Treating the symptoms

There is a war going on in Britain: a war on incivility. The Economist reports that since "coming to power in 1997, the Labour government has honed weapons against anti-social behaviour that are unmatched for severity in the western world." It continues:

The most potent of these is the Anti-Social Behaviour Order (ASBO). This can be handed out for conduct that causes, or even contributes to a general sense of, “harassment, alarm or distress”. On the slenderest evidence (including hearsay), perpetrators as young as ten years old can be banned from entering an area, wearing particular clothing or even speaking certain words. Breach the terms of the order, and the maximum sentence is five years in prison. Some 6,500 ASBOs have been imposed since they became available in 1999.

They are enormously popular, as are other powers, such as curfews and “dispersal orders”, which can be used to break up groups. MORI, a pollster, found last year that ASBOs were opposed by just 4% of people.

This strikes me as somewhat ridiculous. If these are the methods that a secular society comes up with to abate its social ills, Britain has a tough road ahead. The root of all these problems is the abandonment of traditional morality, or at least the divorcing of it from the rationale behind social operations. The British city of Camden maintains "'youth-inclusion support panels' which try to quell anti-social tendencies before they reach the point where tougher measures are required." Not so long ago--as few as 50 years--the obvious solution to so-called "anti-social tendencies" would be better parenting. But with parents now lacking a traditional morality, what do they have to raise their kids with? They see the surface problem--and euphemize it with psychobabble--but fail to recognize the inner need for a) better parenting, c) traditional morality, and c) spiritual salvation and renewal in Jesus Christ.

Another problem Britain has is its slow and covert infiltration of Muslim immigrants. Immigrants in general, Muslim or otherwise, are not a threat if they desire to contribute to society and learn the laws and customs of their new home. This is why immigration has worked rather well in the U.S., and why we also have problems due to the "black culture" or the "Latino culture." Integration into society must go hand in hand with immigration, or a country runs the risk of being overrun by dissidents. This is happening in Britain (Mark Steyn):

According to a poll taken in 2004, over 60% of British Muslims want to live under Shariah--in the United Kingdom. If a population "at odds with the modern world" is the fastest-breeding group on the planet--if there are more Muslim nations, more fundamentalist Muslims within those nations, more and more Muslims within non-Muslim nations, and more and more Muslims represented in more and more transnational institutions--how safe a bet is the survival of the "modern world"?

Europe is under seige by secular and religious forces alike. In a nutshell, they both have the same solution--a return to traditional Christian morality. Truth is truth, and it matters. The need for better parenting can't come unless folks realize objectively bad parenting in the first place. Psychobabble terminology is great for eliminating personal responsibility for behavior, and the term "anti-social tendencies" helps to accomplish that--for the bad kid and the bad parent. In addition, traditional morality allows culture to objectively judge and define good cultures and bad cultures. Obviously, Western culture is decadent in many, many ways. But when you compare the freedoms and relative peace in the West with the first things that come to mind when Islam is brought up (religious intolerance, brutal religious punishments, no political freedom, oppression towards women), which would you rather have? Finding common ground is valuable, but multiculturalism equates cultures to such a degree that it blurs Truth.

Truth is truth is truth. It deserves defending.

Tags: truth, multiculturalism, parenting, islam, britain, england, anti-social behavior, civility, incivility, muslims