London riots

[Adrian II]

It seems that the English Defence League is organising vigilantes (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8692872/London-riots-far-right-political-party-protect-Eltham-residents.html) in Eltham. I guess that proves how risky the low profile of British police really is. Give the EDL or the BNP a few more nights of rioting and this thing will acquire a racial dimension.

AII

[gaelic cowboy]

get out the lot of ye and pray for all merciful shower of rain twill soon clear these ladeens.

Failing that a big cloud of midges to eat the hell out of them would be nice:2thumbsup:

[econ21]

Give the EDL or the BNP a few more nights of rioting and this thing will acquire a racial dimension.


Yes, there is a disturbing video of some Eltham "vigilantes" throwing things at some black youths on the upper floor of a double decker bus. The Guardian also reported them chasing black youngsters on bikes.

It's clear from all the footage of the last few days that people of all races are looting and people of all races are defying looters, but racists won't let inconvenient things like facts trouble them.

[Centurion1]

I appreciate your realistic assessment. As bad as this is, London is not a warzone. I would say however that the police should have intervened much more forcefully the moment the first building was set alight in Tottenham. That's a definite no-no in any civilized society. It goes beyond protest, it signals the start of random violence and the victimisation of innocents on an ever increasing scale. The Met, like every British or other western police force, are supposed to have a special unit of heavyweights for these situations. They have rubber bullets, special batons and water canon at their disposal, suitable for dousing the flames in every sense of the word. Use them before it's too late.

AII

Oh now its okay...........

[Fragony]

The Turks,Kurds,Chinese,Koreans, Sikhs, Some of the Londoners and the list goes on, have shown example how to stop this. The communities have to start working together, defending their homes,shops and blocks. The looting will stop quite fast when the looters will understand that getting that HD TV might cost you a serious whooping. People will just have to stop acting like sacrificial lambs.

You can't really admire that without implicity questioning the government's monopoly on violence. Good show I say, more chaos please

[Adrian II]

Oh now its okay...........

I don't advocate martial law like you did, and I don't propose that any looters should fear for their lives like you did.

I think I've been very clear about that so let's give it a rest.

AII

[Centurion1]

I don't advocate martial law like you did, and I don't propose that any looters should fear for their lives like you did.

I think I've been very clear about that so let's give it a rest.

AII

I think your an individual who doesn't read anything posted. I think I was very clear about using exactly the same measures you proposed, rubber bullets, water, tear gas. I know I was very clear because other posters seem to understand the concept.

[Strike For The South]

nu·ance (n äns , ny -, n -äns , ny -). n. 1. A subtle or slight degree of difference, as in meaning, feeling, or tone

I would be a nobel laurete, if only they knew what I meant

Martial law /=/ force

[HoreTore]

Anyone who knows that word is a traitor commiebabykillerterroristatheist.

[Centurion1]

nu·ance (n äns , ny -, n -äns , ny -). n. 1. A subtle or slight degree of difference, as in meaning, feeling, or tone

I would be a nobel laurete, if only they knew what I meant

Martial law /=/ force

Nor does it mean I advocate any more excessive force of a letha nature like he presumed I meant. The military doesn't need to be deployed to enforce martial law though it can and usually is. Nor do military officials need to replace their civil counterparts this is not a cout d'etat. There are levels of martial law and not everything that people fear so greatly from the highest levels of martial law would be enforced. THings that could be enforced would be curfews, use of anti riot weaponry, suspension of certain civil rights, and the use of the military. For example in the aftermath of Katrina a State of emergency was declared which was essentially martial law. I don't remember the world blowing up.

[Adrian II]

Some strong comment (http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/10973/) from an old Leftie. Really worth your time.

AII

[Kagemusha]

You can't really admire that without implicity questioning the government's monopoly on violence. Good show I say, more chaos please

Everyone is entitled to self defense.It is just common sense.

[gaelic cowboy]

What confuses me is that if this was the North they woulda been hopping rubber bullets an tear gas off these buckeens on the first night, instead it takes 4 successive nights before they consider it.???

[Banquo's Ghost]

It seems that the English Defence League is organising vigilantes (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8692872/London-riots-far-right-political-party-protect-Eltham-residents.html) in Eltham. I guess that proves how risky the low profile of British police really is. Give the EDL or the BNP a few more nights of rioting and this thing will acquire a racial dimension.

AII

I fear it has acquired that dimension already in Birmingham. Last night, three young Asian men were run down and killed whilst protecting their property by black youths. Tonight, a large crowd of Asians is gathering and the police look nervous. Birmingham has a long history of conflict between communities. The news has video from last night of bands of Sikhs protecting their temples and the neighbourhood armed with swords.

[gaelic cowboy]

I fear it has acquired that dimension already in Birmingham. Last night, three young Asian men were run down and killed whilst protecting their property by black youths. Tonight, a large crowd of Asians is gathering and the police look nervous. Birmingham has a long history of conflict between communities. The news has video from last night of bands of Sikhs protecting their temples and the neighbourhood armed with swords.

The poor father of that boy I seen him on RTE at six there and he was just going "Why why why" there is no sense to any of this at all at all.

[Adrian II]

The poor father of that boy I seen him on RTE at six there and he was just going "Why why why" there is no sense to any of this at all at all.

"Blacks, Asians, Whites, we all live in the same community. Why do we have to kill one another? What started these riots and what's escalated them? Why are we doing this? I lost my son. Step forward if you want to lose your sons. Otherwise, calm down and go home," Mr Jahan tells the BBC.

AII

[Fragony]

Everyone is entitled to self defense.It is just common sense.

Defending yourself is self-defence, protecting eachother is organising. That sits rather unfomfortably with the way things are done: you got the right to be silent and pay taxes

riots are cool

[Banquo's Ghost]

The poor father of that boy I seen him on RTE at six there and he was just going "Why why why" there is no sense to any of this at all at all.

:yes:

Even worse than the previous night when I watched a man from Sri Lanka, who had come to the UK thirty years ago and worked ceaselessly to set up and run a small local shop and provide for his family, weeping with despair among the ruins of his entire life. The blank look of shock on his wife's face was utterly horrible. Insurance companies don't pay for riot damage.

And one of these looters was interviewed after pleading guilty saying he was given a £100 fine. Which they let him off, because he had spent 21 hours in custody waiting for court. That'll cure him. :furious3:

[HoreTore]

This:

http://www.cluesforum.info/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=1051

Is one hilarious forum!

[gaelic cowboy]

Insurance companies don't pay for riot damage.

what the :daisy: are your serious

:furious3:

What the hell are we bailing out these financial weapons of destruction if they wont pay up when there needed, that makes me even more anngry now.

I have relatives in gloucester and if as much as a hair on there head is touched I am getting the first flight out of Knock with a bag of hurleys.

[HoreTore]

Insurance companies don't pay for riot damage.

WHAT?!

[Fragony]

WHAT?!

Insurance companies don't pay for riot damage.

basic english geez

[Adrian II]

Nice, this open letter (http://nathanieltapley.com/2011/08/10/an-open-letter-to-david-camerons-parents/) to David Cameron :laugh4:

AII

[Banquo's Ghost]

what the :daisy: are your serious


WHAT?!

I understand that many insurance policies for small businesses as well as home insurance specifically excludes riot damage. I'd imagine such cover can be bought as an extra, but this might be prohibitive for small corner shops and the like.

[gaelic cowboy]

Nice, this open letter (http://nathanieltapley.com/2011/08/10/an-open-letter-to-david-camerons-parents/) to David Cameron :laugh4:

AII

good one :laugh4:

[Kagemusha]

Defending yourself is self-defence, protecting eachother is organising. That sits rather unfomfortably with the way things are done: you got the right to be silent and pay taxes

riots are cool

Blah,blah! Maybe in societys, which really are not societys but bunch of individual individualists.:tongue:

[Adrian II]

Portrait of the Prime Minister as a young rioter (http://blogs.ft.com/westminster/2010/04/exclusive-david-cameron-and-the-bullingdon-night-of-the-broken-window/#axzz1UeznXFgC). :rolleyes:

AII

[Tellos Athenaios]

He'd better stick to strategy then. Military strategy, I presume.
Indeed, London stopped being an English city some years ago and is now a dangerous cocktail of competing races, creeds and ethnicities on the front line of a new class war that one had hoped banished to the past.

What utter drivel.

@Furunculus: funnily enough if I didn't know better you could be HoreTore suggesting more Social Democracy as the cure to it all. You've come now to link to two articles which very strongly suggest there is some kind of social inequality to blame for this ... and the only way known to mankind to fix that without making it far worse is Social Democracy.

EDIT: I also heard that the London shopkeepers now tap into an easy way to stop the rioters from looting their shops but dunno if that's true: the neighbourhood football hooligans, of which London has quite a few.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Portrait of the Prime Minister as a young rioter (http://blogs.ft.com/westminster/2010/04/exclusive-david-cameron-and-the-bullingdon-night-of-the-broken-window/#axzz1UeznXFgC). :rolleyes:

AII

Maybe, maybe not. Who's the source? Was Borris caught?

Questions abound, I don't care.

Mainly because there's going out, getting drunk, and throwing something through a window and then there's going out and burning down a resturant.

In any case, there's something prickly in the air, I could feel it even here in Isca.

[Adrian II]

Maybe, maybe not. Who's the source? Was Borris caught?

Questions abound, I don't care.

Mainly because there's going out, getting drunk, and throwing something through a window and then there's going out and burning down a resturant.

In any case, there's something prickly in the air, I could feel it even here in Isca.

Rioting has hit Ireland, Paddy and Murphy have smashed their computer screens to loot eBay. #UKriots

AII

[HoreTore]

nvm

[Adrian II]

https://img96.imageshack.us/img96/382/tottenham3.jpg

AII

[Skullheadhq]

I fear many small shop owners will have to file for bankruptcy soon :no:

[Papewaio]

I understand that many insurance policies for small businesses as well as home insurance specifically excludes riot damage. I'd imagine such cover can be bought as an extra, but this might be prohibitive for small corner shops and the like.

It's a failure of the state not a natural disaster.

From policies to police... first in the policies that created the tinder and then the police being so soft that they let the problem spread.

So the state should be footing the bill for the failure to contain the violence not the victims.

It's a matter of the state failing it's duty of care to it's orderly citizens.

Now the rioters, looters and now murderers (at least 4 dead and I wouldn't be surprised that in some of these burnt out buildings there could be a couple of bodies) will also have to take responsibility for their actions.

[Adrian II]

I don't think Brum is going to erupt. It rains, the father of one of the killed boys has successfully appealed for calm, police have everything under control, no ambulance has been called all night. I'm watching Sangat TV and following Birhingham tweets and it seems the Asian gathering is going to be a candle-lit peace march to the spot where the three men were killed. Sikhs are garding mosques, Pakistanis are garding temples. Some good may yet come of this. Provided...

AII

[Major Robert Dump]

So now the shops say FU and the "rich" shopkeepers move out and take the goods, jobs and taxes with them. LOLZ to be had all around. Poor people are funny.

[Strike For The South]

I don't think Brum is going to erupt. It rains, the father of one of the killed boys has successfully appealed for calm, police have everything under control, no ambulance has been called all night. I'm watching Sangat TV and following Birhingham tweets and it seems the Asian gathering is going to be a candle-lit peace march to the spot where the three men were killed. Sikhs are garding mosques, Pakistanis are garding temples. Some good may yet come of this. Provided...

AII

So the swarthy brown people have become a beacon of law and order while the native Britons continue to run amok

It's days like these I feel vindicated and move ever closer to my eventual hubris

[Papewaio]

Is Hubris like a town in Texas?

[johnhughthom]

Is Hubris like a town in Texas?

Nope, it's what Texans bathe in.

[InsaneApache]

WHAT?!

Ladies and Gentlemen of the left persuasion, meet real life. Real life meet an idealist.

:book:


I'm watching Sangat TV

Brilliant. :2thumbsup:

[Hosakawa Tito]

Why The Wild Things Are (http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/ipad/why-the-wild-things-are/story-fn6bqphm-1226112602709).

[QUOTE][Only education - together with politicians, judges, policemen and teachers with the courage to force feral humans to obey rules the rest of us have accepted all our lives - can provide a way forward and a way out for these people.
They are products of a culture which gives them so much unconditionally that they are let off learning how to become human beings. My dogs are better behaved and subscribe to a higher code of values than the young rioters of Tottenham, Hackney, Clapham and Birmingham.
Unless or until those who run Britain introduce incentives for decency and impose penalties for bestiality which are today entirely lacking, there will never be a shortage of young rioters and looters for whom their monstrous excesses were a great fire, man.
/QUOTE]

Max speaks much truth.

[Papewaio]

Nope, it's what Texans bathe in.

I didn't think Texans bathed... they like their state are so big they have their own rain clouds to wash them off... and apparently some of the clouds are in beer flavour... just don't eat the 'naturally occuring' Taco's... they ain't what ya think.

[econ21]

...the father of one of the killed boys has successfully appealed for calm.

Yes, the father has been an incredibly dignified figure, articulating the tragedy and the appropriate response.


Holding a photograph of Haroon, Tariq Jahan, said he was nearby and rushed to help. "I ran towards the commotion and the first guy I found was someone I didn't know. I started giving him CPR until someone pointed out that the guy behind me was my son on the floor," he said.

"So I started CPR on my own son, my face was covered in blood, my hands were covered in blood. Why, why?

"He was trying to help his community and he has been killed." Describing his son, a mechanic and keen boxer, as "a very well-liked kid", he said: "I can't describe to anybody what it feels like to lose a son. He was the youngest of three, and anything I ever wanted done, I would always ask Haroon to sort it out for me.

"A day from now, maybe two days from now, the whole world will forget and nobody will care."

In a message to the local community, he implored: "Today we stand here to plead with all the youth to remain calm, for our communities to stand united.

"This is not a race issue. The family has received messages of sympathy and support from all parts of society."

Visibly emotional, Jahan added: "I lost my son. Blacks, Asians, whites – we all live in the same community. Why do we have to kill one another? Why are we doing this? Step forward if you want to lose your sons. Otherwise, calm down and go home – please."


http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/10/england-riots-police-birmingham-dead

When asked what he wanted to do to the people who did this to his son, he first qualified the question - he would talk about the one person, the driver, who did it. Then he said he wanted nothing but the law: he wanted the man to be brought to justice under the law. :bow:

[Fragony]

Poor guy :no:

LOL http://www.dumpert.nl/mediabase/1648521/6a400c63/planet_earth_london.html

[Furunculus]

Military strategy, I presume.

What utter drivel.

@Furunculus: funnily enough if I didn't know better you could be HoreTore suggesting more Social Democracy as the cure to it all. You've come now to link to two articles which very strongly suggest there is some kind of social inequality to blame for this ... and the only way known to mankind to fix that without making it far worse is Social Democracy.


why is that particular quote drivel?

the other solution is to ditch unmanaged immigration alongside a policy of multiculturalism, as it has been practised for the last thirty years. i.e. concentrate on assimilating the ones we have.

