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spunwicked
There were so many police in London last night so not much happened there. I guess it will be similar today. I dont know about policing in other cities though.
London and England riots
- Thread starter Alex.
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There were so many police in London last night so not much happened there. I guess it will be similar today. I dont know about policing in other cities though.
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I highly suspect many of the rioters don't bother to vote, which in my view immediately denies them the right to complain about our political system. Many, many people have died throughout history in order to give us the right to vote, so if you don't exercise that right, you are denied the right to complain about how things should be different.
I've lived in or near some pretty grim areas before. Twice within a hundred yards of a Salvation Army centre in different cities, and once on a street that regularly saw people arrested for violence, drug dealing etc.
However, I also live in the UK where education is free and available to all. Again, that says to me that there's no excuse for illiteracy because from four years old you're offered the opportunity to learn to read and write. If people don't take that opportunity then again, that becomes their problem.
I can't see what further responsibility a government has to ensure it has a literate population than offering free education and having police forces stop truancy. It then becomes down to the individual to make use of that free education and if they don't, that's a failing with themselves and the culture in which they live, rather than our political system.
There's an element of peer pressure and it's a pity that there are thousands out there whose bright future is being stifled by a culture that looks down on becoming educated and successful and looks down on the "geek" at school who actually gets good grades, marking them as an outsider in their own culture, and a culture that feels that society should do more for it because they're owed it rather than working to deserve it.
It probably is an Anglo Saxon view point but then it's also a very black and white, logical and rational view point. Everybody in the UK is given a chance to gain an education which significantly improves your lot in life. Anyone consciously refusing to make use of that chance doesn't deserve the right to complain that they were never given it in the first place.
A community is just a collection of individuals. The more bad individuals you have, the more it negatively affects the community. If people are being put in a situation they can't handle then themselves and their peers aren't doing enough to improve their collective lot.
This annoys me - not that you've said it in particular and I don't mean to snap at you for it, but that people believe this to be the case.
Education: It's free in this country. To all. No exceptions, and a lot of teachers work in appalling conditions in terrible areas to offer everyone the chance to learn something.
Protection against debts: Why, exactly? Why should it be up to the government to prevent idiots spending beyond their means? Perhaps there should be more legislation to prevent these short-term cash companies trading as their business models virtually verge on theft, but it's another pretty simple element of living in a society: Can't afford something? Don't frickin' buy it and certainly don't take out huge loans that you can't afford to pay off. That includes having kids. It's bloody expensive and if you've not got a stable home and stable job, it's hugely irresponsible to bring them into the world, not just for impacting on your own life but also for dropping them into a situation that will just continue to escalate.
Help: We have free healthcare. Hell, free healthcare is worse for the middle and upper classes than it is for the underprivileged, because someone without a job doesn't have to pay for it and people who work their arses off do. And if you become a junkie, your methadone is paid for on the NHS too by hard working taxpayers. Even our legal system is more likely to offer you community service ("reform") than it is to chuck you into prison if you beat up an old lady, so I'm really unsure how people could get more help.
Entertainment: Guess what? You get what you pay for. If you're offered the education and help, you don't live beyond your means and get a good job, then you're then entitled to spend your hard-earned on stuff to entertain you. You've probably seen this before:
I'm aware it's very simplistic and other motivational theorists have come up with deeper systems, but it illustrates a point. Everyone in the UK is offered basic physiological needs - with access to food, shelter etc we're already a step above people starving in remote African villages. The failing comes from people trying to skip the second level: safety needs, such as financial reserves, job security, knowing that your house won't be burned down by rioters etc, for things like accomplishment and recognition from a few stages up. Until you sort the basics of your life out, entertainment shouldn't be a priority.
***
What really irritates me is that none of this rioting is anything to do with the above anyway, and that 90% of it is simply scumbags kicking off because they've been given a window of opportunity. And essentially, everything I've typed up there is irrelevant. Claiming they want to be more involved in our country is load of tosh - they simply want a bigger slice of the pie that other people have worked hard to bake.
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- dunkrez
- spunwicked
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spunwicked
Who knows whats going on inside the minds of the rioters. I guess they'll get bored after a while and they will run out of things to loot/burn down.
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I think it will die down as the novelty wears off, and when the reality sets in for many who find themselves or their friends/family either in jail or with some other form of punishment.
The attitude for many rioters seems to be that they have nothing to lose, so they might as well have a laugh... the reality is that they still have plenty to lose e.g. their freedom and their future. Perhaps this is the saddest fact of all - that so many young people involved in these riots don't appreciate what they have and are prepared to throw it away for a couple of nights of 'fun' and a few free things, be it a bag of basmati rice, or some empty games boxes from an Oxfam shop.
dhandeh
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Keef
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One more from me. The only thing that he left out is that, while you indeed must deal with the do-badders immediately, you must also make the extremely difficult decisions needed to reverse the societal trends that have led to public attitudes such as these. What you're seeing right here is the result of leftist/liberal/socialist domestic policies, and it's made clear by what England is dealing with that these policies lead to failure in the long run.
