I've been saddened but not surprised to see the riots plaguing London and other British cities.  I am an ardent anglophile with London being my favorite city in the world and I've been blessed to spend over a month of my life visiting and living there.  Samuel Johnson once said that when one's tired of London, one's tired of life because London offers everything in life.  London's history, culture, scenic beauty, and community life and unmatched and it's even sadder to see this happening just a year before it hosts the 2012 Summer Olympics.

Various reasons have been offered for this violence.  The usual leftist chattering classes have denounced racism and government spending cuts as their first and only rhetorical recourse.  (In fact, the British Government has had to slow the rate of government spending due to the debts incurred by the previous Labour Party government which had been in power for 13 long years from 1997-2010.  Leftist mythology was effectively demolished by Conservative Education Minister Michael Gove http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgXuX32ot8w in a debate with ditzy Deputy Labour Party leader Harriet Harman.

There are several factors contributing to these riots.  The first and most egregious one is the insidious growth of secularism in British society over several decades.  Like many western countries, Britain used to have strong Judeo-Christian values which were taught in schools and churches and throughout society.  Sadly, secularism has become more predominant in the decades since World War I as evidenced by the precipitous decline of Christians in all aspects of British life and the insidious influence of moral relativism and situational ethics.  When parents do not teach their children absolute standards of right or wrong and fail to model such standards in their own lives, it's not surprising that children will act out their nihilistic passions because they don't see any negative consequences for bad behavior.

A second major factor is Socialism.  This has grown particularly true with the growth and evolution of the welfare state since Clement Attlee's Labour Government just after World War II.  Although, there was a partial reversal of these statist polices during Margaret Thatcher's tenure, the growth of a cradle-to-grave entitlement system accelerated again during Tony Blair and Gordon Brown's premierships.  A distressingly large portion of  Britons expect the government to meet all of their material and even non-material needs and have lost their sense of self-discipline, initiative, personal responsibility, and the imperative of living a life where there is absolute right and wrong and consequences for behaving properly and improperly.

You also have the dangers of multiculturalism as well.  Many immigrants from all over the world have successfully assimilated into the mainstream of British society, but many haven't including some Blacks, Muslims, and a multiracial motley of sociopaths.  The British abolished the death penalty in the 1960s and during the Blair/Brown tenure, police became deathly afraid of being accused of racism as they went about their duties in high crime areas.  More police were assigned to do paperwork about their activities and promote diversity instead of actually being involved in their communities, patrolling the streets, and getting to know the people they serve and protect.  Efforts were made to excuse the evil hooliganism of lawless jerks as stemming from social alienation or some other nonsense, instead of dealing face to face with the intrinsic sinfulness of human behavior.  Britain needs to restore the death penalty, require perpetrators and their families to pay financial restitution to individuals and businesses injured, damaged, or even murdered by this rioting, prudently liberalize personal gun ownership laws, and give police whatever rules of engagement are necessary to crush these crimes including using live ammunition.  Hopefully, Home Secretary Theresa May will follow up on these suggestions with constructive long-term policies that enable Britons and others visiting this once magnificent country to feel safe on its city streets.  This is an excellent opportunity to cull the herd of mob elements who are disgracing Britain.

So far, British  Prime Minister David Cameron seems to be saying and doing the right things.  It will take months or years for this to be resolved.  A parliamentary debate is expected tomorrow and, hopefully, many of these subjects, including the ravages of  secularization, will receive serious attention.  The idea that individuals and nations can live without God should have been thoroughly debunked by the failed totalitarian fiascoes of the 20th century.  Sadly, it now seems 21st century democracies are seeing the chickens of secularism and moral relativism come home to roost.  My sympathies go out to the families and friends of those who have been murdered and who have had property damaged, stolen, or destroyed.  We should not feel that we are exempt from this unrest in America considering the economic problems we face and are yet to face and the growth of moral relativism in our own country.