The new Luddites threaten prosperity

"We Day"

In Vancouver yesterday:

... Some 18,000 students ...[at]Vancouver’s Rogers Arena Thursday.

... "we are building a school in Haiti...” said Jacob Gebrewold, ... one of those youth, ... 15, a Grade 11 student at Port Moody secondary. Gebrewold, who was attending his second We Day...
“... my parents are from Ethiopia and there’s a huge Ethiopian community here in British Columbia,” he said. And they’ve raised me and inspired me to believe in the fact that I am as big a part of the change as any senator, any lawyer, any president.

... a range of speakers and entertainers from former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to NBA all-star Shaquille O’Neal, actress and activist Mia Farrow, the band Hedley, former child soldier Michel Chikwanine and others. [What?! GW Bush wasn't invited!]

Well it’s nice to see that kids are being encouraged to help the less fortunate. But that comes off as “the biggest part of ‘We’ is 'Me'" - exactly what we might expect from the narcissistic self-esteem generation. Young Jacob doesn’t seem to get that “senators”, “lawyers” and “presidents” may have done something to earn their status and positions of influence. Participating in “We” fests may be a start in that direction but no more than a start.

It would be more encouraging if we had some confidence that these students were getting a good grounding in the knowledge and skills needed for them to understand the real world and how it is that they came to be in such a privileged position, to be able to afford to help with “building a school in Haiti”. However, I expect they’re getting more “social justice” indoctrination - in the evils of racist, white, Western colonialism and capitalism - than anything.  Look for them to be participating in tomorrow's "Occupy Vancouver" day.

Mark Steyn audio interviews

Robert Ringer, Adam Tragone, Armstrong and Getty and Bill LuMaye.

Steyn on the riots and the debt downgrade

It's all in his just released book, "After America":

... Anyone who's read it will fully understand what's happening on the streets of London. The downgrade and the riots are part of the same story: Big Government debauches not only a nation's finances but its human capital, too....

... Anyone who has so much as glanced at British policing policy over the past two decades would be hard pressed to argue which party on the streets of London, the thugs or the cops, is more irredeemably stupid....

... As I write in my book: "Want has been all but abolished. Today, fewer and fewer Britons want to work, want to marry, want to raise children, want to lead a life of any purpose or dignity."

... "The evil of such a system is not the waste of money but the waste of people."

Update: Radio interview with Mark.