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?

So does that mean that the welfare state is effectively protection money paid to minimise the crime and disorder consequent on leaving the poorest to shift for themselves?

What has really shocked me is how the labour party keep using this politically i wondered if they were behind it really .Its given them back the im so lmportant attidute so many had before they were voted out watched some of parliament today have never voted conservative but thoughtthe new home secretary seems for real and respected david cameron i mean this wasnt down to police cuts just they realised what chaos they can cause the bigger the mob and how much they can steal I have lived in a disadvantaged area for years now and yes had to claim benefits seen good schools closed by labour seen teenagers becoming more and more frightening under labour These are the young people labour produced why didnt they deal with the real issues Disadvantaged areas what does that mean kids roaming about from as soon as they can walk on their own someparents very young some on drugs some too many so angry so desensitized you are scared to pass them.We never go out after dark
Why is television going lower and lower films the same its like things are not shocking enough got to make things really sick kids are growing up cant cry people dont cry youve got to be tough and despise weakness and what is a disadvantaged area anyway its a place that lacks thingsisnt it good schools a youth club a leisure centre a park something constructve for teenagers to do

SHITE MARNEY i cant be arsed reading that - insert a paragraph why dont you

david cameron promises increase to benefits to those with feral children only

Welfare state as protection money? Yes, in some sense.

But we also have it because it's so embarrassing tripping over beggars, or discovering that people you see daily have children seriously ill because they can't afford trivial thing X. It's really no fun being related to people whose survival depends on you - so that everything you do for your nuclear family has to be balanced against the needs of the broader family. God knows we see enough threads on here with step-families and PIL competing for family resources. Remove the welfare state and the choices become a lot starker.

I also feel the welfare state is one of the really big factors in allowing women to leave abusive marriages.

And that's before we mention < whispers > human rights. And the fact we're all just one accident, betrayal or redundancy away from poverty. (And private insurance companies, while very keen to take your money, do try quite hard not to pay it out.)

A line which keeps playing through my head at the moment is Baroness Warsi saying "We didn't pay out billions to save the banks, we paid out billions to save the economy from the banks."

Coupled with all the bankers demanding huge pots of taxpayers' money, personally and corporately, or they'd sulk and destroy a financially high-value (tho socially low-value) sector of the economy.

Now there's protection money - and then some.

Me writing in paragraphs matters idont think so anyone in a democracy being able to have their say does dont tou think id like to be able to say what i do more easily

Marney, I'm not trying to be a twat but you really do need some punctuation, it's impossible to read sentences without it.

Marney, tried to read your comments, but at the point you suggested that the Labour party were behind the riots I decided I didn't need to go further.

Ed Minigland is the reason behind everything ..

in answer to the OP, I am in the process of hiding all such threads though they are popping up faster than I can!

... and in answer to the OP, a developed country would not countenance a McDonalds.

No way.

The idea that people who think society is at fault are 'soft' is a strange one. It seems to me that people on both sides of this argument think society is at fault. One side are blaming the fact that social deprivation and exclusion exists and the other side are blaming the way we fail to deal with offenders and think they should be treated more harshly. Either way, you are blaming society.

A lot of the solutions that people are coming up with - help single mothers, punish single mothers, help people on benefits, take people's benefits away etc are based on your attitudes towards certain groups, but they're not actually anything to do with holding the rioters accountable.

If you want to hold the rioters accountable, both personally and on the basis of what they have in common as a group, then you have to know who they are and what they have in common. What we know at the moment is that they are mostly city dwellers, mostly men, mostly interested in stealing stuff and mostly young. We don't know that they are unemployed (in fact court appearances seem to be suggesting the opposite), living on benefits, and we can be very sure that as they are mostly men, they are not single mothers.

So when we do find out who they are, then we can think about how to make them responsible, rather than just blaming people we don't like or feel sorry for.

It's the boom in multi-media. It's small kids playing Grand Theft Auto and earning points for owning prostitutes, dealing in drugs, and killing police.