[Adrian II]

Yes, the father has been an incredibly dignified figure, articulating the tragedy and the appropriate response.

Yes, and his words and the dignified response of the Asian immigrants in Birmingham got me thinking about a dilemma. Most migrant communities, whether subcontinental, Chinese or Turkish, have traditional or even tribal values and hierarchies that set them apart from the host society. These values are often collectivist, oppressive, backward. On the other hand they represent the very best that society has to offer in chaotic times such as these: controlled self-defense, mutual assistence, a dignified response to the excesses, an aversion against decadence, easy wealth and gangsterism, coupled with respect for personal property, hard work and education. In other words: they have a sense of community and of social cohesion in general which is often sadly lacking in the host societies.

These properties seem to be two sides of the same coin. Can we have the second set without the first? We can not tolerate the inferior position of women, the blind obedience to age and authority and the strains of religious fundamentalism that are rife in some of these communities. On the other hand, how can we ask of them to assimilate if it means their children turn into chavs and football hooligans and bringe drinkers and Costa louts with no respect whatsoever for property, authority, education, hard work?

If the 'leading culture' has stopped leading, maybe it shouldn't be so boastful about its superiority. The least we can do is look into our own 'culture of entitlement' which produces the Boris Johnsons and David Camerons and Nick Cleggs and Harriet Harmans, a political elite that is comfortable with looting the tax-payers for their so-called expenses, bailing out failed banks and cosying up to unelected power brokers such as Murdoch. That, too, should be part of the debate of 'multiculturalism'.

AII

[Centurion1]

Yes, and his words and the dignified response of the Asian immigrants in Birmingham got me thinking about a dilemma. Most migrant communities, whether subcontinental, Chinese or Turkish, have traditional or even tribal values and hierarchies that set them apart from the host society. These values are often collectivist, oppressive, backward. On the other hand they represent the very best that society has to offer in chaotic times such as these: controlled self-defense, mutual assistence, a dignified response to the excesses, an aversion against decadence, easy wealth and gangsterism, coupled with respect for personal property, hard work and education. In other words: they have a sense of community and of social cohesion in general which is often sadly lacking in the host societies.

These properties seem to be two sides of the same coin. Can we have the second set without the first? We can not tolerate the inferior position of women, the blind obedience to age and authority and the strains of religious fundamentalism that are rife in some of these communities. On the other hand, how can we ask of them to assimilate if it means their children turn into chavs and football hooligans and bringe drinkers and Costa louts with no respect whatsoever for property, authority, education, hard work?

If the 'leading culture' has stopped leading, maybe it shouldn't be so boastful about its superiority. The least we can do is look into our own 'culture of entitlement' which produces the Boris Johnsons and David Camerons and Nick Cleggs and Harriet Harmans, a political elite that is comfortable with looting the tax-payers for their so-called expenses, bailing out failed banks and cosying up to unelected power brokers such as Murdoch. That, too, should be part of the debate of 'multiculturalism'.

AII

Asian immigrants are famed for their ethnocentric lifestyles as immigrants yet achieving success regardless. One of the US' most successful groups are east Asians. That being said in their ethnic enclaves are not always cooperative with law enforcement and often have high crime rates as well.

[Adrian II]

Of course there is always that other solution (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04clpd7h0b0).

AII

[HoreTore]

Ladies and Gentlemen of the left persuasion, meet real life. Real life meet an idealist.

:book:



Brilliant. :2thumbsup:

Silly british person, meet an organized civilization.

There is no such loophole in norwegian insurances, whenever we act up over here, the insurance companies pay up. Which is why we pay them in the bloody first place...

Although I'm terribly sorry to apply the same standards for the inferior British civilization, I do know you're just not as developed as we are yet. You'll get there though, don't worry, all it takes is some hard work and leaders who are not corrupt! ~:) .....no wait, sorry 'bout that...

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Silly british person, meet an organized civilization.

There is no such loophole in norwegian insurances, whenever we act up over here, the insurance companies pay up. Which is why we pay them in the bloody first place...

Although I'm terribly sorry to apply the same standards for the inferior British civilization, I do know you're just not as developed as we are yet. You'll get there though, don't worry, all it takes is some hard work and leaders who are not corrupt! ~:) .....no wait, sorry 'bout that...

In Britain the Government foots the bill for a loss of Law and Order.

How can you claim private citizens paying after a riot is more civilised?

[HoreTore]

In Britain the Government foots the bill for a loss of Law and Order.

Ah. Wonderful.

To be honest, I don't know who takes the bill when we riot over here, I just know that the bill is paid. It was implied that the Londoners would be ruined now, glad to see that isn't the case.

[Skullheadhq]

Rioters, and not the government, should pay IMHO.

[Banquo's Ghost]

Rioters, and not the government, should pay IMHO.

Understandable view, but most of these people will be on benefits (or still at school) so the government would only be paying in a different way. (And yes, I accept Adrian's point that the demographic of these riots is somewhat different).

The government won't even punish these people with severe fines. I'd be happy to see all convicted forced to break rocks and then to rebuild all that they have destroyed through hard manual labour without pay. That would hit the middle class ethically challenged types particularly hard. Harder than daddy paying their £25 slap on the wrist.

[Fragony]

Rioters, and not the government, should pay IMHO.

The government showed amazing imcompetence dealing with this so it's right that they pay for the damage, it's their primary task to provide security and they failed miserably. I was kinda surprised to hear that using a mere watercannon needs aproval of the parlement, riot-police here uses it all the time. Supposed to hurt like hell but hey, it's usually used against squaters and they could absolutely use a shower

Not carrying any guns is also just silly.

[Furunculus]

now at 98,000 votes, only 2,000 more before it merits discussion in the commons:

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/7337

[HoreTore]

Now that is proper nonsense.

[gaelic cowboy]

In Britain the Government foots the bill for a loss of Law and Order.

How can you claim private citizens paying after a riot is more civilised?

Guy on the radio news here said though that it has to be proved it was a riot before you get any assistance, he then went on to say the government had not used the word riot in describing this craic.

[Furunculus]

Now that is proper nonsense.

hehe, you gotta love a little populism in times like this, keeps the politico's on their toes!

[Adrian II]

Cameron wants to block social media? How irrelevant can you get?

AII

[Tellos Athenaios]

why is that particular quote drivel?

Apart from the fact every single piece of information in the highlighted sentence is wrong?


the other solution is to ditch unmanaged immigration alongside a policy of multiculturalism, as it has been practised for the last thirty years. i.e. concentrate on assimilating the ones we have.
That doesn't fix the inequality alluded to in the article... Which, as noted by others already is probably not what spurred this particular series riots in the first place.

[Adrian II]

I blame the riots on GTA, the Kaiser Chiefs and bicycles.

AII

[Fragony]

Cameron wants to block social media? How irrelevant can you get?

AII

Worked for Iran :laugh:

@Furunculus, your page doesn't load here, what is the petition about?

[HoreTore]

I blame the riots on GTA, the Kaiser Chiefs and bicycles.

AII

How delusional can one get?! Grow up, Adrian!

This riot is obviously caused by food with too much salt in it!



Edit: this gave me an idea... All the rioters we see are fit, young men. What if an aggressive junkfood campaign was launched, to get everyone under the age of 35 in Britain fat and with horrible stamina? No looting then, eh? I can see the slogan now:

A fatty Britain is a happy britain!

[Adrian II]

Worked for Iran :laugh:?

Seriously , what a pathetic excuse for a policy this is. Cut down on the number of policemen and cut off peoples' means of communication? :rolleyes:

AII

[Husar]

what is the petition about?

"Convicted London rioters should loose all benefits."

I'm sure telling them they're going to starve in the streets will convince them to behave. :yes:

[Fragony]

"Convicted London rioters should loose all benefits."

I'm sure telling them they're going to starve in the streets will convince them to behave. :yes:

Don't think it's such a bad idea, if you live of tax money and loot the ones paying it, have a nice starvation. Now we can hardly let them starve so give them some rice, distributed weekly by their whatsitcalled-officer. But cutting benefits, why not. Giving them, why do

[Adrian II]

"Convicted London rioters should loose all benefits."

I'm sure telling them they're going to starve in the streets will convince them to behave. :yes:

In this whole debate in the British media and now in the House, I have heard Not. A. Single. Positive. Idea. and as for the House I have heard Not A Speck Of Self-Criticism.

The police were too late, says Cameron. Who was in Tuscany all the time then?
There are pockets in our society that are sick, says Cameron. Sure, how about banks, quango's and unethical MP's?
There are deeper causes to the riots, says Miliband. Right, and New Lab is one of them.

Where is Breivik when you need him?

AII

P.S. Just saw a nice tweet: Norway PM after Breivik said they would have more democracy, British PM after riots says 'Ur all sick!'

[Rhyfelwyr]

P.S. Just saw a nice tweet: Norway PM after Breivik said they would have more democracy, British PM after riots says 'Ur all sick!'

That would be because we don't all have the luxury of being Norway, and need a little more than some flowery rhetoric.

[InsaneApache]

I heard a guy on the radio yesterday talking about the looters. He said, what can you expect when we have politicians ripping off the taxpayer and in the main walking away laughing at us, corrupt and useless police, governments and bankers colluding to impoverish the population....etc. etc.

I didn't agree with his excusing the looters but it did put it into perspective.

Corrupt to the core.

[Furunculus]

Apart from the fact every single piece of information in the highlighted sentence is wrong?

Utter rot!


Indeed, London stopped being an English city some years ago and is now a dangerous cocktail of competing races, creeds and ethnicities on the front line of a new class war that one had hoped banished to the past.

London is no longer an english city, due to the extreme heterogeneity of its population:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_in_London

On the other hand, urbanisation and ethnic heterogeneity are both connected to rioting:

http://www.cityresearch.com/pubs/la_riot.pdf

Not to mention, that the riots have been characterised by the underclass participants, most tellingly by the criminal records of those who have showed up in court:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,779624,00.html

Which given the class-wars of the post WW2 british society in the decades that followed, we might reasonably wish not to see them again:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_War

So i am forced to conclude that your reply disparaging the veracity of the quoted statement is in itself UTTER drivel.

must try harder

[Fragony]

That would be because we don't all have the luxury of being Norway, and need a little more than some flowery rhetoric.

Don't be so hard on yourself so do they

[Adrian II]

I heard a guy on the radio yesterday talking about the looters. He said, what can you expect when we have politicians ripping off the taxpayer and in the main walking away laughing at us, corrupt and useless police, governments and bankers colluding to impoverish the population....etc. etc.

I didn't agree with his excusing the looters but it did put it into perspective.

Corrupt to the core.

Among the perps we see a millionaire's daughter, a postman, a social worker, a youth worker, a graphic designer, Moms and Dads, all sorts of normal professions and categories. What does that tell us? That it's not an issue of poverty or entitlement or disenfranchisement. The fabric of society seems to have come apart at least momentarily. This happens when a riot isn't quelled in time: all sorts of people will 'lose it' and join in the fray.

Bad policing (starting with the treatment of Duggan's family) is the #1 cause of this whole thing, no?

And cutting benefits and evicting people from their homes even after they have served their sentences is both gratuitous revenge and a recipe for further trouble.

AII

P.S. I blame the grandparents!

[Rhyfelwyr]

"Convicted London rioters should loose all benefits."

I'm sure telling them they're going to starve in the streets will convince them to behave. :yes:

Might not be so far or from happening as you think (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-14488298).

"The city council has also said it will seek to evict any council tenants found to have taken part in the trouble."

[HoreTore]

That would be because we don't all have the luxury of being Norway, and need a little more than some flowery rhetoric.

We had some rioting back in 2009, although obviously not quite to the scale London has now.

Our response? Dialogue and debating. And it worked. Abid Raja held townhall-ish meetings in the Literature House(the bastion of red wine drinking middle aged women) where the stone-throwers got an opportunity to went their frustration in a democratic manner, as well as listening to the stories of their victims. The the result? I higly doubt any of them will riot again.



As always, the solution is more democracy, more debate. Democracy and debate has shaped the societies we live in now, the most civilized societies in the world, and democracy and debate will continue to be the way forward.

The only real concern in our society nowadays is the apparent lack of faith in democracy. Resort to barbarism, and barbarism you will get. Stay true to the enlightenment, and enlightenment you will get.


Edit: that, plus making sure the british youth gets fatter and fatter, of course. A fat man is a happy man.

[Fragony]

Our response? Dialogue and debating. And it worked. Abid Raja held townhall-ish meetings in the Literature House(the bastion of red wine drinking middle aged women) where the stone-throwers got an opportunity to went their frustration in a democratic manner, as well as listening to the stories of their victims. The the result? I higly doubt any of them will riot again.


Those were anti-Israel riots done by anti-facists and radical muslims, nothing like this. But I have to admit that Norway listens so very very well. Why would they riot again when the PM is as proud as a monkey with seven dicks for having the incredible honour of shaking the hands of the head of the Fatah-jugend on a certain island

[Banquo's Ghost]

I heard a guy on the radio yesterday talking about the looters. He said, what can you expect when we have politicians ripping off the taxpayer and in the main walking away laughing at us, corrupt and useless police, governments and bankers colluding to impoverish the population....etc. etc.

I didn't agree with his excusing the looters but it did put it into perspective.

Corrupt to the core.

Personally speaking, if the police had baton charged these looters, leaving them crushed and bloody, and then used the momentum to drive into the City and smash the heads of the bankers and moneylenders as well, I would have been rather pleased. There is little difference between the hooded thug stealing Nike trainers and the chap in the stripy shirt and braces currently stealing the pensions and futures of taxpayers.


We had some rioting back in 2009, although obviously not quite to the scale London has now.

Our response? Dialogue and debating. And it worked. Abid Raja held townhall-ish meetings in the Literature House(the bastion of red wine drinking middle aged women) where the stone-throwers got an opportunity to went their frustration in a democratic manner, as well as listening to the stories of their victims. The the result? I higly doubt any of them will riot again.



As always, the solution is more democracy, more debate. Democracy and debate has shaped the societies we live in now, the most civilized societies in the world, and democracy and debate will continue to be the way forward.

The only real concern in our society nowadays is the apparent lack of faith in democracy. Resort to barbarism, and barbarism you will get. Stay true to the enlightenment, and enlightenment you will get.

In general, I agree. The fact is that riots of this nature are not particularly new to the UK - although the consumerist nature of these is a change. In most cases, lots of effort was expended in dialogue and lots got better. One could argue that the remarkable lack of a political aspect to these current lootings and the dignified behaviour of many communities that previously would be the ones at the forefront of the violence, demonstrates that the UK has dealt with previous civil unrest rather well.

The most disturbing aspect for me is the timidity of the police initially, and the complete cluelessness in political leadership.

