fieryshadowcard said:
I think you guys are taking the comic and the post beneath it too literally. At no point was it said that there's no blame to be assigned elsewhere. The point is, "Yeah, while you guys are sitting there trying to assign blame to my aunt's overly gaming nephews or your strange compulsion to destroy beneficial laws and systems for the less fortunate, there's a guy outside my house who CHOSE to douse all the houses on my street with gasoline and is now preparing to light a match. Do something about him and the others, stop the riot quickly, take preventative measures for future cases, and THEN maybe if you have some time in retrospective, play your game of arbitrary finger-pointing."
The worst of the riots have died down now, it's now the time to start looking at why these riots kicked off in the first place. Our out of touch government has already started their finger wagging. 'Gang culture' and the 'moral decay' of our society are being spouted as the sole reason for the violence. If you attempt to express any dissenting view then you're shouted down as trying to support or justify the rioting. Just look at the House of Commons debates on the subject to see what I mean. Anybody who says 'maybe we shouldn't just blame the riotters? Maybe there's more to this' is thought to be defending the riots instead of someone who's just asking a legitimate question.
So I hope you can understand my frustration. The comic just comes across as being rather misinformed. I can see it's point, and I don't entirely disagree. But it seemed like it was trying to offer just as many easy answers as the government is.
It's the easiest thing in the world to write the riotters off as brazen, animalistic savages. Just like it's the easiest thing in the world to blame video game violence, or the moral decay of society, or the government. This is an extremely complicated issue, you can't just write it off as 'see that guy with a cinderblock smashing the window of a shop? Yeah, that guy. He's to blame.' There's a lot more to it than that.
To quote a little from the post below the comic.
In my opinion, people from all over the political spectrum have been handing out the blame to everyone but those who truly deserve it, the rioters themselves.
I wanna know where they're getting this from. Our government right now is doing all it can to punish those responsible. Take this for example; http://www.wandsworth.gov.uk/news/article/10626/first_rioter_given_eviction_notice
Or this;
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-14549260
Or this;
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-14549201
There are more examples of rioters being blamed and punished for their actions.
Yes, the rioters have been driven to a point where their frustration has turned to anger and their anger to outward acts of aggression. That makes their actions understandable, NOT justifiable. The riot, with the casualties and the property damage and the paranoia, fear, anger and hostility from all sides certainly is not going to make things BETTER for anyone. The rioting is still ongoing, and there are people who a) are still enraged and expressing it in an unproductive way as well as b) people who are merely capitalizing on the chaos because it's convenient.
I agree with you that this level of obscene violence can't be justified. Anybody that participated in the riots needs to be punished. But they need to be punished fairly. I'm concerned that the government wants to heap heftier punishments on to these riots, punishing their families and their communities just because the world happened to take an interest this time.
Also, most of the riotting is under control now. We're now in the stage of trying to repair the damage to stop it from happening again. Hence all the 'arbitrary finger pointing' as we try to find out what's to blame.
Desperation brings out the worst in all of us. But how it manifests is a CHOICE. And if it manifests in a detrimental way, there is accountability to be held there. It wouldn't fly if I went and brutally assaulted every last person who made my life miserable, and it certainly isn't going to fly when instead of assaulting those people I opt to destroy the homes of my neighbors and fellow community, a lot of whom are probably experiencing the same thing.
I kind of see what you mean here. And I agree for the most part. These rioters hijacked a peaceful protest and savaged their own neighbourhoods. They totally shouldn't have done that. They shook things up - but instead of striking a blow for their political beliefs they used the chaos as a way to grab as much swag as possible, and things are only going to get worse for everybody as a consequence.
However - there have been dozens of peaceful protests in this country that have accomplished nothing. I know because I've taken part in a few. We're not even getting listened to. This anger has been simmering for a long time - riots were inevitable. I just wish they'd taken the chance to hit the government rather than the local Asda.
Because it was MY local Asda damnit. That's where I do my booze shopping.
I'm also thinking that since a lot of the riotters were younger people (13-14 or so) a lot of them simply wouldn't know how to target the government. All they could do was lash out blindly.
Is this making sense? I don't know. Kind of suffering one of the worst bouts of writer's block of my life and I'm not nearly as coherent as I would like to be.
