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 doesn’t work – 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.
I heard something similar from another teenager involved in the riots on a NewsTalkZB news item at 2pm, along the lines of: "You disrespect us, we disrespect you. You need to show us respect." This is also a lack of respect for authority, authority of any type. Parental authority is the first authority that children come into contact with and if that is undermined, then there will be no respect for any authority whatsoever.
Related link: A shout to my friends from London ~ WDTPRS