Honestly it's a freak incident, I feel sorry a bit about the kid too, this couldn't have even crossed his mind. I remember a video of a ref in Turkey being rounded up by the whole squad in lower league game, and "walking it off" basically. This guy gets punched once, goes into a coma and dies, it is a bit of a freak incident.
Relative deprivation, caused by mass consumerism and the likes of the Tories rubbing the noses of everyone that isn't on a handsome salary. Why should they get to decide what is and what isn't a necessity? If you bothered to research the riots and upheaval over Summer 2 years ago you'd realise it wasn't "venerating thugs", it was normal people many of whom were in employment, the vast majority of whom had no previous convictions. That tells you a lot about society. Tories wrote in their manifesto they wanted to build more prisons. The Tories wanted the riots to happen and instead of trying to protect the property of normal people they allowed the trouble to escalate and feed off public anger to justify the imprisoning of hundreds of young working class children, adolescents and so forth. FACT - Tories destroyed society which created most of the social ills that are still present today. FACT - Tories want to build more prisons FACT - Tories are in favour of draconian sentencing for lower classes FACT - Tories are forcing out poorer families in inner city London and replace them with the wealthy thus turning London into a rich man's playground. Put two and two together and you can see what's happening here, it really isn't that hard. And before you continue with the same old right wing myth of "people who haven't work a day in their lives etc" and this Jeremy Kyle Nation the right wing tries to brainwash people into believing here are some further facts for you. FACT - 93% of new claimants for housing benefit are households where at least one adult is employed. FACT - 99.5% of incapacity/disability benefits claims are genuine So following on from the last point those that have "never worked a day in their lives" physically can't, and those that can't are in a small minority. Open your curtains and look outside and you'll see families struggling to make ends meet hence forced into fraud, theft and so forth and risking prison. Meanwhile, the banks and corporations continue to rob us whilst your mate Osbourne creates loophole after loophole to make their theft easier.
Before you continue to accuse me of being a "lefty" I am not in favour of Communism or whatever either. Capitalism can work but with tighter controls and regulation. Money, status and power can corrupt people with the best of intentions.
There is so much blatant political bias in this that I find it hard to read without laughing out loud. It is so far wide of the mark that, if I were to start a critical reply, I could still be writing this time tomorrow! Back to what happened to this u fortunate referee, please.
Punching the ref shouldn't have crossed his mind though Gent, I appreciate he probably never meant to kill but he should know punching someone can have severe consequences, not just on the victim.
If the kid were below 16 I'd have more sympathy but it begs the question, at what age should people be culpable for their own actions? Whilst the intent wasn't to kill there is still a level of responsibility.
Thatcher did: "I think we've been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it's the government's job to cope with it. 'I have a problem, I'll get a grant.' 'I'm homeless, the government must house me.' They're casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It's our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour. People have got the entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations. There's no such thing as entitlement, unless someone has first met an obligation." Whether it's quote-mining to just pluck out that sentence or not is debatable, though. Sums up the whole Tory "I'm alright, Jack", keep down the peasants attitude to me.
Here we go again! You won't be at all surprised to hear me say that I totally disagree. Once again, this is highly selective, taken out of context, quote mining - as you almost admit yourself. Quite how, and why that paragraph sums up the alleged "i'm all right, Jack" attitude, that you claim it does, I have no idea. But then I suppose if you've already made your mind up about something, you'll read into it what you choose.
OK then, fact machine. You are a sad case if you think what you wrote even allows a remote chance of a reasonable discussion. It's like saying before a conversation begins "You are the root of all evil, with that out of the way, what do you say?"
You mentioned rioting and looting in a previous post. I remember one side of the political spectrum (don't even get me started on the pathetic coverage from Guardian) particularly which were almost glorifying and making apologies for the actions of thugs that took over that movement.
Yes. If there ever were any noble intentions behind those riots, they were soon hijacked by the thieves, looters, and general criminal element.
Well, see, a lot of the things you wish for can be quite contradictory, consequences should be given more thought not just intentions (the biggest flaw in both "softer" and harder left wing ideologies). "Tighter controls and regulations" are part of the recipe that made the US Criminal Code so messed up in the first place (re: prison population). "Tighter controls and regulations" are what makes lives difficult for smaller businesses which are not able to keep up with the added bureaucratic processes which won't be a hassle for larger corporations. You can see a recent example in the US with the introduction of the Internet sales tax. Guess if Amazon supports or opposes the measure? Of course they do, they know that it will put most of small niche retailers out of businesses, who will now have to do a stupid amount of paperwork in all states they operate in. There are untold amount of examples in various industries where "tighter controls and regulations" has ruined competition and concentrated the power to a small number of corporations. Guess who then uses the populist "corporations are evil" message in the next elections when these corporations become too powerful... and the circle goes on.
Bureaucrats are like cockroaches. Once in situ, they rapidly multiply making ever more rules and regulations as they do so. Soon they have managed to strangle whatever it was they were supposed to be overseeing in miles and miles of red tape.
You seem to have "fact" and "opinion" confused. You believe that nonsense with a passion, but it is far, far from fact.
Lenny, I think we are probably both closer to the middle than we are either end of the argument. Pragamatism, rather than dogma, seems to be the only course open to us in these troubled times. The main problem, as I see it is that the leadership of all parties is cut from the same "career politicican" cloth, whose raison d'etre is to be re-elected at any cost. Magnificent politicians like Wilson or Thatcher, whose policies were born of conviction rather than opinion polls, are unfortunately extinct. I don't trust any of them and wish there was a "none of the above" available at the ballot box.
I wasn't going to join the political debate, buy you've hit the nail on the head. The only distinguishing feature is which college at Oxford they went to (and I'm not even sure about that!).