They're minds are not hard wired. They believe this stuff. When they walk out into the real world, it's a cartoon for them.

Their knowledge and their human empathy is a mile wide and an inch deep.

If we want to stop this rot, we have to start with the gaming industry.

Don't under-exaggerate the effect this 24-7 culture has on forming minds.

OP

Opinions can't be wrong or right, just different.

Desiderata, you could be onto to something there. There has been some interesting research into the effect of video games causing 'lack of empathy' (among other things) in young people.

When we first got a wii, we almost immediately noticed the effect a long session of play had on our 6yr old son - the effect on his behaviour was truly shocking - refusal to stop playing, lying slumped on the sofa, grouchy, uncommunicative, trantrummy. We nipped it in the bud pretty quickly - banned for week then strict half hour sessions after that. Sorted it out.

The worrying thing was that this was a lego star wars game and is rated 3+ what about the children playing violent 18 games like grand theft auto?

I think one thing is for sure is that the rioters showed a complete lack of empathy for others.

Have just found out how you do paragraphs press enter once or twice nobody told me

just need to practice more there were some strange ideas around about why the riots started before i mentioned the labour party i might have a point .The bbc have gone on a lot about the police cuts as well and like they said in parliament they had thousands of police to call in in the end

"So you have shown me evidence that three people were mugged, CupcakesandTwunting??

Also note that I didn't say no-one was mugged. I said I hadn't seen anyone get mugged. Now I've seen uh, three people."

Oh, well. Just three people. Not enough to warrant it as a problem, huh? What the fuck is wrong with you?! So far, you've dismissed people's homes being torched because oh well, that shit happens when electric blankets set on fire so what's the drama? And you've compared three men being run over by a rioter to a road accident.

Honestly, you are a whole new breed of stupid. I expect this will get deleted but just thought someone should point out what a moron you are.

Not to mention Richard Bowes. So now older men can't even tell people to stop burning trash barrels without being beaten to death, eh?

Fabulous.

No doubt InTheNightGarden will be along shortly to tell us that his death doesn't really tally on her radar of what is shit because "uhh like, men get kicked to death all the time every weekend"

All fine and dandy, then.

Eric I agree that cutting benefits and taking away council houses is not the answer, simply because I feel this would increase the crime rate as people need food to survive. However I think all this "trying to understand why they did it" can be seen as too sympathetic at times to the criminal rather than the victims - and at the end of the day some people are just bad, whether they are born that way or a product of their environment can be seen as a whole other debate.

We all have choices in life and being abused, deprived as a child etc etc does not automatically it a foregone conclusion that you turn to crime. If you are searching for an answer to why some people did what they did - then you will be disappointed I fear.

Yes of course it was my child I would want to know why they do what they do - but Im only responsible for my children - not everyone elses and far too many parents basically have left their children to their own devices and dont care what they do. The vast majority of people involved in the riots seem to be adults - who all had a choice whether to steal, riot etc. Looking for reasons? I dont think in these cases its anything more than "I want it" type of selfish attitude.

Setting fire to cares and houses and shops seems to me worse because of the disregard for human life. And I dont believe you can elimate this aspect of their personality. The victims whose houses and livelihoods are ruined wont care why they did it. So knee jerk reactions may not be right - but too right they are understandable!

Well said, duckdodgers.

I found this quote interesting; "Things got out of hand and we'd had a few drinks. We smashed the place up and Boris set fire to the toilets." David Cameron, Oxford 1986

Also interesting is the Daily Telegraph article which compared the tax avoidance and expense cheating by many top MPs including Hazel Blears to the robbery by the rioters. Both are criminal acts but whilst the top might do their robbery in a much classier way, it is only the lower robbery that will see people brought to court and punished.

After all, if MPs can get away with daylight robbery and walk all over the taxpayer, perhaps that is what many rioters also thought.

Oh and would you look at who predicted the riots - our very own Nick Clegg warning of Greek style unrests if the Tories got into power! How ironic.