to do it, it can feel like a chore- stealing the joy of helping others and making it a burden imposed.
So to with faith. It shouldn't feel like a burden. It should feel like a positive life choice, something which fills the faithful with a lightness of being and an acceptance of life's occasional tragedies. Where even Christianity gets into trouble is when there is an assumption of moral superiority over others- love the sinner, hate the sin. Islam went wrong pretty earlier on, because they embedded force and coercion into their model of faith. That's spiritual poison, regardless of other ways in which Islam might be somewhat laudable- host law, concerns about usury, etc.
I've been thinking about culture and race in terms of immortality. There are several forms of immortality. The promise of eternal life through faith. Having children. Accomplishing a great work which is of benefit to others, beyond our time on Earth. But there is also the immortality through continuation of culture. It's why the triumph of the West is that it can handle multiracial societies in ways that most cultures didn't- without the need for a centralising tyrannical authority, as seen under the historical Caliphate or in other cultures. We could manage multiracial societies because we could see the humanity in others, and imagine that when they are culturally integrated into the whole, their descendants will be very much like us, despite a few differences in food culture and music tastes.
The problem is that culture is less reconcilable. If there is fear of displacement it jeopardises the immortality of the continuation of culture. People take a great deal of comfort from the fact that their society will continue on after they are gone, changing and flowing like a river, but still with the quintessential decency which they experience during their lifetimes. It lends a sense of permanence, and is one of the reasons why people are so obsessed with history. In adult education for leisure, history evening classes, for example, are by far the most common pastime for pursuing interests.
The Left wants to do away with our past and our current culture, because they believe it's the only way they can build their Utopia. There is nothing wrong about wanting to improve things for the better, but it has to be done in way that largely resists the temptation towards force and coercion and it shouldn't mess with people's sense of immortality of continuation through culture, their river.
Have you watched TR's latest documentary. He directly address justice system collision there.
TR? I'm sure it will be really obvious to me when you tell me, but could you provide a link?
Apologies - Tommy Robinson
Of course! I haven’t watched it. It’s not on YouTube. I will have to check Rumble.
Yeah it's heavily blocked. TR released it illegally as the UK courts have barred him from making the allegations in it. He showed it in public in Trafalgar Square and then left the country. I am not exactly sure where you will find it but wherever UK censorship does not reach I guess. Some of the main points were made in the interview you mentioned.
The age of consent in the UK is 16? That seems low to me. It’s 18 in my state in the US and although I knew there were a few states where it was 17 or even 16, a 16-year-old seems like a child to me, and I’m only 28 myself.
In Italy the age of consent is 14! Decades ago there was a big scandal, where 14 year old British models were being flown out to Italy and invited to parties with wealthy and powerful men. I can't find it on Google.
14! Yikes.
Until quite recently 16 year olds appeared topless in UK newspapers every day.
Yes. A couple can marry at the age of 16 with the permission of their parents, where it was withheld the Gretna Green beckoned. However a male over 18 could be prosecuted for rape if the girl is under 18, even if she is over 16 (see the caveat above). Paid for sex with a girl under 18 is always a criminal offence.
Ah, okay that makes way more sense.
> ... the Muslim population of the UK is 4 million
About 10% and already they have the country in turmoil. In the US they say Blacks are about 13% of the population and that's enough to have that country on its knees. So what does the UK look like when the Muslim population is, say, 25%? I think White Supremacy might be a good idea and maybe a few more countries should try it. For example what, really -- no, really, if you stop and think about it -- what really is so terrible about, say, Hungary choosing to remain Hungarian? Yes, it's Hungarian Supremacy and I for one congratulate them. I don't think they're hurting anybody or that Hate is the motivation, merely the desire to remain masters in their own home. Why is that so terrible?
It's closer to 6%. The UK population has risen to 69 million! We can't even build enough houses for 60 million, and with the bark beetle decimating spruce in Europe, we don't even have the supply chain. It's because just after WWII they planted loads of spruce at lower altitudes than their usual habitat, but I'm sure I will soon see an article from the BBC blaming it on climate change...
I'm actually for sensible migration- high skilled and high salary. But currently we're using low wage migration to prop up a wage slave economy and neoliberalism. One commentator recently called it the Deliveroo economy. Plus, we have far too many useless middle managers.
You see stats 'proving' that immigration is good, but they mix the boat people in with the doctors. Doctors good, boat people, not so good. But damn! 6% and that's enough to start a race war? Back in my sunny progressive days I'd have said that a healthy society would have a solid majority of native people but, perhaps 20% would/should be 'multicultural' -- a bit of variety is a good thing, it prevents stagnation. But it looks like 20% was naive.
BTW, in a world that everyone by now should realize is finite, why is this infinite growth mentality still current? Esp. when, along with infinite growth we're supposed to have a zero carbon economy? You're much too fat, but try to eat more.
It's not really a race war, but rather mindless thuggery. I don't agree with the far right labelling, because believing that mass migration has been too high over the past decade is a position held by 66% of the population. However, it is mindless and thuggery when people resort to street violence of any kind.
