Jus Soli (Birthright Citizenship) and the riots

A reader writes:

I have a theory that may at least partially explain why its so much worse in France. France has birthright citizenship. In the other European countries, citizenship is far more sparingly granted. For example, I believe that almost all of the Turks in Germany are NOT German citizens. [This is called jus sanguinis or "right of blood, as opposed to France's jus soli or "right of soil" (i.e., birthplace).]

Why does birthright citizenship exacerbate social problems? A few possible reasons:

1. French rioters generally assume that they can't be deported. After all, they are citizens. In this respect they are correct. Given that the penalty for rioting is either nothing (only a tiny fraction are ever caught) or two months in jail, there is really very little downside. Of course, today Sarkozy announced that immigrant (not just illegal) rioters would be deported. However, only 120 of the 1800 or so arrested so far would appear to qualify for deportation. Indeed, this low percentage may demonstrate that only "French" youths immune from any possibility of serious punishment, are rioting.

2. The possession of French citizenship has probably given the rioters are vastly inflated sense of entitlement. They are told from childhood that they are equal citizens of France and therefore entitled to the French version of the La Dolce Vita. Of course, they lack the skills, work ethic, discipline, education, etc. to actually participate in middle-class French life. However, these minor points are easily overlooked by the chronically resentful. Perhaps if they weren't citizens their expectations would be lower and their sense of disappointment, resentment, hatred, and rage diminished. In more practical terms, perhaps they would be more willing to take the low-wage jobs that they are actually qualified for and which do exist in France. Many interviews with rioters have included mention of some dead-end job they quit because "they didn't like it".

My above points are far from flawless. Riots have occurred in Belgium and Denmark where I don't think the immigrants are citizens even after two or three generations. The counterpoint may be that rioters in these countries may have viewed themselves as immune from deportation (rightfully so, at least so far).

Conversely, the more stable immigrant communities in Germany may also reflect ethnic differences among immigrant groups. Turks predominate in Germany and are generally a more disciplined group. Not that Turks in Germany are without problems. (See this Der Spiegel article on honor killings of Turkish women who want to live like Germans.)

What does this mean for the U.S.? Obviously birthright citizenship is a dangerous policy. However, so is keeping non-citizens within one's borders who were actually born here. Birthright citizenship has to go along with any non-citizens (illegals) who happen to be born here.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

French vs. British:

A reader writes:

History's repeating itself in an interesting way here. Britain and France have historically approached their problems from opposite directions. France favored the theoretical and abstract, while Britain leaned towards the particular and the empirical. With Third World immigration you see the same thing. France has pushed the abstract, singular proposition nation, while Britain has favored a more empirical form of multicultural pandering. Yet unlike the past, where Britain's empiricism proved superior to France's theorizing, in this case both approaches have been spectacular failures. Both countries are dealing with riots and terrorism.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

Are the French rioters Islamists? A way to test

My vague impression is that the rioters in France are more hip-hop hoodlums than religiously fanatical Islamists. No doubt the global inflammation of Islam plays a sizable role, but one way to test this would be to see if non-Muslim black Africans are refraining from getting in on the fun of burning vehicles.

The methodological problem is that most of the black African countries that had been colonized by France were farther north than the British conquests and thus more heavily Muslim. But a few of the Francophone African countries are not very Muslim, such as Gabon, Central African Republic, Benin, and Togo. So, if men with roots in those countries are heavily represented among the rioters, then that would weigh against the Islamist theory. But if the non-Muslim blacks are sitting this one out, that would support the Islamist idea.

Of course, a middling position could easily be true: that for the rioters, Islam is more of an ethnic badge than a motivating force. In Northern Ireland, the IRA were Catholics and the "paras" were Protestants, but their differing opinions on the necessity for salvation of faith and good works versus faith alone didn't have a whole lot to do with why they were fighting. No, religious differences served, not as motivations, but to make the Catholics and Protestants into two in-breeding extended families.

Likewise, my impression of France is that the Muslims don't intermarry with non-Muslims, so they lack family feeling toward the other people in France.

Another approach would be to study why these riots have such a different flavor than American riots, like LA in 1992. American riots are typically bacchanalias. The first shops looted in LA were liquor stores, and as the crowd got drunker, it turned to murderous building arson and gunfire. (Of course, the heavy usage of crack, the devil's own drug, no doubt contributed to the wave of riots in the early 1990s. Today, inner city African-Americans smoke more marijuana and less crack, and are thus fatter and less on edge.)

