Comments on: Bread Alone

By: rmark

rmark — Wed, 09 Nov 2005 19:52:19 +0000

I’ve always been bothered by the fact that journalists don’t actually produce anything, they just complain about everything.

By: X US solja

X US solja — Wed, 09 Nov 2005 03:45:23 +0000

While I would love to bash the French, they did help us during the war for independence, they trained our military, gave us the statue of liberty. I’m sypathetic to the French
–That was a bazillion years ago, and more recently, those scum were the first ones to shoot at and kill US troops in North Africa, not the Nazis.
I don’t mind bashing them.
They are getting what they deserve, these lukewarm allies and cheese-eating surrender-monkeys.
The best I can do for them is to arrange an airdrop of white hankies so they can Chieu Hoy to their immigrants.
Q: Why are Parisian streets lined with trees?
A: So the German troops can march in the shade!

By: colson

colson — Tue, 08 Nov 2005 04:08:06 +0000

I read an intersting article from the Washington Post that quotes a few of the rioters. While I’m sure there is some creative editing in the article the overall gist of it comes down to not religion but a general lack of opportunity for them to do anything.

This puts them at a very pivotal point. I’ve never understood French labor laws as I feel the unions have too much power to begin with. But the problem facing these young people is more a matter of a lack of opportunity. And within a socialist-leaning framework, opportunity becomes more limited as the government attempts to provide for the welfare of all the people. Hardly anyone in the press has mentioned what *could* be done if France would loosen the labor death-grip and push for more opportunities for these individuals to find their own solutions to their issues through starting and running their own businesses. So what the French have done is enact such strong labor friendliness that it pins the business community into a position where it cannot scale or add more people.

While I would love to bash the French, they did help us during the war for independence, they trained our military, gave us the statue of liberty. I’m sypathetic to the French to the point that they really need to begin shunning years of social tendencies that have lead to this uprising.

This could spread as much of Europe has burgeoning immigrant populations and fairly strong labor perspectives. I would suggest keeping an eye on Germany as there always seems to be some turmoil just under the facade and this will rise with unemployment

By: X US soljah

X US soljah — Mon, 07 Nov 2005 20:32:10 +0000

Hey MB, if they were “True French” they would be shouting Chieu Hoy! at the tops of their lungs before the first shot makes it through the Cone Of Fire into the Beaten Zone.

By: Douglas Hill

Douglas Hill — Mon, 07 Nov 2005 15:00:35 +0000

kaytrina vs. Self Reliance

If we learn anything from Katrina, it should be the profound emasculation of will and spirit brought about by abject reliance upon government, as opposed to reliance upon oneself.

By: Douglas Hill

Douglas Hill — Mon, 07 Nov 2005 14:59:56 +0000

kaytrina vs. Self Reliance

If we learn anything from Katrina, it should be the profound emasculation of will and spirit brought about by abject reliance upon government, as opposed to reliance upon oneself.

By: Solipson

Solipson — Mon, 07 Nov 2005 11:24:29 +0000

MB,
it is not necessary inconsistent, they let them in with the implicit demand that they become true french.
nearly every society has this implicit demand to immigrants. look at the largest of all, the us of a. the implicit demand is to become american. if immigrants are not willing or able to they will not survive very long, as the time span to become american is necessarily much shorter than in the rest of the world, because the society does not provide them with long term support.

By: X US soljah

X US soljah — Sun, 06 Nov 2005 23:42:39 +0000

1) there is one overriding principle in france: their cultural unity.

I thought their overriding principle was Chieu Hoy, the Art of the Surrender.

REMEMBER OPERATION TORCH!
(This self-inflicted rioting is actually fun to watch)

By: X US soljah

X US soljah — Sun, 06 Nov 2005 22:12:15 +0000

It’s hard to feel sorry for a bunch of idiots who import rioters from places sworn to destroy the West.

As we used to say in my soldiering days: “You want Sympathy? Look in Webster’s [it's a dictionary] somewhere between Shit and Syphilis!”

REMEMBER OPERATION TORCH!

By: MB

MB — Sun, 06 Nov 2005 21:34:47 +0000

1) there is one overriding principle in france: their cultural unity.
2) they let the north africans in

Is it not inconsistent ?

By: Solipson

Solipson — Sun, 06 Nov 2005 20:26:08 +0000

funny tone of the discussion by the posters from over the pond. it implies something like: rioting&looting? over here? never! this only ever happens in europe :-) or in new orleans or in los angeles
us? we have no underclass that lives on welfare and in ghettos. no, our proud underclass is either dealing with drugs or in jail. they live in ghettos and shoot each other. ok. but welfare? never!:-)
joking aside, you cannot compare american and french welfare systems.
they let the north africans in, because they came from their ex-colonies. and there is one overriding principle in france: their cultural unity. it seems funny to people from the outside to see a country in the 21st & globalized century to insist on this unity, but that’s what they do. one has to accept that. everything else derives from that.

