BS: Punishment for riots

Subject: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 02:33 AM

Where possible, Croydon Council will seek the eviction of council tenants convicted of rioting offences. Good.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Sooz
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 03:08 AM

I think community service in a refugee camp in East Africa would be a good penalty.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: theleveller
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 03:09 AM

Hey, Bozo, maybe you'll be able to get a council flat and move out of your bedsit.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 03:17 AM

There, you see, the concepts of the deserving and the undeserving poor are still with us. This is looking more and more like a timewarp.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 03:19 AM

England was quiet again last night.
Three days of turmoil in many cities resulted in just two fatal incidents.
One quiet day in most US cities.

One of those incidents was a triple murder.
It is feared it may lead to racial tension.
Three Muslim Asians were run down and a black man is charged with their murder.
The father of one victim, who was 20, made an emotional but dignified appeal for no reprisals.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Musket
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 04:07 AM

I don't know about the deserving and undeserving poor, I thought this thread was about venting your spleen regarding retribution on criminals. Their balance sheet doesn't come into it, just their morality.

A thread such as this may be cathartic for some, especially how frustrating it is for decent people to comprehend the lack of belonging many young people have. Most of those who feel society isn't doing it for them are tucked up in bed though.

By coincidence, and nothing more, it is young people who are relieving their boredom by trying to look outrageous. The retribution shouldn't play to their game and be outrageous though. It must be proportionate, reasoned, defensible in the cold light of day and within the rules society asks of others.

Anything else is throwing turds back at the monkey.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 04:10 AM

I suspect that this all happened just because it was found that social networking media could negate normal police protection.
No need for social and/or political explanations.
They did it because they could.

This is what happened one day in Montreal when the police went on strike.

the 8 a.m. police shift went off to the Paul Sauvé Arena to argue strike tactics instead of reporting to their beats. Suddenly the city was left unguarded. By 11:20 a.m., the first bank robbery had occurred. By noon shops began to close, and banks shut their doors to all except old customers. Early in the evening, a group of taxi drivers added to the confusion. Protesting the fact that they are prohibited from serving Montreal's airport, they led a crowd of several hundred to storm the garage of the Murray Hill Limousine Service Ltd., which has the lucrative franchise. Buses were overturned and set ablaze. From nearby rooftops, snipers' shots rang out. A handful of frightened Quebec provincial police, called in to help maintain order, stood by helplessly. One was shot in the back by a sniper and died.

The crowd, augmented by other opportunists, moved through downtown Montreal, burning and looting. Rioters stormed into the swanky Queen Elizabeth Hotel, then moved on to the nearby Windsor Hotel and nearly wrecked Mayor Jean Drapeau's newly opened restaurant. Expensive shops along St. Catherine's Street were hit by looters. On the city's outskirts, burglars went to work; one was shot dead by a doctor in his suburban home.



Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,840236,00.html#ixzz1UhnjPMZK

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 04:10 AM

Yes, make them homeless and penniless. I think that will create more problems than it "cures".

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 04:15 AM

Among the 500+ charged so far, out of a total of 1300+ arrests nationwide (more than 800 in London) we have

The daughter of a millionaire
A Teacher
A teaching Assistant
A lifeguard
One young man who invested the fare from Winchester (hardly a deprived area) against the likely profit in other peoples' property.

The frustration of having no future?

Well, if their employers find out, that may be a self fulfilling prophecy, except, of course, for the heiress.

Daddy will sort it for that disadvantaged youngster, and he'll probably ground her for two or three days.

One good thing! Many are remanded to the Crown Court where sentences might be realistic.

Don T

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: theleveller
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 04:43 AM

"One good thing! Many are remanded to the Crown Court where sentences might be realistic."#

Well, there's one thing we can agree on.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 04:59 AM

The frustration of having no future?

Not really sure what your point is, Don? I don't think anyone would have expected that every single person involved would be in the same position.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: GUEST,Bluesman
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 05:14 AM

The most signed e-petition on the No 10 website is one calling for convicted rioters to lose benefit payments.

"No taxpayer should have to contribute to those who have destroyed property, stolen from their community and shown a disregard for the country that provides for them," the petition argues.

The petition, which had more than 90,000 signatures at 6am, will be referred to the backbench business committee of MPs if it gets 100,000 signatures.

Now this I want to see happen.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: MikeL2
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 05:16 AM

hi

IMHO I think that the Government should instigation special procedures to deal with riotous behaviour. In doing so they should recognise the seriousness of what is being committed on our streets.