In contrast, the French riots have a tone of calculated political street theatre. The rioters have done a good job of figuring out how far they can go without provoking the PC-whipped French government into getting serious about stopping the rioting: e.g., they've burned an incredible number of cars, but relatively few buildings, and deaths have been few. In LA, the riots ended on the fourth day when 4,000 federal troops arrived. About 10,000 people were arrested in a few days, far more than have been arrested in two weeks in France.

I haven't seen any reports of looting liquor stores, which might suggest these guys are better Muslims than we're being told.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

Wal-Mart's War on Christmas

It looks like VDARE.com's annual "War on Christmas" contest may have a contender already: that dominant institution in Red State America, Wal-Mart!

Go to www.WalMart.com and search on "Kwanzaa." You get:

77 items found for “kwanzaa”

Fair enough. Now, search Wal-Mart's site for "Christmas." You get:

We've brought you to our "Holiday " page based on your search.

I would presume this is just the work of some low level flunkies who didn't realize how obnoxious this is.

UPDATE: A reader writes on Friday, Nov. 11th:

Here’s what I got on a search for Christmas at Wal-Mart:

7967 items found for “christmas”

The world-changing might of www.iSteve.com demonstrated once again!

But there's more to the story.

The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights responded:

A woman who recently complained to Wal-Mart that the store was replacing “Merry Christmas” with “Happy Holidays” received an e-mail response from Customer Service. It appears below in its exact form:

“Walmart is a world wide organization and must remain conscious of this. The majority of the world still has different practices other than ‘christmas’ which is an ancient tradition that has its roots in Siberian shamanism. The colors associated with ‘christmas’ red and white are actually a representation of of the aminita mascera mushroom. Santa is also borrowed from the Caucuses, mistletoe from the Celts, yule log from the Goths, the time from the Visigoth and the tree from the worship of Baal. It is a wide wide world.”

To which Catholic League president Bill Donohue says: “This statement was signed by someone called Kirby. When I read it, I thought he might be drunk. But I was wrong. We sent Kirby’s response to Wal-Mart’s headquarters only to find that Dan Fogleman, Senior Manager, Public Relations, agrees. After acknowledging that he read Kirby’s response, Fogleman said, in part, the following”:

“As a retailer, we recognize some of our customers may be shopping for Chanukah or Kwanza gifts during this time of year and we certainly want these customers in our stores and to feel welcome, just as we do those buying for Christmas. As an employer, we recognize the significance of the Christmas holiday among our family of associates…and close our stores in observance, the only day during the year that we are closed.”

Wal-Mart sold $38 billion worth of stuff last December, so I don't think they really hate Christmas. Christmas has been berry berry good to them. Nonetheless, this fiasco shows a lot about our culture.

While you're in a Wal-Marty mood, you can download JibJab's new video "Oh Big Box Mart."

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

Nice work if you can get it

Reporter Judith Miller is finally let go by the New York Times:

The New York Times and Judith Miller, a veteran reporter for the paper, reached an agreement today that ends her 28-year career at the newspaper and caps more than two weeks of negotiations.

After a brief probationary period, NYT reporters have tenure, so to get dumped, they either have to make up their stories out of whole cloth like Jayson Blair, or help lie America into a war, like Judith Miller.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

The world's greatest living writer can't get published by NYC publishers!

It has been over four years since the first volume appeared in Russia of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's history of Russians and Jews, Two Hundred Years Together: 1795-1995, but the book remains unpublished in the United States. A translation of the first volume was published in France in February of 2002, and the second volume came out in French in September of 2003. Yet, apparently, no major publisher will bring out the book in the English-speaking world.

What's even more striking is that there has been virtually no mention of this extraordinary behavior by American publishers in the American press.

Isn't it time to change the National Anthem to delete that outdated reference to "the land of the free and the home of the brave?"

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

August 25, 1944

A reader provides his translation of a speech by General Charles De Gaulle:

"Paris! Paris outraged! Paris burnt! Paris martyred! But Paris LIBERATED! Liberated by itself! By its people with the help of the armies of France, with the support and help of the whole of France, of the France that fights, the only France, the real France, eternal France!

"And now, since the enemy which held Paris has capitulated to us, France returns to Paris, where she is at home. She returns to it bloodied, but quite resolute. She enters there, enlightened by the great lesson, but more certain than ever of her duties and her rights."

