More "Bread and Circuses"

It's no surprise Europeans are rioting in Britain, Greece, and other places. They have been given things for so long--maybe their entire lives--they have come to think they deserve those things. They've done nothing to earn them and those who pay the taxes for them have done nothing to have their money pay for them. (If they want to do so voluntarily, that's another story.) Now, trying to take these freebies, these entitlements away is difficult, even impossible--hence the riots. And, although the LameStreams seem to be slacking on reporting this, apparently there is some violence in sections of places like Philadelphia and Milwaukee. (This isn't the same as the 7 murders in Detroit last Fri or Sat.)

From page 205 of Mark Steyn's book, After America:

"A man of 21 with learning disabilities has been granted taxpayers' money to fly to Amsterdam and have sex with a prostitute." Hey, why not? "He's planning to do more than just have his end away," explained his social worker. "Refusing to offer him this service would be a violation of his human rights." Why do they need a Dutch hooker? Just another hardworking foreigner doing the jobs Britons won't do? Given the reputation of English womanhood, you'd have thought this would be the one gig that wouldn't have to be outsourced overseas."

That's utterly ridiculous, but true! Only in Britain (well, I guess in much of Europe)--and the US!--could such insanity occur. Remember, a Michigan inmate is suing the prison for not allowing him to get the porn channels with his cable TV! (Why inmates get cable TV is beyond me, too. How ridiculous! Why don't we give them a chance for a free college education while in prison, too? Oh, we do that already.)

Chapter 5, I think, of his book discusses this. I think I blogged about this last week or the week before ("Bread and Circuses"), when the Brit riots started. I wrote about "children of dependency" (Steyn's term) although I phrased it differently. We have created a generation of people, a society really, that expects things to be given to them. Mostly, it's the government which is doing the giving. Those less well off expect money from those better off--after all, they deserve it. The big corporations expect gov't bailouts or subsidies. But it's more. Students (and their parents!) expect teachers to give them good grades. Whether or not they deserve them is a different matter. (Patrick Allitt in his book on college teaching at Emory College admits about 8 in his class of 30 "deserve to fail. They'll get the B minuses." When I wrote to him, trying to shame him, he didn't fall for the bait, rationalizing that these students deserve to get into the best grad schools. As Dirty Harry might say, "Yeah....") Those kids have to get into college, and often the right college, don't they? Little Leaguers, pre-teen dancers, everyone gets a trophy, is on the all-star team. Drive past any school--it's unusual to find one that hasn't earned "exemplary" or "blue ribbon" status--regardless of the pitiful products it might be turning out. And in the schools themselves? Hey, every cheerleading team, every robotics team, every marching band is the best in the state--what, does the state of Michigan have 268 different classes of schools, a championship for every school? The local hs was proudly crowing its crown of some robotics state tournament trophy. There was a big write-up in the newspaper. An accompanying story noted there were 32 teams in "competition," and 28 of them went home with some sort of trophy for "best." Yeah.... Everyone deserves something, whether he deserves it or not.

It's a terrible legacy of our generation. We should be ashamed; that's what we deserve: shame!