[Adrian II]

I'm sure the Norwegian PM wouldn' t be speaking exclusiely of 'lost shops and property', but first and foremost of lost lives. And he would have visited Birmingham and spoken to the dead lads' parents instead of going to Wolverhampton and crying over lost groceries.

You know what Napoleon said about the British :rolleyes:

AII

[Banquo's Ghost]

Those were anti-Israel riots done by anti-facists and radical muslims, nothing like this. But I have to admit that Norway listens so very very well. Why would they riot again when the PM is as proud as a monkey with seven dicks for having the incredible honour of shaking the hands of the head of the Fatah-jugend on a certain island

Fragony, for Pity's sake put on a new record. :no:

[Fragony]

I'm sure the Norwegian PM wouldn' t be speaking exclusiely of 'lost shops and property', but first and foremost of lost lives.

Loss of life was day 4, lost shops and property 1 2 et 3

What he would probably do is build them a tennis court and a wild-water paradise by the way

[Furunculus]

I'm sure the Norwegian PM wouldn' t be speaking exclusiely of 'lost shops and property', but first and foremost of lost lives. And he would have visited Birmingham and spoken to the dead lads' parents instead of going to Wolverhampton and crying over lost groceries.

You know what Napoleon said about the British :rolleyes:

AII

but remember; we are all the same and have the same priorities and desires, so governance and dictat from brussels will be considered to be precisely as representative of the peoples needs in dublin as in budapest.

;)

[Fragony]

Fragony, for Pity's sake put on a new record. :no:

It is what it is, Norway riots were political activists, the usual suspects, militant muslims and leftist who absolutely adore them

[Adrian II]

but remember; we are all the same and have the same priorities and desires, so governance and dictat from brussels will be considered to be precisely as representative of the peoples needs in dublin as in budapest.

;)

A tweeter said it best: I appreciate Cameron must be tough but his proposals sound akin to punching a man with stage 3 cancer until he cures himself #ukriots

[HoreTore]

A tweeter said it best: I appreciate Cameron must be tough but his proposals sound akin to punching a man with stage 3 cancer until he cures himself #ukriots

There are some people who believe that if you just beat people hard enough, they will behave.

I find that attitude rather naive.

[econ21]

I'm sure the Norwegian PM wouldn' t be speaking exclusiely of 'lost shops and property', but first and foremost of lost lives. And he would have visited Birmingham and spoken to the dead lads' parents instead of going to Wolverhampton and crying over lost groceries.

You know what Napoleon said about the British

You may have a point about the lost lives, but there can be something mawkish about politicians visiting bereaved parents. Some - Blair, perhaps - could pull it off, but I don't think Cameron (or Brown) has the right personal qualities. Also, he may be thinking about the importance of not inflaming the situation. Generally speaking, we are dealing with looting not looters driving their cars into vigilantes. Focussing too much on the extreme aberrations may not be helpful (the political counterpart of the legal maxim - hard cases make bad law). Plus there is always the issue of allowing the law time to investigate and convict. One reason why asking the police to give early information to Duggan's family is not straightforward - too often we see the official early information about such things are at best subject to spin and at worst lies.

[Viking]

P.S. Just saw a nice tweet: Norway PM after Breivik said they would have more democracy, British PM after riots says 'Ur all sick!'

There is certainly 'sick' stuff going on here, and som brute force would cure the symptoms of it. As long as this stuff is still going on, deal with the sickness.

[Fisherking]

What ever other factors are destroying British Society needs to be sorted out once the cause of the riots is addressed.

So far as I can see, the Police, Scotland Yard in particular, is at fault.

The killing of a suspect by police sparked a demonstration, the police handling of the demonstration (allow them to loot and burn at will) made the problem worse, much worse.

The resin for the riots was quickly forgotten but nightly looting sprees began and spread to other cities (recreational looting).

This was no demonstration of power by a desperate underclass, it was just anarchy.

It makes one think that the UK is on the verge of becoming a failed state.

Parliament is unlikely to address any of this. It should, in fact be dissolved and sent home with new elections called.

The country could hardly be in worse shape with no one than with these clowns.

Cameron’s wish for a 20% reduction in police budgets is not going to make them any smarter or motivate them to do a better job, is it?

Some of his other wishes border on creating a security state.

With the punishments handed out by the courts this is only a minor revenue project that would hardly pay for its self.

From the outside looking in, I would say the country is doomed.

[gaelic cowboy]

There are some people who believe that if you just beat people hard enough, they will behave.

I find that attitude rather naive.

Actually it's pretty obvious they should have done so on the first night in Tottenham, it's likely the rest of the rioting would never have happened. These aint republicans or loyalists defending territory from the PSNI Horetore, there was no command structure to continue it in the face of a strong police action.

A few baton rounds and a cavalry charge or two would have sorted this very early on if they had the will.

[InsaneApache]

P.S. I blame the grandparents!

:laugh4:

[HoreTore]

Wait what? Fisherking, are you saying that cutting the wages of public employees means the service gets worse....?

[InsaneApache]

Listen. all of you.

THERE HAS NOT BEEN ANY CUTS.

Government expenditure is NOT going down.

It's just increasing at a slower rate.

Pitiful.

[Fisherking]

Listen. all of you.

THERE HAS NOT BEEN ANY CUTS.

Government expenditure is NOT going down.

It's just increasing at a slower rate.

Pitiful.


Well, blame political double speak, but it was not the smartest thing to bring up on the first day now, was it?

It is rather like going to war and the first day telling the troops because of a need to economize we are withholding most of your ammunition.

[InsaneApache]

Well, blame political double speak, but it was not the smartest thing to bring up on the first day now, was it?

It is rather like going to war and the first day telling the troops because of a need to economize we are withholding most of your ammunition.

I'm fairly certain that was the case when we first went into Afghanistan.

[Lemur]

Surprised nobody has mentioned the Photoshoplooter movement around the riots. Linky here (http://photoshoplooter.tumblr.com/). Some of this is pretty good!

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/Lemurmania/6a00d83451c45669e201539097ad04970b-.png https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/Lemurmania/tumblr_lprhdnRq521r1qajlo1_500.jpg

[gaelic cowboy]

David Cameron blames criminality for England riots (http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0811/ukriots.html)



Elsewhere, Libyan state television has accused the British government of using 'Irish and Scottish mercenaries' to tame the riots.
'The rebels of Britain approach Liverpool in hit-and-run battles with Cameron's brigades and mercenaries from Ireland and Scotland. God is Greatest,' said a breaking news caption on Libyan TV's morning programme

:laugh4: the mad colonel always good for a laugh that fella

[Adrian II]

Close, but no cigar (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?137238-London-riots&p=2053357378&viewfull=1#post2053357378).

AII

[Fragony]

Surprised nobody has mentioned the Photoshoplooter movement around the riots. Linky here (http://photoshoplooter.tumblr.com/). Some of this is pretty good!

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/Lemurmania/6a00d83451c45669e201539097ad04970b-.png https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/Lemurmania/tumblr_lprhdnRq521r1qajlo1_500.jpg

Oh do I ever get any credit posted it a few pages back

edit, not related to topic but you are going to love this http://www.somethingawful.com/d/comedy-goldmine/the-pizza-matrix.php

[Papewaio]

A few baton rounds and a cavalry charge or two would have sorted this very early on if they had the will.

Mounted police were there from day one weren't they?

All in all, considering the scale of it very few lives have been lost and that is probably down to sheer luck.

I don't think UK is teetering on the verge of being a failed state... there is quite a few stages to go before it becomes Zimbabwee.

Just look at all the volunteers getting out and cleaning up the streets and the reaction to the Malaysian student being beaten and robbed.

=][=

BTW what is the total cost of the riots vs the cost of saving the banks? Then we can see where the real crime lies.

[Lemur]

Close, but no cigar (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?137238-London-riots&p=2053357378&viewfull=1#post2053357378).

Oh do I ever get any credit posted it a few pages back
Okay, day late, dollar short, etc. Apologies.

[gaelic cowboy]

Mounted police were there from day one weren't they?

No where near the ferocity required though was it, there quite quick up North to wade into people but then the potential chaos is greater there.

If they had a given them a right good hiding on the first and second nights it would have petered out.

[Adrian II]

BTW what is the total cost of the riots vs the cost of saving the banks? Then we can see where the real crime lies.

Now estimated at 200 million sterling.

AII

[HoreTore]

Yes, because excessive use of violence has never escalated a conflict further.

[HoreTore]

Now estimated at 200 million sterling.

AII

What's that in real money(euro)?

[Fragony]

Okay, day late, dollar short, etc. Apologies.

That's ok it's not private property after all. But yeah it's a riot

[Fisherking]

Now estimated at 200 million sterling.

AII

And next week we find that the money has disappeared!?!

The site may have been started by a MP for all I know.

[gaelic cowboy]

Yes, because excessive use of violence has never escalated a conflict further.

If they had a goal or a demand bar finding the latest Ipod you might be on solid ground, as it is the only thing these feral kids were going to understand was a swift belt round the lug.

[Adrian II]

And next week we find that the money has disappeared!?!

The site may have been started by a MP for all I know.

I blame literacy!

AII

[Fisherking]

Yes, because excessive use of violence has never escalated a conflict further.

At times it may be a fine balance point but in this case it was much too little and then it was too late.

[Fisherking]

I don't think UK is teetering on the verge of being a failed state... there is quite a few stages to go before it becomes Zimbabwee.

Just look at all the volunteers getting out and cleaning up the streets and the reaction to the Malaysian student being beaten and robbed.

=][=

BTW what is the total cost of the riots vs the cost of saving the banks? Then we can see where the real crime lies.


It dose not require a majority of society to abandon efforts to remain civilized for a society to breakdown.

The fact that this happened at all is indication enough that it could happen.

Looters organizing to hit targets is another sign. As well as looters running down those trying to stop them from their fun.

There are other tactics that can be used also to defeat the authorities that I just would not want to discuss until they happen but it does not look good.

The government response also seems inadequate even with its infringement of liberties.

It dose not give me a warm fuzzy feeling about how this will end.

[econ21]

THERE HAS NOT BEEN ANY CUTS.

Government expenditure is NOT going down.

It's just increasing at a slower rate.


There's an issue of the extent to which the cuts have been implemented yet, but there are cuts. The link below has the government in October 2010 announcing overall cuts in budget departments of 19% over 4 years. I can't see how that is consistent with government spending rising - perhaps it is a real vs nominal thing? (In which case, it is the real that matters). These cuts include 20% for the police. Today, Cameroon spun that as a 6% cut, but I am not sure what is going on there (6% is the figure the BBC reported for the Home Office).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11579979

I know that in my line of work (higher education) there are massive government cuts. All government subsidy for humanities and social science undergraduate teaching has been completely cut. I suspect that the general atmosphere of austerity is one factor in the current riots. When people see no hope, they behave more recklessly.

My brother's work unit has been cut from 3 people to just him (voluntary sector liason) due to the cuts.

[Greyblades]

You know what Napoleon said about the British :rolleyes:

AII

"I'm ze best general in ze world and have ze best army and even I cant beat zem!"

[Adrian II]

"I'm ze best general in ze world and have ze best army and even I cant beat zem!"

Better google for what he really said, I'm afraid you just confirmed his statement. :clown:

AII

[Kagemusha]

"England is Nation of shopkeepers -Napoleon Bonaparte":clown:

[Greyblades]

Better google for what he really said, I'm afraid you just confirmed his statement. :clown:

AII
"A nation of shop keepers." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation_of_shopkeepers)
...No I dont see what you mean there.
Edit: ninja'd again.

[Fisherking]

Cameron’s Plan: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14485592

Did I misread this or did Johnson contradict what Cameron said about the police?

[Skullheadhq]

We had some rioting back in 2009, although obviously not quite to the scale London has now.

Our response? Dialogue and debating. And it worked. Abid Raja held townhall-ish meetings in the Literature House(the bastion of red wine drinking middle aged women) where the stone-throwers got an opportunity to went their frustration in a democratic manner, as well as listening to the stories of their victims. The the result? I higly doubt any of them will riot again.



As always, the solution is more democracy, more debate. Democracy and debate has shaped the societies we live in now, the most civilized societies in the world, and democracy and debate will continue to be the way forward.

The only real concern in our society nowadays is the apparent lack of faith in democracy. Resort to barbarism, and barbarism you will get. Stay true to the enlightenment, and enlightenment you will get.


Edit: that, plus making sure the british youth gets fatter and fatter, of course. A fat man is a happy man.

You're going to convince people burning homes and shops to please gtfo and find a job, and think it works?

[Meneldil]

This whole troll thread started on a false premise. Neither Louis nor I (who strongly advocated the use of the army in the 2005 french riot) blamed anything on Islam at the time. We blamed it on immigrants (or rather, the immigrants' sons), who happen to be more often than not, muslims.

Which doesn't prevent me from blaming Islam, nor does it prevent me from blaming londoner scumbags for being scumbags. I stopped being revolutionnary when I realized "the people" is actually worse than the elites who screw them, and these events only further prove it.
While some of my friends applaud the awakening of the glorious revolution, I only see violence, greed and hatred. I wouldn't entrust these people with any kind of power, because they're stupid, lazy, cruel, bitter and vicious.

They are their own demise.

[HoreTore]

You're going to convince people burning homes and shopes to please gtfo and find a job, and think it works?

I don't think it works, I know it works.

But your reply shows a misunderstanding of what I'm advocating(hello strawman!), and to be quite frank I can't be bothered to explain it further.

[Centurion1]

I don't think it works, I know it works.

But your reply shows a misunderstanding of what I'm advocating(hello strawman!), and to be quite frank I can't be bothered to explain it further.

Damn your naive. What's in the water in Norway.....

[PanzerJaeger]

I suspect that the general atmosphere of austerity is one factor in the current riots. When people see no hope, they behave more recklessly.



If we attribute some blame to austerity, can't we then also attribute some to the growth of the unsustainable welfare state to begin with? Why is hope for the future tied to government subsidies? Isn't that the deeper issue?

This is what conservatives have feared for years. People become dependent on government subsidies, and when those subsidies are curtailed, either by choice or necessity, they run riot in the streets. Entitlements breed entitlement, which constrains a nation's ability to react dynamically to quickly changing economic conditions. This is why the US is gripped in near paralysis over our own budget.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

They should go for singapore style canings rather than petty fines.

[Centurion1]

They should go for singapore style canings rather than petty fines.

:thumbsup:

you spit in street!

you go to jail now!

[Vladimir]

If we attribute some blame to austerity, can't we then also attribute some to the growth of the unsustainable welfare state to begin with? Why is hope for the future tied to government subsidies? Isn't that the deeper issue?

This is what conservatives have feared for years. People become dependent on government subsidies, and when those subsidies are curtailed, either by choice or necessity, they run riot in the streets. Entitlements breed entitlement, which constrains a nation's ability to react dynamically to quickly changing economic conditions.