Of course, there's no mention of any help from America or Perfidious Albion ... but, still, what a speech and what a man. We, by contrast, live in an age of political pygmies.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

The last French artist

Kevin Michael Grace reviews the life and work of depressive reactionary Michel Houellebecq (pronounced Well-beck), the last French writer anybody cares about.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

Paris!

From my review of Charles Murray's Human Accomplishment in The American Conservative:

French postmodernists will sneer at the very concept of objectively measuring greatness, but their brittle amour propre will be secretly salved by hearing that the most important city in Murray’s lists, by far, is Paris. It was the workplace for 12 percent of the 4,002 significant scientists and artists [in Murray's database of eminent individuals over the last 2,800 years].

I believe London was in second place, way back with 4%.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

French Funk

The French student and worker strikes of May 1968 reached such a frenzy that on May 29, 1968 an old and depressed President De Gaulle, fearing all was lost, fled by helicopter to West Germany to take refuge with French troops under the command of his redoubtable protégé, General Jacques Massu, who, during a long career, had wiped out the terror bombing organization in the famous Battle of Algiers in 1957 by use of torture (which he first tried on himself).

Massu convinced De Gaulle to buck up and return to France, and Prime Minister Georges Pompidou persuaded him that the New Left-Old Left alliance could be broken by granting 35% pay raises to the workers, leaving the faddish student revolt to wither. De Gaulle called new elections and won a huge majority. French democracy (or whatever you want to call what they have) was saved.

De Gaulle was one of the great patriots of the 20th Century, but even great men can crack. When you do, it's good to have friends like Massu and Pompidou.

Although the challenge from street punks today is far less than in 1968, I also doubt that the current French government has men of the same caliber.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

The most boring newsmagazine cover ... ever.

Newsweek's cover article is entitled "Ready or Not, Boomers Turn 60," with a photocollage of a lot of sexagenerian celebrities that's a tribute to plastic surgery and good genes. Is there no end to the self-absorption of the early Baby Boomers? As a late Baby Boomer, I've spent my entire life listening to the early Baby Boomers rattle on about their wonderfulness.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

Why Jerry Kilgore lost the Virginia governor's race

Although Bush won 54% of the vote in Virginia last year, Republican Jerry Kilgore lost the gubernatorial contest yesterday. A reader writes about Kilgore, who has a wife and kids:

Kilgore had the same problem Al Gore had in 2000: On TV, his voice and mannerisms scream "gay."

People can deny or dodge it, but the fact is that Kilgore is untelegenic -- especially compared to Democratic rival Tim Kaine, who has the look and manner of a local-news sportscaster.

And a big part of Kilgore's problem is his "prissy" voice. I tried to get people to notice this during the 2000 presidential debates. Lots of people noted that Gore came across as a bit of a "teacher's pet" -- smug, know-it-all.

But few bothered to notice what I noticed: Gore has a slight but distinct lisp in his voice which suggests effeminacy, if not homosexuality, in the public mind. In our newsroom during the first Gore-Bush debate, I could *hear* the TV but not see it. And as I listened, Gore's lisp was startlingly clear -- sounding especially "gay" in comparison to Bush's down-home Texas drawl.

Al Gore has a lissssssp rather than a lithp -- a hissy sound when he pronounces the letter "S." Al's not gay, but a large fraction of the men with this speech defect are. It's the bane of gay men's choir directors across the country.

Ace comedian Harry Shearer, who provides the voices for such "Simpsons" characters as the evil billionaire Mr. Burns and his devoted male secretary Smithers, emailed me a precise description of Gore's speaking style. "It's not a lisp--as in "lithp." Rather, it's a sibilant problem, in which the sibilants are pronounced in a thinner, more 'hissy' fashion than is normal among American males."

More at http://www.isteve.com/2000_Does_Al_Gore_Lisp.htm

During the Va. gubernatorial debate this year, the same phenomenon repeated itself. A co-worker was watching the Kilgore-Kaine debate on a TV that I couldn't see. But as I caught the voices, the high-pitched "Southern belle" voice of Kilgore really rang through. All that was missing was a few "fiddle-de-dees," and Kilgore could have been playing Scarlett O'Hara in a drag production of "Gone With the Wind." I walked over to the TV and inquired who was who in the debate. When informed that the sissy-sounding candidate was Kilgore, the Republican, I said to my friend, a staunch Republican who lives in Virginia: "Y'all are in a heap of trouble."

