The Peter Hitchens Prescription
Peter Hitchens, brother of Christopher, is not mincing words about the mayhem in Britain. Here he is in the Mail Online. I'm curious to know to what extent his program appeals to the Ricocheterie. A rant too far, or just what you were thinking?
Say to [PM David Cameron] that naughty children should be smacked at home and caned in school, that the police (and responsible adults) should be free to wallop louts and vandals caught in the act, that the police should return to preventive foot patrols, that prisons should be austere places of hard work, plain food and discipline without TV sets or semi-licit drugs, and that wrongdoers should be sent to them when they first take to crime, not when they are already habitual crooks, and he will throw up his well-tailored arms in horror at your barbarity.
Say to him that divorce should be made very difficult and that the state should be energetically in favour of stable, married families with fathers (and cease forthwith to subsidise families without fathers) and he will smirk patronisingly and regard you as a pitiable lunatic.
Say to him that mass immigration should be stopped and reversed, and that those who refuse any of the huge number of jobs which are then available should be denied benefits of any kind, and he will gibber in shock.
Yet he is ready to authorise the use of water cannon and plastic bullets on our streets (quite useless, as it happens, against this sort of outbreak) as if we were a Third World despotism.
Water cannon and plastic bullets indeed. What an utter admission of failure, that after 50 years of the most lavish welfare state in the solar system, you cannot govern your country without soaking the citizenry in cold water and bombarding them with missiles from a safe distance. Except, of course, that it is because of the welfare system that this is so.
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Re: The Peter Hitchens Prescription
Peter Hitchens is on the verge of proposing the yobs be sent to the colonies. That is a notion we must energetically reject.
Dec '10
Re: The Peter Hitchens Prescription
I am a young man by Ricochet standards (under 30) and paddling in schools was discontinued during my term in elementary school. I would hope that incidents like this usher in its return.
The U.S. version of the second paragraph you quoted would be equal to ending no-fault divorce, which I believe to be a misnomer, but highly support. I think he is on to something.
Mar '11
Re: The Peter Hitchens Prescription
I'm old enough to remember when canes were used in UK schools (they were used rather than the paddles in US schools). While I generally agree with Mr Hitchens (the UK version), I wouldn't want to go back to those days, and there is zero chance it is gonna happen.
It's similar to the Steynian hypothesis, and is generally spot-on, but I am not sure what the answer is. Well, I am - the Tea Party - but not much sign of that in the UK, and it's by no means certain that the Hobbits will prevail in the US, either.
Btw, Claire, the last time the English sent yobs to the colonies, it worked out pretty well - in Australia, anyway ;-)
Re: The Peter Hitchens Prescription
So you don't want to give the TSA the power to touch your kids, but you want to give schools the power to smack them?
Dec '10
Re: The Peter Hitchens Prescription
The short answer is Yes.
The TSA fondles the innocent. Principles and other school officials, reinforce rules that parents are aware of when they admit their children. It's a form of early training for those that would respect the rule of law.
I know it is not like this everywhere, but where I grew up, the principle called the parents and gave them an account of what the child had done, and recieved consent before the paddling. Mr. Pagoga, my principle lived down the street. My parents would have granted him permission in a heart-beat, though paddling was not uncommon in my house. I believe that has something to do with the man I am today. I respect authority because I know that not doing so has consequences.
All truth be told, I think as much good could be done if young boys were allowed to settle their differences among themselves on the school yard without the police being called for every punch. But not everyone is lucky enough to grow up in a rural setting where honor and dignity still play a part in life, and fair play was a societal law reinforced by peers, not police. The very things that liberal sociologist say would scar me for life are what gave me character.
Edited on Aug 14, 2011 at 2:43amOct '10
Re: The Peter Hitchens Prescription
Back to P. Hitchens's comments, I agree that his is likely a target too far, but significant movement in that direction would generate great results across a broad spectrum of society.
