Saturday, April 07, 2007

The Changing of the Guard

The sheepdogs are emerging.

A reader sent this news story from the UK. I post it in its entirety:

Police fear a decision by the British National Party to put patrols on the streets of Calne will add to the town’s problem with yobs.

The BNP claims it will have patrols working by the end of the week and they will help to stamp out problems with gangs and attacks.

But Inspector Gavin Williams of Calne Police Station said “What people don’t realise is that we will have to police the patrols to make sure nothing untoward is happening.

This will distract us from other jobs meaning we won’t be able to do what we should be getting on with.”

The BNP move comes two weeks after town councillor Dave Bland was injured when teenagers got out of control and just over a week after a 35-year-old man was beaten with a hammer while his girlfriend was held at gunpoint during the violent robbery at the home in The Green.

The 20-year-old female occupant of the flat was pinned to the floor by one of the men while her boyfriend was repeatedly hit around the head and arms with the hammer.

The victims, who were both injured, managed to escape and ran into the street to raise the alarm.

BNP member Robert Baggs says the success of similar patrols in Corsham means there is also hope for Calne.

He said complaints from locals about antisocial behaviour have been instrumental in organising the patrols.

Wiltshire BNP chairman Mike Howson sparked controversy last month when he set up patrols in Corsham.

Mr Howson claims the vigilante patrols were a response to concern by Corsham residents about thugs in the town.

Mr Baggs says the most recent attack illustrates the need for regular patrols.

He said: “Of course the patrols are set to combat anti-social behaviour in the town mostly but we can’t let people worry about stepping out into their own street.

“The only way we can prevent things like this happening is with regular patrols on the street and as the police are not providing that service, we will.

“We tend to ask ex-service personnel to volunteer because they already have the discipline to do the job well.”

See what happens when you disarm the populace? The yobs start using knives against the law abiding. And if you take away the knives? Well, there is already legislation in the works to make legal knives smaller, but let’s just pretend we skip that step and those purportedly in charge move on to eliminate knife-carrying entirely. What then? What will they outlaw after the knives are gone?

How about bricks and baseball bats? Shovels? Will householders have to dig their gardens with teaspoons? Oh, no — can’t have that. As any felon can tell you, teaspoons can be sharpened into lethal weapons. And glass bottles can be broken to use the jagged edge.

The PC legislation against weapons will never, ever work. For a criminal, any given item can be a weapon. Back when the world made more sense, the bad guys who broke into your house were hit over the head in a lethal manner with a handy fireplace poker. But those will be outlawed soon, too. Besides, such violent behavior is already against the law. Let ’em take your stuff, say those who make such laws whilst living in guarded enclaves.

This kind of thinking reminds me of one of my liberal friends who, on giving birth to her son, legislated a total ban on military toys in her homes. It was the ultimate gun control and the ultimate futility. On one occasion, while minding one friend’s toddler, we put away all the usual WMDs that the future Baron was accustomed to use against the bad guys. Along with his toy soldiers and other references to anything military, the cap pistols and water squirters and laser swords went into hiding. They remained there for the interim of peace, love, and understanding that would reign while this young boy was in our care. So what did he do? He used part of his lunch — the fingers of toast — to hold as a gun and proceeded to “shoot” the fB while making bang-bang noises. Of course, a mighty battle across the lunch table ensued. They fell off their chairs in the throes of death agonies several times until admonished to finish their food before someone got hurt.

Thus did a little boy manage to subvert the good intentions of his pacifist mother. Years later, when the fB went to the boy’s house to play, reality had intervened and they played with guns in the woods. In fact, I think this child had a BB gun and a real archery bow before the fB managed to acquire these instruments of destruction.
- - - - - - - - - -
Meanwhile, scared parents in London are having their children fitted for knife-proof vests. Bloomberg News carries the story:

Ashgar Jilow used to sell stab-proof vests to nightclub bouncers and security guards at his London military surplus store. Now his clients are kids as young as 10 who fear they’re going to be knifed at school or on the street.

