Question: What do the upper and lower photos have in common?

Answers: (a) both groups are acting like they own the place, and that they have the right to tell the majority of citizens where to go; (b) both groups appear to be breaking the law; (c) both groups are breaking the law with impunity, and without the slightest disapproval from the Establishment in the form of the police. (The law in the former case is incitement to violence; in the latter case it would appear to be violation of immigration laws.)

We have written on several occasions recently of a malaise we see abroad in America, and we have had various explanations for it. One thing we have not mentioned is Broken Windows, the theory that allowing small crimes encourages bigger crimes, made famous by its adoption by Rudy Giuliani in his clean-up of the streets of NYC. In their famous Atlantic article in March 1982, George Kelling and James Q. Wilson wrote:

Above all, we must return to our long-abandoned view that the police ought to protect communities as well as individuals. Our crime statistics and victimization surveys measure individual losses, but they do not measure communal losses. Just as physicians now recognize the importance of fostering health rather than simply treating illness, so the police—and the rest of us—ought to recognize the importance of maintaining, intact, communities without broken windows.

Both the UK and America have allowed too many windows to be broken, and both countries are now paying the price. It is unknown how many of the 1.6 million Muslims in the UK or how many of the 11 million illegal immigrants in the US harbor such disloyal sentiments towards the country in which they live. And proposed solutions – such as deportation – to the problem of having such people roaming free have practical and philosophical problems. However, there is one thing that cries out, at least to us as the most obvious action by government. It is this: do everything possible not to allow matters to get worse.

In practical terms, that means stopping further illegal immigration dead in its tracks by whatever means are necessary, and arresting people whose language crosses the line from free expresion to sedition. If you think even these measures are too extreme, take a look again at the photos above and meet your new boss.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 27th, 2006 at 9:00 am and is filed under art, culture, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.