Welcome to the television age, GOP. You cannot -- CANNOT -- win elections with candidates whose TV personas don't click with voters. George W. Bush won two elections because, compared to the prissy Gore and the snobbish Kerry, Bush seemed liked a "regular Joe" -- maybe not an intellectual, but a decent, ordinary guy with common sense, and not stuck-up at all. Kilgore might be a wonderful, decent, conservative person. But on TV, he was a cross between Gomer Pyle and Truman Capote.

Have you ever seen "Gomer Pyle" since you were a kid? I watched it all the time when I was about 8, but I didn't seen an episode again until I was 35. Boy, there's a lot you don't pick up on when you're 8! With Jim Nabors, there was definitely no need to ask or tell.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

The death of meritocracy

For a couple of decades, the standard neocon response to immigration, clearly seen for example in a derivative thinker like Tamar Jacoby, is that mass immigration would be all hunky-dory if it weren't for those evil leftist intellectuals who seduce innocent immigrants into identity politics.

Now, the amusing paradox is that nobody believes in the neocon prescription for treating immigrants more than the the French. They hate identity politics, affirmative action, multiculturalism, and all the rest almost as much as the neocons hate the French.

Well, it turns out that you can follow all the neocon rules and still have immigrant groups rioting in the streets. The truth is that the quantity and quality of the immigrants matter more than the details of how you treat them.

Of course, the French won't be allowed to think about effective solutions for their problem. What all the bright boys are telling them, including some of the neocons, is that they need to impose affirmative action quotas on themselves. And Sarkozy is all for it.

So, what happened? Well, the ethnic groups that are supplying the rioters have much lower average IQs than the French average. When you get growing groups with different average IQs in the same country, you will eventually have overwhelming demands for affirmative action. That is a lot of politics.

If you don't want to have affirmative action, then don't have ethnic diversity of average IQ. That's the only solution.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

Something's fishy in France?

Street theatre and political theatre, working together?

Nur al-Cubicle translates a Le Monde story:

On the streets with the rioters and their rage

Sunday 6 November: 8:00 pm. Abdel, Bilal, Youssef, Osman, Nadir and Laurent meet up outside the 10-story structure of Building 112 in Aubervilliers (Seine-Saint-Denis). When Rashid, dressed in an oversized down jacket, comes along, he lights a cigarette and sets fire to the building’s garbage collection station. That’s too bad but we have no choice, blurts Nadir. For the last 10 days this scene has been repeating itself daily. This small gang from the “projects” of Hélène-Cochennec Street, which house more than a thousand tenants, wants to “f*** s*** up.” ...

If we ever get organized someday, we’ll have grenades, explosives, Kalashnikovs…We’ll meet outside the Bastille and it’ll be war, they threaten. Neither kadi nor Islamist seems to dictate their behavior or manipulate them. But for now, the gang from Building 112 acts only in the neighborhood: the “organization” seems to be more of an improvised happy hour than a warrior undertaking. Everyone brings some stuff along, explains Abdel.

We have more revolution inside us than hate, announced Yussef, the eldest member of the gang. At age 25, he says he’s calmed down since getting engaged. Nonetheless, he feels “rage”. His hatred is mostly directed at Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy and his bellicose language. Since he thinks were scum, we’re going to clean his racist clock down at the pressure car wash. Words hurt more than punches. Sarko must resign. Until he apologizes, the violence will continue.

Adding to the “rage” is the tear gas canister launched at the Clichy-sous-Bois Mosque a week ago. That was blasphemy, says Yussuf. A judicial investigation will determine if the tear gas grenade was fired from inside the mosque or next to the entrance. All these young men have too much pent-up rancor to listen to appeals for calm. When a dog is backed against a wall, it becomes aggressive. We are not dogs but we’re responding as if we were animals, affirms Osman.

17 year-old Laurent, the youngest of the lot, claims he torched a Peugeot 607 just a stone’s throw from here two hours ago. Nothing could be easier. All you need is to fill a bottle with gasoline, stuff in a rag as a fuse, break a window then toss in the Molotov cocktail...

But why are they burning neighborhood cars? We have no choice. We are ready to lose everything because we have nothing, Bilal justifies.... You know, when you brandish a Motolov cocktail, you hear people shouting for help. There are hardly words to express how you feel. You “speak” by torching something.

