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Thread ID: 17726 | Posts: 15 | Started: 2005-04-11
2005-04-11 16:36 | User Profile
[I]Steve Sailer's latest article on the VDARE - he seems to have reached some of same conclusions about the reasons for the pathetic condition of British working class as I did in here:[/I]
[url]http://www.originaldissent.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17708&page=2&pp=15[/url]
[url]http://www.vdare.com/sailer/050410_ruin.htm[/url]
[COLOR=DarkRed][B]April 10, 2005
[SIZE=4]How Much Ruin In A Nation? UK vs US White Working Class[/SIZE]
By Steve Sailer[/B]
Why have the morals of the white working class in the U.S. proven more resilient than those of their white counterparts in Great Britain?
[B]Last week, I discussed the high crime rate in the United Kingdomââ¬âby one estimate about 40 percent worse than in the U.S.[/B]
Unlike in the U.S., where minorities commit the majority of crimes (the best estimate is that blacks are imprisoned 9.1 times as often as non-Hispanic whites, and Latinos 3.7 times more often), whites are responsible for most crime in the U.K.
There's no question that immigration into the U.K. has exacerbated the crime problemââ¬âWest Indians make up a large fraction of London muggers, and the U.K. suffers far more than the U.S. from Gypsies (and from "Travelers"ââ¬âwhites who have apparently occupied a similarly parasitical niche). Yet minorities are only about one-fourth as numerous in the U.K. So whites must shoulder most of the blame.
[B]Crime's sister, illegitimacy, is also high in Britain. In England and Wales 41 percent of new babies are born to unmarried women. And it's even worse ââ¬â46 percent, see p. 84 of this PDFââ¬âamong women born in the U.K. (The high illegitimacy rate for Caribbean immigrant women is more than balanced by the very low figures for South Asians). [/B]
In a much-discussed 1993 op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Charles Murray, author of the influential 1984 book on welfare programs Losing Ground, predicted that the rise in illegitimacy among American whites would lead to a "coming white underclass."
That may indeed be happening. Illegitimacy among American whites has continued to grow, reaching 23 percent of all babies born to non-Hispanic white women in 2002 (compared to 68 percent among African-Americans and 43 percent among Hispanics). That's worse than the 22 percent figure for blacks that so alarmed Johnson Administration adviser Daniel Patrick Moynihan that he wrote a famously controversial 1965 report called "The Negro Family: The Case for National Action."
But that 23 percent is still about half the white rate in England and Wales.
So, despite obvious problems, such as the crystal methamphetamine epidemic, the American white working class has shown more impressive moral hardiness than the English.
How come?
[B]Religion[/B]. Perhaps the most striking and important difference: the strength of Christianity hereââ¬âwhereas the main religious emotion in Britain is apathy. Phil Zuckerman has noted
[I]"84 percent of Americans believe that Jesus is God or the son of God, compared to 46 percent of the Britishââ¬Â¦ And over 70 percent of Americans believe in hell, compared to only 28 percent of the Britishââ¬Â¦ Nearly 45 percent of Americans attend church ââ¬Â¦ once a week, compared to ââ¬Â¦ 13 percent of the Britishââ¬Â¦ Between 39 and 46 percent of Americans describe themselves as evangelical or born-again Christians."[/I]
At least some American Christians are building alternative institutions to shield their families from decadent popular culture. But the British working class appear wholly addicted to the prolefeed on the telly.
Why is the U.S. more religious? Father Andrew Greeley has suggested that it's because America has a dynamic competitive marketplace for churches, while the Church of England is a typically inefficient and unmotivated government monopoly.
Another (unspoken) reason: with the partial exception of the Roman Catholic Church, church services give Americans a rare opportunity to indulge in ethnic solidarity.
Liberals like to quote Martin Luther Kingââ¬â¢s complaint that "Eleven o'clock Sunday morning is the most segregated hour" of the week. But this opportunity to associate with one's own kind seems to be viewed favorably by many Americans. Even the Rev. King, for example, found his political base in the black churches.
