An important concept in chemical thermodynamics is an energy barrier. The higher the barrier the less likely it is that a reaction will occur on its own. This idea makes sense as it’s like a mountain. It’s easier to go over a low one than a very high one. The same is true in human interactions. One reason that people are not busy stealing and killing is that there generally is a moral barrier to cross to move into such behavior. We try to reinforce the same when we make laws that are supposed to act as deterrents if the internal controls fail.
Imagine two guys talking about robbing a bank while standing outside of it. Neither has the stomach to do the job as it entails potential physical risks as well as jail if caught. As they’re deliberating, an ATM starts flinging $100 bills like a geyser. The two scoop up as much as they can and then scamper off. As the money was not theirs it is bank robbing by another name.
I read of British Jews who visited a Greek restaurant. The place was filled with anti-Israel material on the walls. When one boy tried to take down a sticker, the owner called them baby killers and genociders. Remember, these are British subjects and not Israelis. No matter. They were thrown out to the cheering of the other diners.
In the past even if the owner had been Goebbels' nephew, he would have realized that expressing Jew hate would be bad for business. His personal feelings would be little different but the chance of a police encounter or a boycott would have made the barrier to openly hating a Jew too high. The Hamas pogrom took down the energy barriers throughout the world. Everywhere people can chide, threaten or attack Jews, and not just Israelis, with near impunity. Just as enzymes in our cells work by reducing big energy barriers and making reactions go faster, the murder of over 1,000 Jews opened the door to hatred not seen in decades.
My father had many non-Jewish German neighbors, and they all had neighborly relations. His father had served in German artillery in World War I, so no one could accuse them of not being German enough. He said that every Passover they would share matzah with the non-Jews who loved the stuff. My dad remembers that after the brown shirts blew up the Forchheim synagogue on Kristallnacht and with it the Bauer apartment on the top floors, neighbors went up the exposed stairs to take their belongings from the half-destroyed building. The same ones who could say good morning were the same ones walking off with their towels and other possessions that night.
In the U.S., the lowering of barriers to crime is all too obvious. I saw one large-scale shoplifting event at a Marshalls in Las Vegas. A Telegraph writer wanted to see how easy it was to spirit out goods without paying. He went to a Target store, took something of value and walked right out. He then came back in, gave them the item and apologized profusely for his stunt. If there was a moral imperative “Thou shall not steal!” then we would not have the industrial theft or smash-and-grab that causes stores to close or put cans of tuna fish behind glass. In place of internal moral controls, we could have armed security guards given the right to shoot to kill for the protection of property rights. But we today have the worst of all worlds: a society where religious guardrails are failing, laws and DAs favor the bad guys, police worried about losing their jobs, and security guards who have no backing beyond opening the door to help the thieves haul their sacks of stolen goods to the car. What Donald Trump and his people are doing is trying to reestablish the barriers to crime via National Guard deployments and increased prosecutions. Societies without functioning barriers cannot continue for very long. At some point, the local supermarket closes or the pharmacy puts bubble gum into a locked glass cabinet. Either outcome is a disaster and the local store having to put up the barriers on site implies that everything else has failed.
The destruction of Europe involves putting barriers in all the wrong places. In a moral world, the UK would have stopped the Pakistani rape gangs when they started. Instead, the police, social services and politicians were OK in removing the barriers to the sexual abuse of thousands of white British girls by mostly Muslim men. The British did not throw the barriers away. Rather, they applied them to their own population by making free speech and pro-British expression criminal. Dozens each day are questioned by police for memes or postings on various social media platforms. Putting up the old St. George’s British flag is considered to be a criminal act. Misplaced barriers are as dangerous as no barriers at all.
How did the U.K. and the rest of Europe bring about their own destruction via uncontrolled illegal immigration of Muslims who don’t like their new hosts? While the Allies definitely won World War II, they effectively lost their reason to exist. England, France, and the others lost their colonies which represented their power and ability to project importance. England went from the empire on which the sun never set to the modern U.K. that could be fit into the U.S. Midwest and never be seen again. The world order became a two-man race between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. As the latter collapsed, China rose to be the next superpower. The European countries existed but had as much importance in world affairs as Congo and Papua New Guinea. Yes, they were lovely places to visit with lots of history. I remember being in Whitehall and standing by a grave from the year 1,100. The United States was not even close to being on the drawing board when that grave was dug. But in international affairs, the Europeans have become the Lilliputians. Their countries lost purpose with socialist economic policies and declining religious observance. Frau Dr. Merkel letting in a million Muslim immigrants was supposed to be a brilliant move to shore up declining birth rates: let’s skip the diapers and bring them in at age 25 when they can work! But the newcomers expressed their disdain for their new homes and more lately have stated that they are biding their time and making babies in order to create a new Sharia state in a decade. The locals should fight back, and some do. But the politicians, courts, and “elite” favor the newcomers. In the past six months, I have read of foreigners found guilty of crimes who were not sent home for the following reasons: a child did not like the chicken nuggets of the other country, a woman to be deported was determined to be suffering from depression, an Iranian would be at risk of being attacked as a convicted criminal, while a Pakistani risked the same fate as as convicted rapist. All of them were left in England.
As many have noted, the locals voted for the politicians who have let the boats in and refused to show the ingrates out. Maybe some are aghast at how far their elected officials have gone to destroy their countries, but the leaders did not parachute into Whitehall or the Elysee Palace. If the Europeans cannot find enough reason to save their countries, their histories, their cultures, their religion, and their future, then there is nothing that the rest of us can do to help them. Unless the British and other Europeans can find leaders who will stop the boats cold and send millions back home, then the history of Europe can be buried next to that ancient grave I saw a long time ago in London.