There’s no unknown recipe in their incendiary quest. Their most worthy handiwork is acid bombs you can buy at Franprix and stuff with aluminum foil, usually done by 13 year old kids. If you’re 13 and all you feel is revolt, then that’s a big problem, explains Abdel, who hopes that he’ll never have rage-filled kids.

At 8:15 pm, you hear the firetruck sirens. Here come the cops…Let’s get out of here, orders Yussuf and the gang disappears into the vestibule. The building’s elevator only stops at two floors: the 4th and the 9th.

Up on the 4th floor, they think they are safe from police patrols. Bilal, 21, knows something about that: Today I was searched twice. Les flics threw me down on the sidewalk and shoved a Flash Ball [a double-barreled plastic pistol that uses rubber bullets]. They don’t understand why the government spends millions of euros to equip the police and won't give us a dime to open a youth establishment.

Yussef and the gang aren’t chumps. They know very well that the violence which they unleash will be met with a backlash. We’re not punks, we’re rioters, they say defensively. We’re calling everyone together, to spread our revolt, they say. And they complain about their wretched lives. Every member of the gang is jobless and unemployment subsidies are running out, deplores Nadir, 24. Just like the others, he stopped going to school at age 16, after failing his electromechanical exam. Since they, he has worked only small-time janitorial jobs and stacking pallets. What other job could we do? he shrugs. Out of the 100 resumés I mailed out, I only got three interviews. Even if I show them I’m earnest, they reject me, he says bitterly. For this bunch, school was never much use. That’s why we are burning them down, interjects Bilal.

Did Nicolas Sarkozy’s provocative comments represent the occasion they were waiting for? Did they feel they were entitled to release their bottled-up rage? We are drowning and instead of throwing us a life preserver, they’re pushing our heads under water. We need help!, they insist. These youths say they are without resources, misunderstood, victims of racial discrimination, condemned to live in the dirty projects and rejected. They are not shy about hiding their satisfaction and pride as the rioting spread throughout the country. There is no competition among the cities. It’s all pure solidarity.

9:00 pm. The gang goes back outside, at the end of the fence. The firemen have put out the fire in the garbage collection station. Yussef and his homies ask the question : What are we waiting for to burn something else?

Yves Bordenave and Mustapha Kessous
LE MONDE | 07.11.05 | 16h27

Does this whole picture strike you as phony, as more street theatre than anything else? They're burning cars, not buildings, which makes for spectacular TV, but doesn't wreck their neighborhoods the way black rioters in America stupidly destroyed the commercial streets in their own neighborhoods in their riots.

These punks -- half illiterate Franz Fanons, half scrawny Fiddy Cents -- would run and hide under their mamas' beds at the first whiff of grapeshot. Even if the main French Army is rotten (which I doubt), these men would put the fear of Allah, Jehovah, Thor, and Zeus into these punks.

That the French government has let this rioting go on for almost two weeks -- on this, the 12th night, Prime Minister Villepin announced his big decision: he's going to let local mayors declare curfews, but only if they want to! -- suggests that powerful elements within the French government want this anarchy to happen for reasons of their own.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

Welcome to the Schmuck

Brendan Miniter, Wall Street Journal op-edster denounces the new movie "Jarhead" in a piece entitled:

"Disillusioned warriors bomb at the box office.

Great headline, except that, according to BoxOfficeMojo.com:

"Jarhead" enlisted $27.7 million at 2,411 locations, storming past industry expectations. Universal Pictures' $72 million military drama was in a similar range as "Black Hawk Down's" $28.6 million nationwide berth and was considerably stronger than "Three Kings" and "Courage Under Fire," two pictures that also dealt with Operation Desert Storm. "Yippee!," said Universal's head of distribution, Nikki Rocco. "That's my word. I think the entire industry had [the movie] in the high teens."

That's a solid $11,500 per-theatre opening weekend gross for a movie aimed at a literate audience. I guess, when you are a WSJ op-edster, you don't have to know anything about the business aspects of what you're opining about.

An excerpt from my upcoming American Conservative (subscribe here) review of "Jarhead:"

War movies have been getting more stomach-churning over the decades, but that hasn't hurt recruiting. The more gore on the screen, the more boys want to prove they're man enough to take it. Although Marines have been dying in Iraq at a disproportionate rate, the manliest of all the services still hit its enlistment quota for fiscal year 2005, while the more feminized Army has struggled.

