Saturday, March 17, 2012

The eternal moral posturing of the Left

Theodore Dalrymple considers the vacuous maunderings of novelist Chin Miéville, who believes that the sentences handed out to rioters in London’s most recent spasm of social collapse were too “severe.”
One cannot say often enough that the victims of crime are, like the perpetrators, more likely to be poor than rich. For example, single-parent households in Britain have a more than one-in-20 chance of being burgled in any given year; and since most burglars are recidivists, indeed multiply so, it follows that the class of victim is much larger than the class of perpetrator. Leniency toward criminals is not therefore a form of sympathy for the poor, but a failure to take either their lives or their property seriously. For Miéville to talk of “panicked reaction” in these circumstances is a form of moral exhibitionism. He is showing off in front of his peers.

4 comments:

JeffS said...

The left are morally bankrupt. Hence their need to posture morally.

rinardman said...

Progressives have their own version of Descartes' “I think, therefore I am".

“I think, therefore I'm right".

thefrollickingmole said...

Confession, I like the blokes books. A little tendency to try to shock for shocks value, but overall good.

But hes a marxist schollar, a genuine studier and believer of the stupidest political and social system ever.

It takes a special form of arrogance and stupidity to be smart enough to follow Marxism.

Mercurius Aulicus said...

Sorry to be picky but it's China Miéville.