In the news

Back in the Old Land, English kids are being unjustly smeared. A lot of kids in England are savage and feral, but apparently this is being overly generalised and some people are unfairly assuming all kids in England are savage and feral, which is grossly unfair to those who aren't (the majority of kids weren't savage and feral when I was young, I'm pretty sure).

The comments descend into discussion of spanking, with some rather dumb stuff being said - I understand the idea that corporal punishment is bad and wrong and unnecessary (not sure how much I agree with it), but to equate all corporal punishment to child abuse, to tell people their parents were child-abusers if they ever spanked them, or to tell people who intend to use corporal punishment on their own children if necessary that they'd be better off dead, is obnoxious and worthless behaviour. I wonder if all internet debate on spanking children gets that low. I guess internet debate ain't famous for clarity and intelligence for a reason.

Best comment: "there's no better way to prove you're not a pedophile (very important in England) than by yelling at children and otherwise treating them like worthless scum."

I got there by reading this story about my home city, which BoingBoing states has "declared war" on children. The article, or at least the title, is slightly misleading: it turns out that Nottingham cops have not, in fact, declared war on children, but have merely taken the precaution of using metal detectors on anyone of age 13-24 to reduce the level of gun crime, and keeping drug-sniffer dogs around to cut down on the drug trade. If this is "war" then the word has been defined down quite significantly; I look forward to further BoingBoing articles about how every airport security check in the world exists in a state of open war with international passengers and how casualty rates from this terrible conflict are doubling daily.

I seem to remember Theodore Dalrymple writing once about how the British had totally lost the slightest idea how to deal with their offspring; I guess this counts as evidence. I see the necessity and don't doubt this "war" will save many lives, but it's not the mark of a healthy society to need metal detectors at bus stops.

Also an article on how the EU superstate is dead because Germany won't bail out Greece. Not sure how to evaluate that, I don't know enough about economics or EU politics. It sticks in my mind mostly for the comments section containing the most absurd Godwin-bait I've seen in recent times:

But just don't have any fiscal problems or you will be kicked where it hurts the most by being relegated as " Fiscal Untermenchen" by ssshh ! you know who..! By the way someone should really let Angela Merkel know that the world has moved on and that it's the 21st century and not 1939.

I guess people have been taking the name of Hitler in vain since a long while, but it's still annoying and harmful. "Fascist" and "Nazi" have long been defined down from their original meanings to "anyone who dares to be more right-wing than the kind of person who likes calling people 'Fascist' for disagreeing with them"; unsurprisingly, this then leads to people who call themselves 'Fascist', not because they like Mussolini, but to signal that they're the kind of person who annoys the kind of person who likes calling other people 'Fascist' for disagreeing with them. Give it another thirty years and there will be large chunks of Western civilisation where calling yourself 'Fascist' simply will not raise an eyebrow thanks to all of this. When that day comes it probably won't be long before actual Fascists make a comeback. At which point, of course, none of the people who laboured so hard to deprive the word 'Fascist' of any actual meaning will take the slightest responsibility, certainly not the pseudonymous 'john stewart' who thinks that the essence of Fascism is refusal to pay other people's debts for them (presumably Mr. stewart thinks the Holocaust was the logical consequence of Germany not wanting to pay someone else's restaurant bill back in '37 or something).

Today has been a day for getting annoyed about random stupid comments on the internet, I guess.

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Talking of Germany: they have some pretty hardcore old people. Note the "dozens of police commandos" needed to deal with a handful of pensioners.