Agreed.

How melodramatic was that comment? It's so far off the mark. Listen to the rioters themselves.

[drone]

Damn your naive. What's in the water in Norway.....
Oil. Hence the disconnect.

[HoreTore]

Damn your naive. What's in the water in Norway.....

I personally find the belief that one can beat people into conformity to be a lot more naive.

Anyway, democracy got us to where we are now. Democracy will bring us further. We certainly won't progress by resorting to methods we tried centuries ago, who we know to be a failure.


Roses over hatred, I say.

[Adrian II]

If we attribute some blame to austerity, can't we then also attribute some to the growth of the unsustainable welfare state to begin with? Why is hope for the future tied to government subsidies? Isn't that the deeper issue?

Many rioters aren't getting any government subsidies to begin with. They have jobs, studies, families and a future. This isn't about poverty and welfare at all. Just like football hooliganism it's about bad policing and feral youth and crowds out of control.

AII

[johnhughthom]

Prick arrested. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-14497763)

[Adrian II]

Prick arrested. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-14497763)

Good.

On the other hand a student with no criminal record just got a six month prison sentence for stealing a six-pack of bottled water.

Imagine the sentences some bankers and MP's would get if they were measured by the same yardstick.

AII

[InsaneApache]

I found an extended version of what the guy said on the radio yesterday.


‘The answer is simple, because it is wrong, but when you get past that, why should these people not go and do what they’ve been doing? What are the examples that they have been set?
The bankers have ruined the country and have not been held accountable, they have stolen billions of pounds from us and give themselves enormous bonuses from what they have taken. They’ve looted the country and got away with it. They’ve had their hands in the till.

The journalists have shocked and sickened the nation, they have violated people and destroyed their livelihoods, left them bereft. It isn’t just the phone hacking, but the constant untruths and innuendo that all the media peddles, and they get paid handsomely for it, while being courted by the rich and famous. A few token heads on poles will mollify the masses and things will carry on pretty much as before. They’ve profited from the wilful and spiteful destruction of people.

The politicians have lied to us since free, open elections have existed. They’ve had their hands in the till, and have made up their own rules to allow them to do so, it goes far beyond those prosecuted. What is the difference between a kid smashing a shop window and taking a £500 TV and a politician taking your wages before you’ve even got them and buying a £500 TV with it before turning round and proclaiming ‘I’m entitled’ ?’

‘Yes, and politicians, against the will of the people send our planes to bomb and our soldiers to shoot people, and when we say we don’t want it, they go and do it anyway, and then send us the bill. They act like children screaming and shouting at each other, in their own way getting in each other’s faces, they destroy everybody’s lives and businesses. They too act like the law doesn’t apply to them and then can do what they want, and they get away with it.’

Give that man a cigar!

[Louis VI the Fat]

I heard a guy on the radio yesterday talking about the looters. He said, what can you expect when we have politicians ripping off the taxpayer and in the main walking away laughing at us, corrupt and useless police, governments and bankers colluding to impoverish the population....etc. etc.

I didn't agree with his excusing the looters but it did put it into perspective.

Corrupt to the core.I can't help finding myself thinking along the same lines.


For all of my disgust of the rioters, for all of their banal looting of blingbling, Nike's, plasma tv's - for all of that I still think that perhaps these people are right. Everybody else is doing it, no? Their leaders are. Their business elite is. The wealthy don't pay taxes, politicians are on the taek, and the banksters are robbing Britain blind. The City is the world's largest tax evasion scam operation. Shady foreign billionaires own their footbal clubs. Their own property is unprotected by an incompetent police and judicial system.

Why should they be responsible citizens?

[Adrian II]

I found an extended version of what the guy said on the radio yesterday.

Give that man a cigar!

Well said. Except for two things.

1. Gerald Kaufman didn't buy a £500 TV, he bought a £8000 40-inch flat screen Bang & Olufsen TV at tax-payers' expense.

2. Pointing at bankers and politicians does not a solution make. I mean, if the rot starts at the top, the cure should start somewhere else. Where is that?

AII

[a completely inoffensive name]

People are too angry. We should just subsidize anti-depressants to make them free for everyone and put it in the water, so everyone is a lot happier.

/bravenewworld????

[Fisherking]

These riots had no stated purpose nor political objectives.

However, had they been about government corruption and the plundering of the nation I think they could have won a quick victory.

As it is it will only be another excuse to tighten control and install more cameras.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

There's an issue of the extent to which the cuts have been implemented yet, but there are cuts. The link below has the government in October 2010 announcing overall cuts in budget departments of 19% over 4 years. I can't see how that is consistent with government spending rising - perhaps it is a real vs nominal thing? (In which case, it is the real that matters). These cuts include 20% for the police. Today, Cameroon spun that as a 6% cut, but I am not sure what is going on there (6% is the figure the BBC reported for the Home Office).

Spending has to rise because we have to burrow more to cover the deficit and service the debt. If we did not have the debt we would have no deficit and spending cuts would be marginal, and merely the result of falling revenues due to contraction. So goverment spending is rising EVEN AS government departments are cut.

As that guy said, "what is Labour for now all the money's gone"?


I know that in my line of work (higher education) there are massive government cuts. All government subsidy for humanities and social science undergraduate teaching has been completely cut. I suspect that the general atmosphere of austerity is one factor in the current riots. When people see no hope, they behave more recklessly.

My brother's work unit has been cut from 3 people to just him (voluntary sector liason) due to the cuts.

It really hurts, doesn't it? We've cut all burseries for PhD students, and raised fees. Only the rich can be doctors now.


I don't think it works, I know it works.

But your reply shows a misunderstanding of what I'm advocating(hello strawman!), and to be quite frank I can't be bothered to explain it further.

You misunderstand the situation. One of the rioters was a wealthy student at the University of Exeter called Laura, who was studying English and Italian.

What were grievences.

[Adrian II]

One of the rioters was a wealthy student at the University of Exeter called Laura, who was studying English and Italian.

Today a lifeguard, postman, hairdresser, teacher, organic chef and schoolboy aged 11 were arraigned. Apart from the millionaire's daughter who lives in a refurbished farmhouse with a private tennis court...

So much for the 'entitlement' excuse we've been hearing.

AII

[Greyblades]

People are too angry. We should just subsidize anti-depressants to make them free for everyone and put it in the water, so everyone is a lot happier.

/bravenewworld????

I know its a probably joke but that would be a bad idea, antidepressants stabilize moods by either increasing the "feel good" chemical production or lowering the "feel bad" chemical production in the brain, if we gave them to the rioters they'd probably be doing the same thing but with a smaller sense of guilt, plus they generally increase confidence, the last thing we need now is the yobbos running around getting even more cocky.

[InsaneApache]

Didn't that 'organic' chef try to torch Nandos?

Bastard.

You'll get my chicken piri piri out of my cold dead hands.

[HoreTore]

You misunderstand the situation. One of the rioters was a wealthy student at the University of Exeter called Laura, who was studying English and Italian.

What were grievences.

What grievences?

[Adrian II]

Didn't that 'organic' chef try to torch Nandos?

Bastard.

You'll get my chicken piri piri out of my cold dead hands.

LOLZ, yeah, that's him. Proves there's a hooligan in every vegetarian! :laugh3:

AII

[Kagemusha]

Its plain and simple. You encourage social mobility so people can become what they can be and not what they are borned into. Key to that is creating a good education system that awards talent, not money.The reverse which some of the right wingers are suggesting. By that you create a large middle class, instead of minimal high class and huge low class population. The benefit of large middle class is that they consume unlike the rich and unlike the poor for different reasons of course. Also larger the working middle class, more stabile the society is. Large middle class does not use much social wellfare, but instead pay taxes, their own pensions, unemployment insurances etc. Wellcome to the Nordic model, or should we say North European model as Germany does not differ much in that.

[HoreTore]

Isn't the finnish model based on excessive use of vodka and saunas?

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

What grievences?

That should have been "what were her grievences"

What's the point of dialogue when nothing needs saying that can't be done through the Courts (and the University Senate).

[HoreTore]

That should have been "what were her grievences"

What's the point of dialogue when nothing needs saying that can't be done through the Courts (and the University Senate).

There's always room for dialogue ~;)

[Adrian II]

An 18-year-old Olympics ambassador threw bricks at a police car. Awesome. A 22-year-old estate agent broke into a shop and smashed it up. I mean, come on, an estate agent!

LMAO at the 'disaffected' rioters.

AII

[Papewaio]

Well the original Olympics was based on warfare maybe the ambassador is show casing brickthrowing... at least she probably did a better effort then the guy who threw the umbrella.

As for the real estate agent... she probably thought she could drum up business if enough buildings were trashed... after all its like a dentist giving out candy.

[Louis VI the Fat]

LMAO at the 'disaffected' rioters.

AIIDisaffected, not destitute or deprived.

Disaffected by 'Britain Inc.'. That through, there for all piglets to get their snouts in to take as much as possible. Take take take, me me me. I blame neoliberalism as the root cause, that destructor of the lovely Britain as idealised in the Shire in Tolkien's protofascist masterpiece.

[Papewaio]

Wouldn't the camera loving government be Sauron with the Eye that sees but doesn't comprehend the danger in the little folk? With the riders being wraiths lacking substance and form being the collective leaders enslaved by their own greed into the system.

The hobbits would be the riotors, with the ring symbolizing the gold greed of the bankers and how their precious greed has been invisible to all.

The riotors in an orgy of destruction go out and destroy the symbols of greed and hurl them into a cleansing fire.

Now for the looting aspect just look at Merryn and Pippen when they return to the Shire. They are dipping in the latest threads, vests, headgear and weapons... They are in the equivalent of hoddie and gun. And when they get back they stick it to the Man (Orcs) while destroying the old class leaders Sauroman and Worm Tongue who are classic polticians ready to change sides at the throw of a stone.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Disaffected, not destitute or deprived.

Disaffected by 'Britain Inc.'. That through, there for all piglets to get their snouts in to take as much as possible. Take take take, me me me. I blame neoliberalism as the root cause, that destructor of the lovely Britain as idealised in the Shire in Tolkien's protofascist masterpiece.

Ah, but this is an almost exclusively English breakdown, and most of the "rioters" being caught are really just oppertunistic looters. So, the real question to ask is where the sickness lies.

I am now going to stand up and say, "My country is ill and I do not know how to heal her."

[econ21]

Spending has to rise because we have to burrow more to cover the deficit and service the debt. If we did not have the debt we would have no deficit and spending cuts would be marginal, and merely the result of falling revenues due to contraction. So goverment spending is rising EVEN AS government departments are cut.

Umm, good point about the interest payments. (The actual borrowing does not count as government spending but the interest payments do). But Insane Apache can't use them to say people are not suffering from cuts - unlike the work of the departments, those payments are not providing any services or employment. Maybe the term I am looking for is functional government spending.

I don't know if this source is reliable, but the first google hit is:

http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/

From the figures in this for Fiscal year 2011 compared to 2010, it does appear that the cuts have not really started to bite. At least not on the scale of the 20% departmental cuts planned over 4 years. Most departments are up, but by less than 4% - so I suspect that's they are small real terms cut. Ironically, one that is cut in nominal terms is "protection" which I guess includes the police (defence is up above inflation).

Interest payments are up a whopping 40%.

I agree the cuts so far are not big enough to be a major factor. But I do think the talk about them adds to a mood of gloom that is conducive to nihilism. And the 20% departmental cuts are going to cause a lot of pain in future - those are very large cuts. It's not like in the old days, when Insane Apache would be right - the Tories would merely increase spending less than Labour.

[Greyblades]

"My country is ill and I do not know how to heal her."
I think its somewhat easy to figure out what should be done to heal her, its just how to actually get the things done.

(disclaimer: I probably dont know what I'm talking about so please dont bash me if I say something dumb)
For example there is a somewhat simple way; stop the riots, clean the government, then the populous.
Firstly the obvious; a huge police crackdown in major cities, the armed forces supplimenting the areas where the police cannot cope. All looters should be arrested, and imprisoned until the government is in a position to sort them out fairly.
After the immediate situation is dealt with we get into sorting the governmental problems: Dissolution and reelection of parliment, thorough inquiry and investigation of corruption in all governmental posts, especially the police force, investigation of, now-ex, MP's corruption and finally all those found guilty of corruption should be fined for double the amount they cost the taxpayers and barred from future government positions.
The newly stabilized and cleansed government can then get to the looters then into the more societal problems, those on undeserved benefits etc.

Of course this all wont happen as long as the people in charge want to stay in charge and dont want to face the consequences of being a bunch of thieving gits and even if a miracle happens and something like that does happen without any catastrophies we're still left with figuring out why this happened in the first place and what should be done to stop it happening again. Oh and it would probably take afew years.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I think its somewhat easy to figure out what should be done to heal her, its just how to actually get the things done.

(disclaimer: I probably dont know what I'm talking about so please dont bash me if I say something dumb)
For example there is a somewhat simple way; stop the riots, clean the government, then the populous.
Firstly the obvious; a huge police crackdown in major cities, the armed forces supplimenting the areas where the police cannot cope. All looters should be arrested, and imprisoned until the government is in a position to sort them out fairly.
After the immediate situation is dealt with we get into sorting the governmental problems: Dissolution and reelection of parliment, thorough inquiry and investigation of corruption in all governmental posts, especially the police force, investigation of, now-ex, MP's corruption and finally all those found guilty of corruption should be fined for double the amount they cost the taxpayers and barred from future government positions.
The newly stabilized and cleansed government can then get to the looters then into the more societal problems, those on undeserved benefits etc.

Of course this all wont happen as long as the people in charge want to stay in charge and dont want to face the consequences of being a bunch of thieving gits and even if a miracle happens and something like that does happen without any catastrophies we're still left with figuring out why this happened in the first place and what should be done to stop it happening again. Oh and it would probably take afew years.

Won't work. Our politicians merely reflect the sickness in our society, they do not cause it. It was a sick society that elected them, after all.

[econ21]

An 18-year-old Olympics ambassador threw bricks at a police car. Awesome. A 22-year-old estate agent broke into a shop and smashed it up. I mean, come on, an estate agent!

LMAO at the 'disaffected' rioters.

But there is something weird going on here, don't you think? At least at the time of their offences, the rioters clearly don't feel any identification with the police or their local shops. This is quite the opposite of what I suspect most Brits felt watching them rampage on TV; the mass who were utterly outraged at the riots and felt totally on the side of the police and the local businesses. It's a kind of disaffection with mainstream society, isn't it?

Is part of it that the rioters have their own social groups they identify with - groups that don't feel they have stake in the police or local businesses? Not always criminal gangs, but other groups of friends. It seems to me that rioting and looting is a rather social, not individualistic activity. I don't see that many people being brave enough to do it alone. They act with their mates, feeling protection in numbers. They follow each other for thrills and loot: they see some others doing it and are emboldened. It's a kind of like an anarchist Milgram experiment: if your mates think it's ok to smash things up and steal, you do it too. Just as the Milgram experiment shows that ordinary people will torture if told to do so by "authority", maybe the riots show that ordinary people will loot if others in their peer group do it (and there is no authority to stop them).

