I Can Do Anything I Want

The riots in London don't seem all that far away. I found the infantile selfishness expressed by the rioters to be eerily similar to what my young neighbor said to me when I asked for an end to the late night beer and bonfire parties: "This is my yard and I can do anything I want." Never mind that it's the landlord's yard, not his, and that I, as another tenant, have a right to quiet enjoyment of the premises. Thugs rule. Little old ladies have to run for cover.

Fr. Tim Finigan of The Hermeneutic of Continuity has some pointed words about the London riots:

If you are looking for an explanation of what is behind the "civil unrest" that seems to have taken everyone by surprise, here is an account from two girls in my childhood home, Croydon:

"Just showin the Police and the rich people we can do what we want" about sums it up, I think. "I can do what I want" is the net result of moral relativism applied by the ordinary teenager affected by original sin and educated in a system that undermines any real foundation of duty to God, country or neighbour.

Few people have noted the irony of the appeals by the Police to parents to "contact their children." For several decades our country has undermined marriage, the family, and the rights of parents. Agents of the state can teach your children how to have sex, give them condoms, put them on the pill, give them the morning-after pill if it doesn't work, and take them off for an abortion if that fails - and all without you having any say in the matter or necessarily even knowing about it. Now all of a sudden, we want parents to step in and tell their teenage children how to behave.