I also don't agree with complaining about all Muslims- the fact that the police failed, teachers failed, local politicians failed, social workers failed, etc has unfairly tarnished their reputation, because it's made a very small percentage of Muslims look more prevalent, simply because of the societal permission element.
That being said, there really is an extremist element within Salafism/Wahhabism. I have a strong suspicion that the current British Government policy is to leave them in place so they know where they are, surveil them and leave them to spew their hate in all but the most extreme cases. The problems with that are twofold. First, that sort of hatred can fester and spread, especially amongst angry young men. Second, it looks terrible from the outside- as though it's two tier policing and a two tier justice system.
Over 150 churches have been burned down by arson in the past five years.
https://www.thefpa.co.uk/news/arson-attacks-causing-millions-of-pounds-worth-of-damage-to-churches
It could get to being a race war tho.
> However, it is mindless and thuggery when people resort to street violence of any kind.
Sure it is. But I myself don't find it much use to just 'find the bad guys' in this kind of thing. It seems to me that it would be prudent not to throw fuel on a fire notwithstanding that Bad People lit the fire. Get my drift? Blame is fine, but solutions are better.
> a very small percentage of Muslims
That's what I'd expect a civilized person to say and I feel a bit queasy saying inflammatory things but I wonder how many of the non-very small percentage would embrace sharia if the wind blew in that direction. Which is to say that the number that matters isn't the number currently engaging in jihad, it's the number who will do nothing to resist jihad. Sorta like Germany in the 30's -- the number of true Nazi believers was small, yet the whole country ended up going along. Put it this way: if it does look like a religion/race war, who's side are you going to be on? How many Muslims are going to go apostate and side with the infidels when it comes to war?
The problem with a comment like that one is that it heaps suspicion on every Muslim -- guilty until proven innocent -- unquestionably wrong in the near view. Yet the rotten fact of it is that I don't think many Muslims are going to end up defending infidels *if* things get out of hand. One thinks of the internments during the War -- at one and the same time repugnant to our sense of justice and yet necessary. Insiders here reported that about half of Japanese would have been loyal to the Emperor had Japanese troops landed. Can't risk that. I have a parallel view of the situation with Muslims.
You're partially correct. About 75% of British Muslims consider themselves British first, whatever else first. Within the other 25% there is a real risk of violence if the UK ever acts contrary to the Umma.
Yes, not all and not most Muslims (many no doubt are trying to be good British citizens). Just a problematic minority.
Ooops, I should have said: 'You have to eat less, but try to put on some weight.'
hey ray
In the 2021 Census
Muslims were 6.5%
The prurience created by puritanical Islamic ideology is very interesting, especially when understood against backdrop of late modern secular values which appear to actively sexualise children at ever younger ages. I also think there is a level of wider criminality amongst the Muslim community - out of proportion to the numbers - that is casually brushed under the carpet. So many of the grooming cases girls are plied with drugs.
I tend to think of culture in terms of mechanistic systems and organic systems. Government and large corporations? Mechanistic. Small businesses and communities developing common resources for themselves? Organic. Religion? I think it can be either. If religion works in harmony with the individual and social organisms to encourage healthy choices and lifelong stable partnerships, then it's organic. If the religion is overwhelming proscriptive rather than prescriptive, authoritarian and repressive, then it's mechanistic.
What is remarkable about the gang grooming phenomenon is how true to form it is, in terms of seeing the benefits of organic systems over mechanistic ones. There was a very strong correlation between Salafism/Wahhabism and gang grooming- the most extreme sect in the UK, comprising only 9% of the UK Muslim population. They were heavily overrepresented. This represents mainly young men and teenage boys rebelling against overly restrictive strictures, and doing it in every way imaginable- drugs, alcohol, Western teen girlfriends, and worst of all, eventual gang formation. This in turn metastasised what might otherwise have been ordinary 'Romeo & Juliet' relationships into nasty, dark and increasingly abusive pimping relationship, as they acted as enablers and facilitators for older Muslim men with paedophile tendencies. There is natural tendency amongst teenage boys and young men to think there must be something fundamentally or defective wrong with any girl who likes them- and a religion which classifies their behaviour as inherently morally inferior is naturally going to play into that feeling of younger inner male inadequacy. The gang tendency is not to be underestimated in this regard, especially in terms of social contagion- in many instances older taxi drivers and other occupations with regular customer contact, quickly began to copy the behaviour of younger men in gangs in other parts of the country, effectively setting up their own franchises.
Sexual repression (as opposed to healthy sexual self-restraint) for religious reasons is generally a bad idea. The main reason for the chastity requirement for Catholic Priests was political. A certain Pope didn't want priestly aristocracies forming. The 6% paedophile figure was predictable, given that paedophiles are drawn to positions of power over children. The 50% rate of breaking their vows to engage in affairs with women, on the other hand, is completely understandable.
