Paris, Sydney, Where Next?

Riots are erupting around a Sydney Australia beach.

The initial spark is reported to be a gang of Lebanese youth who assaulted lifeguards and started to harass the beachgoers. Apparently one of the lifeguards was beaten into unconsciousness.

Well then a gang of Australian youths decided to take matters into their own hands and went to the beach and anyone with Middle Eastern appearance was beaten. Well the Lebanese youths did not let things sit at that and have likewise changed up and smashed cars, there is one report of a stabbing, and other beatings.

Tim Blair has an excellent summary of what is going on. Tim has a Aussie reaction roundup and the cliche of chickens coming home to roost figures large in some of those reactions.

Wretchard at the Belmont Club comes back to an idea of his.

I've been warning about this for some time now, both with respect to the torture debate and in an old post called the Three Conjectures. Like most people in Oz, I have Muslim or Middle Eastern friends and the way I got it figured is if we don't start cracking down on the Osamas and the Zawahiris and the al-Arians because they are draped in this bogus human rights shield, then the Joe Samadis and the Bill Mansours of the world are gonna start catching it. What's the use of being innocent if the guilty go scot free? One day if a nuke goes off in Sydney or Manhattan all the bets are off.

Source: The Belmont Club - Breaking: Violence breaks out again in Cronulla

Wretchard is right to fear. Our societal bodies are becoming less and less able to grasp what justice is and the result is people then become more and more willing to enact justice on their own.