The riots have caused an enormous amount of interest and comment. I feel that there should be one thread that contains the base discusion of it so that other threads are not filled up with it. At the moment the once pleasant Nest is full of hateful ranting against the hooligans You can all negative rep me if you feel like it for having a contrary opinion â and on the Nest I seem to stand alone Let me at least state my position. I donât think there is a single excuse for the violence. It has nothing to do with killing a man in Tottenham last week. It is about opportunistic mindless violence thuggery and criminal opportunism. The question though is how do you respond? I am sure if I were clever I could find a suitable quote which shows that the more violent society is in dealing with its criminals the more that society descends into violence. We have evolved from a society that hanged starving children for stealing a crust of bread into one where a murderer can walk free after only a few years in jail. One extreme to the other. Instead of the knee jerk reaction I have seen here today how about thinking about what laws you want to have in your society and what you are prepared to do to implement those laws. How far do you want to go â Singapore still birches people who drop chewing gum on the streets, some muslim countries still cut off limbs or stone people for offences â do you want that level of punishment? If not where do you want to stop and what do you want to do? Remember that the laws you pass have to apply to everyone â even your own sons and daughters â are you all so lucky that none of you have a child who could have got on the outside of one of those riots yesterday â meaning to observe butâ¦.. I am not going to propose my own solutions as I do not know what we should do â yes I think we have got too soft on a lot of criminals but also I am aware that our society has failed and is failing a lot of young people especially. Unless we address how we start to provide everybody with some hope and âinclusionâ then we can only expect these type of events to continue
The problem we have is there is no realistic way of punishing these people en masse! Obviously the ones caught will be charged, come up in front of court and get a slap on the wrist. There is no prison space for these, and if there were, most would be out with a month or two anyway... all of this at the tax payers expense! The country is too soft on hard criminals, so something like arson and assualt won't carry heavy charges! For these people's punishment, I'd suggest a LOT of hours community service! Make them wear high-vis vests with something like "rioter" on, and make them clean up the mess they have caused. Shame them in front of their own communities.... and get real drill-sergeants looking after them! If they don't do as they are told, then punish them further! What has been said on here is born through raw emotion... maybe some way over the top, but I'd rather people condemn them in such a way rather than condone! (I probably shouldn't go into what I'd call 'hard' criminals, because for such people as murderers, rapists and *****philes, I think there is only one real way of dealing with those....)
Love that pic!! Would love to see the rioters come out of their holes and try it all again with all those there!!
Positively repped. I too have been astonished by some of the views expressed in the nest. I had to stop reading it as it was making me as angry as the rioters and looters were.
Good article although its a shame we as a group cannot stick to Syds request! perhaps before denigrating other peoples opinions on the matter , maybe offer up some alternate solutions ! I wont pos or neg rep this , nor lock or delete the thread , but PLEASE can we just keep it here or else go to the merged thread in General chat!
The onlryreason we see repeats of 85, and beyond is because we have been soft and not learnt the lessons ! Wont look good in the worlds eyes if this happens next summer , we need to get our house in order and pronto ,the bleeding heart liberalists have had there way and the last few nights have proved it doesnt work ,we need a new alternative!
House prices are the root cause of all this. In 1990, my parents in their early 20s were able to buy a three bedroom terrace in a central location for £60k, and (reasonably) comfortably afford to bring up three children. Taking into account inflation, I'm earning not a lot less than the two of them combined were back then. If I were to save a deposit (which I can do fairly quickly) I could just about afford to get a small flat of my own, but that would put me on the breadline to the extent that I would be at the mercy of fuel and food prices. My best option is to stay living with my parents, and put away £4-500 a month. But even £6k a year will take a long time to make a dent in the amount I would need to get a one bed flat and have a comparible standard of living to what they did.
It has always been the same, when I bought my first house in 1974 for £19,400 I had a weekly income of £12.90. I was lucky enought to borrow £2000.00 from my Grandfather for a deposit and to buy some furntiture, but I had to pay him back in 2 years. My wife worked as a hairdresser and she earned £5.00 a week. Between us we managed to eventually have 4 kids and get some luxuries. Our kids have moved out, moved back, moved out again when it suited and are in the process of moving back. To say it would be hard to save £4-500 a month whilst living (or is it sponge off) your parents makes me want to spit. So is this is what all the riots are about then NNW, Kids today are spoilt and want everything without working for it? If they don't get given it then it's okay to steal it - no one will mind. How can you blame it on the house prices. Please grow up.
