For those who haven’t figured it out, Alex Singleton points out why progress is a good thing. In an mysterious co-incidence, I happened to catch a documentary on BBC2 called What the Industrial Revolution Did for Us. For an uplifting story of how some innovative, industrious people made everyone a lot richer and happier, I suggest watching the rest of the series.
Archive for October, 2003
Progress
Tuesday, October 7th, 2003Police Limits
Friday, October 3rd, 2003The family of an armed robbery victim make the same mistake as Tony Martin in claiming that the solution to rising crime is more police.
In days gone by, [Ms Bates, whose mother was shot] said, “there was a bobby on this street. He would come in and have a cup of tea with us”.
Right… “Put down your guns, or I’ll arrest you with this hot cup of tea!”
Mr Blunkett, she said, “needs policemen that are approachable on the streets of Britain … We should not have to live like this. A policeman is a deterrent. That deterrent has gone.”
I’ll tell you what else is a deterrent: A high probability of having a 12 bore shoved in your face by an angry jewellery store owner. Of course, Big Blunkett is happy to go on perpetuating the myth that there can ever be enough police to protect us all.
Mr Blunkett said he wanted lessons learned during Operation Trident, the Metropolitan police’s campaign against gun crime in the black community, and initiatives in south Manchester to be spread across the country.
“The reality of the moment may well be the challenge of guns,” he added.
“But it will not be the reality tomorrow if this Labour government succeeds in getting a third term in office to carry forward our agenda.”
Mr Blunkett also confirmed that police numbers had reached a record high of 136,386, breaking the government’s target by nearly 4,000 six months early.
So everything will be all right as long as we keep voting Labour. They will fix everything! But wait, doesn’t the fact that there are more police and more gun control than ever while still people are being shot in their jewellery stores tell us something?
More police may help, but there can never be enough police. Criminals aren’t stupid. They tend to attack when there aren’t police around. This means that until everyone has his own twenty-four hour personal armed police guard, there will always be a chance that he can find himself under attack and defenceless in some dark or remote place.
People need to be allowed to take responsibility for their own safety. When they stop demanding that others protect them, they will be closer to that goal.