Former Marine lance corporal Anthony Swofford writes in "Jarhead," his somewhat embroidered Desert Storm memoir about his love-hate relationships with war and his fellow warriors, "Vietnam war films are all pro-war, not matter what the supposed message, what Kubrick or Coppola or Stone intended."

Indeed, when "Apocalypse Now" was finally released in 1979 after years of hype about how it would be the ultimate antiwar movie, I noticed that all the most macho ROTC guys at my college were humming Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries. Likewise, in this slow but often hilarious adaptation of Swofford's book, a theatre full of Marines lustily sings along as Francis Ford Coppola's helicopters rain down death from above. Young soldiers, Swofford notes, are excited by war movies "because the magic brutality of the films celebrates the terrible and despicable beauty of their fighting skills."

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

Adoption: New study, old results

From the Sunday Times of London:

Good genes beat good homes as guide to pupils’ school success
by David Smith and Abul Taher

NATURE not nurture is the main determinant of how well children perform at school and university, according to a study to be published this week. The researchers came to their conclusion by comparing how well adopted children did at school when they were brought up alongside parents’ biological children. The relative effects of genes and the home environment were then separated out.

Previous studies have suggested that the home environment, and in particular the level of family income, is the most important determinant of educational attainment.

But the new study, to be published in the Royal Economic Society’s Economic Journal, will argue that while income and home environment account for about 25% of educational attainment, inherited intelligence is responsible for the rest.

Doubling a family’s income would have only a small effect on educational performance, say the researchers, who examined more than 15,000 children, 574 of them adopted...

The study, Does Family Income Matter for Schooling Outcomes? by Wim Vijverberg, professor of economics at Texas University, and Erik Plug, an economics researcher at Amsterdam University, concludes that previous studies suggesting a strong link between family income and educational performance were flawed.

“Children of higher income parents probably do well in school because they inherit superior genes, not because they can afford to buy their children a better education,” said Vijverberg.

Adoption experts said the research failed to take into consideration other factors. Jonathan Pearce, director of Adoption UK, said: “A lot of adopted children have faced previous trauma or abuse.”

The quality, as well as quantity, of children available for adoption has fallen since the legalization of abortion.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

Help me out here

I think understand American and British riots fairly well, but I'm not sure I know what's going on in France. Essentially, what happens here is that people notice that the cops have lost control of an area, so they can get free stuff (or as Robin Williams derisively called it during the LA riots in 1992, "political shopping.") For example, when my wife was a little girl, on the day after Martin Luther King was assassinated, she looked out of her house window on the West Side of Chicago and noticed that neighbors were walking down the street holding new televisions. "Look, mom, free TVs! Let's get some!" Her mom locked her in her room.

Similarly, during the 1992 Michael Jordan victory riots in Chicago following the Bulls' NBA championship, a mob of white yuppies looted the best book store in Chicago, Stuart Brent's on Michigan Ave. (where I used to see Saul Bellow browsing), of coffee table art books.

The gigantic Rodney King riots earlier that year in LA got started when thugs broke into liquor stores at Florence and Normandie. The LAPD, having been dragged across the coals for a year over excessive use of force in subduing that philosopher, said, in effect, "Forget it, we're not going to bother, let the public see who the real bad guys are," and let the drink-soaked mob run amok.

So, are the riots in France primarily driven by looting? Or are they more of an intifada intended to intimidate the government into handing out expensive concessions? Or just tough guys showing off? Or what?

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

Did you know that the U.S. Constitution authorizes privateering?

Across Difficult Country suggests that Congress respond to the Somali pirate attack on a cruise ship by utilizing its Constitutionally-assigned power to "grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water" to authorize private ships to hunt down the pirates:

" Not only would this be an efficient solution to the piracy problem, it would also be all kinds of fun."

UPDATES: A reader responds:

I am not an expert on international law, but I think privateering was outlawed by an international treaty in the 1850s. I think a privateer now has the legal status of a pirate.

Those international busybodies, taking away all our innocent pleasures...

Mr. Across Difficult Country replies:

According to Wikipedia though European countries outlawed letters of marque via the 1865 Treaty of Paris, the US never signed the treaty.

We have been adhering to that treaty, even though we didn't sign it. But, hey, we've recently tossed out international law technicalities like not invading sovereign countries, so why not privateering?

Some senator should ask Judge Alito during his hearings about Letters of Marqe. It's definitely part of the Original Intent of the Constitution. And it would be more fun than dancing around Roe v. Wade for days.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer