Most Britons fear walking alone in the dark near home

Posted by Fred Scrooby on January 01, 2005, 12:44 PM | #

Razib I’ve been waiting two or three days for a reader to post a comment on this and the other new log entries by John Ray so I won’t always get in first—but no one does.  I’ll wait a couple days more.  After that I figure, hey, I gave everyone a fair chance and they didn’t take it, so I’ll plunge back in.  (I promise not to be so long-winded though.  As for my always saying the same thing, that’s because John always says the same thing in reverse, so I do too in responding—but you made a valid criticism, and I will try to provide more variety next time ...)

Posted by Guessedworker on January 01, 2005, 03:07 PM | #

OK, Fred, I’m not Razib.  But I’ll make a couple of exploratory incisions in the argument and see what flows out.

When these kind of stories emerge Blair’s government tends to leap to the defence not of the troubled populace but of itself.  The refrain always goes out that the policies are working, crime is falling yet still the ungrateful populace reports a rising sense of insecurity.

Well, these phenomena - the public’s stubborness and the politicians’ defensiveness have the same cause: a counter-productive Home Office policy intended to end “black crimewave” stories and protect the coming Multi-Cult.

Public opinion about crime, especially black and immigrant crime, is not a cork bobbing on the water.  It is slow to gather and rise - and, no doubt, to fall.  The reason is that in the absence of credible official statistics people have to deduce from whatever evidence and, of course, hearsay they have to hand.  The evidence can be extremely limited - personal experience, your aunt’s best friend’s daughter’s personal experience, the rare press stories about someone else’s personal experience ...  But quality is not the issue.  Quantity is, and quantity gathered this way will have sticking power in the public mind.

Meanwhile, the government is all too conscious of its having hidden the inconvenient facts.  In Britain, it has been illegal for many years for the press or TV to report the racial identity of criminals, unless that identity would assist in their capture.  Also, in Britain - as in France - it is extraordinarily difficult to extract the racial component from Home Office crime statistics.  Ministers will happily speak of drunken unruliness at pub-closing time because that is a white issue.  But of the menace of black and immigrant crime there is scarcely a shadow permitted to cross the public consciousness.

How dangerously uncomfortable for our rulers, then, when the public demonstrates a capacity to see through all the deceit.  No wonder the response is that the public has got it wrong and everything in the Multi-Cult is alright really, folks.

Oddly, the Survey finds an increase among whites (not necessarily all natives - Turks, Albanians, gypsies etc are recorded in official stats as “white”).

The article states, “More than half of those saying that there was more prejudice cited prejudice against asylum-seekers or refugees as the reason.”

I imagine that a great deal swings on the exact nature of the question.  “Racial prejudice” is a whites-only disease, as we all know.  If whites say it is increasing we are suddenly all good multiculturalists (unlikely) or we are provided with no other means on the questionaire by which we can say that we are fucked off with what’s happening to the country.

Posted by Guessedworker on January 01, 2005, 03:18 PM | #

I should add that if it is the latter case - the effed off one - the likelihood is that other white respondees of the same opinion did not choose that somewhat sophisticated option on the questionaire.  If anything, therefore, there would be an under-reporting of “rising prejudice”.

Some grounds for hope, I suppose.

Posted by Pericles on January 03, 2005, 09:16 AM | #

GW,

For the last 14 months, my 2 teenage sons and I have been training in Krav Maga. http://www.isayeret.com/kravmaga/guide.htm

Situational awareness is the first thing to learn. If you know an area is unsafe, do not go there!

I drive them to where they want to go. No trains or buses. Self preservation is the watchword. We are not fearful, just cautious, but we are going on a firearm course overseas to learn how to shoot. Imagine how stupid one would feel if after disarming an assailant, the knowledge to use the weapon was lacking? “Train, that one may walk in peace”.

Pericles

Posted by Johan Van Vlaams on January 03, 2005, 12:31 PM | #

That’s one hell of website.  Remind me not to convert to Islam.  Of course, the crims also have great training facilities.  They are called prisons.

Posted by Pericles on January 04, 2005, 04:08 AM | #

Not quite the same facilities though.

Pericles