faterik, I hadn’t read these when I penned my response to Allan last night, in which I took exception to Mr. Hastings’ dogged insistence on aiming his spotlight of blame on the U.K’s “welfare class”. I stated that, while I realized that Mr. Hastings was discussing the youth of England, with whom I am not on first-name basis, I am familiar with the qualities of American youth, and while they are scarily similar to those mentioned by Mr. Hastings, they are not limited to the youth of our “welfare class”, but fairly evenly distributed across all socioeconomic classes and cultural situations.
I’m not sure of your reason for including these additional articles, but I sincerely hope that it was not to support the points made by Max Hastings. Despite his propensity to focus solely on youthful members of a single socioeconomic segment of society, he did attempt to delve a bit deeper into the subject matter, while refraining from seriously over-the-top stereotyping, than the title of the piece would have us believe.
The same cannot be said for the articles by Melanie Phillips and Ann Coulter. I fail to see how anyone of reasonable intellect can take the missives of these two “writers” seriously. Ms. Coulter’s pieces are so badly written and poorly supported that, every time I manage to read one, it seems that the author has inserted a subliminal message that is screaming, “This is a fake, just like all the ones that came before, and I’m just waiting for one of you idiots to call me on it so that I’ll be forced out of journalism, thereby permitting my fulltime indulgence in bulimia and my black leather fetish.”
Likewise, Ms. Phillips performs an admirable job of tying up the reasons and blame for the rioting in one neat little package of anger and irrationality. Indeed, I confess to being intrigued by the titles of many of her other columns, the links to which conveniently placed close by. Reading one after the other was like consuming a box of cheap chocolates: the outside appearance of the first lures you into its consumption, but the lack of quality ingredients leaves you feeling unsatisfied and a little queasy, and by the time you’ve eaten several, you come to the realization that they all taste the same, and that you’re sick because you’ve consumed way too much crap.
Like Ms. Coulter’s, Ms. Phillips’ “message” is composed of the same incredibly simplistic stereotypes and catch-phrases, and unfettered by anything resembling academic research or empirical evidence. Like Ms. Coulter, she delivers that same message in a violent and hurtful fashion that leaves permanent damage. Like Ms. Coulter, she is noncontrite and unapologetic, unyielding in her insistence that she is right, and defiant in her belief that she is relevant. Unfortunately, Ms. Phillips’ and Ms. Coulter’s editors, and those of other media outlets appear only too willing to reinforce those beliefs. In the process of giving these bitter, deluded women, who are completely devoid of writing talent and incapable of critical thought, an enormous platform from which they are able to continue the dissemination of their vitriolic prose.