Special courts with special powwers should be instantly installed.

cheers

Mikel2

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 05:17 AM

Birch the fuckers.

Better still, let the owners of the burned, looted shops and other premises, the people who lived above the shops and whose homes were destroyed, the innocent owners of cars which were overturned and burned, the workers trapped, terrified in their workplaces, the police who had to face and deal with those violent, feral pieces of shit, let those people birch the fuckers themselves.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: theleveller
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 05:24 AM

We have adequate laws and punishments in place - they just need to be applied. I'm afraid knee-jerk reactions will never provide a proper solution.

I think we should be humbled by the quiet, dignified appeal of the father on one of the three young men who were murdered.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 05:28 AM

Do you really think a lynch mob is anything better than a looting mob?

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 05:46 AM

One of our clients told us that he recently interviewed a young man for a job - basic salary £25k + car. During the interview, the man got up and said that he had to leave as he was not prepared to loose benefits and drop down to that salary, and that he only came to the interview because he was forced to by the Job Centre Plus in order to preserve his job seekers allowance.

He was escorted from the premises and reported to the Job Centre.

That is what we are up against.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 05:48 AM

I don't see any point in squabbling on this matter, basically we all seem to be of one mind as decent human beings.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: theleveller
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 05:50 AM

Bozo, you really do invent a complete load of drivel. £25K on benefits - as if! Your Walter Mitty tendencies are surfacing again.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 05:50 AM

Thread drift

Robert Frost wrote
66. Birches

WHEN I see birches bend to left and right   
Across the line of straighter darker trees,   
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.   
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.   
Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them          5
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning   
After a rain. They click upon themselves   
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored   
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.   
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells   10
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust—   
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away   
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.   
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,   
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed   15
So low for long, they never right themselves:   
You may see their trunks arching in the woods   
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground   
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair   
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.   20
But I was going to say when Truth broke in   
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm   
(Now am I free to be poetical?)   
I should prefer to have some boy bend them   
As he went out and in to fetch the cows—   25
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,   
Whose only play was what he found himself,   
Summer or winter, and could play alone.   
One by one he subdued his father's trees   
By riding them down over and over again   30
Until he took the stiffness out of them,   
And not one but hung limp, not one was left   
For him to conquer. He learned all there was   
To learn about not launching out too soon   
And so not carrying the tree away   35
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise   
To the top branches, climbing carefully   
With the same pains you use to fill a cup   
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.   
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,   40
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.   
   
So was I once myself a swinger of birches;   
And so I dream of going back to be.   
It's when I'm weary of considerations,   
And life is too much like a pathless wood   45
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs   
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping   
From a twig's having lashed across it open.   
I'd like to get away from earth awhile   
And then come back to it and begin over.   50
May no fate wilfully misunderstand me   
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away   
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:   
I don't know where it's likely to go better.   
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,   55
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk   
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,   
But dipped its top and set me down again.   
That would be good both going and coming back.   
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.
James Taylor sang and wrote
The birches looked dreamlike on account of that Frosting

Was James Taylor alluding to Robert Frost - I often wondered from the first time i heard that song.

Has the same thoughts occurred to anybody else?

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: theleveller
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 05:53 AM

Thanks, Al, I love that poem. Not sure about the James Taylor allusion.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: DrugCrazed
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 05:54 AM

Hate to say it, but I called it. This doesn't help matters. I'm as despondent as anyone else, but kicking people out of their homes? No. Just no.

I'm reminded of Curfew (which shouldn't take you long to complete, though you just need to do the Policeman story to see what I'm aiming at)

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 05:54 AM

If anyone wants the facts about how much Jobseekers Allowance is, they can find them here:

http://www.jobseekers-allowance.com/JSA-amount.html

Bozo's hearsay is even less accurate than usual.



However, and again I am gobsmacked, apart from little pickings that I could make I agree with most of what Mither says above.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 05:57 AM

""The most signed e-petition on the No 10 website is one calling for convicted rioters to lose benefit payments.""

That would surely flag up as a "cruel and/or inhuman punishment" and therefore be ruled illegal.

On this subject I find myself having to agree wholeheartedly (a first, I believe) with Leveller's comment.

""We have adequate laws and punishments in place - they just need to be applied. I'm afraid knee-jerk reactions will never provide a proper solution.

I think we should be humbled by the quiet, dignified appeal of the father on one of the three young men who were murdered.""

A saner, and more productive, petition would be one demanding that those laws be implemented in the fullest, most stringent, manner.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 06:06 AM

"The frustration of having no future?"