It makes one mindful of the Buddha and the sitar player. If the string is tuned too tightly it will break. If the string is too loose, the sitar will not play.
Religion should encourage healthy life choices. It shouldn't repress, apart from the obvious harm-ridden inclinations. I've often thought that the Amish must have been incredibly wise to allow Rumspringa- it allows their kids to see the clear trade-offs between two entirely different lifestyles.
thx Geary. youre still on the pin
You make more sense than I fear our dear leaders might wish to absorb.
It's about two things: trust and ideology. They don't trust people who aren't university educated because this demographic is most often at odds with their pronouncements and agendas. They must be thick and prejudiced. It doesn't cross their mind that the 'lived experience' of others is completely different from theirs. Most of their multicultural friends are bicultural (and admittedly lovely people, for the most part).
But the ideology part is the really dangerous thing. Most of history's atrocities were committed by people convinced they were doing the right thing. Most people are cynics about politics- they think it's about power and that our dear leaders must be corrupt. But it's not that at all- it's the ideology. Far more salient is the desire to prove to others that their ideas work- that way we will all fall at their feet in astounded wonder at their wisdom and sagacity, listening with humble devotion to their insightful musings. Most people who are 'into' politics are the most awful policy wonks. I've been guilty of it myself on occasion. Not a thought is given to the possibility that their model of the world is fundamentally wrong is some awful respect. No humility- pure hubris.
Of course, it doesn't help that they occasionally get death threats or that on occasion vile idiots threaten their families over social media- it makes them feel their urge to censor must surely be justified. The irony is there probably should be some far more MODEST changes to the law with regard to joint enterprise. Telling a local elected official you hope their children burn to death in house fire should probably be illegal.
The problem is most people don't want to admit they are wrong about anything fundamental. It generally means one has to rearrange an entire worldview. What they don't realise is that there is something incredibly valuable emerging from our current societal change. We've basically been under the effects of a mass propaganda media since the 1930s/1940s, and, if left alone, there is fair chance that the human distributed network could come up with five or six key insights which could lead to an unparalleled era of human flourishing.
If we don't blow it (which we probably will). I've already got one of them. People are significantly more happy and fulfilled when they work for small organisations. We should do more of that!
" Far more salient is the desire to prove to others that their ideas work- that way we will all fall at their feet in astounded wonder at their wisdom and sagacity, listening with humble devotion to their insightful musings."
I've often thought something similar, but struggled to articulate it. But here you are, stating these ideas so clearly! Thanks for that, but just so you know, I will now be obliged to quote you everywhere. ;)
One of the very basic problems with their mindset is they don't realise there are some pretty profound differences between the roughly 20% to 30% of the population who are cosmopolitans (low ingroup, high in trait openness to new experience, etc) and the rest of the population. They think that if they can just educated people, or give them more experience with 'diversity', everyone will come to perceive the world like them. They couldn't be further from the truth.
The West has proven it can handle a multicultural society. People don't give a shit about skin colour. They can even handle quite significant cultural differences at an individual level. What they can't handle is the imposition of wildly different cultures into their human landscapes, en masse. Most people have an almost spiritual connection of homophily- a deep and abiding love of their own culture. It's not that they are particular against other cultures- they just have a right to want to preserve their own.
Oh, you're preaching to the choir, lol. I've noticed this one time and time again. I've always been in very "white collar" fields and I run into this a lot, along with the common sneer, "They're just so uneducated!" as if that's the central issue. No, bud, lol. "Lived experience" for some groups, but not for others, eh? For others it's that they're uneducated rubes who must be shown the light. Very much like preachers in a sense, which I am most certainly familiar with...
But let us not forget the other population--those who are would-be class straddlers--who adopt these values and impose them on others with the zeal of new converts for inchoate reasons of their own (well, not really--they mostly want to be acknowledged by that former group as equals in both brilliance and morality, but uh...often doesn't work out that way).
Happy Friday!
Amazon was running a limited deal on spirits recently- I've already started on my 10 year old Talisker! My best mate called off for tomorrow, because he's got to write a report over the weekend, and my brother isn't getting back from Sweden until Monday.
The thing is I could be just like them, but I had a car accident at Uni which derailed me somewhat. As a consequence I ended up a technical type in a factory environment. I would spend a fair amount of time out on the shop floor trying to get to the root of problems and doing my 'change' thing.
They were lovely people. Working men who barely saw the light of day in the winter (old bomb-proof WWII factory). Of course, there are also the 3%- wankers! But the mistake my cosmopolitan friends make is imagining the 3% are representative of the rest. Nothing could be further from the truth. If anything, we should feel sorry for them. They've been shafted by the PMC for 33 years.
Happy Friday!
Ah, sorry to hear about your car accident. Must have been awful for a time, so my sympathies to you there!
(I find that as I get older, I prefer the common sense views of the working class over the strange mental gymnastics of the PMC...I'm from a working class family, and this turn of events is rather ironic after all that work I put in to "escape" that life. Now I wish I'd gone into trades! Oh how the turns tables!)