It was Voltaire who described the English thus: "They are like their beer -- froth at the top, dregs at the bottom, the middle excellent." Of course mob violence, apolitical mob violence, is not new in British society. What is new is the assumption on the Left that a cradle to grave welfare state, taking over all responsibility from people to mind their affairs, reducing them to human livestock in government barns, would thereby remove any cause for violence. Earlier ages would have spotted such naivete straight off. But British policy makers today live in a world where all the good solid short words are considered hopelessly simplistic and insensitive, and "sinful" is only encountered on the dessert menu.
Dostoevsky:
"Oh, tell me, who was it first announced, who was it first proclaimed, that man only does nasty things because he does not know his own interests; and that if he were enlightened, if his eyes were opened to his real normal interests, man would at once cease to do nasty things, would at once become good and noble because, being enlightened and understanding his real advantage, he would see his own advantage in the good and nothing else, and we all know that not one man can, consciously, act against his own interests, consequently, so to say, through necessity, he would begin doing good? Oh, the babe! Oh, the pure, innocent child!"