By: X US soljah

X US soljah — Sun, 06 Nov 2005 19:16:38 +0000

Maybe the French can deploy the Army.
Then it can surrender…as usual…

I hope the immigrants haven’t burned the handkerchief factories, or the brave French will have trouble finding white flags.

REMEMBER OPERATION TORCH!

By: MB

MB — Sun, 06 Nov 2005 18:55:10 +0000

I agree that bread alone is not enough. I wish the Arabs would think of that before leaving their country (or going back there). What you say about people not being cows is great, but how does that relate with the Arab riots in Paris ? Many Europeans live on welfare, and yet they do not go on rampage burning cars. The obvious lesson from all this is that immigration must be reversed, especially Arab and African immigration. Do you have any opinion on immigration ? Do you think we need more of it ?

By: mrsizer

mrsizer — Sun, 06 Nov 2005 17:46:53 +0000

Interesting perspective. You must listen to country music, not hip-hop.

By: Shannon Love

Shannon Love — Sun, 06 Nov 2005 16:29:55 +0000

” Just because some columnist for some urban newspaper thinks they are above flipping hamburgers doesn’t mean that those who do such a job aren’t fulfilling real duties and making other’s lives better.”

I have an almost visceral reaction to arguments such as this. My grandfather once told me that the only job a person had to ashamed of was the one he refused to do. I took that to heart.

I think that there is a dividing line within subcultures in attitudes about work. On one side, people value work only in regards to what it can provide them in terms of material benefit and social status. On the other side, people value work as a positive good in and of itself. The very act of working ennobles.

The experience with welfare-reform in the U.S. certainly leads empirical weight to the latter view. Families whose parents were transitioned into work gained many additional behavioral benefits even if there actual purchasing power remained fixed. Children of such families do better in school, have fewer problems with the law, less drug use etc. A simplistic economic model of human behavior would not predict such a benefit.

The last thing someone working a boring, low status job needs is some elitist twit telling them that their efforts are worthless.

By: bb

bb — Sun, 06 Nov 2005 04:47:17 +0000

Yes, I welfare state creates a whole host of resentments and fury but I don’t believe a welfare state by itself creates the conditions of this event. I currently live in Ukraine. Even after 15 years of independence there is still a substantial welfare state but in spite of the recent revolution, the majority of people are like sheep. The accept whatever is presented.

I believe there is a cancer in these areas that is feeding the actions of the rioters and going on nothing more than conjecture and some recently quoted Iman’s from that area, I’d guess it is radical Islam.

Oh, the Iman’s answer to the problem wasn’t to provide jobs, stop descrimination or police brutality. The Iman said they just wanted to be left alone.

By: Ginny

Ginny — Sun, 06 Nov 2005 03:54:48 +0000

I suspect some of it has to do with the underrated importance of purpose in our lives. That can come from religious faith, from a humanist faith in our relations to others, but often with these (or maybe even without) it comes from working & putting bread on the table and sheltering the heads of our children. That is one of the things that really angers me about some arguments in this country that say other’s jobs are meaningless. Just because some columnist for some urban newspaper thinks they are above flipping hamburgers doesn’t mean that those who do such a job aren’t fulfilling real duties and making other’s lives better.

By: AST

AST — Sun, 06 Nov 2005 02:32:02 +0000

That phrase “psychological welfare” kind of bothers me, not because of the way you use it, but because of the obsession so many have with “self-esteem.” American students have great self-esteem, but they don’t have the achievement to back it up. A truly good society would achieve psychological welfare through individuals who live up to their beliefs rather than trying to make others do so through the power of government. Government welfare delivers a pretty drab existence and makes its beneficiaries ashamed of the help they get rather than appreciative.

The effect must be multiplied manyfold in France where the primary national characteristic seems to be pride. After all these years they still have an aristocracy even in a democratic system. If I’d been born in one of these Muslim ghettos, I might feel like rioting too.

By: Graham Rhodes

Graham Rhodes — Sat, 05 Nov 2005 23:27:41 +0000

I think that the analysis is on the mark. People who have to work for a living value what they have (and what others have) more and are less likely to riot and break things. The work and the opportunities to move ahead focus peoples’ energies on the constructive and the future. A French market economy that had a tight labor market would draw immigrants into the mainstream where they would work alongside their French confreres and truly integrate as they take control of their own lives and build a future for themselves. I think Sarkozy understands this and I hope the US never forgets it.

By: David Foster

David Foster — Thu, 03 Nov 2005 21:38:06 +0000

It was a Frenchman, Antoine de St-Exupery, who wrote:

“If you want men to be like brothers, constrain them to join in the building of a tower. If you want them to hate one another, throw bread among them.” (approximate quote)

I wonder to what extent the lack of ever having had a serious resposibility is a factor among the college rioters about who James writes, just as it is among today’s rioters in France.