We explore real-life reformation here in this informed, online community.
In recent days, from Birmingham to Tower Hamlets, ordinary British and English people have, seemingly spontaneously, started to raise Union Jack and St George’s flags on lampposts and buildings. Some have even painted flags on roundabouts.
Shortly afterwards, however, local council workers quickly began taking down the flags, arguing the “unauthorised items” were “dangerous”, on the basis they might distract and even kill passing motorists and pedestrians.
Yet many, understandably, see glaring hypocrisy.
While the Labour-run council in highly-diverse Birmingham is now rushing to take down English and Union flags, it has left Palestinian flags flying for months (for its part, in what is another depressing insight into the dire state of modern Britain, the council says it needs police protection to remove Palestine flags in Muslim areas).
At the same time, Birmingham council is pulling down Union Jack and St George’s flags while seemingly having no issue lighting the taxpayer-funded library building in green and white to celebrate the independence of … Pakistan.
All of which helps to explain why, unsurprisingly, some locals have started to rebel by joining the “raise the colours” campaign. And nor are they alone.
In similarly diverse Tower Hamlets, in east London, residents have also been spotted raising flags on lampposts, while the local council, run by the pro-Gaza Aspire Party which has also left Palestine flags flying for months, just vowed to remove any English and British flags “as soon as possible”.
-- Matt Goodwin
Rod Dreher asks, "I don’t understand why the government doesn’t deploy the army and shoot rioters until they stop. Philippe Lemoine, a Frenchman, says it’s not that simple."
Excerpt:
"We have let things rot for so long that, at this point, relying primarily on force to restore order would require a degree of violence far greater than what people realize and what is politically feasible.
It's possible to contain a riot using only moderate force when the number of police officers is high relative to the number of rioters, but when riots are so widespread and involve so many people because you have allowed this kind of things to happen for so long, that's just not possible and you have to use extreme violence to make up for the lack of manpower.
I know people on the Internet will say that it doesn't matter and that we should just do it, but the reality is that most of the people in charge are not prepared to use that kind of force and neither would most ordinary people if they saw ...
Even Marine Le Pen’s recent statements track this line: personal Islamic practice is compatible with the Republic; replacing French law with Sharia is not. French Muslims who are simply citizens practicing their "religious faith" “have no reason to worry” about a Le Pen election victory.
But can one be a practicing Muslim without demanding and practicing Sharia?
