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They scare even their older brothers

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They scare even their older brothers."Age is an important factor. Children acting older than their years is a feature of the times. You see the same precocious distaste for authority; the same exposure to shallow knowledge before understanding in the most well-off, well-brought-up kids in France and Britain. In the inner city or the banlieue, this takes the form, not just of refusing to go to bed, but of knifing their enemies or friends.The police who questioned Soufiane's assailants in Grenoble said that the boys did not appear to understand what they had actually done. It all just seemed to them to be part of a children's game.indyparis compuserve . For too long in Britain attempts have been made to run down the virtue of tolerance to the point where some present it almost as a vice.

This trend began in reaction to Roy Jenkins' liberal reforms of the late Sixties against racial discrimination. For too long in Britain attempts have been made to run down the virtue of tolerance to the point where some present it almost as a vice. This trend began in reaction to Roy Jenkins' liberal reforms of the late Sixties against racial discrimination. Those reforms were controversial for many people whose sincere convictions I greatly respect, for whom abortion, for example, remains morally unacceptable. But the overriding motive for these reforms was respect for human dignity, combined with a fundamental belief in the virtue of tolerance.

To enable every person to live their own life in their own way, as long as they don't trespass on the rights of others.However, these reforms became associated with greater freedom in personal relationships which, in turn, became equated with family breakdown, community dysfunction and even the rise in crime. I recognise that the liberals and progressives of the day were at fault in not emphasising enough that with the greater freedom that tolerance allows must come greater responsibility: that to be tolerant is not to be accepting of parents who couldn't care less about their kids; that tolerance does not make the test of acceptable behaviour whether you can get away with it. Tolerance should not be confused with a doctrine of "anything goes".By the Eighties, to be liberal was to be seen as weak; to be tolerant was seen as wet Margaret Thatcher trumpeted her intolerance. And of many of the things of which she was famously intolerant, she was right to be The aggression of General Galtieri The behaviour of the Wapping mob The excesses of the ultra Left. She was right to criticise those woolly liberals not prepared to take a stand.But the failure to balance strength of character and political conviction with a visible display of tolerance and respect for others damaged the ethos of our society As a result, a macho strain of culture emerged. The lesser manifestations are road rage and increasing rudeness.

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