What's your take on the English riots?

jdun

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rt052192 said:
live in america. dont care. find it comical that England cant contain the riots though
They can't because their police are not arm. They don't keep criminals in prison. Crimes that normally put you in jail 20 years in the USA will at best spend 1 year in the UK. The UK treats their criminals like victims and their victims like criminals.

If this happen in my city these rioters will pray for the police really fast.
 

blackdwarf

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seriously, the people who are "prostesting" are just being retarded. (except the people who ARE pretesting). it are just children looking for a excuse to steal stuff.
 

CakeDragon

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winter2 said:
CakeDragon said:
Dude.. I am so sorry to hear all this. I wish I could do anything to help, but of course there is nothing I can do but wish you the best of luck and hope you will pull through more or less unscathed.

I heard there was like 16,000 policemen in the greater area London as of yesterday. Is that incorrect?

Sounds to me like it's time for a bit of the ol'e martial law and start prosecuting these hooligans.
It's scary but the police have told all shop owners that it's safer to close early. Today most shops closed before 3pm, or didn't even open at all. A lot of shops got boarded up in preparation.
Whilst it was true that there were about 16000 police in London, it was relatively quiet there. Birmingham, Manchester and Leicester were badly hit last night.
There was a helicopter flying round my area earlier and seen some wagons about the place. I think it's all happening in town though. There are a load of football fans (Birmingham City and Aston Villa fans have joined together, for any football nuts... Crazy I know!) gathering in town tonight to try and fight against the mobs. Unfortunately being a vilgilante is what caused the three deaths last night.
The PM has water cannons on stand-by though, so things should get pretty amusing at least.

The ironic thing is, these kids are rioting becuase they want to prove a point about unemployment. They'll go to court, get a criminal record, and become unemployable. Vicious circle or what.
 

FC Groningen

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First of all, I want to make something clear. As a pacifist, I hate violence but I see why people would resort to it. I don't want to moraly label it yet however.

Secondly, I regret people that have nothing to do with these matters fall victim to violence and pillaging.


I want to share my support with the people that say that these matters run deeper than "pointless violence and looting". As a Dutch social worker, I'm familiar with our own local/national issues on "street level" although they are not as severe as in England. Fact is that the Netherlands invests more effort/money/support on a person that needs it at the moment. I say invest, because MOST of the times, the effort is payed back in a safer neighbourhood, higher general welfare and low unemployment rates and low depression rates. Why am I glad that it happened in England? I am somewhat familiar with the situation in England from co workers located there and the situation on street level is sometimes very atrocious indeed. Also, in Western Europe, it is becoming a trend to cut on social security and health support; Maybe these riots will prevent further suffering after all.

In fact, I might actually be glad this happened in England at the moment. The (these) issues of the lowest class citizens have been around for decades, with the rise of capitalism and globalism. These issues always have been there, but you should be aware of them to see them. As others said, this is simply one of the major events where they have been visible for the entire community. These people that loot and use violence are exposed, or have been exposed to similar behaviour for a long time, without anyone caring about it. The community in general only starts to care when it affects us, which is a very big flaw of today's Western communities. Apparantly, people need examples first before they start caring.


As both a social law worker and sociology student, I dare to say that today's communities have many flaws. I bet most of you would agree to it and some of you might recognise some points that I will point out here that are relevant according to myself.

- Freedom of speech; A lot of people find it very important that they should be able to say and think whatever they want. Its a great liberty that has been hardfought, but people do not realise that with great liberties comes great responsibilities. Also, in liberties, you always have a "shadow side"; Each liberty will limit another. The "Freedom of Speech" for instance can be used to openly discriminate against social groups. It can also be used to lock people out of support, jobs and perspective which happens now all over Western Europe as well. Employers still reject people because they are foreign for various reasons and if they do hire them, they will try to abuse their weak status to cut on their payment (sometimes way below minimum wage) or to just saddle them with unreasonable labor/tasks which increases health complications. Which leads me to the next point.

- The free market. The community decides on what sort of people are made important and which aren't. Despite the sometimes arbitrary deal, society in general fails to understand that it needs a balanced working force for it to be functional. Society needs mechanics, janitors and cleaners just as much as executives and surgeons. Especially unpaid "volunteers" that sometimes work 48 hours a week for no pay are treated like dirt by society. These volunteers do tasks in society (like taking care of elderly people, handicapted people and working in public service areas) that no one else will do without payment, but which needs to be done. In theory, these people are labeled as "unemployed" and since they are unwilling to get "a real job", they can be cut on their support. This trend indeed leads to rich people getting richer and the group of poor people growing.

- Individualism. From birth, we are raised to be assertive and self centered. We're all the center of the world and we're all special, unique and filled with talents. Its because we live in a society in which this trait is needed to keep your head above the water. However, with this we allow selfcenteredness to run rampant. Don't get me wrong; Its not a bad quality, but at the moment, a great deal of society only cares about him/herself and his direct environment. Because of this, a great deal of society only can only relate to people somehow similar to him/her and won't even bother with others. Like others said; People are very eager to judge which people are worthy of honor, respect, support and titles. People don't want to be bothered with the issues of people they don't give a rats ass about, which leads to reactions like "shoot them all", or "punish them as hard as you can". Its very short-sighted and each time I hear it, I translate it in "If you punish them, they won't be a bother to ME anymore", which is basically all they care about. (me)

I agree that society in general failed to look out for their weakest and least fortunate and its getting worse. As in any deal with multiple partakers, the deal must be and remain satisfactory to all factions or people will turn away from it sooner or later. And just like a child that is crying for attention, its behaviour will become more and more extreme until finally it will be too late. If you ask me, we should increase our attention to our fellow man. Decadent that all our societies are, all we do the past 40/50 years is pursue our own happiness, ignoring the rest of the world in the process. As humanity, we could make the world a MUCH better place if we put the effort in it and would be willing to sacrifise some/more of our own interests. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or in this case the individual.