EVERYBODY has a future. All they have to do is work at it.
The dependency culture discourages all but the most determined, and teaches them to sit around and wait for the government to "Do something"
It's an offshoot of the blame culture, if nothing is my fault, how come they haven't given me a job?
If they do find me a job, do I have to go every day, do I have to arrive on time, cant they just send me my wages every week without my having to go there and do something?
If I don't have enough money to buy a Blackeberry or an IPhone, how come the government doesn't raise my benefits so I can buy one.
I have rights you know.



Responsibilities, WTF are they?

What do you mean it's your money? I get it from the government you know!

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 06:13 AM

That isn't true and you ought to know it. The problem is that only the most determined and able and lucky can escape the underclass.

Studies in the 60s showed that descent from "middle class affluence" into "working class poverty" was almost entirely limited to the risen working class, so it is not a single-generational problem.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: theleveller
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 06:15 AM

Actually, Bozo's post does serve a useful purpose – the chance to dispel the fantasy of people on benefit living the high life. I experienced the benefit system myself a few years ago when I was made redundant. I was offered no help by the Job Centre with finding work and they weren't even interested in my own efforts ("why bother at your age?"). Mrsleveller was then only working part-time, I had two children still at school and a mortgage and I received the princely benefit sum of £28 a week. My, how we lived it up!

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Musket
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 06:16 AM

It's the little pickings that count. Luckily..

I did say that this is a cathartic thread and some have risen to that challenge. Backwoodsman has taken the opportunity to get things off his chest, although "birching the fuckers" is not going to do anything but teach them to carry on doing what they do. Getting the victims to birch them is the main aspect of Sharia Law that we could never introduce in this country. I do see share your frustration though, all the same. I am heartened however to note leveller's reminder of the dignified appeal of the father of of one of the young people murdered. It is easy to be reactionary from a distance. It would appear that personal experience focuses your mind differently. No father should be put in his position.

We have the Prime Minister talking about authorising things he isn't in a position to authorise, although I sympathise with his plight. You can't be seen to sit there and say there is little a government can do. I only wish they would address what they can do instead of what they can't. I am following today's Parliamentary reaction with interest.


Somewhere in either this or the now closed thread, I recall somebody pointed out the extent is similar to a typical night in a large American city. I'm not sure comparisons help, however exaggerated, but at the same time I don't exactly condone the media seeing this as an exciting opportunity to increase sales through the best driver for sales there is; fear.

In many ways, it is as bad as the phone tapping, as it is on about the same level of morality.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 06:19 AM

Leveller, family with 4 children - child tax credit/housing benefit/dole for starters.............do your sums before spouting.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 06:24 AM

Denying people benefits, wow that's a great idea ! make them homeless and hungry with no alternative way to eat and live except to do what they've just been convicted of.

And Bonzo £25k plus a car worse than benefits ? get real.

Dave H

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: theleveller
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 06:25 AM

"The problem is that only the most determined and able and lucky can escape the underclass."!

It's not just the 'underclass, Richard – everyone is finding it tough to get jobs these days. Anyone who claims otherwise is simply living in the past and has no idea of the how the world operates today. Sorry to harp on about personal experience, but I just need to counteract the 'golden age' posited by some posters. My son is currently applying for graduate training programmes before his final year. He's a bright lad and expected get at least a good 2.1. However, he's experiencing an unbelievably cut-throat job market. As an example, he's applied to go on the Aldi graduate training programme and has been told that the acceptance rate is 1 in 12,000. So the idea that people with few or no qualifications are just going to get a job for the asking is, frankly, fatuous.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: theleveller
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 06:30 AM

".............do your sums before spouting"

I think it's you who needs to do your sums. £25K - minus tax for benefits in kind for a company car - would not exzclude a person with 4 children from claiming child tax credit or, probably, housing befeits. He/she would be considerably better off taking the job.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 06:30 AM

They will just have to start writing letters as I did - over 400 after 2 redundancies - and have been self employed since 2002.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: theleveller
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 06:30 AM

befeits? I think that should be benefits.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 06:34 AM

I like it - benefits with a cold!

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: theleveller
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 06:34 AM

Yes, Bozo - been there, done that. Consider yourself fortunate that you are in a position to do that. The vast majority of young (and not so young) people have to look for work in a much harsher environment - not least because of the policies of this crazy government.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: theleveller
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 06:35 AM

Actually, better get doing some work or I might be looking fao a new job myself :)

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 06:47 AM

What do you do?

