Hang them, scum, take their kids, feral brats, stop their benefits, take away their rights, forcibly sterilise them...

[EricNorthmansMistressOfPotions]

are just a few opinions I have seen on this board in the last few days. AIBU to think that people who hold those opinions are a bit thick unpleasant and wrong?

Apart from the fact that plenty of the rioters were so-called productive members of society who apparently saw an opportunity to get some free stuff, we live in a democracy and if you take away people's human rights that extends to everybody - even you. If you stop benefits you send children into more poverty, which is a major factor in children growing up to become angry, violent and criminal adults. Remove children and do what with them? Place them with the thousands of suitable and willing foster carers who are hanging around twiddling their thumbs? And what about the consequences of removing children from their families - yes, more criminal, poorly educated and challenging adults. Parent and baby placements? Oh yes, we have so many of those! All well funded and easy to access! Never mind that the courts can and do place DCs in foster care over P&B placements because there aren't enough and that ShinyDave and his crew are doing nothing but cut social care budgets...oh yes, great idea.

It's not only our society that is fucked, it's the world. We are one of the most developed countries in the world and all people want is the opportunity to get stuff they haven't earned. Where does that impulse come from?

My friend was pregnant at sixteen and was a mother at seventeen. Very typical story, father was violent, she was rescued by police when her baby was a year old and taken to her a safe house, lived in B&B's on benefits etc etc

She is now a senior manager in a large company etc etc and her child is happy, bright, loved etc etc.

A few years ago she approached schools in our area and offered to give talks (free of charge) to girls about her experiences as a teenage mother, how hard it was, how isolating, what a struggle it was, dispelling the myth of cutes little bundles that love you forever and the plain, cold, hard facts including the awful stretchmarks that teenage mothers get because they are still physically growing themselves. Not having a carefree teenagerhood with girlie holidays abroad and spur of the moment nights out, friends that disappeared when the novelty of a new baby wore off etc etc

Each school turned her down with no real reason given. It seemed like such a cheap and easy way to lay hard, cold facts down to any girl considering getting pregnant or at risk of getting pregnant.

No?

ITNK, can you please clarify the point you're trying to make?

Pugs and seal exactly. I used to work in a mixed secondary comp so I know where you are coming from. Some of the so called 'poor, deprived kids' always had the latest phone and got loads of cash for their birthdays. they just spent their money in a different way and I think the disneyland comment is very relevant.

Must admit we have been there a few times but always on a budget.

Suncottage, shame they wouldn't let your friend do this.

If anyone has committed a criminal act of any description they should be tried under the law and punished according to the statute books. Fines, imprisonment, tagging, whatever that may entail. It is not right to deny them the basic means of support or make them homeless into the bargain. Justice is justice. Revenge makes savages of us all

i think this is the most intelligent response i've read on these threads since the riot started.

The employment rate for the 3 months to May 2011 is 29.29 million. (source: ONS )

The UK population is estimated at 62.3 million. (source: ONS )

So people with jobs represent 50% of the population; which means that everyone with a job has a higher income than approximately half the population. Does that mean anyone with a job is middle class?

Incidentally, ITNK, in case I'm not being clear enough, my point is that your 'statistics' are muddled and tendentious.

well i might be thick, but how would you describe the people who attacked birmingham childrens hospital, or the ambulance crew who had to wait 90mins for the police to help them take a sick baby to hospital?

i would call them scum

What does it matter what class he is INTK? It is incredibly insulting to insinuate that only the 'middle class' are upset about the rioters and the fallout from their actions. It is patronising and simply untrue. I have spoken to people about it from every walk of life. Rich and poor, from various ethnic groups, and they have all felt the same. Because regardless of their background or income, the thing they have in common is that they are all moral, law abiding citizens who take responsibility for their own actions and those of their children. And their sympathy is with those that lost their homes and business and more importantly those that lost loved ones.

So I'd love to like clarity on the point you're trying to makes. Because reading between the lines, the only point you've demonstrated to me is that you have a great fat chip on your shoulder.

No I won't discuss statistics with you. You either have chip on your shoulder so gigantic you can't see past it to engage courteously and coherently with anyone who does not share your worldview, or else you are trolling. Either way I will save my energy, thanks.