But again this is qualified: people who identify with the local businesses or police - who are not in some way disaffected - would not behave like that.

[econ21]

Of course this all wont happen as long as the people in charge want to stay in charge and dont want to face the consequences of being a bunch of thieving gits ...

I think all this talk of corruption is overblown. Politicians like David Cameron may be many things, but a thieving git is not one of them. Ditto Miliband, Clegg, Brown, Blair, etc. Yes, there are some crooks - and some are in jail for it now. But the vast majority are hardworking and public spirited people. Ditto the police, I am sure.

I've seen real corruption - like in Kenya in the 1990s when the Vice-President was known as "Mr Ten Percent" as he was reputed to pocket 10% of every project. And where police road blocks littered the roads, extorting bribes from local traders. A few talentless fat heads like Elliot Morley fiddling their expenses or a policeman selling information to a Murdoch paper is reprehensible, but hardly a sign of a rotten society.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Disaffected by 'Britain Inc.'. That through, there for all piglets to get their snouts in to take as much as possible. Take take take, me me me. I blame neoliberalism as the root cause, that destructor of the lovely Britain as idealised in the Shire in Tolkien's protofascist masterpiece.

The Lord of the Rings was fascist?

[Greyblades]

Won't work. Our politicians merely reflect the sickness in our society, they do not cause it. It was a sick society that elected them, after all.

True but I think with the government we have presently any attempts to do... anything really is going to impeded from the get go.
Best to fix or replace the broken tools before fixing the damaged house.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I think all this talk of corruption is overblown. Politicians like David Cameron may be many things, but a thieving git is not one of them. Ditto Miliband, Clegg, Brown, Blair, etc. Yes, there are some crooks - and some are in jail for it now. But the vast majority are hardworking and public spirited people. Ditto the police, I am sure.

I've seen real corruption - like in Kenya in the 1990s when the Vice-President was known as "Mr Ten Percent" as he was reputed to pocket 10% of every project. And where police road blocks littered the roads, extorting bribes from local traders. A few talentless fat heads like Elliot Morley fiddling their expenses or a policeman selling information to a Murdoch paper is reprehensible, but hardly a sign of a rotten society.

I agree to an extent, but it is worth remembering that the MP's expenses scandal is exactly a reflection of British society, people go in for whatever they can get from government programs. In the main MP's submitted claims that were legitimate under the system at the time, but the public chose to be offended by things they would have done themselves given the chance.

The same, I suspect, is true now. The people going into already smashed shops and nicking TV's are rationalising it when they do it, "oh, it'sll go on the insurrence anyway" this costs too muc" "everyone else is doing it".

What is missing is a basic moral sense that stealing is just wrong because it is. That is the sickness in out scoiety, and I venture that it comes in part from the siesmic cultural shift that has seen us go from "nominally Christian" to "multicultural", which in Engalnd means being afraid to tell someone what they are doing is wrong and their justification for it is crap.

That's why the Muslim/Sikh communities aren't out looting their own neighbourhoods and are protecting each other's temples. The have a concrete moral centre and a sense of traditional piety, which means acting in the right way not the most beneficial one. That's also why they don't "fit in" here, because they resist being told their beliefs are actually worthless.

Cultural relativism for the Epic Fail.

We need to get to grips with this, and replace out wishy-washy "it doesn't matter" and "not my problem" attitude with actual tollerance. I should be allowed to tell you you are an awful Sinner (and so am I), if you ask, and you should have to put up with it - in the same token you should be allowed to tell me my religion is crap, and I have to put up with it. We should be able to have a slanging match in the middle of the town square and not get arrested unless we actually start screaming murder and throwing stuff.

[InsaneApache]

I think all this talk of corruption is overblown. Politicians like David Cameron may be many things, but a thieving git is not one of them. Ditto Miliband, Clegg, Brown, Blair, etc. Yes, there are some crooks - and some are in jail for it now. But the vast majority are hardworking and public spirited people. Ditto the police, I am sure.

I've seen real corruption - like in Kenya in the 1990s when the Vice-President was known as "Mr Ten Percent" as he was reputed to pocket 10% of every project. And where police road blocks littered the roads, extorting bribes from local traders. A few talentless fat heads like Elliot Morley fiddling their expenses or a policeman selling information to a Murdoch paper is reprehensible, but hardly a sign of a rotten society.

They are corrupt. Perhaps not in the same league as Kenya (yet!) but corrupt and corrupting in more devious ways.

I just read an article by Peter Oborne.


David Cameron, Ed Miliband and the entire British political class came together yesterday to denounce the rioters. They were of course right to say that the actions of these looters, arsonists and muggers were abhorrent and criminal, and that the police should be given more support.

But there was also something very phony and hypocritical about all the shock and outrage expressed in parliament. MPs spoke about the week’s dreadful events as if they were nothing to do with them.

I cannot accept that this is the case. Indeed, I believe that the criminality in our streets cannot be dissociated from the moral disintegration in the highest ranks of modern British society. The last two decades have seen a terrifying decline in standards among the British governing elite. It has become acceptable for our politicians to lie and to cheat. An almost universal culture of selfishness and greed has grown up.

It is not just the feral youth of Tottenham who have forgotten they have duties as well as rights. So have the feral rich of Chelsea and Kensington. A few years ago, my wife and I went to a dinner party in a large house in west London. A security guard prowled along the street outside, and there was much talk of the “north-south divide”, which I took literally for a while until I realised that my hosts were facetiously referring to the difference between those who lived north and south of Kensington High Street.

Most of the people in this very expensive street were every bit as deracinated and cut off from the rest of Britain as the young, unemployed men and women who have caused such terrible damage over the last few days. For them, the repellent Financial Times magazine How to Spend It is a bible. I’d guess that few of them bother to pay British tax if they can avoid it, and that fewer still feel the sense of obligation to society that only a few decades ago came naturally to the wealthy and better off.

Yet we celebrate people who live empty lives like this. A few weeks ago, I noticed an item in a newspaper saying that the business tycoon Sir Richard Branson was thinking of moving his headquarters to Switzerland. This move was represented as a potential blow to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, because it meant less tax revenue.

I couldn’t help thinking that in a sane and decent world such a move would be a blow to Sir Richard, not the Chancellor. People would note that a prominent and wealthy businessman was avoiding British tax and think less of him. Instead, he has a knighthood and is widely feted. The same is true of the brilliant retailer Sir Philip Green. Sir Philip’s businesses could never survive but for Britain’s famous social and political stability, our transport system to shift his goods and our schools to educate his workers.

Yet Sir Philip, who a few years ago sent an extraordinary £1 billion dividend offshore, seems to have little intention of paying for much of this. Why does nobody get angry or hold him culpable? I know that he employs expensive tax lawyers and that everything he does is legal, but he surely faces ethical and moral questions just as much as does a young thug who breaks into one of Sir Philip’s shops and steals from it?

Our politicians – standing sanctimoniously on their hind legs in the Commons yesterday – are just as bad. They have shown themselves prepared to ignore common decency and, in some cases, to break the law. David Cameron is happy to have some of the worst offenders in his Cabinet. Take the example of Francis Maude, who is charged with tackling public sector waste – which trade unions say is a euphemism for waging war on low‑paid workers. Yet Mr Maude made tens of thousands of pounds by breaching the spirit, though not the law, surrounding MPs’ allowances.

A great deal has been made over the past few days of the greed of the rioters for consumer goods, not least by Rotherham MP Denis MacShane who accurately remarked, “What the looters wanted was for a few minutes to enter the world of Sloane Street consumption.” This from a man who notoriously claimed £5,900 for eight laptops. Of course, as an MP he obtained these laptops legally through his expenses.

Yesterday, the veteran Labour MP Gerald Kaufman asked the Prime Minister to consider how these rioters can be “reclaimed” by society. Yes, this is indeed the same Gerald Kaufman who submitted a claim for three months’ expenses totalling £14,301.60, which included £8,865 for a Bang & Olufsen television.

Or take the Salford MP Hazel Blears, who has been loudly calling for draconian action against the looters. I find it very hard to make any kind of ethical distinction between Blears’s expense cheating and tax avoidance, and the straight robbery carried out by the looters.

The Prime Minister showed no sign that he understood that something stank about yesterday’s Commons debate. He spoke of morality, but only as something which applies to the very poor: “We will restore a stronger sense of morality and responsibility – in every town, in every street and in every estate.” He appeared not to grasp that this should apply to the rich and powerful as well.

The tragic truth is that Mr Cameron is himself guilty of failing this test. It is scarcely six weeks since he jauntily turned up at the News International summer party, even though the media group was at the time subject to not one but two police investigations. Even more notoriously, he awarded a senior Downing Street job to the former News of the World editor Andy Coulson, even though he knew at the time that Coulson had resigned after criminal acts were committed under his editorship. The Prime Minister excused his wretched judgment by proclaiming that “everybody deserves a second chance”. It was very telling yesterday that he did not talk of second chances as he pledged exemplary punishment for the rioters and looters.

These double standards from Downing Street are symptomatic of widespread double standards at the very top of our society. It should be stressed that most people (including, I know, Telegraph readers) continue to believe in honesty, decency, hard work, and putting back into society at least as much as they take out.

But there are those who do not. Certainly, the so-called feral youth seem oblivious to decency and morality. But so are the venal rich and powerful – too many of our bankers, footballers, wealthy businessmen and politicians.

Of course, most of them are smart and wealthy enough to make sure that they obey the law. That cannot be said of the sad young men and women, without hope or aspiration, who have caused such mayhem and chaos over the past few days. But the rioters have this defence: they are just following the example set by senior and respected figures in society. Let’s bear in mind that many of the youths in our inner cities have never been trained in decent values. All they have ever known is barbarism. Our politicians and bankers, in sharp contrast, tend to have been to good schools and universities and to have been given every opportunity in life.

Something has gone horribly wrong in Britain. If we are ever to confront the problems which have been exposed in the past week, it is essential to bear in mind that they do not only exist in inner-city housing estates.

The culture of greed and impunity we are witnessing on our TV screens stretches right up into corporate boardrooms and the Cabinet. It embraces the police and large parts of our media. It is not just its damaged youth, but Britain itself that needs a moral reformation.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/peteroborne/100100708/the-moral-decay-of-our-society-is-as-bad-at-the-top-as-the-bottom/

The triumph of the political class indeed.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

True but I think with the government we have presently any attempts to do... anything really is going to impeded from the get go.
Best to fix or replace the broken tools before fixing the damaged house.

An election would return either a pure Conservative Government or a rehash of the last Government, who refuse to admit we have a deficit problem, is hostage to the unions who look increasingly like mafia and is led by a man who will literally step over his own brother for a chance at power.

I'll stick with the Lib-Con Coalition thanks, Nick and Dave are both relatively decent, neither has committed political fratricide, and they are masters of political theatre - witness the AV referendum. I bet they had a good giggle over that one.

[a completely inoffensive name]

What is missing is a basic moral sense that stealing is just wrong because it is. That is the sickness in out scoiety, and I venture that it comes in part from the siesmic cultural shift that has seen us go from "nominally Christian" to "multicultural", which in Engalnd means being afraid to tell someone what they are doing is wrong and their justification for it is crap.

That's why the Muslim/Sikh communities aren't out looting their own neighbourhoods and are protecting each other's temples. The have a concrete moral centre and a sense of traditional piety, which means acting in the right way not the most beneficial one. That's also why they don't "fit in" here, because they resist being told their beliefs are actually worthless.

Cultural relativism for the Epic Fail.

We need to get to grips with this, and replace out wishy-washy "it doesn't matter" and "not my problem" attitude with actual tollerance. I should be allowed to tell you you are an awful Sinner (and so am I), if you ask, and you should have to put up with it - in the same token you should be allowed to tell me my religion is crap, and I have to put up with it. We should be able to have a slanging match in the middle of the town square and not get arrested unless we actually start screaming murder and throwing stuff.

100% truth. Some cultures are just better than others and by pretending that they are all equal and valid you eventually become a bad culture.

[Greyblades]

An election would return either a pure Conservative Government or a rehash of the last Government, who refuse to admit we have a deficit problem, is hostage to the unions who look increasingly like mafia and is led by a man who will literally step over his own brother for a chance at power.

I'll stick with the Lib-Con Coalition thanks, Nick and Dave are both relatively decent, neither has committed political fratricide, and they are masters of political theatre - witness the AV referendum. I bet they had a good giggle over that one.
I didnt think of that; thats sort of thing is why I put the disclaimer bit.

[Papewaio]

Another death (http://www.smh.com.au/world/riot-victim-who-tried-to-stamp-out-fire-dies-after-bashing-20110812-1ipws.html), a 68 year old man who was trying to put out a fire was beaten up and died later.



Richard Mannington Bowes was bashed, suffering head injuries, on a road in Ealing, west London, on Monday night.

Scotland Yard said he was attacked about 10.45pm after remonstrating with teenagers who were setting fire to two industrial bins outside a shopping centre.
Advertisement: Story continues below

Officers who went to his aid were pelted with missiles.

Mr Bowes, of Ealing, was placed on a life-support machine following the attack, which took place as violence spread through the capital.

He died just before midnight on Thursday, Scotland Yard said.

Detective Chief Inspector John McFarlane, of the Met's Homicide and Serious Crime Command, said: "This was a brutal incident that resulted in the senseless killing of an innocent man.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/riot-victim-who-tried-to-stamp-out-fire-dies-after-bashing-20110812-1ipws.html#ixzz1UmSia4OA

Appalling.

[Adrian II]

100% truth. Some cultures are just better than others and by pretending that they are all equal and valid you eventually become a bad culture.

I'll bet that is what Asians, Turks and other tight minority communities in the UK are thinking these days: we will have none of your western moral relativism and mindless consumerism, just look what it leads to.

How would you answer to that?

AII

[Centurion1]

I'll bet that is what Asians, Turks and other tight minority communities in the UK are thinking these days: we will have none of your western moral relativism and mindless consumerism, just look what it leads to.

How would you answer to that?

AII

Why did they come to the west then?

TBH I really don't need to say anything else.

[a completely inoffensive name]

I'll bet that is what Asians, Turks and other tight minority communities in the UK are thinking these days: we will have none of your western moral relativism and mindless consumerism, just look what it leads to.

How would you answer to that?

AII

They are correct. We need better morals. Moral relativism is a joke and it makes a mockery of the language of the US declaration of independence that talks about our inalienable rights, which if broken is wrong, wrong, wrong. Consumerism is vapid and hollow. Life is not about how much resources you can consume. No amount of ipods or tvs in the world can help your soul.