[B]Culture[/B]. The ongoing collapse of Britain's white males into neo-Hogarthian laddishness points out the importance of country music in persuading white working class American males to stay on the straight and narrow. A remarkable fraction of country lyrics are devoted to making guys with fairly crummy jobs, like truckdrivers, feel proud that they work hard to bring home the bacon to their wife and kids. Likewise, many country love songs are about being married, which helps make that crucial institution seem cool to young country fans.
Or compare favorite spectator sports. Stock car racing is wholly lacking in soccer's affiliated subculture of hooliganism (see Bill Buford's memoir of running with English soccer fans, aptly titled Among the Thugs). NASCAR markets itself with vast success as wholesome entertainment for the entire family.
After the mass slaughters of the 1980s (such as the 95 fans crushed to death at the Sheffield stadium in 1989), UK soccer has managed to contain its more animalistic aspects and appeal to a broader social base than just skinheads. For example, the new American romantic comedy movie Fever Pitch, with Jimmy Fallon as a fanatical Boston Red Sox baseball fan, is based on the soccer fan memoir of English novelist Nick Hornby, the highly bourgeois author of High Fidelity and About a Boy.
Yet this widespread filtering of yobbo norms up the social scale in Britainââ¬âsoccer replacing cricket and rugby or the spread of the downscale Estuary English accent into the upper middle classesââ¬âmerely reflects how the educated classes in Britain have lost control of the culture. Similarly, middle-class African-Americans have lost control to the gangsta rappers.
The U.S. Republican Party, for all its sins, at least pays lip service to social conservatism. Many white working class families ask for self-sacrificingly little from their elected leaders. But they do want them to provide good role models for their children. And, in contrast to Clinton's embarrassing philandering, Bush's apparently faultless marriage accounts for more than a little of his otherwise inexplicable popularity.
In Britain, however, the Conservative Party has been riddled by sex scandals.
[B]Guns [/B] (not what you think). While the rate of assault has been higher in England than America, angry Americans are more lethal because of our hundreds of millions of guns.
But, on the other hand, burglary is a far safer career choice in Britain because the chance of being blown away by a homeowner is lowââ¬âand the government unmercifully persecutes householders who kill intruders. (Farmer Tony Martin was originally sentenced to life in prison for killing a burglar).
That's why an atrocious percentage of burglaries in the U.K. are "home invasions"ââ¬âpsychologically traumatizing break-ins while the householders are at home.
The perversity of the British criminal justice system likewise seems strange to contemporary Americans. The once-proud police of Britain are now pathetic. The fine new English movie Millions, for example, portrays a neighborhood meeting where an ineffectual-looking copper with an intellectual's beard announces (dialogue roughly remembered):
[I]Bobbie: Christmas is coming so it's a statistical certainty your house will get burgled. But that's what we're here for.
Subject of the Queen: To prevent crime or to catch the criminals?
Bobbie: Neither, of course. But after you do get robbed, we will make sure you get your official victimization number so you can file a claim with your insurance company.[/I]
[B]Lack of federalism[/B]. Parliament reigns supreme, so localities don't compete to see who has the most hard-nosed police departments like they do in America.
In 1993, for instance, white liberal voters in New York City and Los Angeles replaced black Democratic mayors with white Republican mayorsââ¬âRudy Giuliani and Richard Riordan, respectivelyââ¬âwhile still reassuring themselves of their moral superiority by voting Democratic at the national level.
And in the U.S., it's possible to move away from high crime areas. For example, Ventura County, only an hour's drive from South Central LA, is one of the lowest crime areas in the country, perhaps because racial profiling is quite effective in America, at least when the politicians and judges allow it. A car full of black youths cruising the back streets of affluent Thousand Oaks in the middle of the night would likely receive unwanted attention from the local police department.
In England, however, there is no escape. Criminals from Manchester and Birmingham frequently drive a couple of hours into the countryside to prey on isolated farmhouses. Racial profiling isn't as effective when so many career criminal are white.
[B]Speed[/B]. Remember the tale of how to boil a frog? Just keep raising the temperature imperceptibly so the frog never notices it's being boiled alive. (Don't try this at home, kids.) Something similar happened in England, where society fell apart so slowly that elite opinion had time to get used to each new outrage.
In contrast, the U.S. murder rate doubled in just ten yearsââ¬âfrom 1964 to 1974. African-Americans served not as the frog in the pot but as the canary in the coalmine.
