Josh First's Blog

Political Correctness …Not Your Grandfather’s Values

How Political Correctness Is Breaking Western Civilization
© Josh First
August 11, 2011

Recent orgies of violence in America and England demonstrate the sickness of the politics of victimization and entitlement, and how it corrodes our basic institutions of civilization. Amplifying it have been law enforcement failures in both nations that reveal how decades of moral relativism and coddling of criminals has destroyed the rule of law, which is at the core of western civilization.

It has been eight months of infuriatingly shocking photos, videos, 911 calls, but limited reporting in the mainstream press, about anti-white beatings, flash mobs, and race riots across England and America. From Michael Chambers in western Pennsylvania, to Chrissy Polis in Maryland, to families attending the Wisconsin State Fair, to shoppers and business people caught on the streets of Philadelphia and Chicago, to people lounging in public parks in Milwaukee, to stores in Las Vegas, St. Paul, Kansas City, and New York, to bystanders, homeowners and shop owners in London, Tottenham, Manchester, and other British cities, groups of “wilding” young blacks have openly targeted whites, Hispanics, and Asians for savage beatings and robbery. Mostly, these are sadistic beatings of defenseless individuals, with laughing and taunts by the kids as they run down another hapless victim. Robbery seems to be a byproduct of the supine victim’s inability to hold on to their scattered personal belongings. In a scene that you could not create in a horror movie, except maybe the purposefully demented A Clockwork Orange, at one picnic pilfered food was wolfed down while the beatings continued, providing the kids with sustenance for their hard work.

“I heard laughing as they were beating everybody up. They were eating chips like it was a picnic,” said 22-year-old Shaina Perry, one of several picnicking Caucasians badly hurt in the assault at Wisconsin’s Kilbourn Reservoir Park, according to the July 6th Journal Sentinel.

Three years ago, Harrisburg had its own bout with teen pack violence, with victims being badly beaten on the street for the sheer fun of it all. I had my own run-in with one of the roving youth groups, in my Uptown neighborhood. That Saturday afternoon my dad and I were walking on the Front Street River Walk, and after being cornered by the group and then escaping, I was hit in the leg with a rock as the kids followed us and then milled about in front of our home. We witnessed our neighbors go through the same thing the year before. It’s scary. What is also scary is that I was carrying a pistol, and I would have been within my rights to use it.

What has caused this insanity is the insanity of decades of failed social policies that lock generation after generation of poor blacks into mental ghettos. Victim identity and victimization ideology is rampant, with supposed leaders like the reverends Al Sharpton, Jeremiah Wright, Louis Farrakhan, and Jesse Jackson all reinforcing grievances, separatism, radicalism, and militant action to recoup long-standing demands for reparations and social paybacks. The message that has been instilled by these reverends, and even by more mainstream academics like Cornel West, and now evidently refined to a perfected mindset and action, is that blacks are universally victims and universally owed something by anybody who isn’t black.

The success of the drug culture and the failure of the family haven’t helped, either.

But that isn’t the whole of it. Law enforcement, which is supposed to keep civilization civilized, has fallen down on the job. Here are some examples of how poor leadership has resulted in a muted law enforcement culture in the wake of these terrible events.

On August 10, 2011, after days of unimpeded thuggery and wholesale destruction across the streets of Britain, and howls of protest by taxpayers and burned-out homeowners over limp police action, Theresa May, Britain’s Home Secretary, told the British media “The way we police is by consent.” Video of the British police’s pathetic, timid attempts at consent-based crowd control are available on-line.

I have asked several people to tell me what Ms. May means by her statement, and no one can come up with an explanation that makes sense. Does she mean “Consent by the lawbreaker,” because that’s how it appears. She sure doesn’t mean that British police will enforce the law any time this week. Her police stood by and watched from mere feet away as hoodlums looted, burned, and beat people, not to mention the unrequited attacks on the police, themselves. Repeated empty threats of using water cannons and rubber bullets seemed to actually encourage the rioters.

Here in America, we were treated to a local police analysis of the Wisconsin State Fair mobs, as of August 10th, that went something like “We aren’t sure, we don’t know, we can’t say.” Despite overwhelming evidence of the racism inherent in the mob attacks, the police have been afraid to call it what it is. But if it were white kids running around beating the heck out of blacks, we all know that the police would call it racism and start filing hate crimes charges left and right.

Whether it is fear of the uncomfortable or a politically correct double standard, if trained law enforcement personnel and their political leaders will not explicitly identify a problem and try to fix it, then the problem will grow worse. None of us want to contemplate what that “worse” means in this context.

That is why Philadelphia’s Mayor, Michael Nutter, is now so important. In a widely played speech from last Sunday, he has opened a door into a subject that has been taboo among decision makers for too long. Joining Bill Cosby, Larry Elder, and other black leaders who have previously demanded accountability and responsibility among black youth, Nutter authoritatively scolded the wilding young people and their parents from his church’s pulpit. While criticizing their violence and sloppy physical appearances, his one line hit the nail on the head: “Parents, get your act together….You need to get hold of your kids before we [the criminal justice system] have to.”

Amen, brother, because if you don’t turn things around at the family level, with help from plain speaking black leaders, then it appears that western civilization is headed towards its demise. No one else here has the strength of character to turn the ship around.

Copyright Josh First, originally published at and licensed to www.rockthecapital.com