Apr '11
Re: The Peter Hitchens Prescription
Some context: Peter Hitchens is a former Trotskyist who now identifies as a "social conservative". He is universally reviled by Guardian-reading and BBC-watching bien pensants since, for someone of that world view, his pronouncements are so outré as to be beyond the pale. It is worth pointing out that although he identifies as a conservative, Peter Hitchens is no great fan of the Thatcher era nor is he particularly concerned with matters of economic policy.
As far as identifying problems is concerned, from my perspective (as someone living in Britain) he is right. Liberal divorce laws; fatherless homes; de facto polygamy among much of the "underclass"; the dependency, sense of entitlement and lack of will to work that the welfare state engenders over generations; spectacularly bad immigration policies; a lack of discipline and academic rigour in schools and the home; soft policing; soft approaches to sentencing; soft prisons; the pervasiveness and acceptance by the liberal establishment of drugs; ...: the list goes on and on --- these have all contributed to the modern Britain so clearly on display in the London riots.
As far as solutions go: it's not as simple as his column would suggest.
Edited on Aug 14, 2011 at 2:52amApr '11
Re: The Peter Hitchens Prescription
Indeed it did. But each of the Australian penal colonies was effectively a military dictatorship run by the colonial Governor and the armed forces under him, with strict (eighteenth century!) prison discipline. No chance of that being replicated in this day and age -- not even somewhere as remote as, say, Tristan da Cunha.
Edited on Aug 14, 2011 at 3:15amMay '10
Re: The Peter Hitchens Prescription
In "The Silver Chair" (fourth book in the original ordering of the Chronicles of Narnia), C.S. Lewis describes the school the kids attended just before their adventure in Narnia starts. It was a "horrid" school called "Experiment House" because they were trying out all the new liberal ideas about educating kids. They did not use corporal punishment or indeed any punishment at all, with the result that there were many bullies. Instead, bullies are sent to psychologists, who end up just talking to them and finding them "interesting." They also did not teach the students anything about the Christian parts of their culture and history.
In the end of the book, things are set right with a little help from some Narnians that come into our world for a few moments. The problems at the school get found out and the community goes into an uproar. After a bunch of the staff get sacked, eventually Experiment House turns into "quite a good school."
Although it's fiction, it shows how far England has come. And how old the "new" ideas really are. And how clearly some people (probably even the common man on the street) could foresee the results of those ideas, even back then. But the liberals are very persistent, and that is the problem. Now they have basically won, and we're reaping the fruits of their horrible ideas.
I believe things may swing back, but probably not until we see many more horrible fruits.
Edited on Aug 14, 2011 at 3:26amMay '10
Re: The Peter Hitchens Prescription
The riots certainly have revealed a serious lack of law enforcement in Britain. Rioters know that the criminal justice system will treat them with kid gloves, hence few disincentives exist against criminal activity.
Edited on Aug 14, 2011 at 3:17amMay '10
Re: The Peter Hitchens Prescription
I read the Peter Hitchens article and he's pretty spot-on.
Yes, make divorce "very difficult" and have the state "be energetically in favour of stable, married families with fathers (and cease forthwith to subsidise families without fathers)."
Yes, "mass immigration should be stopped and reversed, and ... those who refuse any of the huge number of jobs which are then available should be denied benefits of any kind."
And same to his prescriptions for prisons. I've always thought prisoners should be made to work for society: to pay for their crimes, help with prison expenses, and help rehabilitate them and give them a work ethic. I don't understand why some people are so horrified by the prospect-- is it because that means we are treating them like slaves? They already gave up their freedom by committing crimes.
Apr '11
Re: The Peter Hitchens Prescription
Peter Hitchens has two pieces in the Daily Mail today. And if you search the Telegraph website you can read the complete text of Enoch Powell's (in)famous "Rivers of Blood" speech - pretty poignant when read in the light of recent events. But after nodding the head and chanting 'Right On! Right On!' the question still remains 'What do we do now?"
Yes, it would be great if the local beat-cop gave the young hoodlums a brisk hickory rub with his nightstick. I'm sure there's a certain cathartic quality to raising a set of lumps on some miscreant's noggin but there's scant evidence for the efficacy of a medicinal beating as a cure for what ails society.