The welfare state took decades after its introduction in 1945 to corrupt the English. But the American liberal innovations of the 1960s, such as generous welfare for single mothers and shorter prison sentences, had such an immediately catastrophic on black morals that within a decade and a half, "liberal" had permanently become a term of abuse in American politics.
Way back in 1968, Richard Nixon ran on a law and order platform, somewhat like Michael Howard's in 2005. Granted, Nixon didn't do much about crime, but eventually the outraged public got its way. The quadrupling over the last third of a century of the prison population helped bring about the fall in crime in the later 1990s. The welfare reform of 1996 also has had a good effect on morals.
[B]Class vs. Race[/B]. The central divide in Britain is classââ¬âin America, it's race. And that has had a little understood salutary effect on white working class Americans.
In England, the sons of maharajas were often more welcome at Eton and Oxford than the sons of fishmongers. Similarly, in the last couple of decades, blacks have been more welcomed into the working class in Britain than in Americaââ¬âbecause British working class identity centers on not acting like a toff. The entrance requirements to the working class are amiably relaxedââ¬âno need for "the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain" elocution lessons. If you like 'aving a pint with your mates at the pub while watching Arsenal on the telly, well, you're halfway home.
Likewise, English youth see the gangsta rap lifestyle as a bit of a lark (as brilliantly parodied by Sacha Baron Cohen's brainless wigger Ali G). In contrast, white working class Americans view it, based on the abundant evidence provided by American blacks, as a one-way ticket to prison and the grave.
America upper middle class white liberals constantly sneer at working class whites as racists. And, indeed, most respectable working class whites do work hard to prevent their children from absorbing black underclass values. Affluent liberals are so well insulated from poor blacks that they don't have to worry that their college-bound kids will take gangsta rap's ethos seriously. But poorer whites don't have that luxury.
These anti-black feelings among the white working class have helped keep their young from turning to crime.
For example, Chicago was the crime capital of the world 75 years ago during Al Capone's dayââ¬âbefore the Great Migration of blacks to Chicago from the Mississippi Delta. Unlike most Northern cities, Chicago has hung on to a sizable white working class.
But the descendents of the minor mobsters of Al Capone's era today disdain crime, viewing it as a "black thing," because, although blacks and whites are about equal in number in Chicago, blacks are almost an order of magnitude more common behind bars in the Windy City.
A General Election has now been called in Britain. Until this year, the Tory Party has been almost as worthless on crime as Labour. But Tory leader Michael Howard is now campaigning hard against "yob culture," lawless Gypsies and Travelersââ¬Â¦and immigration abuses.
Still, thereââ¬â¢s a long way to go. Adam Smith famously observed that there is "There is a great deal of ruin in a nation." The British, however, have been ruining themselves for a long time. [/COLOR]
2005-04-11 16:56 | User Profile
1 word: chavs
2005-04-11 17:51 | User Profile
[B][I] - "1 word: chavs"[/I][/B]
Who are they?
Petr
2005-04-11 18:48 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Petr][B][I] - "1 word: chavs"[/I][/B]
Who are they?
Petr[/QUOTE]
White, working class youths who spend all day drinking cheap cider, watching soccer and taking ecstasy. They've even got a uniform, really: Burberry caps, Fred Perry sports jackets, basketball shorts and K-Swiss trainers.
Anywhere around estate housing, you'll find them, usually in a pack. Not truly as 'ard or fooking tough (as they'd put it) as truly organized inner-city American gangs, but if you look at them wrong, you're liable to get smacked upside the head by a golf club or cricket bat and then find your pockets emptied.
2005-04-11 18:59 | User Profile
Interesting article. Another factor could be the British Brain Drain. A lot of conservative Brits hightailed it out of there in the 1960's.
Personally, I think Britain has passed the point of return. I think more and more of her conservatives will simply give up and leave, accelerating the decline.
2005-04-11 19:00 | User Profile
[QUOTE=SteamshipTime]Interesting article. Another factor could be the British Brain Drain. A lot of conservative Brits hightailed it out of there in the 1960's.
