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Opinion | London rioters must be considered without distortion

Christian Adams, adamscf@muohio.edu

As a student, a scholar and a former resident of the U.K., I was shocked by the blatantly ideological tone and self-serving moralizing of Olivia Brough's recent editorial "Big Government is the root of London's riots." Miss Brough, while rightly condemning the criminal activity and general lawlessness witnessed during the latest riots, manages to weave herself a narrative so distorted by bias as to be fitter for Fox News punditry than for the critical journalism of The Miami Student.

Miss Brough's piece articulates that ‘Big Government' a.k.a. the British welfare-state and social democracy have created a culture of entitlement so perverse as to elevate wanton crime to the level of human rights. She draws a picture of wholesale moral decline and general listlessness; a country trapped by a coddling big brother who has taken away the meaning of life. Unfortunately for her, the facts simply do not add up. The United States, which has a much less-evolved welfare system, is no stranger to riots or looting. The 1977 New York City blackout is notorious for producing rampant larceny and rioting, often at the hands of otherwise upstanding citizens. The Rodney King riots of 1992, like London's in that they were instigated by police brutality and began with initial outrage over a poor court verdict, quickly devolved into a similar tale. Damages here were estimated at between $800 million and $1 billion. Again, when Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans in 2005, many took the opportunity to loot and steal ‘electronics and other non-essentials,' even some policemen got in on the action. Riots and looting are serious sociological problems that should provoke intense questions about society, the rule of law and human nature, but they are clearly a cross-cultural affair and should not be dismissively attributed to European social democracy.

As for the U.K.'s moral decline; the negative drug abuse, STD and reproductive statistics cited in her editorial, place the U.K. in a European context, i.e. the continent of social democracy; many nations of which have more robust welfare states and governments than the most radical Labour Party member could dream of. This is an argument against welfare? Again, the facts don't add up. We can debate the relative merits of government social programs and the redistribution of wealth. Miss Brough declares that social policy and high taxation kill dreams, but one could argue (as most social democrats do) that such policies are necessary to protect the dreams of others. It is an open question, but we should approach it critically and with integrity rather than appealing to speculative and ignorant ideological platitudes.

Miss Brough's editorial is nothing more than rose-tinted, glassy-eyed American exceptionalism and demonstrates precisely the wrong way to think about sociological issues and current events. In brief, short on facts, high on ideology and damn sloppy journalism.