Some of us here at The Heartland Institute have been corresponding about the riots in London and what it might mean for the U.S. Sam Karnick, Heartland’s research director, has written a very thoughtful piece with Mike D’Virgilio on this subject at The American Culture.
Sam, who lives and works in Indiana, will be in Chicago on Sunday to be a guest on the legendary Milt Rosenberg’s “Extension 720” program, on WGN radio, from 10:00 to midnight. Go here to listen live. We’ll also have an MP3 of Sam’s appearance up on this blog later next week.
Meantime, here’s an excerpt of Sam and Mike’s excellent essay. You might want to head over to the comments and join the conversation.
… one might wonder whether there might just be a correlation between people being given something for nothing and their decision to do nothing and expect something. Even a cursory analysis of human nature as manifested over the last 5,000 years will tell you how predictable such “disillusionment” should be. Yet modern liberals always seem surprised when human beings behave in ways that any reasonable person would expect them to.
Of course, the modern liberal doesn’t anticipate such behavior among the underclasses (they predict it only among Southern U.S. whites, which hasn’t happened in decades, we are happy to report), because the only thing that’s wrong with the poor is that they have less money than they should have. The modern liberal’s understanding of human nature—insofar as they are willing to accept that there is such a thing—is clouded by their ideology, their desperate belief that the state, via wealth redistribution, can create social equality and individual happiness.
Read the rest here.