Intellectuals despise this theory because it is obviously true

From Second Opinion by Theodore Dalrymple, The Spectator, 27 April, 2002.

The Americans have a theory that to allow small crimes to go unremarked and unpunished is to invite bigger crimes. Needless to say, Britons of intellectual disposition despise this theory: first, because it is American; second, because it does not address the root of all crime — that is to say, the injustice of our present social and economic arrangements; and, third, because it is obviously true.