Pride And Joy

This was a child's bicycle, a pink, girl's bike.
The picture was taken on a Council Estate in West Leeds.
The bike has been destroyed, trampled into a buckled wreck.

Children are taught very soon that it is no use having a pride and joy, no use having property, no use liking things-in short, they are taught that it is no use.

The bastards doing the teaching probably suffer from urges.
They contain a psychological response that amounts to a deep-seated belief that it is 'no use'; and so they teach the lesson.

What causes this response?

Well, we've seen it before.
Remember Atlas Shrugged?
Remember Starnesville?
Remember the old man, the one who couldn't buy any records because his money went to pay for a child's dentistry?

Do you remember what he did?

If you remember, and are not some sort of 'Libertarian', the sort that looks everywhere for theoretical oppression based on ideas of theoretical coercion, then you will understand that Ayn Rand was not proseletysing or idly adding colour to a 'jolly good yarn'.

The photo shows what happens in a world where 'pride comes before a fall', and we are actually having the pride kicked out of us on a daily basis.
And where we exist on rations.