A much better system would be a classically American one (which itself was developed mostly by native Britons), now referred to as libertarianism, which strongly emphasizes personal freedom to make your own choices and personal responsibility so you can't blame others for your own mistakes.
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Some of these rioters have a massive shock coming to them.
Never mind baseball bats... these idiots should be on Amazon buying themselves a sturdy paddle right about now, because a certain foul-smelling creek is about to get very busy.
In your opinion...Keef
Poverty and social exclusion are not products unique to leftist politics, and nor is 'freedom from consequences' absent from leftist politics either. (In any case, the UK has been fairly right of centre for decades now anyway). I don't see how a change of political ideology at the top makes any difference to how these people would choose to behave in circumstances like these. These people are already free to make whatever choices they want, and yet they choose to ignore the law and behave like idiots. The reasons they are doing so may well include the fact that many of them have been 'mollycoddled' by the state, but I seriously doubt that this is the sole reason, or even the main reason in many cases. The opposite of the nanny state - total abandonment by the state - is as likely to generate the kind of resentment and hatred that triggers this kind of behaviour, so I'm not seeing how it is valid to pin the blame entirely on "leftist" politics here.
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- Moglet85
- Moglet
I'm fed up of seeing tracksuited ***** on television now, if they want to try and stood the rioting they need to aim for the guys in tracksuits with shaven heads and warped features. It's the typical strange look that 99% of chavs seem to have and I've not met a single one who didn't deserve a good smack.
They need to learn the hard way, talking is clearly not working because they can barely speak English.
They need to learn the hard way, talking is clearly not working because they can barely speak English.
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Cameron would lose face in a very big way if this didn't happen after saying anyone old enough to commit these crimes is old enough to be punished for them so even though I'm a bit sceptical I'm still hopeful they'll get what's coming to them. They're also going to be in for a shock if they think they won't be identified when all their "mates" start spilling the beans to the police about who else was involved once they realise how much trouble they're in themselves.
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- GOTMAXPOWER
Its already happening, West Midlands police are going through CCTV and putting their faces on an appeal page of their website, seems to be working 163 arrests last night alone.
EDIT - I don't know if this has been posted yet but it's disgusting http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...eople-forced-strip-naked-street.html?ITO=1490
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- dunkrez
- spunwicked
I flagged that up yesterday, truly shocking mate.
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They're still on high alert here in London. Seven Jankels just went past my place heading west towards New Cross & Peckham.
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The rioters may disagree - "It's like the government's fault. Conservatives. Yeah. Dunno. Whoever it is."
Once the dust has settled from the riots, the analysis should begin in earnest. What we have here is a result of decades - not weeks, months or years - of an erosion of responsibility at all levels being patched up with a fantasy system of rights. A failure of "the system" if you like. Some of the kids on the streets this week are third generation failures.
Kids are taught from a very young age that they can behave how they want and get away with it. Their parents - the second generation failures - don't educate them, teach them manners, teach them responsibility, teach them consequences or discipline them (except when they eat into the parents' TV time, or nick their money or fags). Where there are parents, of course. You can't really blame them, as their parents didn't do any of that either.
The schools do, to an extent - in a subject called "Citizenship", where they're told how to be good citizens, though it's rather dry and dull, like Religious Studies used to be when we were kids - but not only is it not their place to, they actively undo it with the system of discipline they now have in place. I worked in a school which was nailed onto a sink estate in Ashford and it was impossible for a child to be expelled - or "excluded" as it's now called - regardless of the circumstances. After I left a child constructed and detonated a pepper spray bomb in a stairwell during lunchtime, causing significant casualties and even they weren't expelled. Teachers have no actual control in the classroom, and schools have no power due to local authority controls and the right for every child to a free education.
Outside school, the police have no power over the kids - they just eff and blind at them unless they turn up in force and then they run away. It's all a great game. I shall let an acquaintance, who I believe misuses the word "was" in this post, explain:
What is drilled into kids are "rights". How many cop programmes have we seen on TV with some teen acting like a knobhead yelling "I know my rights!"? They can't be touched - it's against their rights. Parents cannot physically recriminate the kids which leaves many with no other recourse - their actions have no consequences. Teachers cannot punish them because they just laugh in their faces - after-school detentions must be sanctioned by the parents and if the kids choose not to go to an in-school detention nothing can be done. They can't have mobile phones confiscated because "that's stealin innit". They can swear at staff and nothing happens. They can taunt them and film them and nothing happens (until one goes ape with a dumbbell). They can accuse staff of touching them inappropriately and nothing happens (except to the member of staff, who gets 6 months suspension while the claim is "investigated" and branded a paedo by the local community - this happened three times in the school in Ashford, once by the same girl who'd made the previous claim on the day the member of staff returned from the suspension for it. He was suspended again. Really). Police can't touch them or restrain them - it's against their rights. Everything is about their rights and nothing is about their responsibility, because they just don't have any.