For the most part, the cultures they come from have morals that are wrong most of the time as well. But we have lost our way as well. Western civilization should not self destruct itself in an orgy of nihilistic thought perpetrated through egalitarian thoughts and policies that state that since everything is relative and meaningless except the meanings we give to it we should all hold hands with cultures that stone women in the street.

Now I sound like a televangelist. But this is serious. We got the poor and the wealthy (at least the middle class) participating in the self destruction of their own society. If that isn't a clear sign that what we hold to be good is flawed, I don't know what is. Actually considering that what we hold to be good is relativism, the real question would be, "what, if anything do we hold to be 'good'"?

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I'll bet that is what Asians, Turks and other tight minority communities in the UK are thinking these days: we will have none of your western moral relativism and mindless consumerism, just look what it leads to.

How would you answer to that?

AII

Point out I'm a Christian and a moral absolutist? :wink:

[Centurion1]

They are correct. We need better morals. Moral relativism is a joke and it makes a mockery of the language of the US declaration of independence that talks about our inalienable rights, which if broken is wrong, wrong, wrong. Consumerism is vapid and hollow. Life is not about how much resources you can consume. No amount of ipods or tvs in the world can help your soul.

For the most part, the cultures they come from have morals that are wrong most of the time as well. But we have lost our way as well. Western civilization should not self destruct itself in an orgy of nihilistic thought perpetrated through egalitarian thoughts and policies that state that since everything is relative and meaningless except the meanings we give to it we should all hold hands with cultures that stone women in the street.

Now I sound like a televangelist. But this is serious. We got the poor and the wealthy (at least the middle class) participating in the self destruction of their own society. If that isn't a clear sign that what we hold to be good is flawed, I don't know what is. Actually considering that what we hold to be good is relativism, the real question would be, "what, if anything do we hold to be 'good'"?

The West has in some ways come to hate itself and everything about all while screaming for more of the things that defines the greatness which is western culture.

[Adrian II]

Actually considering that what we hold to be good is relativism, the real question would be, "what, if anything do we hold to be 'good'"?

So where do you think the moral regeneration should begin? What institution or movement or community should be the starting point?

AII

[a completely inoffensive name]

So where do you think the moral regeneration should begin? What institution or movement or community should be the starting point?

AII

I cannot say for certain, but in my intro to philosophy class we were given a hand out of a piece of work called: "Liberal Education and Value Relativism" by Patrick Malcolmson, Richard Myers and Colin O'Connell

Here is a portion that I enjoyed:

Because the doctrine of value relativism holds that there are no universally and permanently true answers to the great questions of human existence, it poses a direct and deadly challenge to the very possibility of liberal education. On the theoretical plane, relativism renders the quest for human wisdom pointless. And psychologically speaking, relativism creates the most debilitating teaching environment possible. For students are not inclined to pursue in any serious way questions for which they believe there are no true answers.

I don't think it should start in any single place. I think it would be a big help if universities tackled this issue and tried to reverse this kind of philosophy from students heads before they enter society. But I also think it is needed for parents to do their part in becoming more involved with their children. Now, I don't want to say that women entering the work force is bad. But I don't think it can be denied that having one parent to be constantly there and interacting with their children helps them establish a solid connection with others and with their greater community later on in life through their parents wisdom.

EDIT: If both parents can spend lots of time with their children and go to work, then that is just fine. But I think parents are either:
A) Not interacting properly with their children.
B) Not interacting enough with their children.

Something is amiss when the students are already tuned out to the big questions of human existence before they even meet a professor who can teach them what value or moral relativism even is.

EDIT 2: All of us who sit in front of the television and know that these riots are wrong, should do their part by making sure their child will never be a rioter.

[Centurion1]

So where do you think the moral regeneration should begin? What institution or movement or community should be the starting point?

AII

Why does something have to go back to its prior state. Isn't culture like anything else capable of mutating and evolving to a point where it barely resembles the prior society?

Why do people struggle so mightily to preserve the past when the future can be so much brighter?

[Fisherking]

So where do you think the moral regeneration should begin? What institution or movement or community should be the starting point?

AII

I have given this some thought and the only moral authority I can see is the Queen.

Theoretically she has the power to dismiss parliament and call new elections.

I doubt that she will do that but I can see no better time.

It may be that it is just too late and the UK has just had it.

[a completely inoffensive name]

It may be that it is just too late and the UK has just had it.

What does it matter? It is the right thing to do, so you should strive to make sure the right thing is done.

[Kagemusha]

Isn't the finnish model based on excessive use of vodka and saunas?

Gah! Should have known that some unwashed barbarians would not understand the finer points of our system. Sauna and vodka are the keys of our socialized medical services. With Vodka one clears his mind from distracting thoughts and sterilizes ones innerds from harmfull germs, while Sauna cleans up the ulterior, plus you get to be naked and drunk all the time.~:thumb:

[Adrian II]

Why does something have to go back to its prior state. Isn't culture like anything else capable of mutating and evolving to a point where it barely resembles the prior society?

Why do people struggle so mightily to preserve the past when the future can be so much brighter?

I guess that's what we are all struggling with in this thread. You want to work toward a society with a new sense of community based on shared values, shared experiences and a shared forward-looking ethos. Ideally you want a mix of the good things that a liberal education has to offer with the good things that traditional socialisation offer. The problem is where to start if we have governments and institutions that merely reflect the general lack of direction.

AII

[Fisherking]

What does it matter? It is the right thing to do, so you should strive to make sure the right thing is done.

Okay!

So tell us your plan to fix British Society!

What is this Right Thing to Do?

[a completely inoffensive name]

Okay!

So tell us your plan to fix British Society!

What is this Right Thing to Do?

Idk I am not socrates. You said the queen could help with moral regeneracy, but you then became all "meh" about whether society could be helped or not. I am just saying if that is what is right (getting the queen to say/do something) then try to get it done. Instead of questioning whether or not England is helpless at this point, maybe you can volunteer with an organization that helps youth do things that are not illegal and violent? Is there a big brothers/big sisters program in the UK? Maybe get your broom and ask your neighbors if they want to volunteer in the cleaning up? That usually helps establish a more solid community, when you do things together.

But you said you think the queen has moral authority and could do something. You said there was no better time to dismiss parliament. So hell I don't know, at the bare minimum you could write a letter to the queen.

I never said I had a plan. I just said the attitude of western society seems to suck nowadays. In order to change that you gotta get involved somehow in society.

I mean it's not a lot, but I volunteer at my local library twice a week about 5-6 hours total. It helps keep the used bookstore in the library running, which gives all of it's profit to the library so it can keep it's doors open. But now Border's is closing and it is the only bookstore in town, used or not. Am I going to say "well **** it. books are dead so this library may have just had it."? No.

EDIT: I guess since I don't really know you, I don't know if you already volunteer in your spare time so whatever.

[Adrian II]

Things like this almost make you want to burn down a bank or two:


Britain's banking giants were slammed yesterday for refusing to help the innocent victims of the riots. For many, the iconic image of the violence was the burning Carpetright building in Tottenham, North London, and the flats above the shop. But it emerged yesterday that residents whose homes were gutted in the blaze are still being forced to pay their mortgage.

Speaking exclusively to the Daily Mail, the housing association's chief executive said he is 'livid' and 'appalled by' the banks' behaviour. Bill Payne, 56, said: 'The country came to the assistance of the banks when the industry was collapsing. It does not leave a pleasant taste in the mouth that they won't come to our help now.

AII

[Fragony]

Okay!

So tell us your plan to fix British Society!

What is this Right Thing to Do?

Find a cure for sadness

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I have given this some thought and the only moral authority I can see is the Queen.

Theoretically she has the power to dismiss parliament and call new elections.

I doubt that she will do that but I can see no better time.

It may be that it is just too late and the UK has just had it.

Interestingly, the Queen would tell you that any authority she has comes from God.

So now I'm going to say it:

England needs God, not the happy clappy Evangelical kind, the fiery Muslim kind or the benign Anglican kind.

England needs the solid Platonic, Aquninine, and Enlightenment kind. The God who was invoked in the American Revolution when they said, "We hold these truths to be self evident."

[Fisherking]

Idk I am not socrates. You said the queen could help with moral regeneracy, but you then became all "meh" about whether society could be helped or not. I am just saying if that is what is right (getting the queen to say/do something) then try to get it done. Instead of questioning whether or not England is helpless at this point, maybe you can volunteer with an organization that helps youth do things that are not illegal and violent? Is there a big brothers/big sisters program in the UK? Maybe get your broom and ask your neighbors if they want to volunteer in the cleaning up? That usually helps establish a more solid community, when you do things together.

But you said you think the queen has moral authority and could do something. You said there was no better time to dismiss parliament. So hell I don't know, at the bare minimum you could write a letter to the queen.

I never said I had a plan. I just said the attitude of western society seems to suck nowadays. In order to change that you gotta get involved somehow in society.

I mean it's not a lot, but I volunteer at my local library twice a week about 5-6 hours total. It helps keep the used bookstore in the library running, which gives all of it's profit to the library so it can keep it's doors open. But now Border's is closing and it is the only bookstore in town, used or not. Am I going to say "well **** it. books are dead so this library may have just had it."? No.

EDIT: I guess since I don't really know you, I don't know if you already volunteer in your spare time so whatever.

I said that theoretically the Queen had the authority. Whether she would be seen as having the moral high ground to do so is more a matter of UK public opinion to decide.

I don’t think a monarch has done this since Victoria, and that didn’t go down so well.

However, given the political scandals and the recent riots it is the only quarter I see that may be momentarily free from the taint of scandal and possibly offer a uniting force to stop the rot, perceived or otherwise.

Were I in the UK I might consider putting forward such a view or forming a tentative group but I seriously doubt that anyone in the UK would look favorably on outsiders telling them what is best for them at this time.

This also only seemed to effect England. Will this have an effect on the various separatist movements?

The riots didn’t take place in Scotland, Wales, or Cornwall. Will they use it?

I doubt it but stranger things have happened.


edit:
Interestingly, the Queen would tell you that any authority she has comes from God.

So now I'm going to say it:

England needs God, not the happy clappy Evangelical kind, the fiery Muslim kind or the benign Anglican kind.

England needs the solid Platonic, Aquninine, and Enlightenment kind. The God who was invoked in the American Revolution when they said, "We hold these truths to be self evident."

They need something to unite them, for sure. I won’t hold my breath though waiting for them to find God at this point in time.

[a completely inoffensive name]

I said that theoretically the Queen had the authority. Whether she would be seen as having the moral high ground to do so is more a matter of UK public opinion to decide.

I don’t think a monarch has done this since Victoria, and that didn’t go down so well.

However, given the political scandals and the recent riots it is the only quarter I see that may be momentarily free from the taint of scandal and possibly offer a uniting force to stop the rot, perceived or otherwise.

Were I in the UK I might consider putting forward such a view or forming a tentative group but I seriously doubt that anyone in the UK would look favorably on outsiders telling them what is best for them at this time.

This also only seemed to effect England. Will this have an effect on the various separatist movements?

The riots didn’t take place in Scotland, Wales, or Cornwall. Will they use it?

I doubt it but stranger things have happened.

Oh my bad, I thought you lived in the UK. I forgot you live in Germany. For some reason the only people's locations I remember are Fragony, SFTS and Louis.

But yes, you have brought up some good points.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

They need something to unite them, for sure. I won’t hold my breath though waiting for them to find God at this point in time.

In this context God can be as simple as believing the difference between right and wrong is absolute, and not a matter of persepctive. The inescapable fact is that universal values require a universal valuator.

[Adrian II]

In this context God can be as simple as believing the difference between right and wrong is absolute, and not a matter of persepctive.

Which god would that be? Yours? Ik Onkar? Allah? Yaweh? Vishnu?

AII

[Fisherking]

In this context God can be as simple as believing the difference between right and wrong is absolute, and not a matter of persepctive. The inescapable fact is that universal values require a universal valuator.

I once heard a quote by an Anglican Churchman that went something like; to be a member of the church you can believe in anything at all, however, many of them don’t.

They need to believe in something! Queen, God, or Country. Or anything at all that will bring them together.

It is surly a low point in UK history.

[Adrian II]

I once heard a quote by an Anglican Churchman that went something like; to be a member of the church you can believe in anything at all, however, many of them don’t.

They need to believe in something! Queen, God, or Country. Or anything at all that will bring them together.

It is surly a low point in UK history.

Forget all your gods, guys.

People should believe in themselves.

AII

[Fisherking]

Forget all your gods, guys.

People should believe in themselves.

AII

It seems that that is the only thing they do believe in and so you get looters, political or otherwise.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Which god would that be? Yours? Ik Onkar? Allah? Yaweh? Vishnu?

AII

Uh, I already answered that, you quoted the answer.

Ever heard of Deism?


Forget all your gods, guys.

People should believe in themselves.

AII

No, just No. If you had said, "people should believe in each other" you might have been on stronger ground.

[Fisherking]

Sorry about the quip but for community to work people have to believe in something beyond themselves.

Most anything will do so long as they hold it in common but if everyone is only out to please themselves you have no society at all.

[Papewaio]

Sorry I think it's just the opposite. A god/God/oh gawd... represents to me the ulitmate social welfare agent.

Nor does universal theories require a universal valuator... emergence covers it quite neatly.

Why build Occam's doll house when his razor set does a much neater job?

[Adrian II]

No, just No. If you had said, "people should believe in each other" you might have been on stronger ground.

That's part of it. You have to believe in a meaningful life for yourself, in the fact that you can make a difference. Of course that includes being meaningful to others if they return the favour. A happy clappy belief in others gets us nowhere, as you already noticed.

AII

[Adrian II]

Nor does universal theories require a universal valuator... emergence covers it quite neatly.

I knew you'd drag Darwin into the equation :laugh4:

What you say makes real sense, though. Gets me cogs whirring.

AII

[Fisherking]

No, just No. If you had said, "people should believe in each other" you might have been on stronger ground.

That is a very good point!

Believing in, supporting, and being supported by those others is what builds families, communities, and ultimately states.

It is what has been long lacking in modern society. Knowing your neighbors, helping them and having their support is what holds society together and something neglected for far too long.

[Adrian II]

That is a very good point!

Believing in, supporting, and being supported by those others is what builds families, communities, and ultimately states.

It is what has been long lacking in modern society. Knowing your neighbors, helping them and having their support is what holds society together and something neglected for far too long.

That's one of the required set of values. Others are ambition, a good work ethos, education, self-discipline. These values sometimes thrive only at the expense of family. Family is important, but it isn't everything.