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 06:53 AM

"Backwoodsman has taken the opportunity to get things off his chest, although "birching the fuckers" is not going to do anything but teach them to carry on doing what they do."

I once read something that was written by an officer who actually had experience of birching because he was one of those who carried the punishment out. His most relevant comment was that he hardly ever had to administer a repeat-birching to an evil-doer because they almost never came back.

Can anyone make that claim about so-called 'community-service', or even the all-too-brief prison-sentences that are handed out nowadays?

Ian, if (as has been claimed by many of the PC-Blinkered-Brigade on this forum) those feral, theiving, arsonist fuckers were just 'getting it off their chest' about how unfair life is for them, and that is a perfectly acceptable justification for their vile criminality, why is it wrong for me to 'get it off my chest' by suggesting an eminently suitable form of retribution for their evil acts?

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 07:03 AM

When you look at something as beautiful as a birch tree, you have to be wonder how perverted the human mind is, to turn it into an instrument of torture.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 07:10 AM

Anybody want to list the regimes that still use or those that most recently permitted birching? Go on, make our case!

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Musket
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 07:19 AM

I never said it was wrong for you to get it off your chest. If you read my first contribution I said this thread could be cathartic.

Also, I don't think anybody was looting and causing criminal damage because life was unfair, they did it for a laugh, to be outrageous, to get their Andy Warhol 15 mins either on utube or in front of the beak.

Sad, very sad. But all the same, I wouldn't take the opinion of someone who indulged in birching as being serious. It is one thing to hit someone in anger, it is another to deliberately hurt people on behalf of a community in the cold light of day. It says more about him than those deemed to warrant his attentions. His comments seem to justify his actions in his opinion. Nothing else.   Incarceration, loss of liberty, loss of luxuries even, but we are a civilised country that does not condone violence, hence locking up those who hurt other people. What message would we be sending out if we caused hurt (or even death) on others? We would be outcasts in civilised company, and sat on the same bench as Iran, China, Zimbabwe and USA.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 07:20 AM

"When you look at something as beautiful as a birch tree, you have to be wonder how perverted the human mind is, to turn it into an instrument of torture"

Slightly less perverted than the mind that believes it's acceptable to disregard society's laws and standards, to commit arson and theft, and to run down and kill innocent traders trying to protect their businesses.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 07:27 AM

"Also, I don't think anybody was looting and causing criminal damage because life was unfair".

Well a number of contributors to 'the other' thread thought exactly that, Ian. That was the justiciation they put up to excuse the looters' and arsonists' behaviour.

OK, I'll withdraw my demands for those pieces of excrement to be birched if you and your mate Richard can guarantee that they will be locked up for a long time, because they deserve no less.

It's the failure of society to adequately punish evil-doers that's brought us to a pitch where criminal arseholes have no fear of the consequences of their actions.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 07:28 AM

JUSTIFICATION not justiciation!

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: theleveller
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 07:29 AM

"What do you do?"

Well, for the last 43 years I've earned my living as a professional writer in a range of guises – film & TV, advertising, articles, books and songs – some more profitable than others. At the height of my 'career' I was Executive Creative Director at a large multinational advertising group, after which I ran my own consultancy. Then my biggest client went bust, took down my company, had to sell the big house to help my employees and pay the bank, and I suddenly saw the benefits of downsizing. Now, in between growing my own food, writing two novels and the occasional song, I work as a copywriter for an advertising agency that specialises in the over-50s market – mainly writing mailings and ads for charities (Age UK, RSPB etc.). With an 11-year old daughter still to provide for, even at 62, retirement seems a long way away.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 07:30 AM

No, that is exactly the opposite of the point. Have you never heard of negative attention?

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 07:31 AM

Whatever are you drivelling an about?

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 07:38 AM

Don't bother - the cricket's on TV, and it's far more edifying than this lot, at least it makes sense. I'm off to get a cup of tea and a scone and watch England v. India.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Teribus
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 07:41 AM

With regard to the highly unlikely prospect of the reluctant job candidate described by Bonzo3Legs.

I just did a cursory check and taking the reluctant job seeker as a married man with two children I was at £24,632 excluding wifie's allowance which would put it up to just under £30k.

Case of some prat in Angelsey who uses his wife as a baby production unit ensures that neither he nor any of his family contributes a penny and rooks the Benefit system for over £42,000 per year - and they even boast about it - "Aargh it's me back you see".

Richard - Bonzo was not saying that Job Seekers allowance paid was £25K+