On the recent London riots.

There is no sense in which the authorities won. There was no defeat of the rioters. There was no unambiguous imposition of order. The authorities—including the police—stood by and watched. The rioters ended the riots spontaneously and unilaterally.

The street kids will have learnt—unless they are, like our leaders, human vegetables unable to respond to external stimulus—that they can take the city whenever they like, that no one dares to stop them from doing whatever they want.

In short, they discovered who is scared, and it isn't them.

The response of our thinking class is already that “like Norway we need more democracy"—give them more of anything and maybe they won't hate us. Why do they hate us? Nobody knows. This event stands before them like an inexplicable mindboggling mystery.

Vimothy commenting on "Movers and shakers in sports & leisure." By Mencius Goldbug, Unqualified Reservations, 8/9/11.