AII

[Vladimir]

Gah! Should have known that some unwashed barbarians would not understand the finer points of our system. Sauna and vodka are the keys of our socialized medical services. With Vodka one clears his mind from distracting thoughts and sterilizes ones innerds from harmfull germs, while Sauna cleans up the ulterior, plus you get to be naked and drunk all the time.~:thumb:

Nominated for best post of the thread. :2thumbsup:

[econ21]

More details about the man who died in Ealing:


And as detectives today questioned a 22-year-old man arrested on suspicion of murder, it has emerged Mr Mannington Bowes was a civic-minded man of old fashioned values who had been forced to confront yobs on his own doorstep for years.
The reclusive former accountant had long been tormented by thugs who urinated on his front door and threw litter outside his home, according to friends and neighbours.

However, his courage and habit of never walking away from something he considered wrong eventually cost him his life.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2025079/LONDON-RIOTS-Ealing-hero-Richard-Mannington-Bowes-dies.html

I don't know what makes me more angry - that he was killed for trying to put out a fire or that he had a history of being harassed by thugs. :shame:

[Fragony]

How very thoughtful of the Daily Mail to show him laying in his blood

[Vladimir]

LOL! Look at his face! Sorry for being insensitive but that's how I picture most Daily Mail readers.

[InsaneApache]

I don't know if he read the Mail. One thing's for sure, he wont now.

[HoreTore]

England needs more god? Hah!

England needs msny things, like more democracy, more decency, more care and more humanism. But definitely no more religion. Kinda like how they don't need more drugs either.

[InsaneApache]

I see that rioters and their families are going to be evicted from their council houses. Good. Riddance.

[Adrian II]

I see that rioters and their families are going to be evicted from their council houses. Good. Riddance.

Yes, after seeing innocent shop-owners and tenants evicted by rioters, let's evict more innocents to please the crowds. Speaking of 'pockets of sickness'...

I guess it's only a matter of time before new riots erupt. I know it's unreasonable, but maybe I should agree with Fragony that the UK is a basket case.

AII

[Fragony]

England needs more god? Hah!

England needs msny things, like more democracy, more decency, more care and more humanism. But definitely no more religion. Kinda like how they don't need more drugs either.

Maybe more god isn't such a bad idea right now, who behaved better than the religious communities. Imho England's problem is ugliness, it sucks the life right out of you. Nobody cares anymore, it's almost a contest in nihilism. England needs happiness, it's a whirlpool of sorrow. Going to excercise some modesty myself

[InsaneApache]

Yes, after seeing innocent shop-owners and tenants evicted by rioters, let's evict more innocents to please the crowds. Speaking of 'pockets of sickness'...

I guess it's only a matter of time before new riots erupt. I know it's unreasonable, but maybe I should agree with Fragony that the UK is a basket case.

AII

I don't know about you but I was always of the opinion that parents are responsible for their children. I know I was. It might make the buggers be a bit more concerned where their kids are and what they're up to. There's been talk on these boards about responsibility, make some examples, so that the rest of the idiots get the message.

Perhaps they could huddle together in a burnt out doorway.

Serves them right.

[Adrian II]

I don't know about you but I was always of the opinion that parents are responsible for their children. I know I was. It might make the buggers be a bit more concerned where their kids are and what they're up to. There's been talk on these boards about responsibility, make some examples, so that the rest of the idiots get the message.

Perhaps they could huddle together in a burnt out doorway.

Serves them right.

Want to talk examples? :mellow:

Have you seen the House of Commons debate? The riots were condemned by a PM who used to smash up restaurants as a student, a deputy who is a convicted arsonist, or a Gerald Kaufman who nicked a 8000 quid TV at public expense. Bankers and friends of bankers have robbed your country blind and none of them go to jail. David Cameron even gives the likes of necrophile Andy Coulson a 'second chance'.

Those are the examples that have been set. Yet the children, parents, wives and spouses of rioters should huddle in doorways?

Good God man, even The Telegraph (http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/author/peteroborne/) gets it.

AII

[Fragony]

'I guess it's only a matter of time before new riots erupt. I know it's unreasonable, but maybe I should agree with Fragony that the UK is a basket case.'

Don't put words in my mouth please, just said it is a sad place

[Adrian II]

'I guess it's only a matter of time before new riots erupt. I know it's unreasonable, but maybe I should agree with Fragony that the UK is a basket case.'

Don't put words in my mouth please, just said it is a sad place

I remember you using different terms over the years, but that's ok.

AII

[Fragony]

I remember you using different terms over the years, but that's ok.

AII

Yes but that was about their multicultural policy, like Sweden also has for example. And I like to creatively insult of course, english is just too much fun to not to

[Adrian II]

Yes but that was about their multicultural policy, like Sweden also has for example. And I like to creatively insult of course, english is just too much fun to not to

Creativity. Is that what they call it these days. :mellow:

AII

[HoreTore]

The damage done in the riot is pocket-change in this day of financial crisis.

Yes, plenty pf shop-keepers have been put out of business by this. But just how many shop-keepers were put out of business by the reckless greed in the financial industry?

I propose the only viable solution to the rioting: open up the treasury and hand out a few million to every rioter. Gah, it's so obvious, why hasn't anyone thought about it before?!

[Adrian II]

Don't put words in my mouth please, just said it is a sad place

Well, it a way that covers it.

I think this UNICEF report on child well-being in the rich countries (http://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/rc7_eng.pdf) has something to tell us.

Will you do me a favour, Fragony? Will you look at the Summary Table on page 2 for a moment and tell me if there is anything in particular that strikes you?

AII

[HoreTore]

No wait,i read the table wrong. Hmmm...

[econ21]

One of the UK TV news reports this evening mentioned that, of the hundreds of rioters/looters taken to court, the vast majority (I forget the stats, but over 90%) did not report an occupation. I suspect that when we do see the stats, they will be shown to be unemployed. The much reported varied occupations of some of those arrested (an estate agent, a teaching assistant, a law student etc) should not blind us to the statistics. Yes, some people with jobs joined in, but I suspect the core and the mass of the rioters/looters were the young unemployed. I am not sure how far that takes us, but it does make the events somewhat less bizarre, at least to me.

[Adrian II]

One of the UK TV news reports this evening mentioned that, of the hundreds of rioters/looters taken to court, the vast majority (I forget the stats, but over 90%) did not report an occupation. I suspect that when we do see the stats, they will be shown to be unemployed. The much reported varied occupations of some of those arrested (an estate agent, a teaching assistant, a law student etc) should not blind us to the statistics. Yes, some people with jobs joined in, but I suspect the core and the mass of the rioters/looters were the young unemployed. I am not sure how far that takes us, but it does make the events somewhat less bizarre, at least to me.

You may be right, I have seen the provisional stats on newspapers' websites and they do show a slightly different picture. I'm also beginning to suspect that the police arrested lots of first-time offenders, physically unfit youths and inexperienced thugs. So far it seems that no heavies have apparead before the magistrates. So I may have to swallow some of my scant remarks made earlier in the thread. Even so, I maintain that a full-scale retreat of police in situations like this is an open invitation to all sorts of people who will simply break the law because the opportunity is given to them.

BTW if you're ready for a laugh, try this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ueBCWaWNcY&feature=youtu.be) (fun starts at 4:40).

AII

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Sorry I think it's just the opposite. A god/God/oh gawd... represents to me the ulitmate social welfare agent.

Nor does universal theories require a universal valuator... emergence covers it quite neatly.

Why build Occam's doll house when his razor set does a much neater job?

Philosophically speaking, a value requires a valuator. To have an argument about universal values you need a universal valuator a "cosmic referee" if you will. Positing the emergence of similar value systems as humanity has evolved does not give those systems moral force, exactly the opposite in fact.


That's part of it. You have to believe in a meaningful life for yourself, in the fact that you can make a difference. Of course that includes being meaningful to others if they return the favour. A happy clappy belief in others gets us nowhere, as you already noticed.

AII

I think you have it backwards. A "meaningful life for yourself" impies a standard of meaning. A sense of self worth requires something to measure worth by; without an external yardstick people can only measure themselves subjectively against other people. Worldly success becomes the standard for human happiness, that is where we are now.

Consumerism and Narcicism, a world where people accumulate goods and everyone thinks they should write an autobiography. I mean, come on, how many genuinely worthwile people actually wrote their own biographies?


England needs more god? Hah!

England needs msny things, like more democracy, more decency, more care and more humanism. But definitely no more religion. Kinda like how they don't need more drugs either.

England, or rather the English, have very little religion. Only the "others" the Muslims and Sikhs have behaved with honour and piety, a sense of duty and responsibility. The godless English have behaved abominably.

In any case, decency, care and humanism are central to many religions, while earthly democracy is compatable with most. But I didn't say "religion" did I, I said "God" and I explicitely distanced this "God" from any particular Creed.

[gaelic cowboy]

England, or rather the English, have very little religion. Only the "others" the Muslims and Sikhs have behaved with honour and piety, a sense of duty and responsibility. The godless English have behaved abominably.

Ah come one now that is a bit much, a crowd of feral youths run riot and suddenly the entire country is apparently gone to the dogs.

Middle class residents of London have turned out to clean up their streets after nights of rioting (http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/middle-class-residents-of-london-have-turned-out-to-clean-up-their-streets-after-nights-of-rioting/story-e6frg6so-1226112161021)

Riot clean-up: 'Bring brooms, brushes, gloves and heavy-duty rubbish bags' (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/riot-cleanup-bring-brooms-brushes-gloves-and-heavyduty-rubbish-bags-2335068.html)

The fact is this could happen in any western nation IF the set of conditions that happened in London happened again.

[Adrian II]

In any case, decency, care and humanism are central to many religions

As well as to many atheist or agnostic worldviews. There is no need for a cosmic copper to help people decide to do the right thing. Socialisation by fellow humans is much more important.

AII

[Fragony]

Well, it a way that covers it.

I think this UNICEF report on child well-being in the rich countries (http://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/rc7_eng.pdf) has something to tell us.

Will you do me a favour, Fragony? Will you look at the Summary Table on page 2 for a moment and tell me if there is anything in particular that strikes you?

AII

Can't open pdf here, a little hint would be lovely

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Ah come one now that is a bit much, a crowd of feral youths run riot and suddenly the entire country is apparently gone to the dogs.

Middle class residents of London have turned out to clean up their streets after nights of rioting (http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/middle-class-residents-of-london-have-turned-out-to-clean-up-their-streets-after-nights-of-rioting/story-e6frg6so-1226112161021)

Riot clean-up: 'Bring brooms, brushes, gloves and heavy-duty rubbish bags' (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/riot-cleanup-bring-brooms-brushes-gloves-and-heavyduty-rubbish-bags-2335068.html)

The fact is this could happen in any western nation IF the set of conditions that happened in London happened again.

I call primacy as an Englishman, the malaise runs deep. The riots erupted for no reason than because people got away with it the first night. The second wave of looters are a comprehensive cross-section of society.


As well as to many atheist or agnostic worldviews. There is no need for a cosmic copper to help people decide to do the right thing. Socialisation by fellow humans is much more important.

AII

Really? Like Secular Humanism? That bankrupt philosophy has surgical scars where God has been exised, it's about as real or natural as Pamela Anderson. Utilitarianism doesn't really work well for the poor and useless, and "Enlightened" Self Interest is an oxymoron that always ends up with someone screwing someone over once they've got everything they need from the poor sap.

I challenge you to produce an absolutist moral philosophy without an external anchor that I can equate with "God" in the most basic sense.

[Adrian II]

https://img577.imageshack.us/img577/1964/unicef.png
https://img16.imageshack.us/img16/9687/unicef2.png

[Adrian II]

I challenge you to produce an absolutist moral philosophy without an external anchor that I can equate with "God" in the most basic sense.

My dear Philipvs, there is no need for an absolutist philosophy, moral or otherwise. The mere thought I find abhorrent. It's a recipe for hell on earth.

AII

[Centurion1]

https://img577.imageshack.us/img577/1964/unicef.png
https://img16.imageshack.us/img16/9687/unicef2.png

I'll be honest. I would much rather live in the US than some of these countries. And by that I mean as a child of someone making the average income.

[Adrian II]

I'll be honest. I would much rather live in the US than some of these countries. And by that I mean as a child of someone making the average income.

Yes, and I'd love to be a billionaire in Hungary. But I've posted this thing for its relevance to the subject.

AII

[Fragony]

https://img577.imageshack.us/img577/1964/unicef.png
https://img16.imageshack.us/img16/9687/unicef2.png

Yes it absolutely does, England ain't the place to be. But what to do, I hate going there and I imagine people hate living there.

[Adrian II]

Yes it absolutely does, England ain't the place to be. But what to do, I hate going there and I imagine people hate living there.

No seriously, the Uk is a great place to go. But apparently they're doing things to their kids...I dunno, maybe they don't whip them enough. :shrug:

AII

[Greyblades]

Spare the rod; spoil the child, I never though I would be agreeing with that saying but then again seeing a chav getting caned sounds damn appealing right now.


England, or rather the English, have very little religion. Only the "others" the Muslims and Sikhs have behaved with honour and piety, a sense of duty and responsibility. The godless English have behaved abominably.
You could just as easily easily say they were behaving more because they are brown and the english are destructive because they are white devils.

Gentlemen (or women) can we please take a page from france and leave religion (and ethnicity for that matter) at home until it actually becomes relevent beyond an observation of an anti-riot groups ethnic and ethical makeup? Its likely to incur moderator wrath at this rate.

[Centurion1]

Spare the rod; spoil the child, I never though I would be agreeing with that saying but then again seeing a chav getting caned sounds damn appealing right now.


You could just as easily easily say they were behaving more because they are brown and the english are destructive because they are white devils.

Gentlemen (or women) can we please take a page from france and leave religion (and ethnicity for that matter) at home until it actually becomes relevent beyond an observation of an anti-riot groups ethnic and ethical makeup? Its likely to incur moderator wrath at this rate.

Western children are on a whole spoiled beyond belief. rods haven't been used in western education and parenting without big brother coming down with a rod of punishment on adults.

[Hosakawa Tito]

The damage done in the riot is pocket-change in this day of financial crisis.

Yes, plenty pf shop-keepers have been put out of business by this. But just how many shop-keepers were put out of business by the reckless greed in the financial industry?

I propose the only viable solution to the rioting: open up the treasury and hand out a few million to every rioter. Gah, it's so obvious, why hasn't anyone thought about it before?!

Brilliant. Give them more stuff, unconditionally of course. That'll teach 'em not to...er that'll teach them to riot. You're not a parent, I hope.

The authorities can start by rounding up every one they can catch, give them brooms, shovels, and paint brushes and make them clean up. No work, no benefit checks.

[Fragony]

No seriously, the Uk is a great place to go. But apparently they're doing things to their kids...I dunno, maybe they don't whip them enough. :shrug:

AII

What you wanted to point out is that all best the places are social democracies am I wrong? If so I'd argue that it's succes is cultural most of all.

