Riots Due to Idle Hands
Glenn Reynolds notes perhaps the most apt commentary on the rioting in France, from Jim Dunnigan at Strategy Page.
Thus, the street violence is partly a lark, because the kids know the cops are not going to use lethal force, and anyone who gets caught will, at worst, do maybe a year in the slammer (for burning cars looting stores). The drug gangs encourage the violence as a way to intimidate the cops. When the violence dies down, the gang bosses can threaten the local cops with a revival, if the cops do not back off (when it comes to the drug trade).
There are some Islamic radicals running around in all this, but they are a minority. The Moslem kids like to talk about respect and payback, but very few see this as a religious war. It’s become a sport, with various groups competing to cause the most destruction. Text messaging, Internet bulletin boards and email made it possible for the rioters to stay in touch and compare notes. The media coverage also encouraged the violence, giving the kids some positive (for them) feedback.
Read the entire post.
To my mind, this makes an even sadder case for France and French culture. All this has come about because of the French police and French courts failures to enforce the laws against property crimes. The combination of liberal guilt and the lack of belief in the importance of private property has created a giagantic “jeunesses folles”, “Youths Gone Wild”, without the gratuitous nudity.
That’s sad. Sad for France and for the French. An entire sector of society has become convinced that whatever they do, it will not matter. There are no repercussions to their actions. Nothing they do, bad, or good, matters. This is worse than jihad. This is invisibility.
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Better late than never..so refreshing to read a different slant on those riots. These world-wide conspiracy theories are fodder for the media. The biggest majority of rioters are thugs who lie in wait for any excuse for mayhem.Yet these are the images that stigmatise their countries. The media are culpable for a great deal of unrest…light the blue touch-paper and stand back ..with cameras at the ready.