I take great offence at being told that I am more sympathetic to the perpetrators than the victims. I can think of nothing worse than having to flee my burning home with my children just so that some criminals can have their night's entertainment.

But the whole 'string em up' attitude will not solve this. This was predicted by Cleggy boy and a few others. There are real issues going on here and even if you don't think this was in any way, shape or form a protest you can agree that society is breaking down and something needs to be done about it.

Stringing them up is like treating the symptoms and not the cause. We need to get to the bottom of why society is the way it is and for that, someone said, you may need to go way back to Thatcher and the ruination of industry by this country. Mass unemployment and generations without work fuels resentment and an disengagement. Someone on the BBC news rightly said that these kids were not destroying their communities because they never felt part of those communities in the first place.

Treating the cause of these riots will do more justice to the victims than condemning whole sections of society whom we presumed to be behind the riots. Many of those in front of court had no previous criminal convictions. Something has gone terribly terribly wrong and it's only natural to want to find out why.

But in London there is plenty of employment and opportunities. I think the welfare state and generous benefits is more to blame with people not being accountable and being paid to do nothing.

I think people underestimate the issue of self-esteem. I know I'm going to get clamped on for being a softie, liberal leftie, but honestly, a lot of people who have been on benefits for a long time lack the confidence and skills to seek employment let alone attend interviews and then hold down a job.

It is easy to say that they should pull their fingers out and get jobs, but many do not have experience of this - and their parents didn't either - so they get into a cycle of thinking they are worthless and not capable of having a job anyway.

Yes, Lifeissweet you are right - people do lack confidence after being unemployed for so long. But they should never have been left to fester for so long in the first place. They should have been pushed into something. I dont care if this sounds harsh because, frankly, I and many others have done some shite jobs just to get a foot on the ladder. Labout allowing the benefits culture to get way out of hand did nobody any favours.
Rhubarb - if you're gonna go back and start blaming Thatcher well where do you draw the line? Seriously, your attitude perfectly sums up the stubbourn way the left simply refuse to bend in their thinking. Madness.

But I honestly think if the benefit cushion wasn't available they would just have to get on with a bit more and seek employment.

I don't think it is a self esteem, often it is to easy to remain on the social. They know nobody is going to make them get a job and take away the magic giro. I was not a confident teenager but managed to get a part time job in a supermarket, then a shoe shop

Same as me alemci. I worked in a restaurant kitchen in the early 90s recession, it was so, so depressing. But the culture was slightly different even as relatively recently as then. It was still slightly stigmatised to sign on then (even though I would have got nearly as much by doing so). It no longer is.

BTW not everyone rioting and looting were on benefits. Some were 'middle class' & had jobs.

"But I honestly think if the benefit cushion wasn't available they would just have to get on with a bit more and seek employment."

I'm seeking employment but as of yet nobody wants to give me a job.

I hope you do get something soon Angel

INTK and Rhubarb, I'm with you on this.

I really do hope none of the poor misunderstood rioters hurt their feet when they were kicking Richard Bowes to death. It's all the fault of those nasty middle class bastards who drove them to such actions.

I keep wondering about something.

IF we took all the "nondesirables". The rioters, and the "underclass" and the "scum" and everyone else and just - obliterated them, leaving only the "decent, hardworking" moral majority would it solve all the problems of the world? No more poverty, theft, etc etc.

Or would we just find a new way to create another underclass?

Id suspect the second.

There are huge problems in the country today and its not going to be solved by either a "hang em high" or a "hug em" attitude.

Middlesex as far as Grand Theft Auto goes: "it is not possible to participate in any...in-game sexual activity with them." So would be what, exactly?

did anyone see Young Voter's Question Time last night, I tried to watch it neutrally but my blood pressure rose within 5mins of it starting, especially when the sheldon bloke went "shops can be rebuilt"....oh sorry you wasn't given the memo of the FOUR MURDERS that happened amongst them riots before the show then?! ; as for the taking away of housing & benefits, I don't think it'll be a good idea purely for the fact it would give them another excuse to cause complete carnage x