Wha'ever it is...

It was madness, it was good fun . . . showing the rich people we can do what we want . . . it’s the governmen’s fault. The Conserva’ives, Yeah, wha’ever it is . . . who it is. I dunno.

Derek Turner at Alternative Right has kindly posted the above tale, recounted by, as he puts it, one of 'two girl geniuses interviewed by BBC Radio 4, sitting in the street at 9.30am drinking stolen rosé to refresh their maidenly parts after a hectic night of after-hours shopping.'

The destruction of the above-pictured historic Carpetright Building (survivor of the Blitz), as well as countless other homes, businesses, cars, livelihoods, and lives these last five days in England seems to have taken most observers completely by surprise. 

Not here.

The riots' origins in an Afro-Caribbean immigrant neighborhood, of course, surprised few.  Europe's slow colonization  by its erstwhile colonized these last forty years has birthed so much urban violence that it's nearly benumbed us.  Just another part of the landscape at this point: 'Welcome to Europe, don't miss our charming Biergartens, our incomparable croissants, our car-torching immigrants...'

But the photos don't lie.  This orgy of mindless destruction and theft may have been launched by Afros, but their ranks were fast swelled by an army of pure-souche, homegrown, sons-of-the-soil Englishmen, many of whom managed to rival and even surpass their Afro counterparts in pure, blind, destructive fury.


The surprise at this is what surprises us.


How such a great number of indigenous English, the sons and daughters of the old salt-of-the-earth working class of yesteryear, could have reverted into a Hobbesian state of near-total savagery is in fact an easy question to answer.  All that's required is a quick mental trip.  Extend us your hand, dear reader, for this jaunt we can go anywhere you like really, but just for fun, let's go far.


Let's go to China.

You're a social engineer in Hunan Province. 

The powers that be have given you a simple task:  Take the Hunan population (a pretty smart, hard-working bunch, these are Hans after all) and lower their level of civilization as fast as you possibly can.

In Chongqing Province, next door, your colleagues have the opposite task:  Make the already civilized Chongqing-ers even more civilized.  As fast as possible.

Go.

You hatch a plan:  In Hunan, every girl in late adolescence will have a choice.  If she'd like to receive a roomy apartment, with electricity, water, phone and internet,  her weekly grocery bill paid for, and on top of it all a nice monthly stipend, she may.  The sole condition?  That she give birth.  Without marrying the father.  This is crucial. If she marries, she loses it all.

Let's call her Ling.

For each additional baby Ling has, her stipend will increase, whomever the fathers may be, as long as she doesn't marry any of them.  This is essential.

However.

If Ling has a schoolmate who chooses a different path—for example, marrying the father of her offspring, finding gainful employment, and paying for her own lodging—this schoolmate (and her husband) will see their income reduced each month by the amount it takes to pay for Ling's upkeep. 

Let's call her schoolmate Mei.

Ling can't believe her luck, and sets to work laying golden eggs as fast as she can.  The caliber of her many bedmates interests her little, as they won't be called on to provide for the little nestlings once hatched.  She tends to wake up in the arms of the kind of suitor who lingers in bars until the wee hours of a Tuesday night, no time clock awaiting him in the morning.

Why is she that way?  Well, that's just how she was raised.

Mei, however, is not tempted by this offer.  She has put off kids to go to college.  Accounting degree in hand, she weds a gainfully-employed lad and takes time off from work to have children.  She stops at two--though she would like to have more--as she and the mister are being called upon to pay ever higher taxes to care for Ling's growing brood.  Mei, after all, wants the best life possible for her children.

Why is she that that way?  Well, that's just how she was raised.

Mei raises her children.

Two of them.

Ling 'raises' hers (with most of the heavy lifting being done by the television, the internet, anti-social neighborhood youths, child protective services counselors, the police, the juvenile courts, and juvenile detention facility personnel).

Six of them.

Mei's daughter and son, much as they long to have families, are forced to stop at one child each.  They are after all on the hook for the upkeep of Ling's brood of six, each of which has gone on to sire at least six more, each and every one of which is living happily on Mei's offspring's dime.

A few generations down the road, where is the population of Hunan Province on the great character trait bell curve, Mr. Social Engineer?  For traits like conscientiousness?  Future-planning?  Cooperativeness?  Law-abidingness?  Dedication to one's children?   How well have you done your task?

If Great Britain in 2011 is any indication, you've done it very well indeed.

It's not in fact 'eugenics' you have accomplished, sir, but 'dysgenics,' its very opposite.  Which is of course what you were asked to do.  Bravo.



Be not surprised, Britons.  Your fifty-year Dysgenics Experiment is finally bearing fruit.  Be proud of what you have accomplished.  Scientifically speaking, it is as rapid and large-scale a regression of civilization as any dystopian social engineer could possibly hope for.


Mr. Murray no doubt salutes you.