British degenerates

Theodore Dalrymple on the, for him, unsurprising British riots:

The riots are the apotheosis of the welfare state and popular culture in their British form. A population thinks (because it has often been told so by intellectuals and the political class) that it is entitled to a high standard of consumption, irrespective of its personal efforts; and therefore it regards the fact that it does not receive that high standard, by comparison with the rest of society, as a sign of injustice. It believes itself deprived (because it has often been told so by intellectuals and the political class), even though each member of it has received an education costing $80,000, toward which neither he nor—quite likely—any member of his family has made much of a contribution; indeed, he may well have lived his entire life at others’ expense, such that every mouthful of food he has ever eaten, every shirt he has ever worn, every television he has ever watched, has been provided by others. Even if he were to recognize this, he would not be grateful, for dependency does not promote gratitude. On the contrary, he would simply feel that the subventions were not sufficient to allow him to live as he would have liked.

Dalrymple should know, having for years provided medical care to Britain's downtrodden.

Update ABC News, via its analysis and opinion offshoot, The Drum, publishes this unique insight from antipodean observer Michael Brull:

One factor sparking the riot was the police murder of a black man called Mark Duggan.

Brull's qualifications for trying and convicting British police of a crime of which they are not accused:

Michael Brull has a featured blog at Independent Australian Jewish Voices, and is involved in Stop The Intervention Collective Sydney (STICS). He has written for Overland, the National Times, newmatilda.com, Mutiny, and ZNet.

In short, Brull doesn't know squat about anything, making him eminently qualified as a The Drum contributor.