Of course I exaggerate a little. There are some kids for whom the system does work, but these are the kids who have a sense of pride in themselves and who grasp the concept of actions leading to consequences. They're the good kids, the kids who go home to parents who matter to them - who can be disappointed or upset with their children and have their children feel shame as a result. I remember that one kid in Ashford - a genuinely nice kid who I remember the name of for good reasons - decided to protest again the biased school uniform policy which allowed skirts or trousers for girls (so they were neither too hot in summer nor too cold in winter) but not shorts or trousers for boys, just trousers. He noted, smartly, that it didn't specify genders in the school policy book and he turned up to school, with three friends, in skirts. He was suspended for two weeks and it genuinely affected him. The lying girl above didn't miss a day (except when she wanted to).
And then they get into the workplace. Oh boy, is that fun. They don't want to do work, because working is hard. A boss is just a teacher or a cop to them - no-one can tell me what to do, innit - so they eff and blind at them and get fired. If they're lucky, they can pull the discrimination card and take someone else down with them. Then the state pays them because no-one should be allowed to fall below the poverty line - of course they still live with their mum/dad/parents so they don't have any expenses, and their games consoles and pay-as-you-go phones are subsidised. If they're really lucky, they've knocked up their young girlfriend/been knocked up by their older boyfriend and we can give them their own house... Then out pops fourth generation failure and we start all over again.
We haven't even thrown into the mix the underage drinking and smoking or any drugs yet - or the part where they stab each other at the drop of a hat. Or the rampant racism (some of which I've removed from this thread earlier), which can have some funny consequences when the undereducated face off against something the rest of us knew about because we actually went to school - the Ashford sink parents decided they'd had enough of the Nepalese immigrants and their kids, coming here and taking (whatever it was) and opening their own shops, speaking a funny language to each other, so they ganged up and marched on the densest population centre of Nepalese. Faced with twenty armed gurkhas, they changed their mind, suddenly (this actually happened). Unconnected, I'm sure.
(I should add that there was always a population of Irish gypsies in Ashford, particularly in the sink estates and low entry level schools. Aside from being petty criminals and the fact there was an almost mafia existence, they actually had an honour code and took pride in bringing their kids up, even if I don't necessarily agree with how they brought them up. You knew the boundaries and they did too, and dealing with them was infinitely more rewarding and safe than with the scum)
Yes, there an edge of Daily Mail to the above, though I don't read it myself. It is, though, an uncomfortable reality - not in the majority of cases, as the Mail would have us believe with their "Broken Britain" diatribes, but in enough to cause what we've seen recently.
This is a decades-long problem not limited to a single political ideology or party, and certainly not to any one individual government. I would, personally, opine that I have seen the problem getting worse since the early-to-mid 1990s. Anything before 1995 can be ignored - I was only legally an adult in 1995 and my world view would have been tiny - and the majority of the remainder has been a Blair/Labour government, so it'd be easy for me to blame left-leaning, socialist policies... so I do*.
*Satire
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I don't think I can make a suitable comment in this thread for fear of streaming torrents of rage across these pages. What I am going to do is read all other comments, keep my keyboard out of this, as much as it concerns me (being a Londoner and as a youth a hooligan, by my own admission, not something I'm proud of) and having many reasons to be involved in this thread, because nothing I say here will change what's going on.
I'm going to eat my cheese and be done with it.
I'm going to eat my cheese and be done with it.
- 687
Something I've noticed from watching the footage from various cities: the Met seemed to stand off a lot more than, say GMP, who seemed to be more willing to get stuck in with a baton. I know the numbers involved are very different, but I wonder if it would have spread anywhere if the Met had of come down hard on the initial trouble?
When the first reports of it happening came out, a mate from Norn Iron said "if that was Londonderry instead of London, they'd have used water cannon, rubber bullets and tear gas on them straight away. Then set the dogs on them. Then run over whatever was left in a Land Rover"
When the first reports of it happening came out, a mate from Norn Iron said "if that was Londonderry instead of London, they'd have used water cannon, rubber bullets and tear gas on them straight away. Then set the dogs on them. Then run over whatever was left in a Land Rover"
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It's mozzarella, but I've got some Dairylea in the fridge, and yeah, by Chinese standards. The guy in the avatar isn't me so, yeah, go for it.
Seriously my last post in this thread now.
Your taunting makes it really hard not to post a reply Famine, but I'll make do with an edit. While you're at it could you capitalise the 's' for me? Been meaning to get that corrected since I joined. 💡
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dhandeh
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- dhandes
I think other Police forces, learnt lessons from Sunday night. To be honest, the Police were caught between a rock and a hard place early doors.
Now, they know have the Government behind them and more importantly the Country as a whole, they can get on with controlling the streets, whatever way they see fit.
The stand off approach they had originally, just didnt work. This 'up at at them' approach, now they have sourced more numbers, is working. Just need to boost the numbers in Manchester and other areas now.
I wont tell.
Now, they know have the Government behind them and more importantly the Country as a whole, they can get on with controlling the streets, whatever way they see fit.
The stand off approach they had originally, just didnt work. This 'up at at them' approach, now they have sourced more numbers, is working. Just need to boost the numbers in Manchester and other areas now.
I wont tell.
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