I am not sure that I would stay on not606 if the Mods or SuperMods took control - that was a problem with 606. The Mods are there in my humble opinion to prevent racist, sexist homophobic posts etc - not to tell us what posts and threads we can have. I will not go near General Chat as it is full of offensive foul mouthed individuals - unlike the Watford Board where it seems that even when someone disagrees with you they do so very politely. If people want to discuss a topic then it is natural to have a thread for it - we have lots of threads so one on the riots does not seem a problem - and here it is kept to Watford supporters who are a fair minded lot - on most things If any other threads are started on this topic the Mods can merge them keeping it to just one. I did actually "offer a solution" on the Nest comment by saying that in a Democracy we should stick to the rule of law - and if disagreeing with opinions such as throwing people out of airplanes or forcing them into death in Afghanistan is denigrating then I guess I plead guilty as charged - but actually all I did was to disagree with those as throughout my life those type of views have been know more for their association with far right views
NNW - you made a good first point - and I am sure it is part of if not the whole problem but then you hand the winning medal to Charlie by your second comment.
If we knew the answer, we probably wouldn't be sitting typing posts on this thread. Personally I don't believe in hanging and flogging for the simple reason that I won't lower myself to the same level as those I think are thugs. But,these are serious disturbances and they won't be resolved just by punishment - though that will have to happen in the short term. As a society we could invest more in making sure teenagers in deprived areas have a bit more to hope for. It's too easy to say they should all get off their backsides and make more effort. Whether it's true or not, many believe those in authority don't care what happens to them and that's where trouble begins. As others have pointed out, history is riddled with violent regimes which only succeeded in breeding more violence. So serious crimes have been committed and the law will take its course, not severely enough for some but it's the way civilised societies work. If these actions persist penalties will be increased accordingly and, if we're wise, more thought will be given to why they occur.
£200 on a deposit for a small family home plus furniture, lent to him by his grandfather. Granted, he had two years to pay back roughly 11 weeks' combined family earning. Respectable enough For a grandparent today to lend one of theirs enough for a deposit on a small family home plus furniture in today's money would be anywhere from £25-40k. My salary is in the lower to middle end of that bracket. The ignorant ***** then implies that I am complaining about putting away £500 a month (I'm not, it's good practise anyway), and has the cheek to suggest that I am sponging off of my parents. I'm paying them commercial rates for a room of my size, as well as 20% of all bills and food (there are five of us). Why? Because it beats giving the same to some stranger, because I actually have a good relationship with my parents, and I'm helping them pay off the new mortgage they took out when they upsized. Without the amount that myself and my brother are paying, they would not be meeting those payments on relatively low incomes. By comparison, he was the ****ing scrounger, and a hypocrite for good measure. The fact that I could express myself more eloquently does not change the fact that he is a *********. I stand by the comment.
Guys this is getting a little heated and i am meant to be working , take a deep breath and agree to disagree! This is the main reason why I didnt want this out of the nest , because here its openly labelled for all to see us bickering ! Art I ,m sorry but if further abuse between members as opposed to reasoned discussion I will lock this thread!till I have had a chance to talk to Dan! Charlie , NNW both valued members , deep breath time guys go back to the nest ,shake hands like the grown men you are !
The truth of the matter is that life is to easy in this country and expectations way to high. The so called poor still have the means to feed and have a roof over their heads with free healthcare when needed to boot. Its one of the deadly sins "envy" or one of the ten commandments "thou shalt not covet thy neighbours goods" and lack of following this that causes the problem. For whatever reason there is no society unity and for that I blame my right wing comrade Maggie. There hasn't been a good government yet to address the big society issue. WEe must be very firm with these offendors and I do condone some of the punishment systems our brother arabs employ. For whatever reason I've lost the compassion and patience for those who offend my society, I'm intolerant and feel that society would be better of if its policing and criminal justice system became similarly strict. The police do a fantastic job with their hands tied and feet in lead boots. They catch criminals who are systematically let off. The prison system is ineffective and over capacity, a reclassification of offences needs to be made with the return of the death penalty for *****philes and serious murderers, the return of public humiliation for minor offences against society (e.g. stocks in town centres) and use of prisons only for the intermediate offences. I'm glad here we can all post our views from whatever point we stand, I respect your position HornArt but cannot agree with it.
Norway, given that you decided to moderate me, I demand that you delete Livesey's attack on me. Else I am taking this further. To take sides is not ****ing on.