As for rehabilitation, it was Plato who first said "If we knew better, we'd do better." There is little in human history to suggest that's true. So what do we do?
There are problems for which there is no "solution" only a remedy. So what remedial action can we take for the future accepting as a fact that the generations alive today are already lost?
Apr '11
Re: The Peter Hitchens Prescription
The roots of the problem are many and complex, and it is hard to know where one might begin on a path of fixing them. Graeme Archer wrote a very good, no-holds-barred blog post recently in the UK Telegraph under the title 'How to Destroy a London Borough' that charts the systematic dismantling of civil society in the UK. Link here: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/graemearcher/100100379/how-do-you-destroy-a-london-borough/
Jun '10
Re: The Peter Hitchens Prescription
"Smacking" is wrong for a parent or school administrator -- the word implies a quick act of anger in reaction to misbehavior. At least that was the case when I was "smacked."
OTH, the administration of corporal punishment, with rudimentary due process, did me a world of good. My school had a well-known equivelency table, three good strokes equaled five detentions, your choice. Since the detentions might interfere with sports practice, after school job, or bring the misbehavior to the attention of your parents, many boys opted for three of the best. (Come to think of it, girls were not paddled)
Edited on Aug 14, 2011 at 1:47pmAug '10
Re: The Peter Hitchens Prescription
Croix du Sud:
As far as solutions go: it's not as simple as his column would suggest. · Aug 14 at 2:48am
Edited on Aug 14 at 02:52 am
Oh I don't know.
Administrator,"Mr Harrah, we have sent you on 5 appointments this week to find work, although job offers were tendered, you rejected them, what have you to say?"
Mr. Harrah, "Well mum, they sort of disagreed with with me constitution what with all the showing up on time and all, not to mention the parts that involved working."
Administrator, "Right, your entitlement card then... Cancelled"
I think that could work, hunger is a powerful motivator after all.
Aug '10
Re: The Peter Hitchens Prescription
Pilgrim
OTH, the administration of corporeal punishment, with rudimentary due process, did me a world of good. My school had a well-known equivelency table, three good strokes equaled five detentions, your choice. Since the detentions might interfere with sports practice, after school job, or bring the misbehavior to the attention of your parents, many boys opted for three of the best.
Yep, that was my choice too. Take the licks and get it over with.
Dec '10
Re: The Peter Hitchens Prescription
Well, I agree with Peter Hitchens as far as he goes but I score his modest proposals to be incomplete: he forgot to specify public flogging for DUI.
I say we add the flogging and import it to the U.S.
I wonder if the Left will fall for our telling them that we are importing one of those "higher quality European luxury goods"? You know, the kind they feel so smug about purchasing that they are willing to pay extra.
Apr '11
Re: The Peter Hitchens Prescription
Making it harder to obtain a divorce won't improve the situation. People will simply not get married. To decrease the number of children in single parent homes, they need to stop subsidizing them. Of course, the result will be similar to what happened in NYC: the number of children born to single women decreased significantly but abortions sky-rocketed. 40% of all pregnancies in NY end in abortion. The percentage is significantly higher among African Americans.
Dec '10
Re: The Peter Hitchens Prescription
Well, yes, Peter Hitchens' recommendations seem commonsensical. However, after listening to Evan Sayet explain how the Left is, and must always be as a result of its ethic of indiscrimnation, in opposition to all that is good and right and true and to behaviors which lead to success, it may be too late for the UK and nearly too late for the US.
Applying Hitchens' prescriptions would only treat the symptoms. The underlying ailment is an utter unaccountability not only to one's fellow human beings, but to any supreme being who holds one's ultimate fate in His hands. I'm sure the atheist Rocochetians are fine people, but godlessness is no way to build a decent society.
Re: The Peter Hitchens Prescription
Hitchens leaves out one crucial thing -- ending gun control and legalizing self-defense.