RIOTS

@eve wrote:

@jen_jen wrote:

1. The riots, as distressing as they are to watch, are a flash in the pan. They may have started out with a political trigger but they descended into sheer opportunism and greed. They will fizzle out when the risk of being caught (or hurt) becomes too great. . . . . . . . . .

Now here’s a moral question.
Your teenager is out for the evening and a riot breaks out not far from you. Desperately you try to contact them to make sure they’re ok. Finally you do, and they tell you they’re ok but they’re going to stay at their mates’ house tonight and they’ll be home in the morning. You go to bed relieved that they are safe. The following morning they come home with a rucksack full of electrical equipment, jewellery, clothes. You ask them where it came from and they grunt and say “it’s no big deal, I didn’t damage anything, it was just lying there, everyone was helping themselves so I did too. Don’t stress.”
What do you do?

To answser Jen. slap their bloody ears off and make them turn it in to the police!

I read an article on Reuters quoting rioters from Hackney as saying that it was like the community – at least their part of it – taking control of the streets.

I do not agree with their action.

But it does echo a sentiment uttered by dissident voices from the BNP to the SWP to the countryside marchers, that British people of all kinds feel more and more powerless and less and less part of what is happening to them. Without a credible means to influence change, their frustration boils over in anarchic and destructive ways.

As to my teenager, I would resist the urge to unleash violence upon them – kinda counter-productive to say violence isn’t the answer and then hit someone don’cha think? I would explain what I thought about it and that for me they could not stay living in my household and use robbery to get hold of things. I would neither want the attention of other criminals nor the police. If I was convinced it was a first time, I would not report them to the police for the same reasons that Rubyred gave. Plus I wouldn’t want anyone I cared for to be the object of police proxy reprisals which are almost bound to follow.

What to do next? I think in my most convincing ‘li’l ole man’ clothes I’d put the stuff into a shopping trolley, walk it down to the high road/mall/wherever and find somewhere out of sight of the CCTV to dump the bags, then maybe give the police/security a call from a phone box to tell them I’d seen it there.

I know this won’t go down well with some, but I’m trying to answer honestly rather than pretend my boy/girl would be that impressed by my brawny right-hander.

@irish_lucy wrote:

no its not :lol:

Lets hope its over – i did ask earlier whats the story over there today and how long can the police expect to stay out in force to make sure its over??

best ask Gaz for the answer! :lol:

Scattered showers, south easterly wind, min temp 11 degrees centigrade . . . Wear em if you got em! :lol: :wink:

Oh the riots? It’s the tip of the iceberg doncha know!

tonight
lambs liver and bacon gravy and beans
new pots
purple sprouting

lovely
now im tired and comfort eating
nice big bar of fruit and nut and some nice red wine
walked the dog so im going to slob out and text all the lovely girls of jc

lifes one big riot :P