To find these covid snitching threads terrifying

[CrotchBurn]

Student house party. 75% voted for OP to call police.

Really?

I think this thread is chilling proof at how far we've fallen in a society within such a small amount of time. Less than a year with constant media brainwashing, all of us essentially under house arrest, and look at us. Clearing out supermarkets and calling the police because "it's the right thing to do" and "they're putting society at risk".

Who else would you have turned in?

At what other point in history would you have colluded with the government to "do the right thing", without any thought for your fellow humans just being people?

They are students. They are broke, they have been confined to their box rooms almost a whole year. Have some heart for christs sake.

And by the way, I do believe in covid. I believe in staying home and wearing masks and doing the right thing. I would never grass though. Ever. And that goes for covid antics, benefit fraud, whatever. I believe people sometimes do what they need to do to survive physically or emotionally.

I think its terrifying what society has become in less than a year.

Who would have thought we would be living on a world where you would be standing in a little yellow circle traced out on a supermarket floor, and not an inch over if you please, else you'll be reported as a health threat!

Is this our world now? In which young lonely people are turned in and fined for spending time together?

I'm not advocating for student parties, I'm advocating for looking away when you see one.

@Balhammom

Interested to know if OP thinks “grassing” on other criminals, such as murderers and rapists, is also wrong. Where exactly do you wish to draw the line? Which criminals should we turn a blind eye to?

People are dying due to coved. If some idiots are stupid and selfish enough to flout the law and put others at risk, I think we should be fining them a lot more than we currently are.

It makes me laugh when people throw in the “ only 1% die “

Can you work out what 1% of 70 million people is ?

And the fact that they are old , well every one is someone’s grandma , grandad , or parent etc. Trust me it’s relevant when it’s your family that’s affected.

I don’t consider it colluding with the government, it’s disease prevention.

@KiposWonderbeasts

I understand *@AltJ*’s point to mean we’re in a situation now where we’ve developed a ‘surveillance culture’ with citizens expected to act as an arm of the state by reporting on their neighbours.

As a young person (I’m an old fart now) I had friends who had defected with their parents from Communist bloc countries. The fear and paranoia they’d experienced was awful - children reporting on their parents, students reporting on teachers, neighbours settling scores by reporting on one another.

I can see parallels in some behaviours.

Well the fear was there because... Prison and death. Fucked up lives like not getting x jobs and children not allowed into higher education. Not because they would get fined and told off.

It's fundamentally NOT the same thing and the fact that this is being compared to communist and nazi tactics just honestly shows how removed from realities of what was happening in Europe some people here are.

Students party, it's normal! It's not like it's March 2020 and Covid is terrifying, it's over 6motnhs on, the death rate is less than 1% (and most of those people are over 70), everyone is sick of lockdown.

I think the people who are happy to call the police in this situation are the same people who would have been calling the police over suspicions a neighbour had a jewish family in the basement in 1940s Germany. Justifying it with 'they're breaking the law' and 'protecting the nation'

I think people who insult others with these kind of arguments are the selfish ones who do not care a bit for the rules and are miffed they might get in trouble about them.

Everybody might be sick of lockdown, but some people are impacted by their shops and livehood being shut down
or the local school closing down and their kids being sent home.

Get over yourself. Disagreeing with the current restrictions doesn't make you superior, it's pathetic to insult others with different views.

That say, I am in England, and no one really cares about the lockdown anymore, not many non-essential shops are still closed, I feel very sorry for the few who are stuck

The reason this so-called 'surveillance culture' is back to is to protect others though. Of course you'll get some over invested, superiority seeking people who will let the power go to their head and they'll be reporting a neighbour for having one family member round. I don't advocate that.

But a party is totally different. Why can't you see that? Why would you turn a blind eye to such reckless and selfish behaviour? Op said she would only report criminal behaviour that could harm someone else but isn't the potential spread of covid exactly that?

'I think its terrifying what society has become in less than a year.'

