The worst enablers of all may be governments and their minions.
Enablers of the month:
British taxpayers, who provide an education costing $80,000, a guaranteed income, “free” medical care, “free” housing, “free” food and everything from cell phones to flat-screen TVs to those who, because they are “fed up with being broke,” riot—as if the needs of some bestow a right to the property that others took time, ingenuity and expertise to buy or produce.
Left-wing former mayor of London Ken Livingstone who, within hours of the start of the London riots, said the unrest was “the fault of the government,” citing a 9% cut in central government grants to Tottenham, where the rioting began. It’s odd, then, that the rioters didn’t mention this as they looted high-end luxury goods shops.
Possibly actor Gerard Depardieu’s traveling companion actor Edouard Baer, who claimed that Depardieu, despite peeing in the aisle before an Air France take-off, was “stoned-cold sober” and has prostate problems. I say “possibly,” because Depardieu was reportedly very apologetic and offered to clean up the mess, which resulted in a two-hour delay for the Air France flight. However, another passenger reported Depardieu as being “visibly drunk” and was reportedly quite loud and animated in announcing his need to go potty. Depardieu, 62, has a history of drunken antics, including a 2009 incident in which he smashed a car windshield with his bare fist and a 1990 conviction for DUI. Mr. Baer and Mr. Depardieu will have to confirm or disconfirm, but please don’t bother until a decade or two has passed: if you were drunk, Mr. Depardieu, it will take a period of sobriety to come clean.
The Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which has decreed that Section 8 tenants and other renters who are evicted because they committed domestic violence may sue for discrimination under the Fair Housing Act giving, as James Bovard wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece, “troublesome [read: alcoholic] tenants a federal trump card to play against landlords who seek to preserve the peace and protect other renters.” On a related note, the Indianapolis Housing Authority has linked 80% of criminal homicides in Marion County, Indiana to individuals fraudulently obtaining federal assistance “in either the public housing program or the Section 8 program administered by the agency.” It also noted one unnamed attorney who allegedly “operated a law practice from a Section 8 home for eight years, providing shelter to unauthorized occupants who were linked to 10 homicides, 431 police calls and 394 criminal arrests during that time period.”
Fairhaven, MA police for failing to charge Joseph Morra for drunk and disorderly conduct for behaviors occurring in the Seaport Inn and Marina parking lot. Instead, he was charged with assault and battery on a disabled person, intimidation of a witness, impersonating a police officer and malicious destruction of property valued at over $250 after having taken up two handicapped parking spaces without a handicapped placard or license plate. He was also charged with improperly displaying a badge to a parking-spot-obstructed, handicapped citizen who was trying to take pictures of the offending vehicle, uttering expletives and shoving the same victim. Morra slapped the cell phone from the victim’s hand as the victim tried to take pictures of Morra (destroying the cell phone) and, while officers were speaking with the victim, returned to the scene and yelled at them to get the victim off the property, using profane and derogatory language. A failure to zero in on the underlying cause of all of these behaviors won’t help Mr. Morra make a decision to ever get clean and sober, since it’s (obviously) the victim’s fault. Perhaps this failure has something to do with the fact that Mr. Morra is an elected member of the Fairhaven Planning Board and a constable appointed by the New Bedford City Council, but I merely hypothesize.