“Some of them are so tiny the vests don’t even fit under their school uniforms,” said Jilow, 55, who sells about three of the 120-pound ($230) vests a week. “Parents don’t know what to do to keep their kids safe.”

Every week in London 52 teenagers are victims of knife crime, according to the Metropolitan Police. A child is stabbed to death in Britain every two weeks and knife killings outnumber gun homicides three to one, said Norman Brennan, a police officer and director of the Victims of Crime Trust.

“Knife crime is out of control and kids carry them like fashion accessories,” Brennan said. The youngest child to be suspended from school for brandishing a blade was just five.

Last week two teenagers were knifed to death in London. Adam Regis, 15, was attacked March 17 on his way home from the movies in Newham, an east London borough that is being regenerated by the 2012 Olympics. He called his girlfriend for help as he bled to death, police said.

Three days earlier, Kodjo Yenga, 16, was stabbed to death as a gang of boys and girls chanted “Kill him, kill him” in Hammersmith, west London, where homes sell for more than 1 million pounds, eyewitnesses said.

Some students have brought machetes, combat knives, swords and sharpened screwdrivers at school, police say. Girls have been caught with blades hidden in lipstick and mascara tubes.

[Note: this kind of weapon-carrying by girls and women is a clear and distinct sign that the culture is in the toilet. No, we don’t want helpless women, but any brain researcher can tell you that lacking testosterone, women simply are not as aggressive as men. Except for the radical feminists. I do believe they eat testicles for breakfast — which explains the rise of a phenomenon known as “mean girls”.]

The Bloomberg story carries some disturbing statistics about knife violence among the young — in London, especially. They don’t mention race, however.

The Wiltshire Gazetteaccount is laughable because the police have had some essential body parts removed and replaced by bureaucratic prostheses. They will have to do more patrolling because of the patrols. That sounds just like our citizen efforts at our border with Mexico. The comments section in the Gazette is long. I didn’t scroll through all 198 responses, but of those I read, there was on one side a strong sense of relief that the BNP was doing something practical, and on the other side the belief that the BNP is hopelessly racist. Only time will tell which view wins out.

The BNP appears to be helping those who cannot help themselves against the anti-social behavior of gang-like “youths.” At least from the descriptions I’ve read by Theodore Dalrymple, this is not about race, nationality or sex. It is about depraved behavior on weekends by adolescents and young men and women who’ve been raised on the dole and have little sense of self or of meaning.

The question becomes why it is that other young men and women cannot protect themselves when set upon by thugs? Or why they go about alone, or in pairs, when they know the statistics of violence in the areas they visit? The thugs create violence because they can. The police are useless and private citizens are impotent. It seems a win/win situation for the bad guys, doesn’t it?

Krav maga in UK One of our faithful readers mentioned in an email of condolence about my son’s beating a method of self-defence developed by… you guessed it: the always outnumbered Israelis, the ones who say “never again” and mean it. Until he told me about this form of martial arts, I’d never heard of it. Have you?

Here’s the scoop from Wikipedia:

The beginning of the system that would become Krav Maga in Israel was developed in Hungary and Czechoslovakia in the 1930s by Imi Lichtenfeld…

…He first taught his fighting system in Bratislava in order to help protect the Jewish community from Nazi militias. Upon arriving in the British Mandate of Palestine prior to the establishment of the Jewish state, Imi began teaching hand-to-hand combat to the Haganah, the Jewish underground army. With the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Imi became the Chief Instructor of Physical Fitness and Krav Maga at the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) School of Combat Fitness.

[…]

Prior to 1980, all experts in Krav Maga lived in Israel. That year marks the beginning of contact between Israeli Krav Maga experts and interested students in the United States. In 1981, a group of six Krav Maga instructors traveled to the US to offer demonstrations of the system, primarily at local Jewish Community Centers. This, in turn, led to demonstrations at the New York Field Office of the FBI and the FBI’s Main Training Center. The result was a visit by 22 people from the US to Israel in the summer of 1981 to attend a basic Krav Maga instructor course. The graduates from this course returned to the US and began to establish training facilities in their local areas. Additional students traveled to Israel in 1984 and again in 1986 to become instructors. At the same time, instructors from Israel continued to visit the US. Law Enforcement training in the US began in 1985.

Now this system has spread and there are many classes all over the US. What intrigues me is the fact I’d never even heard of the technique. These people certainly aren’t seeking headlines, though one group has a page for kids. Looking at their methods, you can see why the survival of Israel has continued:

In Krav Maga, there are no hard-and-fast rules. It is not a sport, and there are no competitions. All the techniques focus on maximum efficiency in real-life conditions. Krav Maga generally assumes a no quarter situation; the attacks and defenses are intended to inflict the most pain possible on the opponent in the least amount of time. Groin strikes, headbutts, and other efficient and potentially brutal attacks are emphasized.

The guiding principles for those performing Krav Maga techniques are:

  • neutralize the threat
  • avoid injury
  • go from defending to attacking as quickly as possible
  • use the body’s natural reflexes
  • strike at any vulnerable point
  • use any tool or object nearby

The emphasis is put on taking the initiative from the attacker as soon as possible.

[…]

It stresses fighting under worst-case conditions or from disadvantaged positions (for example, against several opponents, when protecting someone else, with one arm unusable, when dizzy, or against armed opponents).

It makes sense that this technique would arise from a people that others strive to obliterate. We in America are so soft and protected that we don’t even leave room in the day for physical fitness in our schools anymore.

That may be the case for Europe also, given the rate of unsolved knifings and other violent mayhem. Our young — except for those few who volunteer for military training or take martial arts classes “for fun” — are unique in history for their soft underbellies.

Perhaps a rearrangement in our thinking about the preparation of our children to live in this cowardly new world is now in order. In fact, such thinking is past due if we want them to survive. In the Bloomberg article, one woman had this observation about knife-proof vests for children:

“I wouldn’t blame any parent for giving their child a stab vest if it makes them feel a bit more secure,” said Nancy Odunewu, a pastor whose son Emmanuel, 19, was stabbed to death in Lewisham, southeast London, in November 2006. “If I could have done anything to save my son then I would have.”

A universal sentiment. Meanwhile, our frequent reader told me that as soon as his tiny granddaughter is big enough, she is going to begin Krav Maga classes. Evidently they are readily available in the American southwest, and to judge by the site I found on Google — from which I took the illustration — they have Krav Maga in the UK, too.

Maybe this idea will spread. It would certainly take care of public mayhem and the needless maimings and deaths of children. Come to think of it, maybe it would put an end to the phenomenon of mean girls, too.

What do you think? Would a strong and physically fit citizenry make any difference in our voting patterns?

26 comments:

chuck said...

Note: this kind of weapon-carrying by girls and women is a clear and distinct sign that the culture is in the toilet.

Oh, I don't know. I knew a gal who went to a highschool here in the US where the girls carried razor blades and sometimes fought over boys. Meow. Maybe some of us just grew up a bit protected from the realities of life in the rougher parts of town.

Conservative Swede said...

Wow! This is really great. Well done BNP! Such a good way to fight the (revolutionary) situation.

And your description of how PC legislation against weapons being as futile as the military toy ban for your friends toddler is spot on. And very funny.

Altogether a great post, Dymphna. (and up to Fjordman length)

livfreerdie said...

How about the USMC boot camp? It made me stronger physically and mentally. It added to the values of my upbringing. I understand that martial arts also develop a self confidence and self respect. Respect. If you don't have for yourself how can you have for another? Respect seems to have been replaced by PC.

On the other hand I can see pictures like those of the Middle Eastern kids with AK-47s and suicide vests.

Tom

Conservative Swede said...

When the Calne police, who is otherwise completely absent from the streets, say "What people don’t realise is that we will have to police the patrols to make sure nothing untoward is happening." it makes me think of the following story: Rutkowski Patrol - The real A-Team?

The Sweden-based Polish business man that hired Rutkowski Patrol had reported the mafia activity against him to the Swedish police many times, but the police always said that they had no resources to deal with it. But once Rutkowski Patrol appeared on the scene, there were immediately eight police cars there to arrest them.

The only thing the authorities are really good at nowadays is to hinder you from defending yourself.

The Calne police inspector continues: "This will distract us from other jobs meaning we won’t be able to do what we should be getting on with."

Like thought policing?

A friend of mine was recently assaulted on the streets by a group of Pakistanis. He went to the police station to report it and was told it was a racial slur to describe the group as "Pakistanis" and he could be charged.

heroyalwhyness said...

The BNP offering patrols is reminiscent of the Guardian Angels effort, a voluntary, weapon-free patrol in NYC with Curtis Sliwa. It caught on and was eventually accepted.

I was once a gun control advocate. As a mom, I too witnessed that I had little control over my child's imagination as my oldest son at age 3 pointed his index finger and pulled the imaginary trigger, and shouting "pow, pow" during play. At 5 he used his lego's to construct his phaser weapons with accompanying sound effects . . .That was 20 years ago. Today, I'm firmly with the NRA.

I agree with Conservative Swede "And your description of how PC legislation against weapons being as futile as the military toy ban for your friends toddler is spot on. And very funny."

BTW, another one of my sons came by as I was composing this response and he began telling me of stabbing problems in London (apparently a hot topic online right now). He also was aware of Krav Maga and is sending me a link to a local class.

Thanks for posting this topic. Wishing you and yours a blessed Easter holiday.

Voyager said...

It is simply the nature of Bureaucracy.

It does nothing but look after itself making sure any time spending is cut, it is the public which suffers.

But the first threat to its power base as sole supplier sees the bureaucracy swing into action to eliminate any rival operator, to preserve its monopoly

That is how bureaucratic society functions, and who can deny every solution to every problem today in Western society is bureaucratic

Panday said...

Dymphna,

Speaking of disarming the population, you might be interested in a story in today's Telegraph

(Note, also, my comment there about the "lowest hanging fruit".)

Anonymous said...

Yes, Krav is here in the UK. There's quite a few schools here in London, including one which is open for training every day of the week. A google seach for the 'British Academy of Krav Maga' should help you find that last.

X said...

Whilst I appreciate that something like this is needed, I'm wary that it's the BNP doing it. It's a sad indictment of our society when a national socialist party in all but name is the only political group willing to defend the rights of the general population and defend Israel's right to exist.

ΛΕΟΝΙΔΑΣ said...

"This will distract us from other jobs meaning we won’t be able to do what we should be getting on with.”

Getting on with?? Like prosecuting victims who have the cheek to defend themselves. This "low hanging fruit" attitude is beyond parody.

Paul said...

What a great article Dymphna. Gives me a bit of satisfaction reading about some 'just plain folks' standing up to the enforced mindless stupidity run amok in our societies.

Conservative Swede said...

Archonix: I'm wary that it's the BNP doing it.

To the contrary, I say. The very beauty of it is that it's the BNP doing it. BNP is the opposition. And the only one. Thus it becomes a political action, a truly revolutionary action, but of a much better kind than hooligan street mobs as we discussed in another thread.

It's a sad indictment of our society when a national socialist party in all but name is the only political group willing to defend the rights of the general population and defend Israel's right to exist.

In a society that in the wake of the obsessive trauma of WWII ostracizes any expression of nationalism, and even the slightest protests against what Fjordman calls Caucasophobia, as Nazism. In the beginning only people who are truly Nazis will protest. But when the society is converging maximal perversion and headed for extinction, many people will join the protest. But the elites will say that they are just joining the protest started by the Nazis, and are thereby Nazis themselves.

There's no way around it. It is a beautifully perfect formula for thought control (compare it with Muhammad's diabolic formula for motivating Muslim men for Jihad warfare). It's a perfect copy of the one used by the Medieval Church, only then the ones in opposition were labelled Satanists.