[Greyblades]

Western children are on a whole spoiled beyond belief. rods haven't been used in western education and parenting without big brother coming down with a rod of punishment on adults.
Right! There are times when I wonder if I would have avoided alot more of the crap I endured in school if the prick's punishments weren't more than an hour of detention or getting sent home for afew days. Hell, my past self would have benefitted from afew beatings himself, would have shown me there are more painful things in the world than a teenager's torment ten years early.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Spare the rod; spoil the child, I never though I would be agreeing with that saying but then again seeing a chav getting caned sounds damn appealing right now.


You could just as easily easily say they were behaving more because they are brown and the english are destructive because they are white devils.

Gentlemen (or women) can we please take a page from france and leave religion (and ethnicity for that matter) at home until it actually becomes relevent beyond an observation of an anti-riot groups ethnic and ethical makeup? Its likely to incur moderator wrath at this rate.

If you have to strike a child more than twice you're already on to a losing wicket. Corporal punishment for children only works if it shocks. Now, the stocks for Adults, that I can get behind. Don't nail them up by the ears and have a bobby to make sure no one throws excrement or broken glass, but otherwise have at.

as to your other point, skin colour and Creed are hardly comparable.


My dear Philipvs, there is no need for an absolutist philosophy, moral or otherwise. The mere thought I find abhorrent. It's a recipe for hell on earth.

AII

I dissagree - England lacks a concrete and immutable idea, Wales has one (The English are bastards, give me Owain) the Scots have one (The English are....

OK, not quite, but the simple fact is that mutable and adaptable values got us here, immutable ones are surely at least worth a try. hence I say more "God".


Yes it absolutely does, England ain't the place to be. But what to do, I hate going there and I imagine people hate living there.

I love my land, I love the hills, the rivers, the sinking bogs with the bouncy trees, the fair skinned, rose-cheeked and dark eyed women who work bare foor upon the grass.

Give me England or give me death.

[HoreTore]

Brilliant. Give them more stuff, unconditionally of course. That'll teach 'em not to...er that'll teach them to riot. You're not a parent, I hope.

The authorities can start by rounding up every one they can catch, give them brooms, shovels, and paint brushes and make them clean up. No work, no benefit checks.

No, I'm a teacher, so I just form the minds of other peoples kids. And you, my good sir, should sign up for classes like "Irony 101" as soon as possible ~;)

But this was the solution we picked when dealing with corrupt bankers, why should corrupt youth be treated differently?

(and if you still don't get it, my actual question here is somthing along the lines of "why the hell did we give the corrupt thieves in the finance sector bags of cash instead of a proper whoopin'?")

[HoreTore]

Western children are on a whole spoiled beyond belief. rods haven't been used in western education and parenting without big brother coming down with a rod of punishment on adults.

Yeah, I hear the 1800's was famed as the "century without riots or petty murders".

Geez.......

[HoreTore]

No seriously, the Uk is a great place to go. But apparently they're doing things to their kids...I dunno, maybe they don't whip them enough. :shrug:

AII

Learning is enchanced through enforcers. An enforcer can be positive(recognition, wage increase, etc) or negative(broken leg from a bicycle accident, etc), and both work. A positive enforcer is to be prefered however, since when a negative enforcer is used, one will often try to avoid the negative enforcer, not the behaviour to be learned(ie. you wear some protection, but you continue riding your bike recklessly).

So, beating your kid for bad behaviour is not S good as praising it for good behaviour. Common sense 101.

[Centurion1]

Yeah, I hear the 1800's was famed as the "century without riots or petty murders".

Geez.......

Strawman. Where did I even state that this was the result of spoiled children.

I responded to another posters statement.

[HoreTore]

Strawman.

I'm the son of a farmer who grows hay, whatcha expect? :clown:

[Adrian II]

Learning is enchanced through enforcers. An enforcer can be positive(recognition, wage increase, etc) or negative(broken leg from a bicycle accident, etc), and both work. A positive enforcer is to be prefered however, since when a negative enforcer is used, one will often try to avoid the negative enforcer, not the behaviour to be learned(ie. you wear some protection, but you continue riding your bike recklessly).

So, beating your kid for bad behaviour is not S good as praising it for good behaviour. Common sense 101.

Jesus HoreTore, that line about whipping was a joke :rolleyes:

Anyway, I don't need a cosmic referee to teach my kids to 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you' and any other basics of human decency.

But the sorry state of British youth should be cause for concern for the entire nation, no?

AII

[econ21]

The authorities can start by rounding up every one they can catch, give them brooms, shovels, and paint brushes and make them clean up. No work, no benefit checks.

They are rounding up everyone they can catch, don't worry about that. Thanks to CC TV, we have over 500 detectives trawling over hundreds of mug shots.

But I suspect the punishments won't be clean up operations (although I agree they might be appropriate for some of the crimes in different times), but something harsher - i.e. prison. IIRC, one first offender got 7 months for looting some bottled water. Most magistrates are passing on the cases to crown courts as the maximum punishment they can dole out is around 6 months and they think a stronger penalty is warranted. 66% are being refused bail (compared to 10% for such crimes in other times). It may not be a long term solution, but at best might shock some sense into the looters and at least will keep them off the streets for the remaining summer.

In the longer term, I think the key is to get them into proper work but that's easier said than done. The last government did try, through incentives to stay on at school and employment schemes for youngsters. I rather fear the current government has given up on it. Maybe now is not the time for them to talk about such things (the public want retribution), although surely some government ministers like the Lib Dems are thinking about it.

[gaelic cowboy]

The riots erupted for no reason than because people got away with it the first night. The second wave of looters are a comprehensive cross-section of society.

Indeed thats my point all along so it is, a few clips round the ear woulda sorted the copycat riots out on the second night no problem.

There is no need to go tearing up society or planting new moral codes at all at all, just enforce the law of the land fairly.

[HoreTore]

Jesus HoreTore, that line about whipping was a joke :rolleyes:

AII

School starts next week, and I'm shaking with anticipation! And the planning meetings this week has launched me into an educational frenzy, so I'm sorry to say, but I think you're just going to have to live with me being this way for a week ~;)

[Adrian II]

School starts next week, and I'm shaking with anticipation! And the planning meetings this week has launched me into an educational frenzy, so I'm sorry to say, but I think you're just going to have to live with me being this way for a week ~;)

I'll suffer you for a whole year or more, if need be :laugh3:

AII

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Indeed thats my point all along so it is, a few clips round the ear woulda sorted the copycat riots out on the second night no problem.

There is no need to go tearing up society or planting new moral codes at all at all, just enforce the law of the land fairly.

No, we just need the old moral codes back, along with, "Keep Calm and Carry on".

These riots are just. not. cricket. The middle class partaking in oppertunistic theft, where am I Italy?

NO! This is England, and I demand the perpetrators be flogged, unless they can bribe the magistrate.

Failing that there is always the old standby, Irish mercenaries.

How are you fixed for the next week or so, gaelic?

[Adrian II]

No, we just need the old moral codes back, along with, "Keep Calm and Carry on".

These riots are just. not. cricket. The middle class partaking in oppertunistic theft, where am I Italy?

NO! This is England, and I demand the perpetrators be flogged, unless they can bribe the magistrate.

Failing that there is always the old standby, Irish mercenaries.

How are you fixed for the next week or so, gaelic?

That's the spirit :laugh4:

I'll do my part. I'll happily give that Olympic ambassador a second chance. She can have an internship at my paper where she can display her incredible body reporting skills to the max.

Just doing my duty.

AII

[gaelic cowboy]

Failing that there is always the old standby, Irish mercenaries.

How are you fixed for the next week or so, gaelic?

No bother I'm on the way over to Gloucester to the relations anyway, I'll bring a bag of hurls with me so :wink:


Warning video contains choice language and scenes of inner city roguery ie cursing and beating with an ash stick.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEvQofZvBUA

[Adrian II]

I rather fear the current government has given up on it.

British governments and many ordinary British have long given up, haven't they? When I look at this coalition of the dazed in Whitehall and in the papers and on Twitter, I see only confusion, fear and impotence. I see vindictive sentencing, naming and shaming, prejudice of the worst kind ('The whites have become black,' some idiot said on Newsnight yesterday evening), all meant to cover up the fact that Britain has become a shadow of a country. Civil liberties are going down the drain so fast, it's frightening, as if even the liberals have no backbone anymore and are ready to welcome more CCTV, more stop and search, a clamp-down on social media, collective punishments - please, let's be like Israel or China...

The Unicef report I quoted was suggested to me by a Dutch correspondent in London, a friend of mine. He has a 1-year-old boy. Last January he struck a deal with his employers to return to The Netherlands in two years time because he doesn't want his child to grow up in the UK.

AII

[Fragony]

Watch the movie 'Naked', a poetic masterpiece, it's spot on on the self-destructive society

Buy some chocolate ice before watching it as you will be depressed. You will also find beauty in ugliness

edit, you are guilty of just disregarding PVC by the way

[Hosakawa Tito]

No, I'm a teacher, so I just form the minds of other peoples kids. And you, my good sir, should sign up for classes like "Irony 101" as soon as possible ~;)

But this was the solution we picked when dealing with corrupt bankers, why should corrupt youth be treated differently?

(and if you still don't get it, my actual question here is somthing along the lines of "why the hell did we give the corrupt thieves in the finance sector bags of cash instead of a proper whoopin'?")

Oh, I got yer irony. My only hope is that the "forming minds" part is exclusively about math because some of your other thought processes are part of the problem.
A population thinks (because it has often been told so by intellectuals and the political class) that it is entitled to a high standard of consumption, irrespective of its personal efforts; and therefore it regards the fact that it does not receive that high standard, by comparison with the rest of society, as a sign of injustice. Much of what they have is provided by others, but they are not grateful: dependency doesn't encourage gratitude but resentment.

[Fragony]

Oh, I got yer irony. My only hope is that the "forming minds" part is exclusively about math because some of your other thought processes are part of the problem.
A population thinks (because it has often been told so by intellectuals and the political class) that it is entitled to a high standard of consumption, irrespective of its personal efforts; and therefore it regards the fact that it does not receive that high standard, by comparison with the rest of society, as a sign of injustice. Much of what they have is provided by others, but they are not grateful: dependency doesn't encourage gratitude but resentment.

shut up and kiss me

[Furunculus]

I see vindictive sentencing, naming and shaming, prejudice of the worst kind ('The whites have become black,' some idiot said on Newsnight yesterday evening), all meant to cover up the fact that Britain has become a shadow of a country.

David Starkey was making a very valuble and informed point:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tobyyoung/100100845/was-david-starkey-being-racist-on-newsnight-last-night/

[Louis VI the Fat]

David Starkey was making a very valuble and informed point:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tobyyoung/100100845/was-david-starkey-being-racist-on-newsnight-last-night/


What’s happened is that a substantial section of the Chavs that you wrote about have become black. The whites have become black. A particular sort of violent, destructive, nihilistic, gangster culture has become the fashion. And black and white, boy and girl, operate in this language together, this language which is wholly false, which is this Jamaican patois that’s been intruded in England, and this is why so many of us have this sense of literally a foreign country.


It is, as Adrian says, prejudice of the worst kind. It is also absolutely spot on. What's more, it can be observed not just in England, but on the continent too.

It is the middle classes which are segretated. Like the upper classes, the lower classes are very much the perfect multi-ethnic society. White teenage girls all dream of black babies asap. Boys roam the streets in groups, imposible to tell who is white, brown or black in everything but their skin colour. The same patois, the same clothes, the same gestures. It is this brew that ran amok in the 2005 French riots, not any poverty of immigrants, or political grievances, or Islam. It is poisenous potion of MTV rap video, gansta culture, nihilism, hatred. An atavistic street culture revolving around honour and respect, both notions understood slightly differently than in minstream society. It should bnot be a coincidence that the spark in the powder keg in both London 2011 and Paris 2005 was the death of 'one of their own' at the hands of the police. Spilled blood which had to be avenged, to be taken back from 'them', them being civilised society.

[econ21]

David Starkey was making a very valuble and informed point...

No, he was just being crass and provocative. What does "Enoch Powell was absolutely right" but "absolutely wrong" mean? Even the supportive article you quote does not know. Whatever "point" he was making by the reference is opaque - but I rather suspect that was deliberate (let the neanderthal right draw their own conclusions but "never quite crossing the line" as Toby Young put it). What has impressed me most about ethnicity and the riots, is that victim after victim, shopkeeper after shopkeeper, seems to be a hardworking immigrant who I am proud and grateful to have in my country.

Similarly, the bit about David Lammy sounding white was crude and offensive. When did all blacks (or all whites) sound the same? What point was he trying to make? That David Lammy was not a symbol of gangster culture? Wow, we needed a history don to tell us that.

As for the core point about black gangster culture causing the riots, I am not convinced. Yes, gangs and their attitudes are important parts of the story. But I suspect they would exist even without whatever music is coming out of the US (in past times, we've had gangs of mods, rockers, skinheads each identifying with different kinds of music etc.) I suspect ethnic grievances are also part of the story (at least in parts of London) but less so that in the 1980s riots and needs to be discussed with great care so that we don't get back to the 1980s when specific communities felt victimised by the state and wider society. Starkey, by acting like a shadow of Powell, is approaching it in exactly the wrong way.

One other point about the 1980s: what I think stopped race and other riots getting out of control during the very polarised Thatcher period was that the government showed some sensitivity towards the conditions that sparked the riots and was seen to take action to address them. Setting up the Scarman inquiry help bring about improvements in social relations and policing, while the urban regeneration efforts of Heseltine etc at least offered some evidence that the government was concerned and the possibility of some hope. I am not seeing anything parallel coming out of the government at the moment. I know they want to appear hardline and not encourage more disorder, but I think in times of austerity and pessimism trying to do more for the young of poor communities is prudent as well as altruistic. A first step would be an inquiry - if Murdoch warrants two public inquiries, I think these riots warrant at least one.

[Furunculus]

we are disagreed then, i saw nothing racist in his statement, nor too anything downright wrong, for all that it was provocatively framed.

[gaelic cowboy]

It is the middle classes which are segretated. Like the upper classes, the lower classes are very much the perfect multi-ethnic society. White teenage girls all dream of black babies asap. Boys roam the streets in groups, imposible to tell who is white, brown or black in everything but their skin colour. The same patois, the same clothes, the same gestures. It is this brew that ran amok in the 2005 French riots, not any poverty of immigrants, or political grievances, or Islam. It is poisenous potion of MTV rap video, gansta culture, nihilism, hatred. An atavistic street culture revolving around honour and respect, both notions understood slightly differently than in minstream society. It should bnot be a coincidence that the spark in the powder keg in both London 2011 and Paris 2005 was the death of 'one of their own' at the hands of the police. Spilled blood which had to be avenged, to be taken back from 'them', them being civilised society.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBHz1OoVVtk&feature=related

What makes me sick louis is that people want to ape the kind of people in this Irish tv docu on criminality in Ireland.

this particular episode deals with a viscious outfit from Limerick.

the themes that keep coming up are

Respect
Honour
Family
Extreme violence
Lack of social cohesion
the youth of many of the participants

you get the picture