Sorry that it became a wall of text and sorry for the shaky English.
 

RoyalWelsh

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Feb 14, 2010
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I just think the rioters are a big bunch of scum. They are not looting, burning etc for any political reasons, their tiny chav minds just saw an oppurtunity to cause havoc.
 

rt052192

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jdun said:
rt052192 said:
live in america. dont care. find it comical that England cant contain the riots though
They can't because their police are not arm. They don't keep criminals in prison. Crimes that normally put you in jail 20 years in the USA will at best spend 1 year in the UK. The UK treats their criminals like victims and their victims like criminals.

If this happen in my city these rioters will pray for the police really fast.
Well this really clarifies things for me. Thank you
 

GraveeKing

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Nov 15, 2009
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Sizzle Montyjing said:
Yeah.
I'm being serious.
Some insane libyan TV presenter said it.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.305813-Libya-proud-of-England-Riots#12292839
WOW! That is rather awesome. You know this is why we should listen to the news outside all the rich corrupt country's and listen to the funny ones!
Thank you my good sir, consider me amused.
 

Atmos Duality

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Mar 3, 2010
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When the "protests" start genuinely threatening the lives of the innocent, it is idiocy in the extreme to not authorize/legalize some form of personal defense.

What is evident: These thugs are largely NOT afraid of the law.
Answer disorganized force with organized force and make those violent fools sorry.
 

Rack

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Jan 18, 2008
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They aren't protesters, most of them are angry little shits. This is just what angry little shits do if they're backed into a corner and completely disenfranchised with society. But before (well, after) we make it political these are the (largely indistinguishable) policies of Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown and Cameron, don't just heap blame at whoever was in charge at the time.
 

azzair

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Nov 13, 2009
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Riot should never be tolerated.
The peaceful demonstration they had planned was fine. In fact, that was great. But as soon as the crowd broke into riot, started vandalizing and looting, that is no longer acceptable and should be dealt with as soon as possible. It puts others in risk, it shows how much you really care about your society, it makes you look like a thug, it discredits your initial intents and it just makes it look like the government is right to not allow peaceful protests because they evolve into this.
Completely unacceptable.
 

Nouw

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hazabaza1 said:
They're all cunts being cunty that deserver to be jailed.
I like this post very much.

Straight to the point with some classy profanities.
[sub]'Cept for the grammar.[/sub]
 

llew

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Sep 9, 2009
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Smokepuddle said:
In Montreal there have been several riots over stupid stuff like hokey so they should be aloud to riot with an actual reason in the U.K.
but thats the problem, they don't have a reason, they riot because they can and know that the consequences are minimal unless they were to kill someone
 

hazabaza1

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Nov 26, 2008
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Nouw said:
hazabaza1 said:
They're all cunts being cunty that deserver to be jailed.
I like this post very much.

Straight to the point with some classy profanities.
[sub]'Cept for the grammar.[/sub]
Whoops. *Deserve.
Unless you're talking about the "they're" stuff. That's hard to do.
 

dillinger88

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Jan 6, 2010
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GraveeKing said:
Sizzle Montyjing said:
So, what do you think about them?
Do you think that these people have the right to riot?
Do you think that they are sick, greedy human beings?
Do you think that some Libyan TV presenter loyal to Gaddafi is controlling the riots using his power over spirits?

Do you even care!?

(i do, it's just that some people won't)
I can't be asked to go into detail of discussing this right now, I've already said it in an exact copy of this thread. Anywho.
So, what do you think about them? Justified. David Cameron's fault, we should have elected Labor or liberal Democrats instead.
Do you think that these people have the right to riot? Yes. Most definitely, although threatening innocent people on the streets and burning out cars is a step too car.
Do you think that they are sick, greedy human beings? Not at all, with the recent cuts in funding they've now got even few opportunity's to improve their lives. How are they meant to afford university - and hence a good job, with all the damned cuts?
Do you think that some Libyan TV presenter loyal to Gaddafi is controlling the riots using his power over spirits? I'm sorry I must have misread that WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!?

Do you even care!? Well yeah, it's happening to my country, and although I have no patriotic pride, it still bugs me greatly to see the government only blaming it on 'being a failed generation' etc and I feel we simply wouldn't have these problems if the conservatives weren't in power.
Really dude. I understand what you're saying and it is disgusting how much Cameron is fucking over the poor and people don't bat an eyelid. There are people who are truly fucked and we only have the government to blame. BUT the MAJORITY of the looters don't have a clue. They're doing it for fun and for free stuff.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14458424 <- case in point: They try and use politics as a reason but they don't have any idea why.*

I understand that rioting is sometimes the only response to being fucked over by a pro-rich government, but I think in this case you're giving them too much credit.

The bigger question is what led these people believe that this sort of thing is acceptable? They believe that acts of violence and stealing from fellow person is OK, which to me screams to a me a lack of education. This is both the fault of the government and parents of the looters. You can scream and shout about the government as much as you want but there are other factors that need to be discovered.

My opinion is: I am pro rioting for the right causes. However the people involved must understand why they are doing it. Which in this case, it doesn't seem like it.

*DISCLAIMER: I know this is one single interview that they've decided to broadcast. However, I have not heard a SINGLE interview with a someone involved where they have a genuine reason and understanding of rioting why they're rioting. Hence my opinion that they are scumbag opportunistic thieves.
 

Cracker3011

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May 7, 2009
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Well, not a fan, if I'm honest.

It just shows how much red tape our police has to put up with.

Personally, I say they repeal that 'no military in police matters' BS and send in the SAS with KoS orders. Or at least give the cops LMGs or something.