A perfect formula for complete thought control. Good men won't be able to protest without at the same time condemning themselves. Thereby the will instead stay passive.

And as Edmund Burke said: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

X said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
X said...

Everything youv'e just written is why I'm wary. The BNP are nazis. They are nationalists, and socialists. I was pointing out the incredible irony in the act that they're the only party in this supporting Israel's right to exist, the only party supporting the rights of the individual and so on. That doesn't change who they are. It doesn't change the fact that they are a socialist party with nationalist aims.

Nationalism isn't the problem. I'm a nationalist. I believe in the sovereignty of the nation state. The problem is the socialism, and the fact that the BNP is still heavilly inveigled by essentially racist elements who hide behined well-meaning leaders. The BNP is a party of two halves - nationalism and freedom vs socialism and racism - one of which I would support, the other which I despise. The reasons you have outlaid above are, therefore, reasons why I am wary of their actions. The actions themselves are entirely justified. The fact that it's the BNP doing them will be used, as you say, as a stick to beat anyone who supports such actions.

eatyourbeans said...

Well, if you don't like the BNP, start your own defense corps. Either do your own dirty work or don't be too particular about those willing to do it for you.

Conservative Swede said...

Archonix,
You are confused.

Voltaire said...

Can we Westerners of all stripes stop seeing Nazis under every bed, for chrissake?

Nazism has been defeated. Hitler is dead. Has been dead for sixty years.

But Nazism's ghost has morphed into a convenient electric fence for the West's psyche. Walk one step further than our Enlightened want you to, and zap!, you get shocked with the Nazi analogy.

Should have stayed in your place!, will wail both the fencer and the fenced-in, conditioned as we are to think as we do.

The Nazi analogy has become the chute into the Devil's basement in our society's facile McManicheism--the way the Civil Rights analogy has become the golden elevator to the Archangels' suite.

When will we, at least the few of us who are still thinking, quit this silliness?

Panday said...

The Nazi analogy has become the chute into the Devil's basement in our society's facile McManicheism--the way the Civil Rights analogy has become the golden elevator to the Archangels' suite.

Voltaire,

May I please have permission to shamelessly copy/paste this excerpt every time I get into one of these debates with another political Chicken Little?

That was just great diction.

Conservative Swede said...

Voltaire: "But Nazism's ghost has morphed into a convenient electric fence for the West's psyche. Walk one step further than our Enlightened want you to, and zap!, you get shocked with the Nazi analogy."

Wow, Voltaire! That's such a brilliant analogy. I always thought of it as the Westerners being lab mice running around in circles in the maze of collective mass hypnosis. If a mice ever managed to find an exit out of this maze of civilizational suicide, there would stand a Nazi ghost at the gate, scaring them off, back into the maze, doomed to run around in circles forever.

How many Nazi ghosts must a man run down, before you call him a man?

This is when you know you are an adult. When you no longer believe in Santa Claus and Nazi ghosts, and other such fairy tales. It is only now you can become an adult, a real man.

Unknown said...

Good on the BNP for doing something positive in the community. The major parties are so interested in PC that they have effectively disenfranchised ordinary men and women.

Yes, the charge of 'nazism' is what the PC and leftoids use in order to keep the people in line and as such, is undemocratic and gives oxygen to more extremist elements. The political conditions now mirror in some ways the political conditions of Germany in the prewar years. The National Socialists may have given birth to the Third Reich, but the political left in Germany was the midwife.

What concerns me though, is that extremism as such will become more acceptable. Hitler for example, was voted in because the people believed he would lead them out of the quagmire, only to find themselves being led into the abyss.

People, in their current and growing desperation for a solution,an antidote to PC and mutlticulturalism may give rise to yet another demogogue - who will promise heaven but will only build hell.

And the road to hell may well have been paved with good intentions, but it's maintained by the reasonable man.

Let us not be that 'reasonable man'.

regards
Darrin.