Oh fgs pearl clutching crap like this and words such as 'snitching'! are you always so dramatic?

I find it disappointing how selfish some people are. I wouldn't 'snitch' on someone having a couple of friends round, but a packed party when the rest of us are doing our best to keep this thing from spreading to our loved ones? well I just might.

Weird how another dramalama likened it to 1940s Germany but someone else calling it breaking the law like other crimes was called unhinged.

Stop with the hysteria.

Covid really has brought out the meanness in some people, maybe they could be naturally selected and we'll be left with a world of people who feel that kindness to others isn't by calling the police because they aren't understaffed and busy at all. and showing a bit of community spirit. Kindness doesn't kill people but some really struggle to show some.

So you think people who turn a blind eye to students letting is a ‘kind’ gesture?

So they go back to their families to spread COVID, but that’s ok because were being kind to them? Not to mention the spread on public transport to strangers, who will never be traced?

This is kindness for you.

Yabvu they are selfish and potentially killing people. Damn right I would report.

And AltJ comment about the Nazis is the most ignorant and disgusting thing I've read in a long time. Staggeringly disrespectful and offensive.

There has always been people who think of the police and "the government" or social services as the enemy and think they are superior and against "snitches"
There even always has been people turning a blind eye to a crash, or somebody passing out in the street in front of them.

The only thing the pandemic has brought is they feel they can be vocal about others not like them and insult everybody else who do not agree.

I am grateful for people who wouldn't turn a blind eye if I run into trouble, or if my kids were a target.

I understand being a student, but I also understand the frustration of a school closing down because students come home positive, impact their younger siblings or teaching parents. There's a lot of students coming back home regularly here. So comparing neighbours pissed off with the party to nazy germany? Get over yourself, you sound pathetic.

@AtrociousCircumstance

To compare people reporting those who are breaking covid restrictions to reporting hidden Jewish people to the Nazis is so stupid and so offensive it takes my breath away.

Yes. Agree.

'should also say that the kind of people who compare this with the SS or Stasi are (I) phenomenally ignorant and/or (ii) genuinely repugnant.'

Totally agree. These restrictions are going on all over Europe, worse i believe in France. Some intellectually challenged folk seem to think it's just a Tory plan to control the plebs. No, its an infectious disease that needs controlling so just save your imperative partying for a couple more months.

As far as I'm concerned people who break the restrictions, students or otherwise, are pushing back the date when life can get back to normal

You're spot on, @agapanthus1979. And keeping on pushing that date is exacerbating the economic impact of Covid and making things worse for everyone, even when we have a vaccine.

@AltJ
I think the people who are happy to call the police in this situation are the same people who would have been calling the police over suspicions a neighbour had a jewish family in the basement in 1940s Germany. Justifying it with 'they're breaking the law' and 'protecting the nation'

Are you seriously comparing Jewish people to a deadly virus?

What is wrong with you?

Snitching and grassing up are only used by people trying to shame people for telling the truth
Most people are just trying to keep themselves safe. Students don't need to party, it's a nice thing to do but not necessary. If they were blatant enough to do it and I saw it I'd report it. I'm not making sacrifices for nothing. I want my freedom back too

I'd report anyone breaking the rules without batting an eyelid for a very simple reason... they had it hard? Didn't we all??? Their decision to 'let go' may cost me someone very dear in my life who still has to go to the office but is quite vulnerable. What should I say to myself afterwards, that their 'letting go of some steam because it was hard for them to stay in' was worth my loved one's life? They can make up for it throughout their lives but once a person you love dies - that's it, no second chances. So sorry but zero tolerance for irresponsible people of any adult age from me.

@AlternativePerspective

I think there’s a vast difference between a party where a large number of people who are at the prime age for COVID infection and spreading are congregating, and someone who pops in to see a family member.

In the very beginning of the pandemic there was a documented instance of a bloke who held a COVID party to see who could become infected first. No consideration for the people being infected, or the people the infection would be passed on to. Oh, he caught COVID fwiw and is now dead.