Personally, I think Britain has passed the point of return. I think more and more of her conservatives will simply give up and leave, accelerating the decline.[/QUOTE]
Sad. I've always had a soft spot for the British.
Sic transit gloria mundi...
2005-04-11 19:06 | User Profile
[QUOTE=SteamshipTime]Interesting article. Another factor could be the British Brain Drain. A lot of conservative Brits hightailed it out of there in the 1960's.
Personally, I think Britain has passed the point of return. I think more and more of her conservatives will simply give up and leave, accelerating the decline.[/QUOTE] I don't know Steam, I don't think they're much worse than the USA. And for the time being, they are substantially more white than the USA, still over 90% even.
2005-04-11 19:10 | User Profile
I'm a bit of an Anglophile too, hence the avatar. I'm actually in Atlanta GA, born and bred. The US aviation industry is full of Brits who came here in the 1960's. They're retiring now and their kids are staying put.
2005-04-11 19:14 | User Profile
[QUOTE=robinder]I don't know Steam, I don't think they're much worse than the USA. And for the time being, they are substantially more white than the USA, still over 90% even.[/QUOTE] My impression from what I've read (I admittedly have no personal knowledge) is that the British middle class is running out of places of refuge from the underclass. In the US, it's still possible to segregate one's self from much of it.
2005-04-11 19:15 | User Profile
There are more than a few ex-British doctors and other professionals in the North, emigrating at about the same time.
[QUOTE]I'm a bit of an Anglophile too, hence the avatar. I'm actually in Atlanta GA, born and bred.[/QUOTE] Never thought otherwise, though I can't agree that it's already too late for the UK. Arguably, they've been through more trying situations than these ones.
2005-04-11 20:10 | User Profile
[QUOTE=SteamshipTime]My impression from what I've read (I admittedly have no personal knowledge) is that the British middle class is running out of places of refuge from the underclass. In the US, it's still possible to segregate one's self from much of it.[/QUOTE] If my memory is right, a very solid majority of non-whites in the UK are located in London alone, I'm not sure about the exact figure but it may be 2/3rds or higher.
2005-04-11 20:16 | User Profile
[COLOR=Indigo][B][I] - "If my memory is right, a very solid majority of non-whites in the UK are located in London alone, I'm not sure about the exact figure but it may be 2/3rds or higher."[/I][/B][/COLOR]
When I visited downtown London in April 2004, it didn't look [B]that[/B] non-White. Let's not panic, alright?
According to the census in April 2001, 92,1 % of Britain's population was still White:
[url]http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=273[/url]
Petr
2005-04-11 20:28 | User Profile
What I am saying is that it is preferable that the demographic in question is relatively segregated rather evenly distributed throughout the country.
2005-04-12 04:45 | User Profile
[quote=Steve_Sailer]English youth see the gangsta rap lifestyle as a bit of a lark (as brilliantly parodied by Sacha Baron Cohen's brainless wigger Ali G). **In contrast, white working class Americans view it, based on the abundant evidence provided by American blacks, as a one-way ticket to prison and the grave.
How I wish that were true. San Jose, being part of the Bay Area (albeit one of its less unhealthy corners) may be worse than most other places perhaps, but in my experience, most of the White working class teens and 20somethings males are degenerate wigger punks who are almost behaviorably indistinguishable from inner city Negroes; the main difference seems to be that they don't (yet) have such an affinity for carrying firearms, but still prefer fists & knives. And most of them still display a slightly higher level of innate intelligence and/or education, of course.
2005-04-16 18:10 | User Profile
[QUOTE=SteamshipTime]My impression from what I've read (I admittedly have no personal knowledge) is that the British middle class is running out of places of refuge from the underclass. In the US, it's still possible to segregate one's self from much of it.[/QUOTE]That's part of the problem, though. Whites keep running away, then acting "holier than thou" in good liberal fashion when they sneer at the poor white's "racism" because they don't have the money to move elsewhere.
We might have a white nationalist party in the USA by now (as many European countries do) if it were not so easy for whites to buy their way out of racial confrontation by the simple expedient of moving. Of course these WN parties in Europe are still small, but they keep growing and never disappear (unlike attempts in the USA) and they make the establishment nervous, which is a good thing.
Eventually, whites in the USA will run out of places to run.