X said...

CS, I am not confused. If my writing appears that way then it's because I let my fingers run before my brain was in gear.

My wariness is not about the BNP as such. It's about the reaction people will have to the fact that it's the BNP. You've decided that this will be a good thing for various reasons. I happen to think the opposite, for the very same reasons. Unfortunately I'm not able to offer any alternative solutions.

Voltaire said...

Voltaire,

May I please have permission to shamelessly copy/paste this excerpt every time I get into one of these debates with another political Chicken Little?


Of course! Be my guest... :-)

Conservative Swede said...

Archonix: My wariness is not about the BNP as such. It's about the reaction people will have to the fact that it's the BNP. You've decided that this will be a good thing for various reasons. I happen to think the opposite, for the very same reasons.

The core issues--civilizational suicide, Caucasophobia, the truth about Islam, etc.--must be addressed. It will not suffice just to fight the symptoms. For every head of the hydra we cut of, two new ones grow out. We must attack the body! Therefore our fight becomes stronger when singular issues are connected to "nazis" as BNP or "islamophobic racists" as GoV.

I can see your point about how a certain singular issue would get more popular support, if not connected to the big picture. But the way things are going in the West today, this is only true in a narrow and short-term perspective.

Voltaire said...

People, in their current and growing desperation for a solution, an antidote to PC and mutlticulturalism may give rise to yet another demogogue - who will promise heaven but will only build hell.

...Or not.

What I see, instead, is the overall malaise afflicting traditional Westerners congeal around a powerful, just, inspiring and long-overdue figurehead.

Where you fear a new Hitler, I and many others trust there will be a leader with the pen of Tom Paine, the tongue of Abe Lincoln and, if needed, the sword of George Washington--tempered by the justice of our beloved yet forgotten Natural Rights.

I know that this leader is already among us, somewhere. He may be here in the US. Perhaps an educated and charismatic military officer who's experienced how the flabby fetters of the Bureaus and the Courts have dragged good men into the grave and a good country into the gutter.

He may be in Britain. Perhaps, a connected and influential ex MP, standing by the Brighton shore and looking up, misty eyed, at the impalpable battlefield where the Right defeated the Wrong in a heroic game of keeps--with no apology or disclaimers.

He may be in Scandinavia, powerful yet made powerless (within the system) to extend a strong hand to the next victim of Immigrant's rape. Or in Germany, or Switzerland, or any other country whose centuries-old oak pillars are being turned into dead powder from the inside and outside by the detestable woodworms of cultural masochism, excessive immigration and Islamic aggression.

I may be a die-hard optimist, mind you. But I am praying for this leader to let himself be seen--the sooner, the better. And I know that when he does, a tidal wave of followers will spontaneously generate from all corners of the West--since our fates are indissolubly linked. And it will be a proud time in history, a time where many of us will have a concrete chance to not just place our hand on the helm, but feel the mighty resistance of the rudder as we steer our world in a better direction. In real time.

Conservative Swede said...

And while we're waiting, Voltaire, in the meantime we can watch this YouTube clip of this very fine American:

Evan Sayet, Hollywood writer and former New York liberal, at Heritage Foundation: "How Modern Liberals Think"

Over 200,000 views in just a month.

"Execute summary":
In the Cult of Indiscriminateness, good is evil, because evil is the victim of good.

In the Cult of Indiscriminateness, there's no difference between the "terrorist" and the "freedom fighter", therefore, the only reason we call George Washington a hero is because he's a white Christian of European descent, and the only reason Yassir Arafat and Saddam Hussein are called villains is beacuse they're darker skinned men of Middle eastern desecnt.

An example of this is the anti-war chant, "1-2-3-4 we don't want you RACIST war!" There it is, right there.

Once you subscribe to indiscriminateness, anything other than that is the evil of having discriminated.

Liberalism argues aginst many things but replaces them with nothing, which is, essentially, nihilism.

marcel said...

hello
vous pouvez mettre vos messages sur jewisheritage
a bientot