I have sympathy for people who haven’t been able to see family or friends for the duration of this pandemic and who have been on their own. Students who think that they are somehow entitled to have a party where presumably no social distancing would be happening just because they’re students? No, I don’t have any sympathy for that. Having parties isn’t a right. And while I might not call the police, I would give all of them a wide birth and certainly wouldn’t be offering them any support if they lived in my area.

This.

Like so many I've not hugged my mum and dad since March. Like Tiny I've been doing the right thing throughout and stories like this make me feel incredibly resentful.

'Snitching and grassing up are only used by people trying to shame people for telling the truth Most people are just trying to keep themselves safe. Students don't need to party, it's a nice thing to do but not necessary. If they were blatant enough to do it and I saw it I'd report it. I'm not making sacrifices for nothing. I want my freedom back too'

Exactly.

Mind I saw a charmer on another thread say its only old people and vulnerable who die anyway and also seemingly oblivious to the ICUs full of people needing respiratory support.

I'm just going to point out as well that students haven't been confined to a small room for an entire year either. They were all sent home for the majority of it. They've only been back at uni since September. And they don't have a right to party, its a luxury. People have a right to live, and people who break the rules, get covid and pass it on are stopping that right for some people, by killing them.

But hey, as altj says, it's mainly the over 70s dying. Clearly people like her and op don't give a shit about older people. They've lived their life and people like @Altj and @Crotchburn are far more important. I'd hate to be part of their family, they clearly wouldn't care if someone old in their family died.

Could not agree more OP.

For me, it's a far scarier prospect than the virus .

@AtrociousCircumstance

To compare people reporting those who are breaking covid restrictions to reporting hidden Jewish people to the Nazis is so stupid and so offensive it takes my breath away.

I wonder if any of the people saying this have relatives who died in the Holocaust or who were in the concentration camps, I doubt it somehow. I am in Wales and when Mark Drakeford banned non-essentials for a fortnight, there were memes going round with his face pasted on Hitler's. Some people really are nasty idiots who don't mind trivialising genocide in order to point score.

I don’t think things are ever this black and white tbh. I agree, I’m not a fan of spying on and reporting neighbours for perceived breaches of lockdown. I remember the first lockdown where people were frowning on people with kids being in a local park, when really, they have no idea of their personal circumstances. They may have lived in a flat alone, and that may have counted as their exercise for that day etc.

I also agree that students have been mightily shafted in this situation. They have been forced to attend and pay for accommodation etc only to discover that there is no face to face teaching and they can’t mix. It is utterly wrong.

That being said, I don’t think you can compare a party to a small gathering. I’m not the sort of person who would ever report someone but at the same time, a party doesn’t sit right with me. We are all struggling and should give the benefit of the doubt much more than we do currently but at the end of the day, we are either in this together or we are not.

Nope, regardless of your post OP I would totally report them. I don't like all this turn a blind eye business. They are breaking the law, they are risking lives and potentially causing schools to close and consequences for other people. Their need to party because they've had a hard year (haven't we all) does not trump the risk. Being able to party is not essential, they have plenty of years left to party. Whilst I do have sympathy for students in general as it's a rubbish situation for them I will still report them in a second. The quicker this is under control the quicker we can all get back to real life.

A lot of students round here are just selfish arseholes, I wouldn't hesitate to report them if they had a party, the sooner the whole lot of them piss off home, the better.

I would ALWAYS report. Not seen anything to report so far.

What I find weird is that there was a thread a week or two ago where OP said her neighbour was having a party. He was an M.P. (A prominent enough M.P. to have been on tv telling us all to stay at home). A journalist had been asking her and other neighbours about the party and the consensus was that they should all mind their own business and not dob anyone in. There was moral outrage that anyone would ever speak to the tabloids about a neighbour.

Of course no one should be holding parties right now, but I have a lot more sympathy for the students in question than I do hypocritical M.P.s.