POWIP Piece of Work In Progress

‘Have-a-Go’ Heroism

We've known for some time that in the UK, it's essentially illegal to use force or threats to defend your property. The latest example is Myleene Klass, some sort of minor celebrity, who saw some yobs (i.e., lowlifes) trespassing in her garden (i.e., yard), and scared them off by shaking a knife at them through her window. When police arrived, they told her that she may have broken the law by so doing.

Not unrelated is the story of a young Sikh man who witnessed a purse snatching, and pursued the malefactors, only to be stabbed to death by one of them when he caught up. Today's article is full of laudatory comments about the victim, but the expression 'have-a-go hero' is essentially dismissive: heroism should be left to the professionals, and people who are stabbed to death are proved to have been in over their heads.

Every state has an interest in preventing vigilantism, but a civil society in which the prevention of plundering and other crime is assigned only to police authorities is a demoralized and disarmed one. The idea that the perpetrator of a crime can be a victim of his intended victim takes protections of wrongdoers too far, and in the UK "enlightened" attitudes toward property criminals mean that there's insufficient deterrence by law. But then, every socialist state is designed to maximize dependency and punish any initiative that might seem suspiciously exuberant.

Monopolies everywhere tend to provide shitty service, and bureaucracies feed themselves first. They jealously guard any authority they have, take inconvenience as reproach, and behave accordingly. At the New Year, a British Pakistani woman vacationing with her fiance was raped by a restaurant worker in a bathroom, and both were arrested when they went to authorities to report the crime, for having sex out of wedlock. The law is designed to protect male privilege, but also protects officials from having to waste their time with petty matters, such as the rape of foreigners by Syrian waiters in restaurant bathrooms. Unfortunately, so it is with law enforcement in the UK, where policies, whatever their intentions, have the effect of teaching victimization. For as we know, only victims are good people.

I urge Catholics to get out of the PC hellhole that the UK has become, and I only wish Frank P. could come along with them.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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